Emotional Maturity with Christie Smith

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 talent to Doxa Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Oh, so the Coke 600 is one of NASCAR races. It's the 600 mile race and I can't imagine being buckled into a car with a helmet on for four hours circling a track, making the same turn again and again. Be kind of insane. But back in 2016 I started the show and for the last eight years I've sat in this seat, front of this camera, this microphone, more or less. And Today is our 600th episode and I'm so glad to do it. I'm glad to have you, listeners, viewers, that kind of thing along with us for the ride. And you know, we've had a lot of conversations along the way talking about your vision and strategy, getting the people right, the talent, the hiring, the engagement, influence and persuasion as a leader, developing your leadership and of course the whole roadmap for growing your business, getting the execution right and that kind of thing. This show is really about freeing you up as an entrepreneur and a business owner, figuring out how to get your organizations growing and in sync, growing an organization that you still love at the end of the day after you've gone from a handful of people to hundreds, even thousands, I think you should enjoy the ride. We spend so much of our time at work and you ought to have some fun with it along the way. There ought to be time to laugh and play with your people. Not just struggle with problems, not just be frustrated and disappointed with all that, but have a great full free life with all the ups and downs. Not everything rosy every day but, but being able to lean into the challenges and emerge victorious again and again. That leads me to our guest, Christy Smith. Christy let's bring Christy on the show.

Hey Bill.

So Christy has been coaching, advising Fortune 500 leaders for 35 years now. She's the co author of a book, How Distributed teams, generative AI and global shifts are bringing on, I'm paraphrasing now, the title are creating a new Human Powered leadership. And she's the founder of the Humanity Studio. She's done tremendous amount of work in dei, people analytics, workforce tech. She's been featured in the New York Times, HBR, Forbes, and she's recognized as one of the top 50 diversity leaders listed in Fast Company's Queer 50 for her contributions for inclusiveness in leadership. So I'm glad to have you on the show.

It is great to be here, Bill. Super excited to spend time with you.

You know, this topic is really useful and important to me. We'll talk about how you got into it, but I think like, emotional maturity. Right. Is our, is our focus, our topic. And again and again I'm reminded of the importance to look in the mirror, to deal with yourself first before you try to grow your team and the people around you and to get that everything that you got is a reflection of you, a ripple of you in the world.

Yep, yep. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, I came to this work, you know, fairly, you know, easily. It's in my DNA. Meaning that, you know, I'm. I'm the youngest of eight kids, so I grew up in a competitive marketplace. You know, you gotta brand yourself early when you grow up in a family that large. And you know, our, you know, our family disease was overachievement, so. But we spent a lot of time talking about important issues of the time.

You know, I love the overachievement. I love being busy as long as it's not racket. As long as it's like you're busy with things that you chose to be busy with. You're busy and productive, you feel good about it and you also have time for play. You know, I was telling you as we got ready to start recording how I was in Mexico last week and with friends and we were on the beach and we got to eat and with each other, like socially eat. Right. Like versus just consume.

Yeah.

And. And dance and do yoga and meditation every day and surf a few times. And like all of that, like that is sort of restoring ourselves. And then, you know, then now I'm back at the grindstone, talking to clients. Ups and downs.

Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's really important. You know, I've been, I was saying to you then that, you know, with the Humanities Studio, we have been working with leadership team and or leaders across industries and taking them away to a great location for two days to do some of what you're talking about is to restore, rebuild their own resilience, recover from being leaders. I mean, leadership is really hard today. Right. And doing that through activities like you're talking about, like walks on the beach or yoga or being in conversation, human conversations across a meal and not rushing, but also talking about how they can.

Help each other build community, understanding each other, appreciating each other. Sharing is different than I need to get something done. Can you help me?

100%. Yeah, exactly. And I've been pleasantly surprised at just how many leaders want the opportunity to take the time to do this right. And it really just speaks to how, you know, how difficult the path has been for leaders, their own transformation, and frankly, holding a mirror up like we were talking about, to the fact that they haven't paid attention to themselves and it's costing them.

While we're on the topic, before we move on to some of your stories, the place that I was at last week was Modern Elder Academy down near Cabo in Mexico. And Chip Conley was a recent guest on the show. We talked about the work that they do at Modern Elder and that program. So that's where I was. And you can check it out online. I also am. We're bringing back Chip to talk about what it makes to create a great team off site. Like, all the things that go into not just the agenda, but the venue and the experience and the holistic experience of all of it and how. How you make something great and. And any budget, right. Like, you know, for sure can fly to Mexico all the time to do something or go to another country, as I'm doing at the end of the month. But it. But there are lots of different ways to bring that, so we'll talk about that in an upcoming episode.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'd love to. I'd love to riff with Chip and with you on that, because I think that they're even building great teams. And how you do that has changed dramatically so much.

Right. Like, I mean, over time. But then all kinds of things accelerated and disrupted with Pandemic. First we can't see each other, Then we can't see each other. Then we're hungry to see each other. And then, like, everything shifted.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well.

And how we engage. Right. That's the. That's the. Or disengage. Right. You know, so the work that I do with leaders on these off sites, I actually take their cell phones during the day.

Yeah. I know a lot of coaches who do that. I haven't done that one Yet. But I, but I do get it.

Yeah, yeah, it is, it is very anxiety provoking for the first couple of hours and then it's like, oh, you know, it all depends on those first couple of activities you do with them too.

So.

Yeah, but I think, yeah, it's, you know, we have to make the space to hear ourselves.

I have done a couple off sites at places that had no wireless of any kind, like no all, no wifi. And it was unsettling for some of the people who went there.

Yeah.

Not a normal thing.

No.

Let's share maybe some of your stories. One of the, you talked about a leader at a big tech company on the west coast who was dealing with something. Post a big event in the world. Why don't you share that?

Yeah, you know, we, we, I, I came to writing this book and through many experiences of just leaders having either no time or a difficult time engaging with their employees beyond just ripping through an agenda all about the business.

Yes.

And I've done a lot of work with leaders this way. And, and so this is a great example, the story is a great example of that. I was with this leader who said, listen, I need some help. And I said, well, let me shadow you for a while as we do. And so I shadowed him in a meeting with his team Monday morning meeting right after the weekend, this was right after the weekend of the Parkland shootings, the schools in Florida, the kids in Florida here in the US and we walked into that meeting. Now, everybody who works on his team, the majority of people in his team are in their 40s, early 50s, have kids that are teenagers. And he sat down like he does every Monday and he had his agenda, everybody had the agenda. And he starts ripping through the agenda.

Yes.

And I'm watching everybody around the table and they're kind of blank faced. Right. Or they're trying to lean in and look at the agenda. And he's asking everybody to report out and what are they going to do? And they're doing that. But they were absolutely flat in their responses. And so afterwards he says to me, so how did I do? That was good. And I said, do you really think so? And he's like, well, what do you mean? I said, well, what did you notice in the meeting? And so we just talked about what, what he noticed and frankly, his own anxiety to get stuff done. Right. To get, get through the agenda.

Yeah.

And I said to him, you know, he got to the point where he said, well, people seemed really distracted and not into it. And I said, yeah, I said, how much do you think that that might be because of what has happened over the weekend? And those folks have teenage kids. And it is. If he had compartmentalized the weekend, as we are taught to do, right? We're taught to come into our organizations. As soon as we cross that threshold into our organizations, nothing else exists other than the work that we have to do. We're checking our humanity at the door. And the light bulb went on and he's like, God, I can't even believe I blew it. I didn't even think of that. And so that was a really good starting point to say, well, then what would that look like for you to build connection with your employees?

The humanity. Acknowledge what's there.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I think a lot of business people in any size company struggle with this because they're afraid to address one political point of view or one anything, and they're afraid of opening up a can of worms and then not being able to deal with it. And we've seen this again and again in some companies where it can feel for a minute like a free for all of different opinions and perspectives. And then people are like, oh, my God, now we're not talking about work at all anymore. So I certainly understand that reluctance. I think that's a really common thing that people struggle with, is how to find the balance, to bring up something. And I'm reminded, as you said, that, that I. I had been coached in a prior thing, a long time ago, there was a traumatic event in the world, and my coach at the time talked to me about, like, acknowledging something without getting sidetracked by it, allowing for it. And. And I had to lead a strategy workshop the morning after the election, way back 2016. And. And I. And I was in a politically divided city. So everybody, the whole country went to bed thinking the election was going to go on. Why they woke up, the news was different unless they were awake all night. And. And some people were excited. Some people were devastated. Right. People have a variety of reactions to it, but it was surprise no matter where you were, because it wasn't expected. And so I'm like, okay, now I have, I don't know, 50 people in a room to do a workshop on strategy in a city that I know is not one way or the other. Yeah, what do I do about this? What do I do? So I walked to the front of the room, I said, I don't know how you all are doing this morning, but I'm sure some of you are excited and some of you are Freaked out and everybody's a little surprised, and it's not what we're here for today. And people nodded and I said, so get out a piece of paper and a pen, and I want you to write down all the thoughts and feelings that you have. I just had him journal for like, I don't know, five, 10 minutes. And I'm like, okay, now fold that shit up and put that in your pocket. We're not dealing with that today. That is what there is, and you can take that up later. And it was like, super effective because then we just had a great day and everybody felt, like, respected and I didn't want to invite any conversation.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that, I mean, in that circumstance, that was a brilliant move on your part. Right. I think that acknowledging it A, is critically important. B, being really clear and transparent of what the goals of the day are and what we need to make space to focus on. Right. But before we make space, we need to. We need to journal. We need to either grieve, need to process whatever it is. Right. So I think that that's a great example of, you know, what we call in the book emotional mature leader. Right.

Term in psychology of bracketing. Right. And I think of that with exercise. Okay, let's take all that and let's just set that aside. Let's put brackets around that. Stick that over. It's not gone. We're not pretending it didn't happen. And the reason that I'm reminded of, of course, was by the time this episode airs, we will have had another election. And no matter how it goes, there will be people happy and people upset. There'll be surprises because it's. It's right. Split down the middle. Nobody can predict how it goes as we're recording this.

Yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, as I look at, you know, these kind of consequential elections or moments in our, you know, in our lives, whether that's an election or it's a hurricane or it's a. Some other kind of disaster or war going on, is that I think that we've got to acknowledge the stress, the fear. What is it that people are distracted by? What's the context in which they're coming to work? And that's really what we talk about is human powered leadership is really understanding and engaging in what is, what, what. How are people feeling with one hand tied behind their back because they're worried about these things. Right. And how as we as leaders have to be able to enter into that conversation not Necessarily the specifics. Right. But be able to be curious enough to understand the contextual, you know, context in which people are showing up at work.

Yeah.

And how it will impact them and their team.

I think that's. It's a really powerful thing. It's like people need to process stuff. They have feelings about stuff. What's going on in the world, what's going on at home, what's going on in their commute into the office. Like, none of that stays behind. We bring that along into the first meeting of the day. Right. And then people like, all right, let's get into it. And you're like, oh, my God, I'm not even done processing my kid's tantrum.

Well, 100%. Right. And. And I think it's why that.

Me?

Yeah. I think it's why we are seeing, you know, record numbers of mental health issues. I mean, you know, the mental health crisis in the world today and in business is, I think, the. The as grave or more so than the pandemic was.

Yes. Yeah.

And it's cost. I mean, it's a financial. I mean, if you just want to be complete brass tacks and, you know, put the emotion aside, it is costing us in low productivity and in disengagement of our employees. $8.8 trillion a year. Now. That's equivalent to Amazon, Microsoft and Apple combined. I mean, that's an enormous economic cost, which we can't afford. Right.

Well, I think about, like, you know, I hear a big number like that. And you're. And. And I know people will be going. Really is that much. But just yourself, look at how you are. Look at how you get displaced, dislocated when things go on in your world and how you are not productive and you go off to whatever you do right. In your body to deal with the things that worry you, upset you, distract you in life, like.

Exactly.

Things happen. And then we have our behaviors, we have our moves, we have our things that we do to avoid or distract. Right.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I, you know, I was in the towers in 9 11, and the very next day, I actually showed up at work. I completely put the experience, what I saw, what I felt, all of those things into a nice little box and compartmentalized it in my head. Right.

You were in the towers and then you left.

And then I left. Yeah. I got out. But then the next day, of course, the business, you know, I was working and I wanted to go help and, you know, so I went to work to see, you know, because we were still Looking for people. We were still trying to help people and families and all that kind of stuff. And. And you know, honestly, psychologically, I just shut. Shut it off. Right.

Yeah.

And so I went to go do. Now it took 10 years for me to even talk about that experience. But the stress, the anxiety. I was working in New York, so I was in New York. The distraction when I would hear, I mean, you know, in New York you hear horn every two seconds or you hear something, you know, like a truck bottoming out on a pothole. It scared the hell out of me. And I will say for that time, you know, I performed really well, but I wasn't all there and I was under tremendous pressure. So this notion of, you know, and this is probably why I am so passionate about humanity in the workforce and that we can't check our humanity at the door, that's just unrealistic. And to say as companies do that this is a productivity thing. We can't deal with people's motions. They gotta come here and do a job. That's what we pay them for. I think we've lost sight that people spend the majority of their time at work and work as a community. Robert Putnam talks about this. But it is as much a society and community as is our neighborhoods. So we have to create the safety and the structures in which we're really seeing people as full humans.

I think you don't have to be a therapist to allow for some humanity in yourself and the people on your teams. But allowing and acknowledging that they have things going on is a useful thing. Right? Like somebody's grieving, somebody's worried about somebody, somebody has got a family member in a late stage cancer, somebody has had somebody in a. A car accident. Like allowing the feeling for all of that and finding ways to process it, journaling it, just calling it out, being able to say, I've got this going on in the background, finding, like letting people move through it, name it, experience it makes a big difference. Just in, you know, let's, like I'm gonna have emotions whether I like it or not.

Yeah, yeah. And there is an appropriateness to how to handle those emotions. But this is where I think leadership has changed most dramatically in the last five years, is that we've had a pandemic really open up. Just our foundational, basic Maslow survival kind of insight, things at work and being able to talk about that at work. And I think that's a blessing. I think that's fantastic. What we've done though, is that we have not prepared leaders in how do you manage that? How do you talk about that? How do you care for your employees now? I mean, we've talked a lot about psychological safety. We've turned that into a program and initiative. Anything that is, you know, well, being, program and initiative leadership is about, as I said, you know, being insatiably curious about your people and making sure that you understand what motivates them, what they believe they're really good at, what their skills are, what their ambitions are, how they want to be a part of or contribute to a team. What does that look like? We as leaders literally don't have the time in our days to engage in those kinds of conversations. Or we're scared because we think now and we go to, hey, give me a program or initiative around that. Programs and initiatives don't solve for humanity at the workplace.

Yeah, look, their programs and initiatives aren't an evil, but they can't get out of control and they can't. Like, if you at your core are unwilling to acknowledge someone and emotional experience and humanity, if you're bottling it up, if you can't deal with it, then no program is going to overcome that. Right. Like, no amount of certain meetings and required training sessions is going to make a difference for the fact that the ultimate leader in a company is a cold heart.

Yeah, yeah. Then it becomes the responsibility of the organization to say, then how are you going to engage your employees? Or are you even engaging your employees? Is that behavior working for us?

Let's talk about inside and out. You cared about the head of HR at a big coast pharma, east coast pharma company. Talk about that.

Yeah. This is one of my favorite human beings in the world who I had the opportunity to serve for a very long time. And we were doing a project with her on a whole HR system implementation, a whole transformation of the organization and really modernizing that organization. And so we, you know, we started, as we always do in this project and, you know, all the stakeholders were bought in, you know, finance, the CEO, all of that kind of thing. It got to about, I don't know, halfway through, and all of a sudden the technology officer who had been on board was like, wait a second, I think we should take this over, because it was about to be a success. I think we should take this over. The finance person was challenging the cost, all of these things, and it was clear that it was a political hot potato in the organization, and. And it was really hindering the progress of the whole project itself. And so I remember going into the office of this chro and saying, okay, here's how we're going to battle this, you know, here's how we're going to address the cto. Here's how we're going to address the cfo. We got this. And she got very quiet and I thought, oh. And she said, no, not. She goes, you know, I've given a lot of thought to this. I have to be able to look myself in the mirror at the end of the day. And we are at an impasse in terms of what we value for this organization and it's coming through this project, this transformation. And she resigned. Now, she didn't just bail. I mean, it was a process and she did all the right things to make the transformation. But it was so meaningful because really what she was saying, and I've said this to companies throughout my career, is your insides got to match your outsides. Yes, personally, when you show up at work. But also from the standpoint of the organization and what its platitudes are around values and purpose. And we found this in the book. We found that what employees demand of their employers today is purpose, agency, wellness and connection. Those four things.

And really purpose, agency, wellness and connection.

Correct. Those are the.

The why of the work. The emotional center, some feeling like I can do something, like I have some choice, I have some power in the matter.

And I'm part of something greater than myself.

Uh huh. Uh huh huh.

Right.

Then what does wellness mean here?

Wellness is the safety. Yeah. I mean, wellness is. And you know, it's on a number of different vectors. Right. It's psychological safety, it's financial safety, it's physical, you know, opportunities for physical health, you know, all of these things.

And so connection is humans with humans. Right.

Like humans with humans. Yeah. I'm not alone. And how can we work together to create a greater outcome or live the purpose of the organization and its values? These are the things that in today's workforce and through our research we found are the top desires or expectations, not demands really of employees of their leaders. This notion of purpose. If I have an ESG program in my organization or I say I care about diversity and inclusion, and now I'm code switching because of legal things or what have you, you're not living your values and it's going to cost the organization.

I'm reminded of this. I was coaching a small company at one point and the CEO, after the first year of coaching, we had increased about 20%. That was not bad, but you know, not typical of our growth, but a good beginning And. But it was feeling like hard work to get there and harder still to go further. And. And I went and I met with the guy, and he talked about how he just. He couldn't figure out, like, how to motivate his people and what was going on and that kind of thing and the, like, the human connection side of things and their. Their fullness as human beings. And I. I said, well, what do they care about? And he's like, I don't know. Like, this one's like. He started describing, like, personalities and stereotypes, and I'm like, okay, like, what's the pick? And, you know, they were accurate personalities and stereotypes, but they made no difference. Right. So I'm like, well, I don't think you know what your people want. And we had time before our team meeting, so I just popped around the office for a few minutes to talk to a handful of the people, and. And I came back and I asked him about their interests. And again. And I'm. But now I asked about interest. I'm like, okay, who would love to buy their first home? Who's ready to start a family? Who wants to go back to college? Who's never taken a trip outside the United States? They had all these things that they deeply cared about were top of mind. Like, it didn't. I'm like, hey, how are you doing? What's going on? And what's new in your life? And no. And it. Boom. They all came out with, like, 2 second of scratching the surface.

Yeah. Yeah.

And he's like, I got no idea. And he might have had a guess on one of them, but he's like, okay, that's what your job is. See your people as whole people. Recognize their struggles and challenges and hopes and dreams a little bit. Like, not. You're not their guru, but if you want to connect performance increases, you got to connect it not just to some arbitrary amount of money, but about helping them fulfill a fundamental concern they have in life, like starting a family or whatever it is. Like, when they see advancing and stepping up is going to help them get that and have that be great, like, then they might do, and if they can't, then they should have a different job.

Yeah. I mean, I think that what you're illustrating is really in alignment, you know, kind of what we talk about and my own work is, you know, when we think about my bias, I guess, that I expressed earlier about programs and initiatives being the answer to all things is, you know, leadership starts with, hey, how are you? What do you care about? The very questions that you talked about. This isn't rocket science that you have to be trained on something to be necessarily a great human or a great leader. You have to make the time to just ask those same questions that you would ask to a buddy at a cocktail party or on the sidelines of your kid's soccer game.

Yes.

Right. What's happening in your life? What's going on? Right. And I think that while that sounds so easy, it really isn't for a lot of leaders. And frankly, a lot of leaders don't have the time because I don't know about you, but most of the leaders I talk about are either in zooms or teams meetings from the start of their day to the end of their day, even if they're back to the office.

Yes, yes. There's a lot. Even if you're in an office, there's still a fair amount of this.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. So really making the time, those emotionally mature leaders take the time to sweat over their calendar and make time to spend with their team, their team members, and not just the ones they like or, you know, are a reflection of themselves, but to the ones that, you know, are quiet and not like themselves and who may be diverse. I mean, I've had millions of conversations with leaders who are like, I don't know how to talk to a woman. I'm like, really? Just say hello. How do you talk to your wife, how do you talk to your kid, you know, your sister, those types of things.

And so, you know, context, I, you know, many decades ago, in what feels like another time in universe, I had dinner with a Japanese executive that we were doing business with and he's like, oh, you're going to be in New York, let's spend some time and that kind of thing. So we went out and my boss, for a number of those years, I had a couple of different women as bosses. And he, it was just mind boggling to him. He's just like, how could you work with a, for a woman? Like, that's saying women bring the coffee. Like, you know, and he wasn't a bad human. It just was his whole worldview. And I'm like, well, what does your wife do? And my partner at the time was a rising manager at a, at another big company and had an important, responsible job. But his, it wasn't in his, it wasn't his spouse, it wasn't his mom, it wasn't anything in his world. And the women who worked his office were very much like coffee getters and basic low level clerks and it was boggling to him, like to expand that view that someone was capable of something. I coached a guy some years later who had a person on his team who, I don't know, I guess I don't know how they would describe themselves then, but they were roughly non binary, right. Like they were in an in between gender. And you know, sometimes that can be like unsettling. You're not sure who or how to relate to a person like that. That's a common thing. And, and he just couldn't be with them and he's like, I got to get him off my team and you know, that kind of thing. And I'm like, okay, but what's it like for you anywhere else in life? Like, I could see why you'd want to do that. And it wasn't just that. It was like the whole, the person then with that disconnect also then wasn't working with the team beyond that presentation. And so it was just off and getting more off. And he's like, he started to look around and he started to realize in one of his relationships with a child and then with other people in his family and his friend circle, anytime somebody was a little bit off, he just like blocked him. And there was no way for a person who presented differently like this to ever win in that environment. There was no way to see past that, that presentation. And it's really normal, it's really common. We don't talk about it, we don't accept that that is like that because it's super not PC to say that. But, but he was, he was blocking any chance of them winning. And he saw that like really quickly, really open and insightful person and he's like, oh my God, this is really interesting. I have this issue all over my life with things that matter even more. So he's like, you know what, I'm going to keep them on and see if I can integrate them and make them a part of the team.

Yeah, yeah, great coaching. Because I do think, I mean, I think we have to know ourselves exceptionally well to lead, right. And we have to know ourselves beyond just the successes that we've had to get to that leadership position, the technical successes, because most leaders today are technical experts in something and we've asked them to go be leaders, but we haven't supported them in any way to figure out how to lead. Right. So I do think that, you know, the, the, the, the notion of this, this is what I've appreciated for so long about emotional intelligence. It was a framework for me to begin to understand myself. That really only happens through dialogue. You can't take an assessment and then say, great, I, I know, you know, I know who I am. You have to be in dialogue with somebody like, like the example you just gave. But I think that given the struggles of leadership today and given how difficult it is with, you know, leaders today are not just leaders of a technical, you know, part of the business or P and L or a fiduciary. They are actually global citizens. And so in, so we need to move from emotional intelligence to emotional maturity. Which is really about in this instance is hey, it's not about you. It's this suspension of self interest. That's what leaders need today is it's not about you. It's how well you know the members of your team, what the headwinds are, what the tailwinds are, how you construct that team to optimally create a culture of high performance. So things like, you know, that switch from, you know, emotional intelligence to emotional maturity, things like, you know, suspension of self interest, insatiable curiosity, contextual competence, obsession with culture and, and driving culture through making sure you're putting the team together. I mean we've, we've regaled coaches, great culture coaches like Coach K or you know, the Chicago Bulls when, when Jordan was playing. What those leaders did, what those coaches did was put those players in positions where they were most gifted and great.

At and great alignment here with a very well respected, established concept. Servant leadership. Right, sure. My leadership derives from serving both the team and the mission or the purpose of the organization. That's the, the, the where it comes from. And I, I serve that team and, and our purpose here and that's putting everything before yourself. Right. But then you also have to deal with yourself. I have thoughts, I have feelings, I'm a human being. I have biases, I have like, ah, like it. And you have to take a look in the mirror.

Well, yeah, I mean it's an I, I think leadership models, you know, have evolved and have had to evolve. I mean Certainly in the 70s and 80s we had servant leadership. Great, great things about that today. Then we had emotional maturity. I mean emotional intelligence. Now we have emotional maturity. It's, it's the plus plus plus. As you know, the, the leadership. Yeah, they have to build on each other. And as leadership has become more complicated, we just need a different model.

Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. And I think that this idea that you had in the, in the story you just shared, I think is really relevant. Is it real? Can you stand for it is, is it something on paper and something else in reality? I've met with countless companies, some very well known companies who said they were about one thing when in reality they were about something else entirely. The, the, the best one that I know is Enron, the energy trading company who had integrity listed as one of their company values. Right. But, but they didn't ever have listed like winning is everything or for somebody to win, somebody has to lose. Right. Those would be probably the realities in practice of the company, like a toxic competition that was unchecked and that ultimately led to that disgrace. But is there a connect between what the company says and if, and if there isn't, if the company's committed to something else, then you can't, you just, you can't push that rock up the hill. It, it just always comes back.

Well, I think that you know, where we see you know, the, this evolving is, you know, listen, the, the role of social media, the access and democratization of information that you can get about companies has really made employees or prospective employees that much smarter about does a company's inside match their outsides. And different generations care more about different things. So you look at Gen Zs, they're making decisions about companies that they are going to join and work for based on if that company's values or purpose is actually a living purpose and living value. Now interestingly, boomers who are at work are now questioning and valuing the same thing as that as disease because they're saying wait a second, you know, this is, I'm thinking about my legacy. I'm thinking about, you know, what matters to me in my own transit. Yeah, purpose matters to me. I mean how many leaders, Bill, have you worked with who are five years out from leaving in an organization who all of a sudden get religion and say I want my legacy to be about the people, I want my legacy to be about the great culture I created.

And I think that at the beginning and the end, just not in the end.

I think that's true. But I, but I do think that there is this collective kind of movement to understanding that that has to be a career long question and that you can't manufacture and especially the exposure that that people have and companies have through social media is such that, you know, brands and reput individual reputations can really be damaged.

Yeah, well, past episode David Meerman Scott Fanocracy, his book about marketing and drawing a tighter connection to your customer base, turning customers into fans and, and customers that you can't fake your way through that Right. Like if you screw that up, if you, if you drag a passenger kicking and screaming off an airplane to suit your mismanagement, like your brand's toast. Yeah. So you're not a fan anymore. And, and, you know, a loyal flyer stops flying that airline.

I also think that, you know, part of that too is we have to understand that today employee satisfaction or employee engagement and customer engagement are actually inextricably tied to one another.

Yeah.

Your employees are your customers today. And so I think that, you know, companies have over indexed marketers, you know, perhaps too over indexed on the external. And the story that we're going to tell of great customers and how much they love us and not done the work to say, wait a second, do our employees feel that way about us?

Yeah. What went into that?

A lot of the work that I do is, is how do we get alignment there.

Yeah. Before we run out of time, you had one other story that I think is great about self awareness, knowing yourself. Right. Which is where the emotional intelligence begins before you can move into maturity and beyond you. Like a practice that I've seen and used variations of this idea of describing yourself in six words. Talk about that at that company. Yeah.

Or, you know, I will give this shout out to Michelle Norris, who was the great NPR commentator and wonderful interviewer and wonderful person. She started a company that she called the Race Card Project, which, which was this notion of being able to describe yourself on a postcard. And I had the great privilege of working with her and adapting that practice into an organization and still do this with companies today, which is, you know, describe yourself in six words so often. And this goes to agency we were talking about earlier. So often we are, we are defined in our organizations by what we look like, who we love, you know, also, you know, where we came from, whatever our position, what have you. Right. And if somebody looked me up, they would see exactly the things that you rattled off in the beginning. And yes, while those things are true about me, it's not how I would define myself. I started our conversation by defining myself. I'm the youngest of eight kids. That defines everything about me. It defines my leadership, it defines my values, it defines everything. And it is something that people lean into. Right. If I describe myself in that way, people are like, oh, you must be Catholic, how many boys, how many girls? Right. Where did you grow up? What?

Or Mormon with that lesson, or.

Yeah, exactly. And so what it does is giving someone agency to define themselves in their own words allows us to lean in and find common ground. This is Very true. I've rolled this out in companies, through their websites, electronically, in groups with people. And what it does is it begins to set the foundation of we have more in common than we have apart. I did this in an organization where it fundamentally changed the way people began to interact with one another and who they began to hang out with at lunch. It was no longer homogeneous in this regard. It was more about, oh my God, I gotta learn more about you. And you know, it might be a straight white male for me, it might be a black woman for me, it might be. But it began to break down those, you know, those structures of, oh, Christy's a white woman who's queer. Where most white men will be like, what do I do with her? How do I talk to her? Much like the example that you gave before of the non binary.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What am I supposed to do? But if we give people the opportunity to have agency, to define themselves in their own words and the story behind that, we create a greater sense of curiosity about each other's humanity.

Yeah, know yourself, see other people, have room for all of it. I think being surprised, being able to be surprised and curious makes a massive difference in all of it, both with the identity but also the experience of the person. Including, like, for me, mirror work is one of the key things that's really critical. Take a look in the mirror. What's over there today, right? Oh, he's excited today. Okay, good. He's worried today. He's sad. Like dealing with that on a daily basis. We've talked about a lot of things. I think we have a link to throw on the screen for you. And Essential. That's the book, right?

Yep.

Amazon Everywhere.

Amazon everywhere and smith-monahan.com is where you can order it. And yeah, it's been such a pleasure to spend time with you today. So thank you.

Really pleasure. Thanks to you. To the folks at Storeon who get our show, we've worked with them for the last year in producing our show. To my friend and mentor, Verne Harnish, who created the whole scaling up framework that we use. If you'd like to know about or find our past shows or our monthly workshops or coaching programs, any of that kind of thing, you'll go to scalingcoach.com where you'll find all that and more, our website. Until we talk to you next time, keep scaling. Bye bye. 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 Align 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 Align. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill Gates one more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.