289: Debra Roberts — Communicate Effectively

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing? But you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have. Talk to Docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatant.com Bill G One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G Check it out. Today. We're talking about relationship and communication today, right? I mean, it applies to everything, but certainly our business relationships are much like the other and communication is a core of it. We hear about communication problems all the time. I'm sure you have communication problems. You don't understand other people and they don't understand you. These are things that we hear about all the time. That's the subject of our conversation today. Hi again, everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We're here every week with you talking to Experts, authors, gurus, CEOs, etc. About what it takes to grow and scale your business and the leadership required in the process. You'll find our show and more@scalingcoach.com or wherever you get your online content. YouTube, Stitcher, Spotify, iTunes, I don't know, wherever, like all over. Right. SoundCloud, I think we're there too. All that and more. But if you go right to our source, scalingcoach.com register there, we'll give you a copy of the book for free. The Scaling It Book. All right. I'm joined now by Deborah Roberts, who's going to talk to us about her work in communication relationships. We're talking specifically about this relationship protocol and the communication protocol. There's a whole course around this that she teaches. Going to share with us her approach to leveling up this whole thing. She's a regular Ink columnist. She's been featured in Business Insider and the New York Times. She's a licensed clinical social worker. So anyway, she's got a lot to share this.

She's busy.

Busy. Welcome to show Deborah.

Thank you, Bill. Happy to be here.

And you're in New York.

I am, I am.

Where you're mostly dry now.

Mostly dry. Yeah. We almost had a hurricane, but didn't, thankfully.

So skirted.

Skirted the hurricane.

Nice. And I'm here where it's smoky outside. Somewhat smoky. In Northern California. Fires rage not far away. We have now fire season is the end of summer.

Oh, wow.

It's tragic. I don't make light of it. I just. I suppose I have to have a sense of humor about the absurdity of life in the universe. So.

Yeah.

The randomness of it all. All right, so we're going to get into this a little bit. Talk to us before we get into the core work and communication relationship. Talk to us about how do you arrive in this work? Right. What's your background in this? Like, how did you come to focus on this?

Sure. Did you say, what is wrong with you? That might be my favorite question to date, by the way. Thank you. So when I was 14 years old, I had a good friend who had a drug problem. And believe it or not, at 14, and I didn't even realize I was in over my head. And at the time, I called an 800 number hotline to say to someone, I don't know what to do with this friend, but I think something bad is happening here. And that phone call changed my life because the person on the other end of that hotline made such a strong connection with me so quickly that I thought, how did she do that? And I had been in that situation a lot. I'd been trying to figure out what to do, and I was at a loss. And when I connected with this woman, she said to me, have you eaten dinner? How old are you? You're kind of in over your head, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I decided I want to be that person who can connect with people quickly and figure out how to be helpful to them. Fast forward. I became a social worker. I wrote a book. I took the information from all of my years in the trench and working with businesses, and I created this communication model that I'm now. I don't want to say trying to change the world, but when you hear how simplistic and basic and uncomplicated my work is, you can see why everybody should have it and know about it, because it's it. We need to learn how to communicate even when we disagree.

Yeah, it's really interesting you said what you said about this. Sort of original inspiration for me, anyway. I think there are these moments in life where we figure out who we are and what life is about and moments often early. Right. Somewhere between childhood and early teen years where something happens and we're like, oh, Shit just got real. And we lean into something, we discover strengths and we figure out survival mechanisms and how to get along and what we're good at and what we're called to and like that kind of thing. It's interesting.

Yeah. I didn't even. I don't think I fully connected the dots of obviously where it would take me. But I knew I wanted to work with people. I knew I wanted to be helpful in some way. And it's kind of cool when you look back on those moments and you realize they really were outstanding situations that changed the course of the direction that we choose sometimes, you know, and for me, it was a huge choice that that was. That came about from that situation. Awful situation, by the way.

Yeah, it's a. Well, lots of kids experiment with drugs and alcohol and stuff, as in that age. Right. Some and some earlier and. And some are unscathed and others are deeply affected and some are lost along the way.

Yeah, definitely.

On that light note.

I have happier things to talk about too, but we'll start there.

Oh, comedy and tragedy, like. Right.

We're.

It's all of it real. And so we were talking as we got ready to fire up the show about relationship and communication. Right. We're relating. And though in my world, the way we relate is communication, talk a little bit about, you were saying, one's the course and the other share with our listeners your work. A little bit of background in the work itself before we talk, stories that illustrate it.

Okay. Throughout my decades of working with relationships as a licensed clinical social worker, I'm also a trauma trained clinician. So I have a lot of experience understanding how trauma influences how we function. And I've also been a business consultant for decades. All of that combined led me to realize that communication shapes our relationships, it influences the quality of our lives. And I had a very simple approach that I'd been teaching for years, only to realize in my mind, you know, when things come naturally to you, you think everybody's doing it. And all of a sudden you realize that this is actually something I better do my due diligence about because people don't know this. And I started giving people tools, actionable tools, practical tools for initiating conversations, for building trust. And ultimately it became the relationship protocol model, which is it teaches you what's required to have a good relationship to communicate effectively. And it applies to business and to home personal use, and also these actionable, practical and everyday tools for how to have conversations, whether it's in the boardroom or sitting across from someone at the kitchen table. What I did was I then. So my website is the Relationship Protocol. That's the name of my book. And that's when I give talks. That's what I'm primarily talking about. But I created an online course, two of them actually. One for individuals and for personal use and one for the workplace. And that is called the communication protocol. And the Relationship Protocol is taught in a very concentrated way in there. So people but really get to live the model and apply it to their circumstances and learn how to become more equipped and more effective communicators. Because don't you think we all should know how to communicate? And we don't learn it at home. Most people, most parents didn't teach you or model it and schools don't have these courses. So I figured I'd pick up the ball and run with it. And that's what I did.

Well, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, have this internal battle. They have big ambitions, there's some ego drive to do something significant in the world, but then they also have to figure out how to work with other people, right? Can't do anything big on your own.

You just sneak that in there.

And then they're like, why do all these kind of people frustrate me? And these kind of people are a little bit easier, but they're still kind of annoying. And, and I have to figure out how to work with people because I want to get things done and that, you know, the majority are not like, oh, I just love hanging out with people and there might be things that they want to do and even the ones that are really outgoing and like being with people, as soon as they have to make something happen, then there's a tension, right? Like, okay, I love hanging out with people, but now I need them to do things and they're not doing what I want them to do and not behaving how I want them to behave. And, and every time we go back to this and we start to unpeel this and I'm like, oh, well, I act this way and these kind of people bug me. And then you start to look back and it's like the same version of relationship all the way back to their mom, dad, siblings, right?

It can be. I mean, and what happens is we get triggered by people who remind us of aspects atone something that we don't like. But even just in general, most people are conflict, avoidant or they just lash out to get rid of it. And who cares? It's usually one extreme or the other. Very few People are confident approaching a situation that doesn't feel good for them or that they know might not end well, they don't know how to approach.

I'm all super confident until reality starts to happen, and then I'm like, oh, this isn't turning out.

Now what do I do?

I'm not doing what I want them to do. All right, so let's share some of the stories and that kind of thing. One of the stories you shared with us is about a franchise owner, and so bring that to life for us.

Sure. So one of the concepts that I teach and I talk a lot about is commitment and the importance of showing up in a committed way. And when you have both feet in and when you care about yourself, the company, the reputation, something bigger than just, you know, my needs and what's going on for me, that people respond to that they. They feel more secure, they feel better. Well, one gentleman that I've worked with who took the course came away with this amazing feeling and recognition that he himself had not been, even though he was highly successful, that he wasn't sure he himself wasn't showing up in a committed way, that he wasn't communicating. He wasn't open, he wasn't transparent, and he wasn't telling his employees how valuable they were to him. He felt it, he thought it, but he didn't ever say it. And through conversations and understanding that after he finished the course, he set up a meeting with all of the owners and the employees, everybody that had anything to do from soup to nuts with his organization. A huge meeting. And he got up there and he apologized. And he said, I want to talk to you about commitment, and I want to promise you how I will start showing up. He said, in my mind, I was committed and I was showing up. But I'm going to show you that I'm committed. You're going to see me around. I'm going to be going more often to the franchises. I'm going to be communicating more with you. I care about how you feel, and I expect the same from you. I want to see you all show up differently as well. And it changed the entire culture of his organization just by that wake up call of understanding the true essence and the value and the outcome that you can get when you show up in a committed way. And you kind of demand that. That discipline and that dedication from the people around you. So that's a. I thought that was a really empowering story and a simple one, because we don't think in those terms. But when you give People, language, it can change so much.

So where did the impetus for that come from? What was the trigger that had him think he needed to go have a meeting like that and tell him something?

I think that a lot of times we're in our own world and we know, right? And we know, you know, we're concerned with ourselves and what we're feeling, and we're busy. And sometimes we walk into a room, we don't even notice the people around us. We all do it. And that's kind of how he was living. He took over a family business. He grew it, you know, tenfold. But he did what his dad did. And what happened was he realized that he didn't want to do just what his father did. He wanted to be better. And he wanted to. For the way the world is today, it is different. And this was pre Covid, but the world is different. And being able to show up and tell people with your words that they matter and that you care about them and that you want the people that are right below you to bring the same energy. He got energized by realizing the impact of his own behavior and perhaps the not damage, but unhelpful way that he had been approaching his business and the opportunity. A lot of what I teach are simple things, like a simple mindset shift, which is what this was. It wasn't a big deal. It was, hey, do you know what this means? No, Let me tell you about it and see if you institute this, the differences that can come. And so for me, I'm almost like on this mission. It's become a mission when you start to realize the lack of information that's out there and these simple shifts that can make such a difference.

Yeah, I get that. I think that in some cultures and in different times, we would say, well, I'll let my actions speak for me. And clearly your actions need to match your words. Right. And the actions do speak volumes as they. But I. But I think you're also speaking to the need to be pretty explicit about things now for people to see. So here's what I'm committed to, right? I'm committed to this. This is what you could count on for me. And that ought to match what you see in terms of my actions and also what I consider to be expressive of that. So if I say I'm committed, that kind of thing, you can count on me to show up once a month at everything, or you can come on me to show up once a day. They're all indicative of something. But if I Say I'm committed and I'm going to show up. And in my mind, once a month is cool. Your mind? I need to see you every day. Like we have a problem, right? There's no right.

Well, that's where the communication comes in. But to your point, a lot of commitment, commitment is connected to trust. So my actions and my words do have to match. I can talk the talk, but if I'm not walking the walk, then you're not going to see me as committed. And once that happens, trust is broken. And once trust is broken, then it's about regaining trust, which always takes longer than the act that you broke it with. I mean it always, you know, then you have a whole other process. But I think that what's important here is knowing. To your point, really is what is the definition of commitment for that person in that situation?

Yeah, the other thing I hear in there, I hear two other things. I wonder how you deal with them. One of them is people go around acting in particular ways that are fairly unconscious and they don't really know. They haven't done the reflection to know what am I actually committed to? There's what I say I am, what I think I'm committed to and what I'm actually committed to.

Yeah.

Seem sometimes a mismatch.

I think that's a really good point too because it's about self reflection and knowing where. How do I want to show up, what is important to me, how do I want to come across and making conscious decisions about how to move forward in the world. Not just moving and not paying attention to how other people are perceiving you. Because sometimes that does influence what's important to us. You don't even realize it's important that people see you as committed until you're not committed. And then all of a sudden all hell breaks loose and you're like, oh crap. You know, I, I didn't, didn't handle that very well. Well, we expect you to show up to meetings on time. That's a simple requirement that we have at this company type of a thing. Oh, I didn't know. I thought, you know, it wasn't important. Well, part of that is the company not communicating that. And part of it is I didn't think it was important so I wasn't showing up. So a lot of it is taking a self assessment and knowing what's important to your family. How does your family see you as showing up? It's the same thing in our relationships, personally and professionally and for companies it's knowing you Know what's the bot line for them? How do they need me to show up so that I can fulfill my obligations and be seen as an asset to this company? Go team.

So you're talking now, you spoke earlier about how I see the world and you're talking now about how I show up. And we use a practice that I learned from a guy named Fernando Flores to have people, leaders developing themselves, go get assessed by others. It's like a 360, but we actually have people interview and ask for some feedback. What am I good at? And not like it's the truth but, but that they want to know how there's perceived them. Because if you're, if you're, if you think you're perceived this way and you're acting that way like there's a big disconnect, how do you deal with that with people getting how they show up for others?

I talk a lot about feedback because it's very important to be willing to first of all to know how to give it, but also how to receive that feedback is a great way for us to learn about ourselves. You also see when you're giving feedback how someone handles stress if they are about collaboration and self reflection and growth. I love learning and getting feedback to make some tweaks and changes and show up even better next time. That's how you want all of your leaders in particular to be. The ones that are closed off, that are not comfortable with feedback, not interested in feedback. They're going to stay stuck in their hole and they can do damage to a company because the growth mindset isn't there, the personal mindset for growth isn't there and it has to be. And also I think sometimes people hesitate to give feedback because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings or they're too nice or they just don't think it's important because they don't value it 100%.

I am really interested in the idea of feedback but if I'm honest, I'd really like to just get a lot of praise.

Okay, me too. Well, we'll start. I would recommend starting there. Let's start by telling you what you're doing. Great. So then I engage you and then say but I also want to talk about areas that we could improve. It's always good to start with the good stuff.

Yeah. So one of the other stories you talked about was a couple of business partners and this is really common. I have this going on with teams all the time. I've got a couple teams this week, dealing with partner issues. Talk to us about your two business partners. What kind of this, what stage were they at? Like what was going on?

This was actually a legal company. They were lawyers with a huge practice, but they ran it like they were CEOs because they knew that that's really the appropriate way to run a business. But quite frankly, these two personalities could be in any situation. It could be in a, as I said before, like in a marriage. It could be co workers, could be any two people that have a differing approach for how to handle a situation. In this, it was two people who were very different. One was strategic and planning and rigid and needed structure and let's plan for this and then when we turn the corner, we have a plan for when the corner turns. And then after the corner turns we have another plan. So we would be like A, B, C, D kind of thing. Whereas the other person was more of a risk taker and more flexible and more open and he could plan, but he had more, let's look and see what's going on. And you know, he had more risk tolerance. And in the beginning it was great because, you know, they were like these two entities that could really go together nicely. But over time, as you know, like anything when problems develop, if you don't know how to resolve problems, things start to build and they started to separate. And by the time they came to see me and were recommended to talk to me for a consultation, it was because they could barely be in the room together. They have employees, they have clients, they have people that they have a responsibility to and they could. They were like, I'm not dealing with him. And that's who I met with. It was a very damaged relationship. They hadn't been talking for a while and they were good friends when they started. So that was the circumstance to which I met them. Want to hear what happened? Yes, I want to keep you on the edge of your seat. So what happened was I started talking to them about how they were very self focused. It was about how I felt what you did to me or how I feel about what you did. And what that means is in terms that I use, they were turned away. So they were turned away from like they're looking this way and the relationships that way. And so what happens is we're not paying attention. I don't really care about your feelings. I care more about my own feelings and your flaws and the problems that we have. I'm actually not interested in anyone else except what's going on for me in this Moment. And so my job was to help them realize that there's a bigger picture at stake. There are other people involved, not just them. And that either they were going to dismantle this business, which neither one of them wanted to do, or they were going to wake up and realize they needed to do what I call shifting your thinking and turning towards the situation. You don't even have to like the guy, but you have to be willing to turn towards for the sake of something bigger than the two of you. So for the sake of the company, for the sake of the employees, even like for the sake of your, for the sake of your business, you handle this tough customer, you turn towards him even though you'd rather run in the other direction. For the sake of your paycheck, for the sake of your marriage, as I always say, you're nice to your mother in law. So in this case, for the sake of, of don't smile when I say that. For the sake of your business. It's almost, it's not like, grow up, come on, guys. But it was essentially saying, this is a wake up call. You are about to risk this incredible opportunity of a business that you've built because of your own need to protect yourself and get ticked off at this guy. And so when I got them to realize that for the sake of something bigger than themselves, they could turn towards each other and value the other person. And I said, you know, you used to value each other, so you used to value your differences. You just don't know how to resolve problems and talk to each other in a respectful way. And you have to shift your perspective so that you can at least start to get on the same page that the company is more important than any of the BS that you two are pulling right now. And that's. I'm kind of a straight shooter, so. And it worked. And just from that shift of realizing I have to get. I can't. They both had to get out of their own way. And not that everything got resolved in that, you know, one conversation, but they were talking to each other. And this same strategy has been used in families where people have not communicated with each other in years, or in marriages where they're headed for divorce or businesses that are about to get dissolved. Everything from that to we're having an argument and I'm annoyed at you. It's the same thing. It's because you're important to me and I value you. I need to turn towards. So that was my little fix for them to step out of their own needs. And look at that. The picture, the bigger picture is more important.

I like that you connected it as well to family and romantic relationships as well. Because I know that when I'm having an argument in my family or my marriage, there is something that I'm unhappy about, something that I'm not getting, that I'm irritated with. And I'm focused on that. And I'm like. And I'm like, what the f is the matter with them? And like that. And if I stop and go, yeah, I'm not getting what I want. I'm upset here. But then if I also include what's it like for them, what's going on over there, it gets really interesting. Right. In the case of family and wife, for the most part, I love them. There might be distant family members that, if you're honest, you're like, yeah, I don't know, give or take. We love them.

Right.

And we care about them in our work lives, in other areas, in our communities, that kind of thing. I think there's much more of a willingness to, like, write them off. Like, whatever, you're out of my life. Like, I'm going to go around you, I'm going to bypass you. I'm going to crush you. I'm going to cancel you, whatever it is. Right. But I like that you said in service of something else, because while we might be willing to write off the other person, look at the business and go, yeah, but I'm really committed to something here. I've been working on this thing. I've got a lot of invested in this business in the interest of the business. I might want to think about what the hell is going on with them. What's it like for them? Why are they doing this that they're doing? Because it's perfectly natural for them in their world that they're doing whatever they're doing.

Yeah. And how it affects everybody else in that circumstance. So the two key elements of the relationship protocol model are exactly those two things. Commitment and turning towards you. Shift your thinking and you're more relational. And we do that in all of our relationships. We do it. You know, whenever I'm annoyed at you, I'm like, yeah, whatever. Even like that little moment, I'm turned away. But because I'm committed to the relationship that guides how I communicate with you, how I relate to you. And if we stay, when we stay turned away for a longer period of time, like these two gentlemen, then it gets dicey and we have to be reminded, oh, wait, I care about this person, or I care about the situation. I care about the circumstances. It's larger than me, and I need to wake up and realize that I can. And again, it's a perspective change. But every healthy relationship, every healthy relationship has commitment and has that turning towards mentality. And when it's not healthy or it's not working, if you think of all the relationships you're in in your life, personally and professionally, that work easily, there's a commitment. You know, you're both committed. You don't have to say it. You know it's there, and the other person matters to you. You know they matter and you matter to them. You know that's there. That's a given. When there's a question, then you have to say, am I not showing up in a committed way? Are they not showing up? Are we not being relational or thinking bigger? That's how you can solve these problems right away. When you're meeting with the people later on today or whenever you said you're having those meetings with the teams, I do this with teams. I did this with a Fortune 500 company that had teams that were operational teams and engineering teams and project management teams. And they were all going in 12 different directions, doing their own thing for the sake of their team to try to function as best they could. But they were colliding with each other because they had different agendas and different objectives. And after we met, we started talking about, you have to recognize that there are different places that needed to operate together more as a system. And also you have to be able to recognize that they also want to do a good job for the company, just like you do, not at your expense. So another thing that I talk about is benefit of the doubt. Can you give the team leader of the production team the benefit of the doubt that he's not trying to mess with the operations team, but that in that moment, he made that decision because it was best for him to do whatever he needed to do and it happened to affect your team. If I don't feel that you did it to me on purpose, then I can approach you and say, hey, how can we work together more collaboratively, more cooperatively? But if I'm ticked that, well, if you're going to do that, then I'm going to do this. Which is what happens a lot in business. We don't have that conversation. We make assumptions about other people's motives and the reasons why they've done something, and we create this story in our head, and then we relate to them that way. But in general, if you can stop and have a conversation, give them the benefit of the doubt, that maybe in that moment it felt like a good idea, and now they realize the impact of that decision. It's huge. Again, a small mindset shift. Give people the benefit of the doubt, that they're doing the best they can, they're trying their hardest, and maybe it messed you up, maybe it wasn't intentional. What a concept.

So I was working with a leadership team last week, and we were looking at their Gallup CliftonStrengths things, and one of the guys was like, hey, how come? Empathy is really low for me? And he's like, I'm not very. I'm like, yeah, it's low for me, too. And he's like, what does that mean? But I really care how people think. And I said to him, yeah, me too. I care how people feel and what's going on, but I don't naturally notice it. I don't, like, automatically and consciously pay attention to it when I do turn towards them, as you said, when I do think about, what's it like over there for Deborah? Why is she doing like this? Why is this? What's going on with her? And I think about that. I search for what it is that might be important to you. I look at, inquire. I think about that. It's powerful, and I have great insights. And, you know, and our relationship gets better, but it doesn't. I think some people, they naturally tell, oh, she's like, oh, she's upset right now. Like, they read it. They feel it automatically and consciously. Lots of us have to, like, think about it, like, at it, like, work at it. And that doesn't mean you'll ever get where it's automatic, but it's. But it's useful to engage that, right?

It totally is. And even what you're saying, the fact that you're aware of how you function and how you show up and where you might not be as strong in certain areas as others, and that you know what works to turn it around. That's super helpful, right? I mean, I can't make you this incredibly empathic person, but I can suggest that you do something that I call checking in with yourself, which means I want you to increase your awareness about yourself, and maybe you can use it to increasing your awareness about those around you, how you know what's going on with everybody around me. Can I do sort of this inventory? And am I missing something? If it's important to you, if you're in a circumstance where you might Be missing something in it, and the impact could be great. It might be worth it to do it. But I like what you said. You know yourself, you know where you're strong and you know that sometimes you might miss something. A great thing to do is to put that out there and to say to people, you know what I mean?

I'm missing something.

But I would say, you know what? I wrote an article for INC about a colleague who I adore, Mandy Ellefson. And it's all about how you don't have to be perfect to be the best communicator. And she has certain difficulties communicating. She knows she does. It's just kind of inherent in how she communicates. And yet she puts that right out there. And she works with these huge corporations, and she says to them, listen, if I start to say something and I fumble or if I miss something, please excuse that sometimes I can get caught up in my words. Now, she says that because she knows that really might happen and she doesn't want them to look at her funny. If you know that, look, I might miss a clue here. So if I do, just come and tell me. I'm happy to get that feedback. You've now covered your back. So instead of them thinking, boy, this guy, he misses so much, you know, you don't want to work with him. He misses all those cues. Instead, it's, hey, you know, he was upfront. That's transparency. I love that.

Yeah. So let's talk about. Let's expand the thing. One of the other stories you shared was about teams, how the whole teams work together. You worked with a larger company and teams who weren't getting along and talk about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the one that I was referring to is the one that I mentioned a moment ago, where you can have a small company where you have a few different teams or obviously a larger company, or you can even have the same interactions within team members. It's the same policy, essentially, going forward for how to handle it. It's a matter of understanding that the needs, again, the bigger picture is bigger than what's just happening within your unit and your department. So having a bigger view of what's important to us versus what's important to them, that we have different objectives, we have different timelines, we might have different budgets, and so we operate differently. And if you can figure out a way to work cooperatively by knowing whether you have meetings with the leaders to figure out what are our timelines and where are we going to run into trouble, you have a very different conversation than if people are working independent of each other and making assumptions about what your needs are. And therefore, I'm going to do this. And that's where everything clashes, and that's where everything falls apart. And the company in particular that I was talking about, I met with 200 people, and we ended up dividing them into teams, and we split up the teams so that people were on different teams, met with others so they could hear firsthand the struggles and the constraints that they're under. The time constraints, the budgetary constraints. Some of them like to move slowly. They didn't really like change. Whereas others were like, let's get this ball rolling and, you know, roll it down the hill. But they had to hear that because we're doing research, we're not doing manufacturing. You know, we have very different needs. And so opening up communication and understanding the benefit of the doubt that we are all in this together, we are a team. It makes people want to work together and want to be more cooperative. But when you just keep everybody in their silos and they don't interact with each other, and it comes from the top, it comes from the leadership, and it comes from above, you know, the big voice up at the top of how cooperative people are going to work with each other and how open they're going to be. But when you get companies that are more transparent and care about each other, we care about your team. We've slowed down things here so that you can finish what you need to do so that we all look good, there's nothing wrong with that. When there's a trust that gets built in, relationships and connections. And that's one of the things that I like to talk about, too, that you can get quick when you know how to communicate. You have better meetings, you can get quicker conflict resolution, you can create connections and communicate with ease. It changes everything.

Yeah, I hear that. I hear so far, a couple big things. I hear. I mean, you really started with the commitment piece of it, letting people know what you're, what they can count on, what you're committed to, why the nature of your interaction, where it's arising from. Right. And the second thing that I hear is turning to the other person, like away from your inward reflection, your. Your own head and looking over at this other person. Where are they coming from? What's going on with them, like that kind of thing.

Right.

Those are the big things. And then just now, you were talking about the benefit of the doubt, like, huge. Right. Giving people a break instead of being so sure that, you know, why they did what they did, where they're coming from, that kind of thing. I think that's really useful too.

I'll give you a great one. I do a 24 hour. I'll give it to your listeners. A 24 hour benefit of the doubt challenge. I challenge every one of you from now for 24 hours every important conversation that you have. And it doesn't have to be a big one, but every conversation that you're having, give the other person the benefit of the doubt, that they also want to have a good outcome, that they also want, that they're doing their best, that they want to get along with you, whatever it is that you seek, that perhaps they seek it too. Go in with an open mind, be curious and interested in what they have to say and see how that changes the interaction. See how it changes how open you are to communicating with them and what you get from them when you approach by giving that open benefit of the doubt. It's huge. It can make a big difference.

Go into the conversations where it's not all swimming and easy and just go, huh? They probably want the same kinds of things that I do, right?

Yes. If you approach someone, even the most challenging person I know of so many stories where CEOs have avoided conversations or firing someone who they knew they needed. The worst mistake is to not fire the guy you're supposed to fire. And in this situation, they wouldn't even have a conversation with them because they didn't know how to approach. But the best way to approach is. But hey, you know, I know that you want that this company is as important to you as it is to me. Start with joining with them, connecting with them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt that they don't either realize how they're coming across or maybe they're open to feedback. If they're not. Once you start the conversation, then you can go in a little bit of a different direction. But start, start by almost like you're going on a first date and be curious and interested about what they're bringing rather than showing up with big assumptions. Because as soon as we do that, we close ourself off. If I assume you're not going to respond, well, yeah, I'm not going there.

I found myself on the other side of that recently. I reacted in a way that somebody didn't expect and they were completely triggered and livid and just kind of started to explode. Later. I understood totally how they'd seen it and it was completely different than how it occurred for me or my Intention or any of that kind of thing. And they were as mystified and blindsided by the way that I reacted as the way that I was by the way they reacted to me. So I did something, reacted in a particular way. They, like, went crazy. Then I was like, wow, why are you going crazy? And, like, going off in different things. And after a little bit of explosion, I was able to say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's just unpack this. What had happened for you? What did I do? What did you see? What did you think? And they shared all that. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm sorry. I get that. Like, that's not my intention. That's not what I was thinking. That's not what that meant at all, what I saw. And here's what I was reacting and here's what I meant by that. And here's the thing. And here's what I really think about all of this and those people. And there was still a great deal of tension because we'd gotten both kind of triggered up. So it was hard to let it in a little bit. But the view of the situation and why it had happened, the way it happened started to get altered really quickly with that whole thing. But it really was a benefit. Like, wow, what is going on? What did I do? Like, how I was really curious. I was completely mystified. I was annoyed at having to deal with this.

Yeah, I don't blame you.

Where did you go? Why do I have to deal with this now, right now?

Well, but I'll give you a little tip with that as well. What you did is perfect. When you're in the middle of something like that, where it's going haywire, the best thing to do is to stop the action and say, wait a minute, we need to stop doing this instead of continuing on the content because you're not going to get anywhere. Especially you're saying you're triggered. It's not even just disagreeing. Sometimes when you're triggered, it's even worse because then you're somewhat irrational. But in general, you can stop and just say, I think we're having a misfire. Like, this is completely a misunderstanding. And then the best thing to do is to own your part when they say to you, well, Bill, look, I think this is what you were saying. You can say, I'm sorry that that's what you heard. That isn't what I meant. Give me the benefit of the doubt that I didn't mean it the way that you took it. Okay. And Then they say what they meant and you can say how you interpreted it. And you're giving them the benefit of the doubt, that they didn't mean it the way that you were taking it. And once we do that, sometimes depending on how invested we are and how we're feeling, sometimes, hopefully we can let it go. And that's also right. There is an example of the relationship protocol in action. It's about trusting intentions, giving the benefit of the doubt and resolving conflicts by owning your part. Even if what you did you didn't realize you did, you think they're having a ridiculous reaction. But if I own my part and I say to you, I don't want you to feel that way, geez, I'm really sorry that I made you feel that way, or I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Just by doing that, people have a lot of respect for that. And you're not doing it from a place of weakness. It's actually from a place of strength and intention. Tensions are really big.

Yeah, no, I in this case, I completely did what they thought I did. I reacted the way they thought I reacted. It just meant something different to me.

Whatever it is, though, it was a misfire somewhere.

Well, listen, Deborah Roberts is her name. The company. We'll put it up there in the crawl. We'll put it in the show notes thereelationship protocol.com that's where to go. And find out more information about deborah@therealationshipprotocol.com thanks everyone for listening. Big thanks to Lucy Summers producing our show. In the background, you'll find all our shows and more@scalingcoach.com or wherever you get it. Like subscribe. You'll get them every week. We put out a couple shows every week and so we've got lots of this and there's a whole back catalog on everything to do with people, strategy, execution, cash and the leadership required to grow your company and survive the process or even enjoy the process. Right. You'll find all that more@scalingcoach.com thanks also to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework, the original Rockefeller Habits. And to the folks at Podfly Productions who put our audio out each week, get it cleaned up, get the show released. Alby Burge audio producer Ian Kadena writes up our show notes to McGowan who proofreads everything. Thanks again everyone for listening for watching. Keep Scaling up. We'll talk to you again next time. Bye bye. Foreign Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that line has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.