Shelby Scarborough, who managed protocol for Reagan and worked with Nelson Mandela, shares how to build real rapport in business. She walks through concrete moves: humanizing people across divides, like Reagan's walks with Gorbachev, deliberate onboarding practices, and knowing when to break protocol on purpose.
Chapters
Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and Gazelle's business coach, Bill Gallagher. We are talking all about improving rapport and engagement today. Right. And how do we get people engaged? Look, how many people do we talk to all the time? I know many of you listening are thinking about, God, I love my business, but people are so challenging, so hard. Right. Well, rapport and engagement is a big key topic, and we have a perfect person with impeccable credentials in this world. Today we have on Shelby Scarborough. Shelby really got one of her earliest experiences serving the White House in protocol and organizing things with the most amazing people on a global scale. And she's a past global board president for EO and has deep business background in protocol and in events for very high profile people. She's working on a book right now. She continues to serve with EO all over the world, and I know her well. She's a dear friend and just a real inspiration. She lives up in Napa Valley these days, but we're talking while she's in her car. Hi. Welcome to the show, Shelby.
Thank you, Bill.
Awesome. So we're going to talk today about how do we get people engaged more? And we're interested not in so much etiquette, but actually building relationships and opening people up. And I love this because I was just listening to Pat Lencioni talk earlier this week about how do we engage people more and what kinds of things torpedo relationships in. So it's a perfect dovetail to your message today.
So, hi, how are you?
I'm awesome. So tell us about it. Let's get right into the heart of it. What actually matters here and what doesn't work and what's of concern to you?
Sure. I think if you want to get right to the heart of the matter, the whole bottom line and everything, if we start at the end, is about dignity and respect. And no matter what approach you take on anything, that's all anybody ever wants, is to be treated with dignity and respect. So if you're the giver or the receiver, if that's a key element that you keep in mind, then things can start out smoothly and end smoothly.
How do you even care about this? How do you get started in this? Why has this become a thing for you?
You know, when I worked for the president, I worked for President Reagan, and he was one of those people who absolutely treated people with dignity and respect. So right off the bat, my very first boss taught me that that was a very important element. And he taught it by Doing it wasn't spoken. He didn't verbalize these kinds of things. He just behaved that way. But it was carried through in the administration. The people who worked with him and for him felt very strongly that we needed to represent the office of the presidency and the president himself in the same manner that he. That he carried himself. That we were representatives by extension. And so we had. When we went out into the community and tried to set up an event for the president, or when we set up a meeting with a foreign head of state to meet with the president, we were that extension of him. So we really needed to behave in such a way that, as my immediate boss would put it, that we would want to be invited back into people's homes or by the mayor of the city into their town when we left after having set up an event. And so that set a very high bar and a precedence of excellence for us in trying to work with people in the best manner possible.
Interesting. So that's not lightweight initial training.
Yeah. Perfection is sort of the expectation.
Yeah.
So it's. Yeah, there were. There weren't many opportunities for mistakes, although I think that it was a forgiving environment. If the intent was earnest and you were trying to do the right thing, it was when you didn't treat people with dignity and respect, when you were rude to people, discourteous, et cetera, and that. That's when you would sort of get some repercussions from that. If you just made a simple mistake, as people do, then certainly there was a lot of room for. For improvement and forgiveness.
That's really interesting. So how about an example? I know you have scores of stories, but is there something that demonstrates where you were really challenged at learning to extend that but had some positive outcome?
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Picking one, huh? I think I would like to use an example that's actually in my TED Talk. And I don't mean it to plug my TED Talk. It just is something that occurred to me. It's an example of that, of how he behaved. And that was in the sense that, you know, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was kind of hard to work with, and today they might be.
Kind of hard to work.
Yeah, that's true. Partly. It was in part just. Just logistics. You know, the. The heads of the Soviet Union kept dying, so there was one after the other, and it was really hard to establish a relationship even if you wanted to. Right. You know, much less. And of course, obviously, technology and the way we worked then, et cetera. You know, you couldn't Just pick up the phone as easily as you could. I mean, you could, but you needed to establish a rapport. And so. And this is, you know, world affairs. This is Cold War. This is heavy stuff. And so President Reagan, when he learned about General Secretary Gorbachev, he felt that he could, based on some of the intelligence, et cetera, and some of what they'd learned about him, that, you know, he was a guy that thought a little differently than the previous guys. He was a younger generation, et cetera, and that he was somebody he could work with.
Garbage.
Yes. And so he set out to deliberately create a relationship. It was a overt act. Intentional, Very intentional. And to the point of. When they were in the very first meeting that they had, there was this sort of deliberate action to say they were kind of, you know, not really clicking or connecting. And so there was sort of this deliberate thing to sort of get on the same side of the table, shall we say, as each other. You know, instead of facing off, he said, let's take a walk. And they kind of ditched all of the. Everything from security to their advisors, the secretaries of state and the foreign ministers and all those people that want to be real close in, and they basically took their interpreters and they walked through a garden. And I use the analogy of walking kind of side by side. Just visualize these two world leaders walking side by side. And that helped them actually overcome quite a bit of the barrier that is sort of naturally there when you first meet someone. When you. When you first meet somebody who's considered an adversary at that point, you know, and they. He just made it. He humanized. He had a way of being friendly and without being familiar, in a sense, he wasn't too close, but he had a way of breaking down barriers between people and using humor and. And this. You know, they talk about him being the great communicator, but in a way, this interpersonal ability that he had to sort of get somebody on his side of the table, so to speak, was really, I think, a big part of why the relationship developed. And he also said, call me Ron. So you're thinking heads of state. You know, we're very informal these days.
But just a little, at that point.
Just a little at that point. I mean, we say, hey, you, and that kind of thing, but at that point, the heads of state, you know, you wouldn't say wrong or Gorby or Mikael or anything. Like you would call people by their nicknames, Gorby.
Yo, Gorby, what up?
Exactly. So at the very beginning, he said, you know, call me Ron.
Yeah.
And that he, you know, extended his hand and said, let's just get right to it. Let's just start this more informal discussion instead of this being a very stuffy thing. And when they got into a more difficult situation later on in the negotiations that they had this sort of blossoming relationship that he was able to sort of walk away from the table, literally, and not completely break down all communication. They were able to come back to the table because the seed of the relationship had been planted.
Totally get that. And how about, I don't know, maybe you can't tell this, but it seems like enough time has gone sometimes where it really broke down and something. Have you got a story like that where it didn't work? I think often those are as interesting as the ones where you triumphed.
Where it didn't work.
Yeah.
Oh, gosh, I might have to think about this one.
I know I'm pushing you. I put you on the spot. Maybe you don't have it today.
Yeah, give me a minute to think about that.
Yeah, we'll come back. I threw you there for not anything that we'd prepared for. Right. So you've then taken this into and extended this into the business sector and of course into EO on a global basis. Tell me about how it's shown up there. Share a story with us from that world with eo, with EO or in your business, in running this.
So when I came out of the White House and then I had gone to the State Department as a protocol officer, which is basically presidential advance and protocol are two different offices, but essentially the same kind of work, you know, and it gets down to the core of having good relationships with people and communicating well. Details, like, lots of details. And when things change, you have to be prepared to shift gears. So I decided that, you know, I come from an entrepreneurial family and I think my heart was really in trying to launch a business. But what did I really know how to do? Right. I was. This was my first two jobs out of college. So the natural course for me was to sort of build a business around something that I felt comfortable and was familiar with and had some reputation, hopefully a good one around. So I started practical protocol and I really focused on high level events for dignitaries. My first client was Nelson Mandela. That was a referral. He was referred to me because he was right out of prison and. And the group that was organizing.
Hey, do you want to work with the next con? I don't know. It's Nelson Mandela. Oh, okay.
And the White House actually referred me because the group that was organized of his appearances when he was coming to the United States for the first time, since once he was released from prison, they didn't really know how to navigate Capitol Hill. The White House, the State Department, and of course, Nelson Mandela had been invited to come meet with the president, meet with the members of the congressmen and senators, and meet with the secretary of state, etc. So they hired me to kind of navigate those waters and handle the Washington part of his visit to the United States. I mean, it was such an incredible opportunity, especially being my very first client, because it was a good way to prove my skill sets, et cetera, but also to prove the concept that this was something that could be taken into the private sector, so to speak. And so a lot of what I did was handle dignitaries that came over that weren't here on official business with the government, but they still needed that sort of care and feeding, to use sort of a. I guess, sort of a demeaning term. But really my role in this was, you know, it looks like what I do is make people's lives easier, and my work does do that, but what it really is meant to do, that's a byproduct. What it's meant to do is facilitate communication and facilitate good work. So I take away all the noise around, all the details that it takes for us normal Joes just to get to a meeting and just to get prepared for the meeting. So I put all the things together so that they don't have to worry about where the meeting is or what time it is or when you know where they're going to sit and how the meeting's going to go, so that they can sit and focus on the substance of what they're there to do. So I'm really a facilitator. You know, it's about planes, trains, automobiles, and things like that. But I tried to take it to a distinctive new level and not thinking about it in terms of. And this is, you know, not to offend any amazing event planners who care about flowers and menus and things like that, which are all extremely important, especially in international protocol, to make sure you have the right food and the right. Right colors and the right gifts and all that. And I totally respect that. My. My focus on it is exactly that. Making sure that it's right substantively, not for the aesthetics, if that makes any sense.
Well, I. Yeah, so there's an obsession with the aesthetic sometimes, and. But I. But I think if you dig down right. That, that's, that that starts to be really about the experience. So I know when we do our, whether it's a company session or a workshop or something like that or a big event, we're thinking about what's the total experience like for the participant walking in, how are they prepared for the day, how are they greeted, what does it look like and smell like and is there sound? So we think about the music and the view and the flow in from wherever they arrive, the parking and all of that kind of thing. And then how will they leave? And so we think through all that kind of thing. And of course it takes multiple people, even for a small team session. We think about are we going to go off site and what's the food at the break like and like all.
That kind of thing. And if you say why do you do it? You stated at the beginning is you're trying to create an environment of productivity and a successful outcome.
Yes.
You're not trying to get, I mean it's almost better if they don't walk away and say, you know, what was your, here's your evaluation. What did you like most? They said, well, the flowers were really pretty. That's not that they, if they don't notice, they say it was a fantastic environment to conduct our business. That's, that's success. So that it's almost so that you don't notice the background details, that it's not overt, that it's definitely thought through, but they're just. It's a fine.
It supports it. It supports it. Yeah.
But that's what the trick is, is you have to think through all those things. And so I think sometimes in a customer service environment, people, you know, they tend to downplay some of the finer details because, oh well, that's not important. I had had people argue with me when I suggested that the principal might want to go out to the front lobby to meet an incoming guest. And I found it, to me, some of these things are just innate and intuitive at this point. But when you have a high level guest coming into your office and think of it in terms of just really a client you want to have, period.
Right, right.
You know that wouldn't it be nice to show them the ultimate courtesies and maybe go one step beyond where you think the expectation is? So think of what the expectation is and then evaluate that and say, okay, well they're coming to my office. The receptionist will call when I'm there and then I will walk down the hall. Well, in my case with my clients, we know exactly when we're walking into the office. So I expected the people that were meeting them there to be waiting right inside the lobby. There was no checking in with the receptionist because of the level of these dignitaries. Well, what if you applied that same concept? Said, and, you know, and walking them out to the curb and seeing them to their car, I mean, that's. In most cases, people would think that's above and beyond the call of duty. Well, it's not necessarily. And it just is a. It's a really nice touch. I use. I use a kind of an analogy of when you're having guests over to your house. Now, Bill, when you come over to my house and you knock on the door, I just say, come on in.
Yeah, come in.
Because I know you are your family when you have a familiar relationship. And that's almost a compliment, right? It's almost the opposite where you're saying, hey, the door's open. Come on in. Because you have that kind of intimacy in a relationship and a friendship. However, when you're in a business environment or you're really trying to establish the relationship, you don't yell from the inside of your house, come on in. Right. And when they're leaving, you don't say, well, see you later. Have a great time. You walk people to the door, you make sure they get to their car okay. Right. I mean, there's some fundamentals there that we do socially that if you just extrapolate those into the business environment, you can see where they make a lot of sense just to go a little beyond where you think you need to go.
So, you know, I think of. As I hear this, I'm thinking about a conversation that I had just yesterday with one of our clients about onboarding. Right? And you're talking about creating an environment where people feel connected and welcomed, and then that leads to the rapport and the engagement. But it does seem to me that it starts right at the beginning. Right? How I show up, how I'm welcomed, do I feel valued, and so on. And that some companies make a big deal, right?
Yes.
Out of. But the vast majority of companies celebrate you when you go. So there's like this big party, and you're like, okay, bye, bye. Thank you for your thing. And that's nice, right? To celebrate someone. And yet how little is done in the beginning, like, welcome, you're about to begin 10 years here. And in fact, today we complain. Oh, people, they just work for a year and then they move on. And there's why invest in them. And it's. Well, the way we welcome them is, yeah, they're not going to be here for very long.
Yeah. Without putting any effort into it, you know, so, and even so, I agree there are companies that do a fantastic job of welcoming people in and to the extent of whether it's a balloon or a plant or everybody greets them or. But even just being, we're just so used to being thrown into an environment and how awkward is that to show up at a new job? That is one of the most difficult things you can do.
Well, it's like a kid going to a new school, right?
Yeah.
Think back to when you were a kid, right. And you walk to school and you're self conscious and you want to do good, you're excited, but then you're also concerned that you're going to stand out and that you don't belong yet and what will they think of you.
And we let people kind of flounder and figure out the politics of the office themselves. And do you go, you know, do you come in? What do you wear to work? I mean, all these things, there's not, it's not very overt in some ways. And why not, why not talk about some of this stuff? You don't have to get into gossips at all. But if you, if you turn around and say, look, you know, our traditions are, or you know, we want to share our traditions with you, this is, this is. If you talk about protocol, that there's our. There are protocols and some are written, some are sort of you're supposed to presume them and some you're just supposed to pick up as you go. And I would posit that the more outspoken you can be in some ways about it, about certain protocols in the office to let people know the procedures and the expectations that the more successful you'll have with your employees, the more success you'll have.
So I think that's huge. And I work here, like you, in the Bay Area, where we have Silicon Valley and, and we have all of the San Francisco tech sector. And in many ways they like to talk about rejecting many of the conventions and things like that. And yet the truth is, if you showed up in a three piece, vested with a tie, you'd look really awkward standing next to the guy who's wearing socks with sandals. Now, I don't want to endorse socks with sandals ever in my life. But, but I think even in those environments there's a particular, there's a way to dress, there's a way to fit in. And I think about when I sort of embrace that as a young person, I realize that the blending in is part of speaking the language of the community. It's not that I'm giving up myself. It's that I'm embracing all of the forms of communication in an environment, the manner of speech and what's okay and what's not good. And then if I choose to stand out for some reason with what I say, what I wear, what I do, all of those are communications, right? They say, here, know me as this. This is what I have to say and share with. So if I wear a wild tie or something a little bit unusual, or if I swear people who know me well know that from time to time, I swear to punctuate something. Well, that works in some environments and it doesn't work in others.
That's correct. That's absolutely correct. In Washington, D.C. where I'm heading next week, you know, I'm giving a speech and I'm starting to think about what I'm going to wear, because since I've moved back to California, my wardrobe's gotten quite a bit more casual, and all of those suits that I used to wear are no longer in my closet. So I actually am thinking ahead on, okay, I'm going to be presenting at this dinner, and I could come as my California self, but I'm in Washington and there is a certain expectation. So, you know, when in Rome.
Right.
And so that's when dealing with. That's my argument, when dealing with foreign governments and foreign cultures. A friend of mine said to me one time, and I just. I kind of was taken aback because it just rings so odd to me that she said, why do we always. Why do we always have to be the ones who change? And there's just so many layers to that comment. But I just didn't know how to answer it at first because some of it was so obvious to me. But that's not always true to everybody else. And if you have. I think that the point there is we have to come into a new environment, or any environment, a different culture, a different office situation, a different country. And we have to just presume that we need to adapt. And they're presuming, in many cases, they're presuming the same thing. Right. And I just find that other cultures bend over backwards for an American visitor or when they come to the United States, and we tend to sort of have our way of doing things. So I say, within your own culture, within an own company culture, the Same thing is that when you're interacting with somebody from a different company culture or a different client, or, you know, a colleague in a different company, when you're on the phone is trying to second guess a little bit what their culture's all about.
And you know, let me bridge this such a great discussion and let me bridge it to a prior topic and another one that you probably know too. Dave Rendell. Right? Dave Rendell is the freak factor. And Dave wears bright pink and he's a million feet tall and he's hilarious and he talks about embracing what makes you different and unique and all of that. And I think there's actually both. So like I get hired to speak in places and some a lot local and you know, a lot of my work is sort of western us, but then I get pulled around the world and in many cases they're saying, look, we want not only your topic and you, but we want all of that expression. We want the guy from Silicon Valley, from the San Francisco Bay area. We want that personification to come here. So in many ways then I, I am coming and I need to dress to represent sort of my native garb, which is like jeans and a sport coat in my case and a colored shirt. Right. So I will go into a place like that and I may not dress. And I've done some cases where I dress more as they do locally. And then I'm the one who actually isn't sort of being true. And so I've kind of got to this place where I am a little bit of myself, maybe adapted slightly for that environment. But then I just acknowledge that I'm different. Hey guys, I'm here. I'm Bill, I'm this, and I come from this place and I know y' all are looking pretty sudie here in London or the Middle east or wherever we are. And I'm sorry I'm in jeans today, but that's kind of who we are. And then I'm acknowledging both the difference in paying respect to who they are while bringing what they sort of paid for, which is that particular taste.
Let me give you a teeny bit of a twist on that. Just food for thought. So I don't disagree with you, but two parts to this. One is that protocol is a way of doing things. It's a methodology, it's a process, it's a decision making tree, to use business vernacular. So in protocol we always change it up. And so you say, well, what's the protocol here? Well, a guest, a head of state, a client or Whatever. And the seat of honor is usually to the right of the host. Right. If you're sitting in a dinner or something like that, or even at a conference table, which you're out of seat this. But what if that person, the guest, is hard of hearing in their left ear and you place them on the right? Then you're down and now you've done your homework because of a circumstance that is screaming for change, that meets. That has a reason behind it. And there's logic. So we used to talk about, you know, we make protocol up all the time in the federal level, because you have to now, at least you have a guideline, a baseline of decision making. Right. So you can extrapolate into everything to product development, to personnel, et cetera. As long as you make a conscious decision to deviate from protocol, there is an explainable reason there. Right. You can, you can give the reason. So, but that's point one. Point two is sort of a little bit of a contradiction on that, which is when you're going into somebody else's environment. So if I were to use your example of how you dress is this is how we dress. Right?
Right.
So I was in, I was in Saudi Arabia.
Yes.
And if I had that, if I kept true to my course of things, I, I wouldn't. Nobody would listen to me. Nobody would take me seriously because I wouldn't be dressing according to the custom that they were comfortable with. And therefore I would cut communications off right there. So that's sort of a very severe example, but in a more subtle form, if you were to say is to be so conscious as to make a deliberate call to say, I'm going to wear jeans because I have a message that I'm going to present in this format and I deliberately want to make this point.
Yes.
Then if it's going to achieve your goals. Right. So taking all of those kinds of the customs into. Into account and then choosing thoughtfully whether you're going to deviate from that custom.
Right.
You know, what's your point? Is your point to make. Make a point to them or is your point to connect with them and have them hear you?
Right.
Is it to have them respect what you have to say?
Right. Right.
So these are all those factors.
I think it's really, really great. I always make an effort to try to learn a few words and pronounce them correctly. But then at the same time, I have done a workshop in Saudi Arabia and I know that, or I've since learned that my particular style of sort of very bold authenticity and vulnerability is not so great in a public setting there, it's not bad one on one. But that kind of intrusive be all thing is just not a great fit. And so. But I'm a better fit in say neighboring Bahrain or in Pakistan.
Yes. And those are subtle differences, but for each of those countries there's not so subtle differences. Very distinctive cultures, very distinct, very distinctive expectations. And so you can take that and put that into the corporate world, into the inter office world. It's just you can scale it at any level.
So we've wandered in lots of different places, but I think that what we're talking about today is of real application for everyone, both for employees, for customers, for prospects, for partners in so many contexts. But it's really, it's about people. Right. And ultimately whatever business you're in, whatever line of work you've got, the area of expertise. But then at the end of the day, you've got to engage people, sell to people, serve people, employ people, partner with people and so on. And we want people to be able to talk. We want to create an environment that's welcoming so they feel comfortable. That builds the trust, that fosters and allows them to be known and respected and that lets them open up and that builds relationships and. And it's not about following a set of rules written by someone in a book 100 years ago. It's about thoughtfully thinking about the conventions and the expectations and then making a plan and adapting them.
Yeah, exactly.
That's beautiful.
You nailed it.
Such a great conversation. I hope people begin to think. And if you've listened and taken the things, well, there's an opportunity to go back and rethink everything from onboarding and welcoming people to the very first interview, to the way that we engage prospects, the way that we conduct our marketing, the way that we handle our customers, the way that we develop people, and the way that we conduct our meetings over time.
Exactly.
Shelby, can I point to any website links or the TED Talk or what kinds of things would you like me to refer to people in the show notes?
Sure. The ted talk is TEDx Napa Valley and you can look it up under Shelby Scarborough and civility as keywords and it should pop up.
Beautiful.
It's about 10 minutes long and I give a little bit of examples in there. Kind of like I did earlier today with some visuals.
Yeah, that's a good one to show back to the rest of your team.
Yeah, exactly. My website's practical protocol.com practical protocol.com.
Good. Yep. Well, thanks so much for being on with us today. And terrific, stimulating conversation. Of course. I always love connecting with you and we look forward to having you. I know you've got a book coming and we'll have you back on to talk about that project soon. And, and we'll talk a little bit about some of your other business things and in a couple future shows. So thanks again, Shelby, for joining us today.
Thank you very much, Bill. Talk to you, Sam.
