How to Move From Victimhood to Agency in Leadership and Life with Shawn Quinn

Whatever makes you uncomfortable, a little uncomfortable. Probably a good space to go. Try something, become a little more aware and conscious and then say, what's one thing I could try differently? And if people were willing to do that little thing every week, imagine how they'd be different a year from now.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode, we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. What does it take to stop surviving and start shaping the system around you? In this episode of the Happiness Squad, I sit down with Sean Quinn, one of the leading voices in positive leadership and transformational change. We had a rich conversation on how one can move from feeling like a victim to becoming a flourishing agent of change. How small experiments can unlock massive shifts not just in performance, but in purpose, relationships, and personal well being. Sean shared powerful stories from his own wake up moment to the incredible transformation of a frontline HR manager who reduced attrition by over 70%, not by following the rules, but by reimagining them. This conversation is a masterclass in leading change from wherever you are, whether you are a frontline employee or a CEO. If you've ever felt stuck in a broken system, this episode is your invitation to create a better one. Let's dive in. Sean, welcome to the Happiness Squad. It is such a joy to chat with you, my dear friend.

Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Just as we were already talking before we got started, just you love the work you do, I love the work I do. And so it's always just fun to be around someone who's full of life.

Yeah, Sean, I would love. Look, you're one of the leading voices in this whole field of positive leadership, this vision around creating leaders that create positively deviant performance. Right. For organizations. I would love to start actually by having you share some pivotal moments in your life and figures in your life that have shaped you, Sean, into who you are today and just your passion for human flourishing and positive leadership.

Well, there's a lot. There's a lot to come to mind, but I'll. Let me just share a few here. The one I'd like to share, I think is probably the best story that frames kind of what I talk about as my life purpose when I entered the K through 12 system. It didn't take me very long to realize I didn't fit very well. I struggled. I didn't know at the time I had slight dyslexia for just a short period of time. But I had other learning disorders and so, you know, people would laugh at me when I tried to read and whatever else. And as I went on through the rest of the K through 12 experience, I probably spent more time having it hurt my self esteem rather than building, which would be the idea, right? Not that I wasn't learning and growing, but I just struggled. I slept through high school. No teacher ever questioned it because I wasn't causing problems. Better to have someone sleeping than cause problems. So I got through that experience and there's a lot we could say about that experience. But if you move ahead a number of years I had gone on a mission for my church which helped me learn discipline and all kinds of important life lessons. I learned how to just through discipline start to get my grades up. I met now Lisa Quinn in a class together. We got married and finished up at the University of Utah. And we. Another important piece of this story is we went on a honeymoon and we kept getting in fights because we were playing Scrabble and we're both too competitive, right? That's funny. So we had to figure out how to. How can we just play games together without getting frustrated with each other. I didn't learn from that because I decided to take a class with her. And so of course we're both kind of competitive about who gets the better grade. Well, I happened to work a job at a self storage facility. After I did certain things, I was mostly sitting around in case there were needs so I could study a lot more than her. So we were preparing for a test. I probably had studied, I don't know, four times as much as she had. So I knew a lot more information. But we went in, took the multiple choice test, which I was great at messing up. And she was great even if she hadn't studied it, figuring out how to do well. And we go to the next class. She's got an A, I've got a B. So I'm upset by that. We're walking back to the car and the whole way back I'm whining and complaining how unfair the system is. How if the teacher just sat down and had a conversation, she'd see that I knew more information simply because I had studied more. And anyway, so I'm whining like I do around the whole education system. We're almost to our car. She walks ahead kind of fast, opens the door, turns around, looks at me, and she goes, you know what, Sean? That's the way the system is. So either change it or learn how to be happy in it. And she gets in the door and slams the door, gets in the car and slams the door. And I knew she was not wrong, logically. But emotionally, I hated it because she had just held a mirror up to me and said, you're a victim. You're a victim. And she wasn't wrong. And for two weeks, it's all I could think about. And I remember waking up one morning and I said to myself, I'll never be a victim again. I'll either change the system I'm in, leave the system, or create a world within it for which I can be happy. But I will not just be a reactor. I will be a creator of that world. Now, what I didn't know is as I started to do work and I started to get into the kind of work that I did, I'd get into all these organizations, and I'd meet managers and leaders and frontline people who are victims, who would give me great data, legitimate data for why they had to be a victim. They wouldn't use that word, but because of this boss or this happened or this event, there's nothing I can do. And if I could be released from being a victim, maybe I could help release others. And again, no judgment, because there's legitimate things in our systems that create what we have. So one key thing, right, because what I say my life purpose is, is to inspire introspection that sets people free. And that's just one example of what led to that being my purpose. But it also led to my desire to how do I help individuals flourish? And then how do we help systems that those individuals can try to change the systems in a way that. That are better for the people to be in and to flourish. So that's. That's one story.

I love that, you know, I love that, Sean. And it. It really, you know, as I think about it, reflects back for me so many of the things. I love what you just said, you know, this reflection of. By the way, truths like those that shake us to our core are brutal, but they're the ones, right? And I'm amazed at the relationship you and your wife had and have, for her to be able to say that and for you to be able to receive it. But the invitation I want to pick up on is this.

Eventually receive it.

Eventually receive it, right? But the invitation, the invitation that you said to give to yourself, I think I really resonate with that. And that's a little bit of why we do the work we do, right, Sean, which is stop being a victim. Either change the system, leave the system, or learn to be happy in it. And, you know, there are so many people who are coaches, leadership practitioners, et cetera, many of them who end up leaving the system once they realize this. Many of them actually leave the system and say, I'm good. I'm gonna live my life my own way. And many of them, you know, luckily, over 20 years of learning to kind of fight it, and they have gotten, at least financially, to a place that it gives them the luxury to be able to do that, right, and kind of beat to their own drum. What I got excited about with Happiness Squad and why, you know, we do what we do is that choice of leave the system, unfortunately, is not available for 60, 70% of the people. Because every system around, when you look at organizations, right, I mean, our ways of working are broken. 20% of people are thriving at work. So it just means grass looks greener on that other side. But I'm going to go there, I'm going to find the same system and the same me. And so for me, like, what became really important was how do we upskill one people to change the system? But more importantly, how do we actually take the system head on, which is at the heart of the mental health crisis? Because for many people, that choice doesn't exist to leave the system. And so rather than numb their way through a system that's broken, let's actually really solve this problem for the world, right? There's big elephant in the room that it's not the peripheries of meditation apps and therapy that are gonna solve the mental health challenge. It's the 80%, how work gets done and how people are taught how to lead and drive results.

Look, I should. A few caveats, right? I mean, look, I've. I know people who've been in abusive relationships and whatever, so I could imagine someone like that hearing us say, change the system, leave. This is. Right. It's, it's, it's tricky. And I get that's outside organizational life, right? But there are situations with abusive bosses, with all kinds of things, dynamics that, that, that could sound overly simplistic. And I think that's fair. I think what it means to take ownership of your life can be very small things in the beginning, and then it can get larger. Because what happens is, even for myself, even Knowing this and even working on it, there are parts of my life, it's if there was an image of a box, right? And I feel like there's a box around me and I can do this. And that's the way I. I see of what I can do, whether that's trying to influence others or whatever. But then I have an experience. Lisa holds the mirror up to me, right? And something happens where I see the world differently. So I try some things. And it's not like now I have the whole world as my oyster, but the box just got bigger. I start to realize there's more room to try a little bit more and to take a little more ownership, right? And so as I've watched myself, it's a journey of small moments that open my mindset to see greater capacity, you know, and so there's a lot of pieces we can get into. There's adult learning and development, right? And certain people are certain places. So to expect them jump into a place of proactive, creative whatever, right? Would be tough. But still, what do we need to do to help them start to make journeys, to start to recognize and see things differently so that over time, right, they have greater capacity. But now if. And look, there's times leaving is probably right, but we got to be careful not to fool ourselves, you know, so you know, my dad, Bob Quinn, those who are listening. I have a father who's world renowned in transformational leadership and also started. Helped start with two other key faculty, the center for Positive Organizations. He wrote a book called Deep Change. And within it he talked about how. And the way he talks about it is people will leave to go to another organization and then slowly they find the same problem they had in the previous. And he compares it to people who have been married three and four times by the third and fourth marriage, they realize they're having the same problems in the first couple of marriages. And there's only one common denominator across all four marriages, right?

Absolutely.

If I'm not careful as I go off looking for something better and I never look at my peace in it, then I just keep creating the same realities and blaming other people and other. Absolutely right. And so what is it we can do to begin to start to recognize what our role in and what we're part of and yeah, maybe I can. If I'm sitting at a certain level, I'm not going to be able to change the whole culture system, at least not right away. But I could probably do more than I realize. And the story. Let me just Share one quick story and I'll see where your mind's going. My older brother Ryan and his exec MBA at Kentucky University of Louisville in Kentucky, they would have people take what's called the fundamental state of leadership and have to think of a situation and apply it every week. And this tool forces a lot of reflection. So if it wasn't for the homework and whatever, they may not be willing to do it, but they're doing it. And one of them had just. That was in the class, had just finished, was finishing up and starting a new role at a new company. And it was a manufactured home company. And when he came in, he didn't realize what he had signed up for. It was a poisonous culture. Like, someone would ask for help and they get yelled at, right? And anyway, go on describing it. But he sat down, he asked himself these questions, and he remembered a previous leader he had had in a different situation who talked about, what can you control? So he went home and he reflected because he was like, ready to quit, and he was only a week in, and he's like, okay, what can I control? So he went back, he thought about that, and he said, all right, the first time somebody asks for help, there's always this pause, and then a manager will come over and yell at them before they have a chance. I'm going to sprint over there, even though it's not my job, and I'm going to ask more questions and see what I could do to try to help that person. So he did it the next day. And the manager, who normally is going to yell, had to make sense of this new, new response to. So they're the ones that are having to be conscious and they're like, they didn't yell. They listened in and then they started to say, well, have you considered this? Or whatever else. So he started doing that every day until people started to react differently. Soon he said, a lot of people, look, you know, people want to swear, that's fine. But it was a lot of swearing. It wasn't very professional environment. So I tried not to swear. I'd ask people, hey, do you mind around me not, you know, being a little more professional? And. And he listed four or five things that slowly people responded. Here's someone who's frontline. Within a number of months, the climate's changed. Within a year, the cultures changed and they went from being a middling to low middle plant to one of the highest performing plants in the company. He's not the manager, the plant manager, the leader, but who just led and so I think the those bigger changes don't always happen that fast. But I share the story simply because we have more capacity than we think.

I am so behind that idea, Sean. Right. And oftentimes one of the things that people talk about is, well, the CEO needs to change. It's the executive leadership. Unless they change, how is anything possible? And I am literally on the same page as you. There is more that's actually possible all the way through. Right. So there is this concept, Marty Seligman called it learned helplessness. I think that is we are in a mass delusion or a state of learned helplessness that I am too low and I can't make a difference. By the way, I've seen it at the SVP level, VP level, director level, foreshore manager and kind of frontline. Right. And when we look at the research around well being and burnout, you know what we find this was actually illuminating. Right, right. The job and team level interventions, demands and enablers actually account for majority close to 70 to 80% of the drivers of well being and prevention of burnout. The organizational layer, the one at the very top, is around 10%. The individual factors for burnout are 3%, 4%. For well being are 27%. So if you go look at that, right. So you have like 70%, 60, 70% here on well being and 80% on burnout are in the hands of what's happening at a job and a team level. And so it doesn't matter like even as an individual member or as a manager of four or as, you know, a manager of 30 or a plant or a location. I love that story because change is possible, but it requires a shift in root perspective. It requires us to shift seeing ourself as a victim and seeing ourselves as an agent. Instead of asking the system to change, we say, what's the change I can become and how do I through that start to actually change behavior? So I love that story of your brother. Wow.

And look, so I can hear my, I can hear the voice of Jane Dutton over here going, but that's not, you know, we need to create systems. It's not fair that people are put in these bad and true. But it doesn't change. If that's where they're at, what's their choice at that point? Right. Are they going to try to influence change? Now hopefully we can create systems where people can thrive and it's easier to be agents. But as you say, unfortunately that's not always the case. And can I be empathetic to the senior leader. So what happens in my experience is the senior leader says we need to here's the strategy and we need to change in these ways. The culture fights against some of those changes. They can't see how some of their behavior is reinforcing the old ways. So then the middle managers, others say they don't really want change and if they're not going to change, how can I possibly change? And I often pause and say do you really think logically they don't want that change? They spend a lot of hours creating that strategy and whatever else. Do you really think they don't want to change? Yeah, they want that change. But guess what, it's as scary for them to change as it is for you. So we can all sit around and wait for who's this is what leadership is. Forget position. Who has the courage to move us forward towards that future we know we need that's different from today. But the thing is it feels risky and scary here as the frontline manager. But if you're sitting you think when I'm at the top it'll be easier to lead change. But they still have shareholders to report to. They and they're just and yeah, maybe they have a lot more money, hopefully they've put a lot away in retirement. But the truth is they've also bought things that mean they have more things. And it feels just as scary for them to step outside the norms. And so I can be frustrated at them or I can be empathetic and say what's meaningful to me that's worth taking some risk to step outside the norms to start to create a better experience for my team, to start to create the right conversations to start to model for others this future we claim we want logically but we're all scared because we don't know how to do it or where we're worried that look even good intentioned people, when you step outside the norm, unconsciously they try to pull you back in. And so it's not that they're bad intentioned. They're human beings and without consciousness of it. That's what happens. Right? So leaders at any level can choose to be the one to step out long enough to create a new norm. Now in the beginning, keep it small. Like if you're down here, don't try to make changes that obviously you're not going to be able to make these huge changes right away. The guy in the plant didn't try to change the plant. He said here's two or three things I could react differently to try to get a different reaction that over time started to create ripples and waves that led to all kinds of things that led to much bigger changes.

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Yeah, well, let me, so let me go back as you kind of mentioned, let me mention the cycle and kind of how we got into setting up the program the way we did. And then let me, I can focus in on Edgar specifically. But you know, for the first time this was a Tier 1 auto supply company based in a different country. But I was working with the North American group which has 40 some thousand employees in and of itself. And so I was brought in these high potentials, there was two levels. They would work with them over 15 months. And it was kind of two days, two days, two days, two Days presentation at the end and then group work throughout. And so I was brought in for the first time. They had engineers leaving and at a level that rather than the random one off and they're like, well, what's going on? Things are different. We got to do something. So this person reached out who was over organization development and some of the leadership development stuff and asked if I'd come in, was familiar with some of my work, some of my colleagues work. And so I came in, I ran one day, a two, one of the two day workshops across a series and they saw really good impact from it. So they said, can you do another? And they gave me a second. And in between I would ask them to, to experiment and come back ready to share what did they try. And the impact again was so positive that he's like, we need more real change right now. And so I won enough trust that they said, we're going to give you the whole hypo program except for one of the two days. There's one vendor we want to keep because she does great work. And I was sure that's great. I said, are you open though, me helping you rethink this thing? And he said he was. So I said, look, no more group projects. Because the group projects. I'm not saying there isn't good learning or things that can't happen, but in my experience, some of the problems with it is one, either it feels like it's just we're redoing the work of another group, or we have the senior sponsor and it's about performing and making them happy, not about learning. Right. Or whatever else. It's not the learning journey. So Bruce Avoglio did some work and then that I was familiar with. And then eventually some colleagues at Michigan have done other work that relates Sue Ashford and others. And in it, Avolio says, look, he talks about leader development instead of leadership development because his belief is it's about you as a person, as the leader needs to change, not about leadership. Leadership. We could get into skills and other things to work on, which is important, but it's, it's not enough. And so I have a belief that if I don't help shift your beliefs, starting beliefs or assumptions, we can give you a great tool under pressure, you just revert back. Right. And so the example I often give is I was working over in the uk, there was a company that the leader that moved from the president of one division to the CEO was big on strengths finders. So everyone's going to do strengths finders. Every manager and their people rolled out strengths finders. But it wasn't going as well as I thought. And I came in for different reasons. But we were having this conversation, and I go, let me take a guess, right? A strengths finder has a certain set of assumptions behind why you focus on strengths. I said, so here's my guess of why it's not working. You've got managers who do the strengths finder with their people. The people are like, oh, that's cool. And we're learning about each other's strengths. And then every other day of the week, the manager's looking for what's wrong, focusing on what's broken. And the people that work for them can't even name why they know this. They just know it doesn't feel aligned and that this guy doesn't believe or she doesn't believe in strengths finder, right? And they're looking at me going, oh, yeah. And I was like, where was the space to help the managers explore what would even mean to focus on strengths and what's the fundamental beliefs you have to have behind it and how to help them work through if they even want to do it? That or believe in that. Now, coming back, right? So Ovolio says, as the learner, as the teacher, whether it's reading a book and you are a teacher because you happen to write a book or a podcast that they happen to listen to, or they bring me in to do workshops, right? My job is to build enough belief that they're willing to try something different. Doesn't mean they believe it yet, but they believe enough now because you gave an experience. That's why you can't just talk at people. Yes, I got to explain some of the data and whatever else, but I've got to give experiences that help them start to go, oh, this might make me a little uncomfortable, but there's something to it. Maybe I'm willing to go try an experiment. When I try the experiment, it gives me a new experience. The new experience, which we have lots of new experience for a lot of different reasons. The third part's huge because we don't always do this, which is actually reflect on our experiences, Right? We live in a world of phones and everything else where we never take time to reflect. Some do, but a lot don't. If I can build that cycle of learning, so I Said to him, no more team projects. Our goal each time we're with them is to build enough belief that they can just take their day to day work, not create a bunch of new work, but tweak how they're doing it, try it a little differently and see if they can get a different outcome where they responded better. So I might try it again or try a slightly different version because just because you know the principle, one way of trying it in your environment may work, but it may not. So I need to keep tweaking until I can figure out how the principle that is research based, we know there's enough use across multiple environments that it's worth experimenting until you find how that principle works for you. So now we're saying to them, this is the journey you're going to go on. And oh, by the way, you're going to write a story at the end. And they're all going write a story like, I'm a engineer, I'm a fine, I don't write stories. And really doesn't matter how good the story is, it's the process of writing it that's going to cause deep reflection in all your experiences. But if you don't experiment along the way, you're not going to have an interesting story.

You're not going to have a story, read it.

When all the leaders come in at the end, you're not going to, you're not going to be excited. So we have to still build this accountability. Right? Right. That there's going to be this reading at the end. And so now between sessions, you're going to get in small group calls to have the chance to ask each other questions. One, to hold accountable, two, to help each other reflect on your experiences, three, so I can see what others are doing because I might not have thought of that experiment. But when they influence the expat in that way, which I didn't even think was possible, now my mind has to be open to, to maybe it is possible. Right. So now that that gives you some background, there's more we could talk about. So we built this journey and I believe in leadership journeys. It costs more money, but the ROI is so much more significant, it's worth it. Right? And so here's Edgar comes in and his words, he would tell you, I only showed up because I thought if I went through the program, I'm more likely to get promoted the next level. Like, you know, what are these two? As he jokes later. But he literally thought these scrawny white guys going to teach me and so, but he went through the first two days and he's going, this is different than what our company usually puts us through. So I'm a little intrigued at least, right? He's a little intrigued. And he's like, okay, I'll go try some stuff. Between sessions, my colleague sends out an assignment that he wants people to do, and he didn't get the purpose of the assignment. To him it seemed silly and stupid. He's like, I'm not going it to do. Do the assignment. At first, when he came back and everyone else was sharing what they tried, what their experience was, he's. He said, I, I didn't understand the purpose of it, so I didn't do it. My initial human reaction is, that's weak. You know, that's, that's too bad that you didn't do that. But, oh, well, I guess he's not going to gain learning from that experience. What I later realized, in this culture, in this organization, you are told what to do. Leaders do the work of their people because you don't let people fail. In this organization, for him, my colleague and I, the power figures, the leaders of this journey, he was pushing back because he didn't understand the purpose. He said, I'm not going to do something just because you tell me if I don't understand the purpose. That was actually an experiment for him and we didn't fully realize yet. That was good because he was pushing back on the power figures, saying, no, I'm not going to do it just to do it. Because there's a lot of things he experiences that they just do that don't make sense in the business, right? So that's good. We can't change anyone, but we can create an environment, right? And so we've created these experiences. We're inviting the experimentation, and if nothing else, it's forcing him to be more conscious because I have to run an experiment or they've asked me to do this. Am I going to do it or not? Why am I not going to do it? What am I going to say? Say to them. So he's now pushing back on power figures. Then he goes back and he has an experiment where he's got somebody that his direct report that he doesn't think is very good and he's struggling with and he doesn't think for himself. So he goes and he says, look, you know, I want to give you a real shot here. I probably am not treating you as well as I could. Here's what we need help with. Here's My initial thinking, but I need you to take it and run with it. It. A week later they come back and he said, we got to check in weekly. And he regurgitates basically what he had told him his ideas were. And he goes, you didn't do any work. You're just telling me. And he goes, edgar, if I went and did the work, you turn it back into what you already think is right. And he got all upset by this and frustrated. So he goes out to take a smoke break because he happens to smoke. He's sitting by somebody who's out there smoking, and he tells her, because he's processing this, he says, can you believe that? She goes, edgar, we all know that about you. Now, this is a pair. We all know that about you. Like, we know we've got to do it your way or you're not going to be happy. Now Edgar's like, what is going on? His world's getting blown up here, right? So he goes home and tells his wife, and she looks at him, goes, oh, you know, I don't know the exact words, but oh, honey, in a more gentle way than the other two. Yeah, that's how you are at home. And he was so horrified. And he said, I'm so sorry. Like, I know a lot of leaders in my company are that way. I didn't want to be that way. She said, we just knew. We just thought that's what you've learned you need to do to be successful. So we've just tried to be supportive of you. And he was horrified. Now, he wouldn't have probably been open, but because he's running these experiments now, this guy pushes back on him. So he goes and shares it. There's no guarantee. We can't create any of this. We only create an increased likelihood, that is openness, by doing the experiments and having to reflect. And so now he goes, I don't want to be that way. He shows up and he tells all of his team, I'm sorry, this is what I experienced. I'm sorry, I've been that way. I don't want to be that way. So he tells the team, look, we've got a problem. We're losing 220 people in the plan every month. It's not okay. And we keep doing these exit interviews and we're not doing any better. So he said, let's look at a different question. Let's go talk to the people that are staying. Based on a principle he had learned in positive leadership, right? And why are they staying the Ones that are actually staying. So he sent his people out and then he said, all right, take what you've learned and create new ideas. Be creative. Like, I'm not telling you what to do. I need you to run some experiments. Let's try some things. Well, now you've. He's got the people above, both the plant manager and the person from the expat, and they're going, just do things the way we've been doing it. And he's like, right. He's now challenged authority in a safer with. With my colleague and I. And he goes, you paid me to be a manager of hr, not a follower to do everything I'm told when it's not working. So we're going to try some new things. And they just looked at him and didn't know what to do, because you don't do this in this organization. Right. So they just kind of said, okay, because he had that confidence. And he's like, if it doesn't work, they want to fire me, great. But I'm not going to stay in this cycle of doing things that aren't helping. So he starts to give his people autonomy. They start to experiment. They're learning from why people are staying. They're thinking differently. He keeps bringing back new ideas. By the end of the year and a half, close to a year and a half, he's with us. They reduced headcount turnover from 220 down to 60 per month. That's a saving. If you do the basic, like, here's the average.

It's like millions of dollars.

It's millions of dollars. And that's a safe summary. Right. So the 10,000 they spent on them, which, you know, it'd be more than that to. To do this journey with us now, but that not only covered the ROI of him, everyone else in it who had other good ROIs. Right. And yeah. Is there bottom line? Yes. But most importantly, he'll tell you his son gets to choose which they rotate who chooses which movie they go to. He doesn't choose. Every week, he starts to explain everything else. His wife says to him, my Edgar's back. We have you back again. The family's thriving, his people that work for him are thriving. And, oh, by the way, the bottom line's better. The outcomes are better. But because he went on this journey of transformation, he started to see how he needed to challenge and his assumptions got blown up and he started trying new things. And soon he's believing that, yeah, actually, empowerment is better. And I do have to push back at times, not every time. Not just to be difficult, but when it's not working. And he could list all the things that he believes differently. Did he develop skills? Yes, but he believes things differently and that's sustainable.

Thank you for that journey, that story. And it just resonates so deeply, Sean, with my experiences. And it also. Hopefully it's going to resonate with listeners and also highlight how different this is than what most people experience. Right. I say that some of the most common practices in place completely defy all logic, and yet we keep doing it. What I loved about that story were three things and three things that you highlighted. I think the first, I think we have to stop thinking about trainings and start thinking about transformations. Right? That's at the heart of what we do at Happiness Squad. That's what I want to do. I'm like, stop doing trainings, stop bringing people and talking at them for two days and then sending them out and not holding them accountable for change. Because, you know, you haven't changed their beliefs. You've just taught them a bunch of schools. That's why you don't want to measure and hold people accountable. Right. Or maybe you have a belief that my job is to give them the best trainers and their job is to change. So I'm not going to. Why am I going to measure it? So number first was, you know, I love the story of journeys are critical because transformations are very unique and individual. The pace of your change, how many steps forwards and step backs you might take, what your first step might look like. In the case of Edgar, he chose not to do the assignment that was given by many people. You'd say, you failed, you are not a good student, you're not doing what you're meant to be doing. But that was actually, as you reflected his first experiment, knowing or unknowingly, that was what he was exercising, which then propelled him for all the other big impact that he did. Right. So trainings, not transformations, I think was really powerful. I also loved what you just said about beliefs. Right. Fundamentally, it was actually helping him really face his belief of how he had been operating versus not and choose to start to do something differently. Because without that. And when he changed that, the impact wasn't just at work. The impact is a full 360 degree of performance, how you show up, the impact on your colleagues, the impact on your family. You know, there were these two stats that were so powerful for me, and there's these two research pieces. The first one was which showed that you as a boss, have More impact on the mental health of your employees than a therapist. Right. And then the second was how you feel at work has a direct impact on the growth, development and success of your children because you are being shaped and you show up that way at home. Right. And so I think this work is needed if we want to make better humans and we want to create a better world. This work of helping people become more positive leaders from the inside out, not outside in, is so powerful. And that story you highlighted. Yes. Performance shows up, you go from 220 attrition to 60 attrition. All of that will happen. Right. But it's not going to happen the way they had been going about it before, which is talk to people who are leaving, find out what the issues is and go fix it.

Yeah.

Even that pivot was so powerful.

There's some important pieces here. Right. Which is that you've hit on, but I just want to reinforce it. We can't force someone to change. You've got to invite them on a journey. And like, up front, there were people like their big experiment was, I'm going to start by looking at sharing what we're grateful for at the start of a meeting. Like you would think this was about as basic experiment. There were people who described like, sweating before they walked in to try that experiment because it was just so outside the norm for them. But the thing is, people in the beginning would try these little things that most leaders would go, so what? That's not giving me impact, but it's the capacity to become uncomfortable, run these experiments that give them greater capacity to try bigger things. And so a lot of people at the beginning were trying things that most people be like, come on, this is. But by the end, some of them are now pushing back on their boss, trying much bigger things that are leading to, you know, significant impact. And. And so that's important. You also hit on a piece that you can't control when the change moment is. There was one person who went through the program, one of the years of the programs that we did this, that came to where they. The day where we write the stories, and then they have another two months before the day where you go actually read your stories. And he realized, I didn't do anything significant. I haven't really changed. Now we could be frustrated by that or we could help him explore that. Why is that? Why do you think that is? So we left and had a side conversation while others were working on the stories. And he starts to explain some of why he thinks that might be. And Whatever else. And it bothered him. In those next two months, he went and tried so many things, like crazy big things. And he within two months was a new person. But he needed to go through the journey for him to do nothing, to realize, why did I just waste this time and energy of the organization, of myself to trigger his two months of huge change that started his trajectory? We can't control it. Organizations want to pretend they can. But we can design the right kind of journeys that increase the likelihood that people are going to change. Then the other thing you mentioned, right, we have to talk about positive deviance. There are norms in every system. Those norms help us and they get in our way. Just like there's beliefs inside of each of us from all our experiences up till now. It shapes the way we see the world. It helps us, it gets in our way. I have things that still hopefully are better than they once were and new beliefs that help me be more effective. I still probably hold some beliefs and assumptions I must, because I still do some stupid things sometimes that aren't helping. And so the story I like to tell around this is I was working with a manager and you said basically the therapy side of this would say family behaviors are cyclical, management behaviors are cyclical. We just do what we know from what we experienced, right? And so for good and for bad, we replicate what our parents did. Right? And some things are good, some things aren't good. Same with the first few managers we had. I had one guy came to the program, learned some stuff, went away and tried it, came back to a follow up day and he said, sean, as a manager, and he didn't use this word, I'll make it softer. I'm a bit of a jerk, right? And I said, well, acceptance is the first step, right? That's good. And he said, I don't want to be that way. I'm just behaving the way my managers did before I became a manager. So I went and I tried to apply some of this stuff that you taught around positive leadership. And you know what my people did? And I had a guess, but I said, don't tell me. He goes, they all started making jokes and teasing me and trying to get me to act like a jerk again. I was like, no, that can't be possible because these people legitimately for three years have been complaining about this guy is a jerk as a manager and the minute he starts trying new things to try to be less of a jerk, they're teasing him and trying to get him back like a jerk again. Why is that? Some people will say, well, they don't trust that. They don't believe it's real. Yeah, maybe, but the bigger reason, because the minute he started acting in new ways, it means I have to learn to react in a new way. I know how to deal with him as a jerk. I don't know what he's doing. How often are we creating the reality we're complaining about because we're comfortable in it. And so this manager realizes I'm. He gets conscious. I'm just replicating the jerks who had his managers. I don't want to be that way. He's trying, but now they're trying to pull him back to normal. So I said, told him that. And I said, you've got a choice. Do you believe enough in this to stay with it until they have to learn how to create a new normal with you that later they'll be grateful for. But in the beginning, they're complaining about, even as they've been complaining that they want you to change. So leadership acquires the clarity of, I understand what's going on enough to step outside and run these experiments and stay with it long enough to create a new normal. Because otherwise I'm going to feel pressure from above, below and across to pull me back. That's why leadership's so hard. Right. And so we have to help people go on the journeys where they find the capacity to stay outside the norms long, long enough to create better new climates, eventually cultures that actually deliver on the outcomes we claim we want.

Yeah, Sean, we can talk for hours. And in fact, I would love to find some more time with you. Maybe we do another episode. We have so many questions that we didn't even get to. But as we look at the clock and we bring this one to a close, you know, we've talked about and touched on so many themes that are really, really powerful. Talked about agency versus victimhood. We talked about transformations versus trainings. We talked about the power of beliefs and how they shape us. We talked about when we want to change, how the system pushes back. Because people are not. They know how to operate with one kind of leader. They don't know how to operate with another kind of leader. We talked about the power of really doing small experiments, no matter. And like, slowly increasing our capacity and our range. Right. The box in which we are living. How do we expand that? We talked about the power of reflection. There's a lot that we uncovered to anybody who's listening. There's like, wow, there's a lot here. What's the smallest experiment I could start with? If they've been convinced listening to this that there is change, there is possible they have more they can control? What is the smallest experiment that they could start with that you would recommend our listeners try till they get to the next one and they can start to debrief that?

Well, I think for many, I talk about that cycle and the third part of reflection, I think for many just literally reflecting on their own experiences would be an experiment would be hard for some, right? So that might, for some might be. Start by actually thinking through your meetings that week. When was there good energy? When was there low energy? Why was there low energy? What did you do? What did others do? Was there conflict between two people? How did you handle that? If they'll just pay attention, anyone listening will just spend. They don't even spend hours. Just spend 10 minutes at the end of the day and think through the day and say, why do. Why did I feel that way? Why did the team feel, feel that way? What happened? And then ask yourself, what's one thing I could try differently next time with that group of people? So for me, it's. I actually treat people really well, but I'm scared to have hard conversations. How can you prepare yourself to go try one hard conversation and reflect after and decide how could I do it better next time? For someone else, they're too blunt. Like they're good at telling you the truth, but they're not sensitive. Do you feel you believe in those people? Maybe. Maybe for you, an experiment is I need to focus on what these people do, right? There's a 5 to 1 ratio some people talk to. Can I focus on the things they're doing well and right for a week or two, until I feel and see their potential before I go have the hard conversation and share what I normally just say because I'm too blunt all the time, right? For each person it's going to be something a little different. Whatever makes you uncomfortable, a little uncomfortable. Well, probably a good space to go try something, right? So to me, I would say, how do I reflect? Just enough to be aware. Or maybe people are feeling that way because I'm talking too much during the meeting. I'm whatever. It could be a hundred different things, become a little more aware and conscious, reflect on it, right? If you're willing and then say, what's one thing I could try differently? And if people were willing to do that little thing every week, imagine how they'd be different a year from now. And now if you happen to be able to work with someone who can really build your belief, help you see things a little differently, it speeds up some of that, right? But even just that little step would be huge.

I love that. You know, in our sunflower model that our listeners are familiar with, the heart of the sunflower is awareness. And that's what you're inviting people to do. Start with just becoming aware, aware of interactions, which ones brought you energy, which ones drained you energy, what was present, what were even the thoughts, right? And start to reflect on, start to see patterns and start to reflect on what's one thing I could try different. If that pattern keeps showing up, meeting after meeting after meeting, what might I try different, right? And try that. And if, by the way, if you're at a loss, this is where I would write up the story of what's happening, even your reflections. Put it in chatgpt, ask it for give me 5 things I might try differently, right? You can refer even to Sean's and the work on positive leadership and say, hey, based on the work of Jane and Kim and Bob and Sean, what might be five experiments I could try? Let it come back, look at them. If you are at a loss of. If you can't come up with it, ask it to suggest things, choose one and try.

But try to come up with it first.

Yes, cognitive laziness is the biggest evil.

Of ChatGPT and I get it and I'm with you. And if you still can't come up with stuff, right, ask someone else and then if you still can't, then definitely go to ChatGPT and I'm not against that. Like, I think it is a good thing and I think when it understands the context because it can pull from above bunch of people and give you a few ideas. And in that way it is even better than just asking others because it can go, if you can give some specific names, it can go draw from their research and can give you some very specific things which could be really helpful.

Let's start with ideas, but start with your own ideas.

That's my thing today with ChatGPT. Always start just like people say to me, like, I'm not the great greatest writer, I don't think, but I still will always write it first before I let Chat GPT improve it, right? And I do let it improve it, but I've. I need to write and think through what is it. I'm really trying to say, what's my story, what, whatever, like. And so I just throw that out because I worry already as I Watch.

No, Sean, that is. That is such a great caution. I always. We. I had this conversation with my son. I'm like, it's not that we. I don't want you to use it. I want you to write it and then have it make it better or say, what else would you add?

Yes.

But the act of writing also helps us crystallize and from within when we come up with the answer or we think it is higher chance that we'll do it.

That's right. And greater hope. We create more hope because we know from the hope theory there's a lot that's been added since the original hope theory. But if I can come up with a meaningful goal and then what they call pathway thinking, the more ideas I can come up for how to move towards that goal, even if I don't do all of them, the more hope I feel like. Because I can control and I can take action.

Yeah.

And so it's important. Right. And if I can learn to do that. And now sometimes I use tools to help me. But if I can learn that process, I become a creator of more hope for myself and greater agency for myself, which are both things we need. Right.

Sean, the. This has been such a powerful conversation. Thank you, my friend. I'm grateful that our parts came together and I'm excited to collaborate in the work we do with clients. But yeah, in so many ways, I think we are such kindred spirits. Thank you for being on the show and we'll have you back soon for a second part of this conversation.

I would love it. I feel honored that you would invite me on and I loved every minute of it, so I look forward to it.

Cheers. Have a great day.

You too. Bye.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love, and meaning. Please consider leaving us. Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.

Sam.