GA 581 | Managing by Influence with James Turk

Is I want to create an environment where people are going to do stuff because they want to, not because they have to. So that's kind of my North Star with this. So how can I get people into a headspace where they're going to be kind of engaged and motivated and kind of fired up to do things, even if it's like the less sexy stuff and exciting stuff.

Today I am excited to welcome James Turk to the show. Now, James has written a book called the Giving Game. And so today what we do is we talk a lot about sort of the key messages that he's. He's trying to get across in the book. In particular, we spend a lot of time talking about, maybe many of us can relate that that new leader who might be transitioning from sort of like everyone's colleague to now they're their boss or their manager or whatever it might be. That's a really challenging situation that many people are thrust into. So we spend a lot of time talking about that. But we also then get into that whole idea of how leaders and perhaps even should really attempt to manage by influence versus more, that sort of. That command and control which can be so easy to sort of navigate into. So we go all over the place, really, on those topics and just many others as far as just that, the whole idea of leadership and how we can lead well, how to lead others well, even how to sort of lead ourselves well. So a lot of good stuff. I enjoyed the conversation. Show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com this is episode 581 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 581. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. James, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Good. Thanks for having me, Ron.

All right, ma'.

Am.

I'm excited. So where are you calling in from?

I am in New York City at the Turk Group headquarters, Global headquarters.

All right. All right. Well, that's fantastic. How long have you been there?

I've been in New York for the better part of the last 30 years with a brief stint in Southern California for about six years. But I've been here for. For quite some time.

Okay, what's your favorite part of New York City?

Probably culture. So I'm a big foodie and I like just art and theater and just all those things. It stimulates me as a human being and certainly as a leader.

Yeah. Nice. I love it. I love it. All right, well, hey, James, you know how we like to begin all of our episodes we like to get started with it with our guest sharing a quote. So what do you got?

So I would say my favorite quote, I have several, is to thine own self be true by William Shakespeare.

What's that mean to you?

Just do you. Right. We all get in the, you know, this compare and despair. They do it this way. Who should I be? And you know, just, I think at the end of the day, just really getting clear around kind of what's your purpose? What are your core values? You know, what makes you you in a unique way. And let that be the starting place by how you kind of present to, you know, family, work and all those other things.

Yeah. Was a comparison. Is the thief of joy, right? Yeah. No, that's. That's pretty powerful. I mean, that's a big one. I mean, if you think about how it's easy to say, right?

Yeah.

But we all fall. Fall into it, right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Even if it's just driving down the road and you see somebody else's nicer vehicle than yours and, you know, so. Good stuff. All right, well, hey, James, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your. Your background and what you're up to these days.

Don't get me started, Ron. I could talk about this for. For a few hours. So I, you know, so I am in the learning and development consulting world. So I own a boutique, you know, firm that specializes in, you know, clients that are global. And we do, you know, training, solutions, coaching, and all sorts of things. And I ended up here through a very nonlinear pathway. So I grew up in Mississippi, youngest of seven kids. My parents were worked full time and also were sports coaches. So they were always. There was just lots of people, and I watched them just inspiring others. And, you know, as I was growing up, we had a sister who was developmentally disabled. Debbie. She's still alive today. And just making sure that her needs were taken care of was kind of the family's business. And it wasn't always convenient. And as a kid, I didn't really enjoy it or appreciate it, but my parents were very deliberate to kind of make sure that we took care of her. And so this idea of just kind of getting out of self and being of service, and we grew up in the Catholic school system. That was kind of like the beginnings. And then once I got into the corporate world, I bounced around. I started off, I moved to New York originally to be a private art dealer. Did that for a little while. That was tough. And then I ended up in sales as a technical recruiter. That led me to Wall street working in human resources, which ultimately landed me in trade publishing, which is where I kind of spun off and started working in the world of learning and development. While I was kind of bouncing around, I worked for some really amazing leaders. I worked for some real nice people who weren't necessarily effective people, managers also. But a couple of key people along the way made my development in my kind of career progression a priority for them. Essentially, they saw things in me I didn't see in myself, and they kind of helped me reframe it, and they just created opportunities for me to kind of get better at things, and I just paid attention. And so ultimately, when I landed in the world of kind of facilitating and coaching, I always remembered that. And I did that for a few years through some of the big consulting companies. And then I started my own practice about 15 years ago. And in that work, I have just, you know, just, you know, seen lots of things that have worked well for people and things that haven't. And, you know, one of the core parts of our business is really helping, you know, people, managers lead their teams. And a lot of the practice is built around, you know, new managers or managers who never actually got the training. So I was like, you know what? There's a book percolating inside me. And, you know, if I were to write one, what would it be about? It's like, well, I'm going to pull all those life lessons and my own kind of early career lessons into it. And I want to think about, you know, how can I give back to this very specific audience? Not everyone can afford to bring us in as a kind of a partner, as a consultant or as a training company or even as coaches. But there's a lot of people that would love just to have something that they could pick up and like, all right, I just got the job. What do I really need to do? That was. That was kind of the idea.

So that's the Giving Game, right?

Not mention the title. Yeah, that is the Giving Game becoming the leader that others want to follow.

Okay, well, yeah, that's where I want to. Maybe we'll spend some time talking about that, about the book. And I am always curious. I mean, you sort of answered it. But maybe there's a deeper reason, like why. I mean, aside from people can't afford, you know, maybe bring your. You in or whatever, you want to be able to hand them something. But was there sort of like a deeper purpose for the book? Like, what. What was inside of you to write it?

I mean, I. So it does be super transparent. So when I was in my early 20s, I saw a psychic. And in that. No, it's a different. I saw a psychic and she worked with the Chicago Police Department. And she just mentioned, like, you know, she gave me, like, my life plan. She's like, you're going to write a book and important for you to take notes and just journal through your life and your career, because at some point you're going to write a book and it's going to be a book that's going to help a lot of people. And for whatever reason, that just took that. That just, that's. That stayed with me. And then over the years, just personally and professionally, I've always journaled and like, talked about what I've learned. And then just in my space in learning and development, it's. I've been thinking about it for a long time and it's like, you know what? I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do it. And, you know, with the hopes of, you know, sure, I want it to sell, but it's really about just being, giving something back and just sharing just a lot of what I've learned and what I've experienced and kind of what I've seen work for other people. So that was a real driver.

So let's talk a little bit about just leadership. And in particular, you've mentioned already sort of like that, that. That individual who may be called upon to begin leading people, and perhaps they've never done it before.

Yeah, right.

And, you know, we've all been. I've been there, you've been there. And that's scary, man. I don't even care if you got an MBA on your title or whatever. It doesn't matter, man, because you've not actually led people.

Right, right.

And dealt with, you know, emotions and bad attitudes and lazy work ethic or whatever it might be.

Right.

I mean, there's a myriad of things that we've got to. That we've got to deal with. But like how. I mean, I feel like the, the tendency is when you first get into leadership, not always. I don't want to, like, say this is how it always goes, but, you know, many times we're trying to sort of, I don't know, be like the subject matter expert. That's how it was for me.

Right.

Like, I was a young engineer and I was pretty good, pretty talented, you know, and they're like, well, hey, Ron, go lead these other folks over there. And I'm like, oh, My gosh. You know, and so what did I do? I just really relied on what I knew, which was how to be a good engineer.

Right.

And so I overemphasize that. Then I'm like, eventually I was like, wait a minute, why is she crying? You know, or why is he crying? And that's when it all kind of clicked for me. Like the human side of leadership. Right, so talk a little bit about that.

Sure. No, and I think that's such an important. Of all the. The kind of transitions we make in our careers, especially once you get on the leadership track, going from individual contributor to kind of first line leader is probably going to be the toughest one because it's just fundamentally so different. It just requires a different mental model. So I have to go from just worried about myself, my own motivation, my own outputs, my own kind of quality, all those things, to all of a sudden I need to kind of think about those things for other people. And for a lot of people, that is not natural. So it's very different. And often what we see is much like yourself, like, you will have people that are promoted because they're technically very good at their job. And so, you know, the kind of, you know, conventional wisdom is like, oh, they'll be good managing a bunch of other people who do that job. And that's not necessarily the case. They can be. So what happens is they get the job. Some organizations are wonderful and kind of create transition plans and skill them up in a very deliberate way. Most do not. So people find themselves in this role where they have people that they probably were either friends with or they were peers with. And now they're expected to kind of perform with this whole set, new set of competencies and capabilities which they don't have yet. So that's daunting. So what typically happens is a lot of times they'll go underground about it. They'll just kind of like, keep their head low and they'll just kind of go through the motions. You know, if I don't kind of raise my hand and ask questions, people won't know that I'm really struggling internally and feel like a fraud. But what we teach and what we challenge people is like, no, like you're in a unique position and opportunity to show your vulnerability and raise your hand. No one's expecting you to be a master at this, especially initially. If you wait 10 months or 12 months and then start asking questions, that might raise some questions. But we encourage them to kind of think about doing it early on so that you can just get your bearings. In the book, we talk about this idea of the first 45 days being so important and really, once I get the new role, to really think about, like, what's my plan the first two weeks? And really, you know, you know, if you want, I can go into detail about that now. But, yeah, go ahead. I mean, so the First 45 playbook is really just meant to kind of help the person who has been promoted. And this is like, what have I got myself into? First two weeks is what we call phase one, which is really just getting your head in the game. So really get yourself oriented into what are the expectations, get your hands on the job description, give it a thorough read, and just do an honest assessment of like, okay, what of these things am I actually comfortable doing? What are. Which of these things am I not comfortable doing? So it's everything from like, I was responsible just for my own, you know, you know, having tough conversations with peers. Now I have to have performance management conversations with my direct reports. I've never done that before. So don't beat yourself up, but just do some type of objective kind of audit or analysis just to see kind of what your gap is so that you can start building a plan over the weeks and months ahead. So do that. Align yourself with your manager. So just check in. So just want to make. Make sure that I'm clear around kind of what we're doing in our team. And what does success look like in your eyes? Are there any kind of issues that need to be addressed right away? So again, just contracting with your manager, then of course you want to get to know your team. So, you know, whatever the norms are within the team. So if there's like an existing team meeting or if there's one on ones already on people's schedules, just abide by those things and go in. Don't blow things up. Just go in and observe. And nice to meet you. Looking forward to working with you. So that's really what the first couple of weeks is all about. The second couple of weeks, which is kind of weeks three and four. Phase two is now that you've got your head into kind of the. The team, your boss, what, what your core responsibilities are. You want to start thinking more horizontally across the business. What are the dependencies? Who are your peer managers? What is the output of your team? Who receives it? Who do you rely on to make sure that your team can get their work done? Who are your vendors? Are there any kind of executive sponsors? So start thinking more broadly around kind of the relationship management of your job, which is a big piece of it for, you know, new managers, they kind of miss that piece of it. So really kind of thinking about who those people are and then going out and starting having conversations with them. Not to solve, but just something that sounds like, you know, you're glad that we're going to be working together. You know, our teams have worked together for a long time. I'm new to roll. I would love to hear feedback. What, what are we doing that is really helping the work we're doing together? Is there anything that you would like us to do differently if we could? Don't want to promise anything, but you want to just find that out so later on you can make a plan. And then the third phase, really kind of, you know, weeks five and six is really, after you've collected all this information, you have your sense for, like, who are they? You know, who are you collaborating with? You have a sense for who the team is. Then you want to start kind of making some adjustments. You want to maybe change the team. The team meeting agenda, it's a bit of a snooze fest. Mix it up a little bit, check it on the one on ones. Make sure that you're understanding what people's kind of interests are, what they want to kind of where they see as their strengths and opportunities. And then I'll finish with this. We also encourage the new manager to start thinking about team identity and team purpose. I would have aligned with my manager and have a better sense for kind of what we're doing and why we exist. Start creating some type of like, you know, team charter, team mission that ladders up to the organizational mission and purpose, just so the team has a sense for kind of, you know, you know, how they see themselves. And then once you start that conversation, you can create like team norms. How do we make decisions? What are the values that we want to abide by? And then once you have those things, you're, you're on your way to having a really good, successful first year.

What happens if you are a new leader in an organization? You're, you're, you're new to it, so you're a little nervous and you're doing all the things and that James is right, writes about in his books and says on the podcast and all that, but you've got some folks who, for whatever reason, man, they're not on board and you're really struggling. Maybe there's just personality conflicts, something like that. Like, it's not, it's not happening. The way it was written in a book, like, what do we do in those. Those tough situations?

About a hundred memes just went through my head like they said it was going to be fun. Yeah. So. So that's. Unfortunately, that's just kind of like, that's. That just happens. And, you know, and it's. It's something that it will. If it hasn't happened to you yet as a leader, it will definitely happen to you. So, you know, I. Our experience and what we suggest is, like, you just have to address it head on. So as soon as you suspect something, you know, your intuition is going to serve you well. So you need to just explore it. Maybe you're wrong. So it would look something like a, you know, a feedback conversation, but, you know, probably a little bit more broad than that. So it sounds something along the lines of, you know, Ron, I wanted to talk to you. I'm sensing through your. You're very quiet in the meetings, and I think I saw you kind of. You dart eyes with Janice in the meeting when I kind of suggested that we came.

Janice is getting me in trouble.

So I'm sensing that there's something going on there. Is there something that you wanted to share with me? Because I'm sensing that there, There. There's a. A bit of concern about the way that I'm kind of running the team, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about it.

Right.

So. So I want to. I. I need to address it, like, right away. You know, this. But like managers all the time, that's a difficult conversation. So what happens is they. They hope it resolves itself and they kick it down, but rarely does it. So I want to, especially early in my tenure, you know, knowing that I need to have that conversation is showing that I'm the right person for the job.

I love it, too, because what it does also it demonstrates, let's say, I am the one with the bad attitude or whatever. And because you're my new manager, and I don't really go, why is James my man, I should have gotten it, or whatever, you know, there could be all that kind of stuff, but in a way, when you sort of, you know, stand up for yourself and your values and your purpose, you know, there's some. A certain amount of respect that I will, whether I like it or not, I'm going to sort of experience that.

Right, exactly. And that's kind of your goal because early on you're trying to establish your credibility. Yeah. And people are. Especially if there are some, you know, you Know, kind of grumpy people on the team or someone who wanted the job but didn't get it. They're looking for things to kind of point, point out where you're doing it.

And why you're not the right guy. Right.

And I, and I, you know, no, I don't have 20 years of people management experience, but I have, you know, the kind of capability of understanding that, you know, we need to get aligned and we need to resolve this so that we can move forward. I'm showing a lot of competence there.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Talk a little bit about some strategies that you might recommend. Not even necessarily a new leader, but really anybody when you're trying to sort of cultivate this in not having command and control really be your sort of your, your primary motivation.

So it's a, it's a great question and what we try to do with the book, the primary audience was for people who were either thinking about becoming a people manager or were currently like recently promoted. But it certainly is applicable for there's lots of people that have been doing it for 10, 15 years who never actually had have the training. So, so, so, so typically what we would suggest is in, in my kind of tenet, just personally for my own leadership and within my team, is I want to create an environment where people are going to do stuff because they want to, not because they have to. So that's kind of my North Star with this. So how can I get people into a headspace where they're going to be kind of engaged and motivated and kind of fired up to do things, even if it's like the less sexy stuff and exciting stuff. So that for us boils down to climate and to climate and also psychological safety. So, you know, if I want the team to perform well, I need to create the right structure where people can really drop their shoulders and just relax because they know that there's definition and they know what the guardrails are. How do I do that? Is making sure that there's clarity. So clarity around all that work I did with team identity. So again, you know, here's, here's why we exist, everyone. Here's how we're kind of like supporting the mothership. Here's how we kind of measure success as a team and individually. So all that definition is great because it lets people self regulate within the system and kind of know how we're playing the game. Makes it easier for me as a leader because I know what I can hold people accountable to. Right. Clarity. And then also I want to make sure that there's a high degree of what I would call it, buy in and commitment. And how that happens is you pull. Let people be involved. So I don't need to tell everyone, you know, especially if I'm new to role or even new to an organization, I probably have people on my team who know a lot more than I do. That's a beautiful thing. Facilitate that, draw that out of them so where I can pull them in to help kind of do and solve the work. Right. You know, I may not. I ultimately may be making the decision myself, but where I can pull them in. Be careful, though. And I. This is, I heard this from someone I coach at one of the big pharmaceutical companies. Her thing was like, like, James, you know, we, you know, don't, don't bring people through a we process for what's going to be a me decision, which I think is very good advice. So I would engage my team, but I don't want to waste people's time. I don't want to bring them through some big process. If at the end of the day I'm going to do what I want.

To do, I'm going to.

Yeah, right. But where I can, I want to, I want to engage them and I want to kind of pull in their ideas. And it can be everything from, like, how they approach a task to how we structure the one on ones, or like how we're solving some big strategic problems. So I can really flex that in all sorts of different ways. A couple other things that we do, just make sure that there's standards, so there's kind of quality and kind of, you know, quantitative standards as far as, like, what we're doing and how we do it so that people know what good looks like.

What does winning look like?

Right, exactly. Exactly. People don't provide that. And then people, they work hard, but they're not working in a focused and purposeful way because we don't have that kind of alignment around the North Star. And then just recognition and feedback. You got to let people know that you appreciate them. You got to let them know that they're doing a good job and why or if they're not, if they're struggling a little bit, I need to intervene early. Not to beat them up, but just so I can be of service to them to get them back on track. Yeah. So a few ideas there.

One of my favorite books, it's a. I guess now it's a old book, maybe date myself, but is Dan Pink's book Drive, what Motivates people.

Yeah.

And where he contrasts the sort of. The idea of was extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is to carrot right, like, hey, you know, do this, you'll get a bonus. And which is fine. You know, bonuses are cool. But. But he, he, he opines that intrinsic motivation is where we really need to be, you know, sort of leading people towards, with, what is it? Mastery, autonomy, purpose kind of thing. Right. So talk a little bit about your thoughts on that. Like contrasting the different types of, of motivation.

So I love, I love. I'm a big, big fan of Pink's work. You can't see, but I have all these books here, including like three of his books. You know, Drive is a great book. And I think that Mastery, Autonomy and Personal Purpose is really. That gives you all like the major food groups as far as, you know, people want to get good at stuff, right. So back to kind of engaging them and getting buy in. The more I can kind of, you know, give people some latitude. I can give them a chance to do what I brought them into the business. Let them do it well, let them learn new things, kind of create that into the work that works really well. Purpose we've talked about. So just making sure that people are clear as far as how the work we do are doing tethers to the mothership. And then this idea of I give people. People want autonomy. They want, you know, give me, give me the definition and let me go off and do it right. Other. Yeah. I'm also a big fan of the work of David McClelland out of Harvard in the. I don't know him. So he, he had a motivational management model which was based on this idea of like, intrinsically, we all have some kind of core motivational things. So we either have a need for achievement. So I like to, I just in me, I like to get things done and I like to go after, you know, and set my own goals and targets. And you know, I. And I like to accomplish those. And I like the feeling that comes with it. Then I want to go and do kind of like the next thing. You know what that looks like is people who probably have advanced degrees, they're probably running marathons, they're getting certifications and just they're hardwired for just kind of getting that next thing. He also talks about this idea of people who have a need for affiliation and their driver is you're doing things that are going to benefit like the group. So they like good interpersonal dynamics. So as they, you know, so if I assign work to them, you know, I frame it up in a way that says like, and this is really going to help the team, you know, morale and you know, it's been rough. So you doing this is really going to help everyone subconsciously that, oh, I'm getting very fired up about it because it's. There's a kind of a greater service and me helping my teammates, which is really interesting. And then the third one for him is what he calls a need for. A need for power. And it's not personal power, but it's kind of institutional and organizational power. And those are folks who like to work on things that are very bold, that have very kind of long lasting impact on the organization and that's a real driver for them. And they're less concerned about like the short term achievement or definitely not necessarily concerned about, you know, the, the people, the affiliation. But they like to get big things done. So with all of those and thinking about Pink's work, as I assign work, as I kind of talk about the team's work, I want to kind of build those ideas into it. McClellan also talks about this idea of like, you know, we are very powerful as leaders, but I cannot, I am, you know, I can be a cheerleader and come on team, let's go. But I in fact can't motivate you. You have to motivate yourself. So it's the old you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. What I can do is I can create the right climate, I can create the right framing of assignments that's going to allow my employees to kind of find that within themselves and be highly motivated around the work. That was a lot.

Good stuff. Well, so name of the book again.

Is what my book is, the Giving Game. Becoming the Leader that others want to follow.

Okay. And we'll link it up in the show notes so everybody can go check it out. Any final words of wisdom or final parting thoughts that you have that you want to leave with everyone?

I'll go back to my quote. So to thine own self be true. The book is going to suggest all sorts of ideas on influencing emotional intelligence and just find your, your, your leadership philosophy. So that's typically going to be like your values, your sense of purpose, kind of your story and owning it and then thinking about like how you can kind of bring that into kind of service really of self, the team, the organization, etc. So it's important to kind of get that clarity. So when tough stuff happens, you have to make decisions or there's a lot of change in the business. You have that kind of moral clarity of yourself to fall back on. So that would be, that would be my advice. What the book is really meant to do is just, you know, for a lot of the core stuff that we need to do as leaders, this is going to give you some super practical tips and practices that will kind of help you just get good at the small stuff. Awesome.

Hey, if folks want to connect with you, James, what's the best way?

Best way would be go to the website theturkgroup.com there you'll find a link to the book, you'll see some of our research papers, you'll be able to download a copy of the first 45 playbook. So that first 45 days that I mentioned, we put it into a playbook so you can download that and just, you know, yeah, buy the book. But if you just want the playbook, you can just get that for free. And then of course LinkedIn got it.

And it's T U R K if people are only listening or whatever.

TheTurkturkgroup.com Got it. All right.

And we'll have everything linked up in the show notes for folks there. So. Well, hey man, I appreciate you coming on. It's been a good one. Appreciate you.

I appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun and we'll talk to you soon.

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