Solving Problems (Without Making Them Worse!) - with Kristine Conway

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms female corporate executives into powerhouse leaders by showing them how to shed the challenges and overwhelm along with any fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity holding them back. I'm your host, Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching, bringing you powerhouse experts each week to share tips, advice, and sometimes tough love that will allow you to create the riches in your work and life you deserve. So let's do this. I am so excited as I'm talking to Christine Conway all about how many of us well-meaning leaders, parents, and partners are fixated on solving the problems of others. Could you be that type of person who swoops in to save the day, or have you considered that you could be doing more harm than good by doing so? Christine is going to help us find out if your fixing is the real problem to solve and answer the question many of you ask her, is why aren't I getting the results I expect? Welcome to the show, Christine. How are you?

I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me.

You are so welcome. I'm really excited about talking about this because too many of us are trying to fix other people. Tell us a little bit about Christine. Okay.

So I am, I live in North Dallas in Texas, United States, but currently I am logging in with you in Panama. I love to travel, so I'm in Panama for the month of December and love doing that. Love seeing the world, love experiencing new cultures.

Why is this particular subject matter so important to you and such a key part of what it is that you do?

Well, it keeps coming up. It's one of those common threads with regardless of what level of individual that I'm working with, they are frustrated with not getting the results that they want to get. And it's hard for them to see that they're actually the one causing some of that problem because they're coming in and wanting to fix things as they've done in the past. But you've got a team now, and that team has collectively so many more talents than, than you do. And when you come in with the power of being the boss, right, Your solution is usually the solution nobody questions. That is something that really comes up, and I have found that it's really difficult for leaders to give up that control.

And where is this control issue coming from?

Most of the time it's a sense of responsibility. You know, they want things to go right. They, they know that they're being held accountable for getting the things done, and it's on them ultimately as a, as a leader. However, you know, you've got to be able to trust the team that you've hired or that you've inherited or, you know, that you've been given.

Say the person— we'll make it somewhat easier than someone who's been in their position for a while. Say it's a new person coming into their position. And in order to prevent, you know, that over-controlling, what do you recommend to your clients to do for that leader to do in order to, you know, ensure that they're all of a sudden not going to go, "Boop!" Oh yeah. And try to take over.

Yeah. So that's really when we talk about assimilating to your new role, right? One of the things that I encourage leaders to do is sit with your team when you first get there. I mean, when you're, when you're a new leader, you've got about 90 to 180 days of grace. To where, you know, you can go in and you can actually have these conversations and get to know people. Well, you know, one of the things that I've done in the past is have people show me their resume. Many times leaders don't know what skills their, their team has. And so if you know that, it saves you a lot of time. And it, and getting to know your team is, is, is really the best thing that you could do to help minimize the control. You know, that control gremlin is still going to come out from time to time.

But yeah, similar to that scenario you just painted. However, they're sitting back and they are kind of watching and observing and getting to know, you know, the people around them. And this is more getting to know peers and their manager, but they're in a new leadership role. There's some whispering around the fact that where is she? Like, why is, you know, why isn't she stepping up? Why isn't she speaking up? Why isn't she in inserting kind of what her observations are. And she's roughly 4 months in. But then when do you start inserting yourself and kind of making changes or—

I think it's a gradual process. I mean, there's going to be small things at the very beginning. And the other thing is to be transparent with individuals. You know, the whispering, if you know that it's happening or even to prevent it from happening, to be able to— Talk to people, let them know what your plan is. You know, the first 90 days, here's what I'm doing and here's why.

Yeah, that's great. So then there isn't questions or whispers. They wouldn't even have those whispers had you shared kind of your approach to assimilating onto their team.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. What are the employees, team members kind of feeling and taking away from that?

Well, when you, when you do that, you're disempowering people. And you are essentially discounting the value that they bring to the team. So there's a lot of morale that can go down. It definitely does not encourage teamwork and, you know, bringing things up because, you know, why should I bring things up? You know everything that you're going to do. I'm just waiting for orders. And it stifles innovation. I mean, who wants to bring up a new idea when the boss has got all the answers.

Right, right, right. Do you see that the best construct of a leader could be that they do come in just like you said, they kind of talk, listen, ask questions, try to understand the skills and the gaps of their team. Do you advocate being the last person to speak? Yeah. And when the leader kind of steps in and just says, Yeah, that's right, because then you get, you get more data.

You know, it's all about data. The safer environment you provide for employees, for peers, for the organization, the more data you're going to get. So yes, speaking last is a, is a wonderful technique to do because then you don't, you don't get the echo chamber, right?

Right. And you use a great word. Safe. So there's a lot of talk about psychological safety, and I think that has a lot to do with our subject matter around individuals that try to fix everyone. So what is your viewpoint on psychological safety, and what is being psychologically safe in a work environment? What does it look like to someone?

Yeah, so to be psychologically safe in an environment, that means that I can speak up and I can, I can ask a question or I can bring something up and I'm not going to be penalized for it. I'm not going to be made fun of. I'm not going to be shut out of meetings and all that stuff that happens, you know, in corporations, which are ridiculous. But I'm going to be, you know, appreciated for that, even if it's not a great idea. I'm not going to shame you.

Right, right, right. And to the person, to the leader, who takes your advice and they go and they listen and they listen and they ask questions, but they're just doing it to kind of check off the list because they're still going to go with what it is that they want to do. Shouldn't their employees be right sometimes?

Yeah. I mean, right is something that we can all get together on, you know?

Oh, I love that.

Yeah. It doesn't have to be my way or their way. I mean, we can all add to the rightness of it and So a leader should do what they can to take their people's input. Yeah, because sometimes, you know, you can come into an organization, you go, oh, I know what's wrong here, and you might be 60% right. But if you've gone out and you've talked to people and you've gotten their concerns and you bring that into your solution— I've gotten all the data, and based on my experience, this is where we should go, and here's what I need you to do to support it.

So if you don't disagree or don't raise a voice, then you're pretty much accepting whatever it is that then is passed down to you.

If you're getting silence, you're not asking the right questions and something else is going on.

So from a leader's view, silence needs to really be translated into, "They're not safe enough to speak." So when it comes to the person who's, you know, trying to fix everyone and when they're trying to— what is— what does fixing mean? It's not— is it just the fact that they want their way and they want, you know, their direction, or is it more even about that other person?

I'll give you— I'll give you an example. So I did an ROI study on a leader. He was a CIO of an organization. That implemented certain competencies like asking powerful questions, getting to know his employees, listening, you know, these things. He was able to come back and identify that by having people that came to his office for a solution or showed up on his screen, you know, because we're all virtual, they would come and they would, they would, they would ask about things for him to solve. He started realizing that there was a pattern there, so he started sending them back. He goes, well, you go find out, bring it here, and then let's discuss. And there were some other impacts there. He had peer relations that, that got better. He was able to even save money in infrastructure. He came back, and because he stopped— and I will use his word— solutioning, it was over a $145,000 impact.

Wow.

So it wasn't just him. It was by him not solutioning, it was empowering others to think about better things, save money. He was now able to think about strategy.

Right. So when I hear someone's trying to fix someone, I'm even kind of getting it more personal about, they don't like the way I do something, so they're asking me to be somebody I'm not. Because they're not comfortable or they're not aligned to the style that I am.

Like the way you may send emails or the way you address people in meetings, things like that.

Correct. Is that also in this realm of everyone?

Yeah, absolutely. Because when you think of leaders, we— or if you think of humans, let's just say humans, you think of humans. We, we feel that the way that we present to the world is the way to be presented to the world, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Because why would we do something that was not correct, right?

Right.

We unconsciously want others to act like us because that's acceptable. We know how to deal with that. Then you start, you know, vanilla coating everything because now there's no diversity in that. So if I don't like the way that you're presenting yourself in meetings I want to talk to you about that and say, okay, so I noticed how you shut down Joe when he brought up XYZ. I'm not sure how that helped us get to the end of the meeting quicker. Help me understand. You know, and so that way I'm staying curious about it and not judging you, right?

When you show up, you know, you're just asking questions to understand why someone behaves the way they behave.

Yeah, because we judge all day long.

So you have this individual. How do they kind of recognize that they need Christine?

Well, unfortunately, sometimes they are told that they need to fix something and they need to fix it now, which is my least favorite client. My favorite client is that they have seen things happen. Maybe they've lost a job. Maybe they've gotten passed over for promotion again. And they're starting to see little things that say, hey, well, maybe it's me. There are people— I mean, I work in organizations and I bring in training for large groups of leaders, and there'll be leaders within the group that think that they don't need this, right? So we do assessments, we do 360s, which, you know, sometimes it gives them a little bit of data, right, to open the door a little bit. And that's another reason that I work with leaders, you know, for a minimum of 6 months, and I do training for a whole year, because it's not an overnight fix. They didn't get that way overnight. Overnight, right? So, so assessments, exercises that we do outside, you know, here, this is what I'd like for you to do in this meeting. How do you feel comfortable doing that? Oh, that's going to be terrible. Well, would you try it and see what kind of results you get, right? If, if you're in sales and it's December and you're just now realizing that you're not going to make your mark. Well, maybe you should have been talking to your sales team back in April. I'm just thinking that maybe that could have helped you, right? You know, being able to look— and when you get it down to the money, people feel that unfortunately more quickly than they feel anything else, right?

Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. When you do work with the person that is told Um, even the person that starts seeing it, but they're probably a little bit more interested in learning more. Is there a wall up? I mean, do you have to deal with a lot of resistance in regards to like, why am I here and I don't need this and that kind of thing? And what do you do about it?

One of the things that I have learned over the years is that that initial meeting, especially if it's a sponsored situation, right? Is that I have that leader, which is usually the CEO, and that client, right? The sponsor-client, me, and we talk about that. And we make sure that everybody's on the same page, that, and when they hear their CEO say, "If this behavior doesn't fix, I don't have room for you in my organization," that helps. But if that CEO or that leader is not able to say, say those things. I could say it all day and it's not going to matter, right? But they've got to be able to see that, right? Um, and even with, you know, given the greater territory or a greater responsibility, this is dependent. You have to have these behaviors change. Then we work on measurements. So, you know, like right now, how many people come to you and confide in you that they can't do their job or whatever? Well, nobody does. Okay, well, how many deadlines or how many projects have gone south without you knowing about it until it's too late? Ooh, a lot. Okay, now we have two measurements. Yeah, yeah, right.

Because the impact could be what?

The impact could be that they no longer have a job. The impact could be that they don't get that promotion. You know, sometimes the impact could be that they, they continue to hate their job.

Thank you. Yes, yes. And they're miserable. They might not want to acknowledge that they're miserable, but they continue to be not fully exploiting their skills and talents.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I have to admit, so I'm the perfect story for getting fired because I was a nasty leader.

Yeah.

And I just wish— and I don't hold any, any animosity. I don't regret anything I do in my life and whatnot. However, that said, had I been told that it was a risk to my ambition and to my goals, let alone to my salary and position and power that I had at the time, I was so egotistical and very ambitious that I would have changed. Yeah, there might be sides of me I wouldn't have changed right away. However, I was never told. So, but it is absolutely critical that leaders step up and say something. It's not fair to their employee. Do you see anything changing as a result of so much conversation and so much work being done in not all corporations, but in corporations around emotional intelligence, around communications, around servant leadership. Have you seen kind of a shifting to where, you know, conflict management is a top, you know, training conversation?

Well, I've seen it be more acceptable, and I've heard the words more, but the actions are still not following the words. Leaders have to get a grip on that, and they have to have a grip on change management because they— I mean, oh my gosh, leaders change. They're directing and impacting change all day long, right? All day long. And so to have that emotional intelligence and to be self-regulated in such a way that allows you to stay in conflict long enough to come up with a good solution, those are the great leaders. It's, it's one of those things that has to be modeled by the top. It has to be modeled and it has to be rewarded. You have to be able to measure. So if you think about self-regulation, for instance, you know, it's one of the big ones with, with emotional intelligence. How many times have you left a meeting, you know, throwing your hands onto the table and slamming the door? Well, in the last 6 months, probably 7. Okay, that's measurement. How many people quit on you?

Right.

How many, you know, how many times have you dominated a conversation and, and everybody was silent? Like, that's like every meeting. All right, well, that's measurement, right? So being able to do that, and it takes a while for people to see that because they think of measurement as something like you can like a dollar or a, a widget, right? But it's experiences that you can count. If you make me feel like an incompetent person because the way that you treat me, you couldn't regulate yourself well enough in this meeting, I'm costing you money because when I leave that meeting, I'm not getting right to work, right? I'm probably going to take the rest of the day off, or I'm going to do something else, and it's not going to be something to help the move this project along.

Right. So soft skills can be measured as much as hard skills can. And stop using the excuse, leader, that they can't be. Because don't you— do you find that many leaders use it as an excuse not to define goals and measurements because they just don't want to see?

Well, they don't want to do that. And they don't want to have that hard conversation of, dude, you're just not nice. And here's why.

I love it.

Love it.

I love it.

Okay.

I want to take you into a different subject of which your book centers on, How to Live Guilt-Free, or tell us the title of your book, if you would.

So it's Obligated No More: A Journey to a Guilt-Free Life. And I wrote that several years ago because of some of the themes that I was seeing with clients. As well as with myself. There's a lot of self-discovery in that book. We get trapped, especially women. I mean, men do too, but I hear it more from women. They're more vocal about that, is that, you know, they have to do this, they have to do that. And everything is a choice, you know. Our socialization, our upbringing, you know, because our, our moms did this, or society expects to do that. We feel kind of guilty when we don't volunteer at PTA. But you know what? They'll accept a check too, right? Right. And, and there's that guilt feeling that just drains us. I mean, it's one of those energy-draining emotions that we feel. You know, this is not evidence-based, but I feel that it's about 90% of the time when we feel guilt, it's because somebody else is pushing that onto us and it's not anything for us to feel guilty about.

Right. Just because it was done yesterday doesn't mean it has to be done today and that you have to be the one to do it.

No, I can't take on that project. No.

Right.

It's a really simple word, but very hard to say.

Yeah. And I want to mention to everyone too, is you can receive a free copy of her book should you book some time to talk with her. And you could do that at Connect with Christine Conway and discover how you're getting in your own way, possibly by either controlling or just the fact that you're not living guilt-free. And so you have the conversation with her, you finish the conversation, and she'll send you a complimentary copy of her book. Connect with Christine Conway. It's a tiny URL, um, and we'll make sure it's all in the show notes as well. What is your main work and coaching that you do on this subject, and what is it you're helping them to really ultimately achieve?

Every day you can make a choice as to how you spend your time, who you spend your time with, what you do with your time. So the ability to take yourself out of the suck of guilt, right? And say, yeah, I choose to do that, or no, I choose not to do that, right? And feel good about it. And a lot of that has to happen through some emotional intelligence work so that you understand where you gravitate to, what emotions you have access to, and that gives you some more insight to say, uh, now I know why I'm doing that, and I don't have to do that anymore.

Right. Isn't it all about self-awareness, man?

Isn't life about self-awareness?

Oh, you're like a mirror image of me, Christine.

Girl, it is.

Life is all about self-awareness.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's— here's how I explain it. So you've got two sets of intelligences, right? You've got your IQ and you've got your EQ, right? When you're in the middle of chaos, the EQ turns into this like black smoke and it covers up your intelligence, your IQ, all the stuff like math, manners, all of that stuff, right? It covers it up. When we start learning about emotional intelligence, we start building these muscles to where they can really pull back, not detach, but pull back enough to where we can access our intelligence, our IQ, and now we can think and we can really create a strong platform for us to help from, direct from, decide from, to where it actually— emotional intelligence actually helps with our IQ. Because there's a great number of studies out there that are about You know, just because you're super mensa smart doesn't mean you can get people to do what they need to do. You know, you got to have the IQ, you got to have skill, and you can build that. You can also build emotional intelligence, and it's self-regulation and self-awareness, but it's also being able to understand what someone else is going through in that moment, read that, and respond accordingly.

I often say that, you know, life is 80% mindset, 20% skill set. And the re— and people will be like, why? I'm like, well, because you can have this, this great resume, all these skills like you just said, all this intelligence that you just mentioned, and yet if you don't have the confidence to leverage all of that skill set, it's for naught.

Yeah.

And, and therefore you're leaving a lot, a lot of opportunity and experiences on the table, let alone money and whatever else you want to be achieving. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely.

Are your clients often surprised when they do start gaining emotional intelligence and self-awareness?

Yeah, they become very aware and that's painful. It's very painful. One of the first indications for them is usually at home. Because at home, our spouses, our partners will say, wow, that was different. So you're asshole at home and you're an asshole at work. You know, you're an asshole.

It's true.

And it is. People will come back and they'll, they'll usually say, you know, I talked to my staff with this. This stuff really works. I'm like, yeah, it does. Yeah. And, you know, the other thing is that you've got a lot of science out there that talks about how when you become more emotionally intelligent, your body becomes more healthy because you're not, you don't have all this cortisol running through your veins all the time. You've got more dopamine in there. You've got more of the oxytocin, right, running around. And that's good stuff for your body.

Yeah, I have to agree. Well, Christine, this has been absolutely fabulous. I want to mention to everyone, please go to effects focusinc.com. Learn all about Christine and the work that she does and how she might be able to help you. Also follow her on LinkedIn. It's really easy, Christine Conway. Christine, thank you so much for being part of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. I loved it.

Thank you. Thank you for your transformation.

Oh, thank you for the work that you do. That's the key. That is the key, because I could have used you back then. But thank you so much. So what questions came up for you? And what questions really beyond our conversation do you have when it comes to being a powerhouse leader? You can always also book a call with me at coachmebernadette.com discovery call, and let's transform you into a powerhouse leader. And visit sheddingthecorporatebitch.com and leave your comments or leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube so other powerhouse leaders just like you can find the show. So thanks for joining me this week, and I'll look forward to having you next time on Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Bye everyone!