#H2HChat Transforming Leadership Architecture with Hendre Coetzee

There we are. We're back for another H2H Chat. Welcome, everybody.

Good morning.

Hello. Hello.

Sorry.

We're excited to be here for another H2H Chat. And we're just back now from another week being away. What you might call ski week, even though we didn't ski.

It was snow week.

Snow week.

Yeah. How about that?

It was cold week.

It was freaking freezing in Colorado. I don't know how some of you people live there. It was really cold.

But we love Colorado. It's such a beautiful place, and we got a chance to visit with lots of fun people. I think Maya Mia is on here. We know Maya's on here, but Mia is on here, and Mia hosted a wonderful party last week, and called the Kramers are coming to Colorado party, which was really nice to hear.

No one's ever done that for us before,

and I'm sure they won't do it again.

I don't even know why that's an

occasion, but it was a lot of fun, and thank you, Mia, for doing that. Really, really enjoyed meeting new people as well as old friends and online friends we had never met before.

Yep. And also huge shout out to Lexus. Thank you so much. Mia helped to arrange a just sweet, bad AF car SUV that Lexus gave us for the week to play around with. And it was just so cool. Beautiful midnight blue color GX470.

It was a G— it was a nice car, that's for sure.

It was beautiful. So thank you, Lexus, for that.

Yep. And so now we're back into the swing of things. We've got HAA Chat here today, and I know it's going to be good. I know, you know, I told you guys over on the Human to Human Marketing Facebook channel or group that today was going to be something special. And I've been promoting this a little bit differently than I promoted a lot of my other things because I have an intimate— and Courtney has an intimate experience with this person.

That sounds dirty.

I'm going to clarify that by saying that, you know, we have Undergone some, some really fun and exciting changes over the last years, but even more over some really business. And we were able to work with Hendry. And thank you, Hendry, by the way. But, you know, we'll get into that here in a little bit on how we transitioned that thinking. And the thinking is really what we're going to be talking about today. It's the thinking that can pivot. And, and so, you know, without further ado, I've got— I've I want to introduce Hendre. Hendre, welcome to the show and give everybody a little bit about yourself.

Well, good morning. Thank you, Bryan and Courtney and all H2H folks online. So excited to hang out with you. I live in Orange County, California, in Irvine, and originally I've been here for about 16 years now and originally from South Africa. Had the opportunity to grow up there, lived in Europe for a while. You can certainly ask me more questions about that, Bryan, if you think it's applicable. And moved here about 16 years ago. I do, I've got a number of different interests that I do, but I, I do, I'm known as a coach or as one of, you know, the folks that go around and basically a shrink for business people. And, and basically I help people make huge transitions or transformations, whether it's in their organization or as an individual. And together with some partners I have, we do executive search in a different way, and we help organizations design leadership architecture and really figure out how do we get people to optimize their performance, how do they shift or pivot, as you call it, in a highly volatile, dynamic environment. And I've spent quite a bit of time with sales folks. a lot, and not only sales folks, but quite a bit of time with sales folks in kind of the H2H, B2B, high technology world, and really loved what you said around the H2H, Sid, because that's really what I teach people on is, you know, if you can't be human or authentic or connect with people, the sales is not gonna get there anyway.

So anytime you say human, that's what happens. And I wanted to, uh, I should have warned you ahead of time that you're gonna get an applause when you say human. Um, real quickly though, Hendre, I just want to do a real quick sound check for everybody out there. Um, if you don't mind, hold your microphone away from your shirt because I think though it rubs just a tiny bit and that's where the noise may be coming from.

Is that good?

So I think, I think we're all set there.

Yeah, thanks so much.

Yeah, just as long as it doesn't hit, we're good. So, um, so anyway, I wanted to just dive right in and let everybody know, you know, a little bit about Hendre before he started helping companies. There's a piece of Hendre that I know about, that Courtney knows about, that I think you guys would really find special and spectacular because that's part of the piece of the puzzle here. Would you mind talking about some of the stuff that you went through in South Africa, I believe, and what you did there to help shape your life and your career?

Absolutely. So, um, initially when I was in high school, I thought that becoming a priest would be really kind of the way to go. My mother was Dutch, or is Dutch, and so she was not so into the idea that I was going to go work for God because since he didn't pay that well, um, so she's like, why don't you get a regular degree? So I went to both seminary and regular university at the same time in South Africa, and while I was at And I did obviously a degree that was going to help me forward my life. I did a degree in philosophy. And so studying both theology and philosophy together at the university, it was an amazing time. It was just a really epic time in South Africa because it was the time that Nelson Mandela had been freed from prison and we were about to enter into the first free elections in South Africa. So where everybody had an opportunity to vote. And so in '92, '93, I was on the student body government at the university, and part of our responsibility was to host all of the politicians who wanted to do a political rally at our university. Now, mind you, I was at an Afrikaans-speaking university, which was considered at least the language of the oppressor, and this was the first time ever that somebody from the African National Congress, which at the time, or previous to that, had been banned, was able to come and speak at a, you know, regular university like that. And so in 1993, I had the privilege of hosting Mr. Nelson Mandela at the university, and I got to meet him. Now, you know, he was a very, very tall man, at least to me. He was 6'3, 6'4. I'm 5'9, so he's obviously taller than I am. And he was a very kind man. He came out, he spoke to me in my own language, in Afrikaans, which was unexpected. asked me my name, my major, and then asked me a very poignant question, Bryan and Courtney. He asked me, what's going to be your contribution to the new South Africa? And I had nothing to say. I had no words. There was nothing, you know, it was really just a question that floored me. And I felt ill-equipped to say, because at that point I wasn't thinking that way. I was only thinking about how, you know, I think for most people at that point, we were trying to find a way to to protect ourselves and defend what was there as opposed to design what the future is going to look like. About 3 months after that day, I got an opportunity. The government reached out, the new government, and said, hey, we're looking to do integration between Black and white youth at a provincial level. Would you be open to considering being trained as one of the facilitators? So myself and about 20 other folks were trained as facilitators to do large group awareness training where we would bring people from all kinds of different backgrounds together in a room and design the future together. And so this was interesting. South Africa has 17 different tribes, 11 official languages, lots of distinctive things. Of course, they're all human. There we go. Where's that clap there?

I was slow on the draw.

Yeah, I was a little slow. And, and, um, and, and, you know, of course my last name, Coetzee, was the same last name as the chief of police during apartheid. I'm obviously a white guy, so I was not winning any friends and influencing people at that point when I walked into a room. And so very quickly learning how to create an experience of authenticity, owning my story, owning my contribution to how things had come to be, and then being willing to hear where people are at, and at the same time managing a conversation into what does the future look like. And this became kind of the groundwork for everything that I've done since then. I had the opportunity then, after working for the government for 2 years, doing a lot of mentoring and coaching to small to medium enterprises and entrepreneurs, moved to Europe and for the first time started working with large organizations who were going through transformation, who wanted to look to the future, you know, organizations that needed to finance organizations that needed to get online. This is in 1999. I worked for the Virgin Group for a year in London, all around technology, and really the same premise. People get to a certain point where they have a measure of success, or there's a turning point, a pivotal turning point that they need to shift. And it's very hard to explore the future for people if they're holding on to the past. And so part of my work is to acknowledge the past, acknowledge where things are at, and then support people in developing the mindset and the skill set needed to design a future and then actually go after it. Now, you know, obviously South Africa's had some phenomenal experiences and good stuff happened. Not all perfect, certainly some real challenges that lay ahead. But, you know, I find interesting is when people lose perspective of the future, they don't act well in the present. And most of the time people are looking for retribution or for something that they feel like they're owed in the past, and those folks just never get forward. You know, it's kind of like driving a car, Bryan and Courtney, looking in the rearview mirror, right? A rearview mirror is extremely important. If you've ever tried to drive a car without one, It feels uncomfortable and dangerous. But the rearview mirror does not provide you with direction. It provides you with perspective, but not direction. And so I help people manage that bridge between perspective and direction, and then design actions around that. And that's really what I've been focusing on for the last 16 years here. And we get to do that with individuals and organizations, whether it's an executive search and the company saying, help us build a team. And we need to move forward and we need forward-looking people. Or whether that is with, you know, leadership coaching with individuals. And we do it more of an architecture for the individual. Lots of fun stuff to do to help people, you know, figure out what it is that they want and then design a way to get there.

How do you, how do you work with people that are hard to work with?

I

refer to that. I mean, that's the challenge, right? I mean, how do you get people to Right. When, when they don't want to make a change and it's reliant upon the company or that— or in your, in your case, early on in your career, when a government or a city doesn't— the people don't want to change, but it has to change. How do you get people— and I may be stating this incorrectly because maybe you can't get other people to change, but, but what, what do you do to get change to happen?

You know, really there's 2 reasons people change, right, Bryan? One is they're so clear about what they want, they'll do anything to get there, right? So some part of it is helping people see what the future could look like. And that is really the, you know, I would say that's 10-15% of the population change because of innovation, possibility, opportunity, looking forward, you know. And I think people look Some people look towards the future or look towards their life from a possibility perspective, and I'm always looking to create that. The other reason people shift is because they hate what they have so much they'll do anything to get away from it. And so part of what my job then to do is have people recognize what they've been tolerating. You know, if people are resistant to change, it's because they're holding on to something And, you know, I think many times in the organizations that we work with and that I get to work with, people are afraid of change because they're afraid that if they change that they become obsolete, right? If I'm going to make a shift, is a robot or some type of AI or some type of software program going to take over my job? Is there ever going to be a job for a human anymore, right? And so—

I can't believe we just clapped humans. Humans not existing, it's kind of a weird question.

No, the question is, are there going to be humans anymore? And so, you know, I think that's a fear. It's a legitimate fear that people have that if I make the shift that the organization wants, then I'm going to be obsolete. I've done multiple ERP rollouts or program rollouts with a CIO who's heading up some type of change program, and people are afraid. And so part of what we want to do is we want to expose the fear. We want to really take a look at what is that fear and where does it come from. And then bring that back to responsibility of, hey, if there's going to be changes, what could you do to be different? You know, a funny thing is when people feel like they're, hey, you know what, I am, you know, I'm at a certain age, I don't know if I can learn anymore. And we have some fantastic research that shows that there's neuroplasticity in the brain, that it doesn't matter how old you are. You can actually learn certain things. And then there's certain types of environments that cause people to shift more. So one of the things that we did in South Africa, and one of the things that I currently do with people, is I do what I call immersive-style engagement. And you guys will know this, right? So what I do is I'll certainly have a conversation with people, and we'll certainly talk through things. But, you know, it's— this is not a therapy-style environment where we're just taking a look at, you know, what are you feeling, what are you thinking? We really then go and make it a very dynamic experience where we take what the feelings are and the thinking is, and then we go and do a physical action that is a symbol or a reflection of what's happening there. If you take a look at TV shows like Undercover Boss, I mean, why does the organization shift? Because the boss did things that they never did before. They go and do things that they haven't done, and so they get exposed. There's a There's 4 parts to it. There's an immersive action, which means they go and get themselves immersed into something, and there's a big shift in it. And basically, from a brain perspective, you hijack your brain, right? It's called switch cost, right? And it bypasses— I don't want to give you a whole biology lesson on this, but in our brain, we make decisions based on first impressions, right? And that's called your amygdala, makes this first impression. Here at the left prefrontal cortex of your head, if you put your hand on your head on the left side of your forehead, that's where your deep decisions are made, right? So right there, it's called the left prefrontal cortex. That's where your deep memories are. That's where you make decisions. And our impulse decisions are not made there. They're made by this amygdala piece, which is what happens when you read your cell phone every night. You want to get to this place right here, and that, that requires you to have this immersive action. So, you know, I have taken clients indoor skydiving in order to have, have a powerful experience. We go ziplining, we, we do bonfires on, on the beach, or we do something that symbolizes the shift. And what happens there is you have a powerful brain experience that is Immersive, it's emotional, it's connected to a memory, and then it's connected to somebody else. It's a shared experience. And when you have those 4 elements, right, where it's deep, deep action-based experience, it's a memory, it's emotional, and it's a shared experience, based on all of the neuroscience that we know, that becomes a higher probability for people to connect. So if I bring it back to the Undercover Boss thing, right, Here the boss goes in, he hears stories. He doesn't just hear a story, but he actually works together with that person. They're actually doing something together. That's very important. It's not important just to hear your people's stories. Go out and work with them. And then when you have that emotional connection and a shared memory that's built out of that, it transforms someone. And so when we work with organizations, we, you know, we do that type of stuff. It's not just intellectual learning. It's not death by PowerPoint, or that type of stuff. There's a very dynamic environment that we do, and the same when I'm building a leadership architecture or we're building a team and we're doing executive search. We do all the things that all the regular search firms would do, but we're about building that organization up, really building that leadership, and so we do this immersive-style work.

Wow, first of all, you are the wisdom bomb king. I can't even type fast enough in order to get all of— capture all the things that you're saying and, you know, continue to blow my mind. And I know you— we had that same experience with you. You helped us walk through that. Our shared experience was the bonfire on the beach, being able to really let go of some of the things that we were holding on to in order to move our business forward. And I completely agree. So sometimes, though, within an organization, there's more than one person that needs to shift. So do you want to talk to us about the— well, first of all, what's 11 inches,

Hendry? So, so yeah, before we started here, I talked to you about my biggest work or biggest challenge that I do is is working with the 11 inches between somebody's head and their heart, right? And that's, that's the, that's the distance. I always say when I'm working with people, I got to work with your head and then work with your heart in order to get to your hand, right? Which is, what are you thinking? What are you believing? And what are you doing? And, and most people come to a coach or, or to successful folks like yourself and they say, hey, what should I do? And, and they're looking for a 5-point plan, right? They're just looking, hey, give me, just give me the information. I think I'll do it. And And the reality is you have Google for that, right. If you want to know what to do, just Google it, right. How do I start a business? How do I do social media? Somebody's written a 5-point plan. The challenge is, just because you know what to do doesn't mean you're actually going to do it, right. What's the distance between actually knowing what to do and getting it done? How do I generate commitment, true commitment and effort and momentum? And so that's the work that we do. So when we're doing an organization, and you're right, Courtney, when people, when organizations want to change, it's, you know, you can't just have one person who wants to change. It's really important for us to do the work and take the time to work with the key stakeholders, whether that's the board, the senior executive team, but we want to make sure that we have people on board. And, you know, I'm not afraid of tense scenarios. I think resistance is fantastic when people resist it. it really reveals something. And here's a kind of a golden rule for me. I love people who are contrarian. So if people have a different viewpoint than I do, they're going to see things that I don't see. I need them on the team. So resistance is not negativity in a whole perfect world. You know, some of the work that I got to do had to do with hostile scenarios. And, you know, one of the ground rules they say is never resist somebody's resistance because you're going to get shot, right? So I recognize the resistance. We want to objectify that conversation and say, well, that's interesting. I can see that you're not bought into this. What is— what's your concern? And I don't take it personal, right? We— in fact, I want to align myself with that person. If we have a whiteboard, we could put it up on a whiteboard and tell me what your concerns are. And, and I think that's kind of the ground rule for anybody who's wanting to evoke change, is don't take other people's resistance personal. Contrarian people are good. They add value. They help you see things that can't be seen. A very big challenge, though, is cynics, people who are cynical. And there's a distinction between cynical people and contrarian people. Contrarian people have a different viewpoint or kind of access to the future than you may have. A cynical person is somebody who feels like they've been owed something in the past. So if they have an old grudge or an old hang-up that hasn't been met and they don't want to move forward because you haven't addressed the things in the past, that's very hard to, to move on with. And so I find that with cynical people who feel like they're owed something in the past, or they were victimized, or somehow they got screwed over, That's very difficult to work with. And so when I'm working with a team, we, we need to make sure that we don't have the cynical people moving forward into the future. That does not mean this— the contrarians, the people who have a different point of view. I want every point of view available. I need them. So being able to make a distinction between a contrarian and a cynic is very, very important. So we take our time to recognize where people are at. And for the cynics, we do the best that we can to give them a good walk away. You're never going to please them because they're going to have something, some beef about the past that was unmet, you know, promotion, a salary increase, or something that wasn't met. And so what we need to do is we need to create a ground zero. We need to say, this is how it's been up until now, and now we're going to move forward. And whatever concern you've had over the past, legitimate, we want to be able to hear it. But we also want to leave it at this demarcated point that says, today, February 27th, that's done. Now we're going to look at the future. And you certainly can have a different point of view, share it, but it's future-minded. If you bring up a conversation around what you were owed in the past, that's not going to work. And so, big challenge, but certainly doable.

So, Hendrik, before we actually get into the Q&A portion, I wanted to make everyone who's new here aware that if you're not on Twitter, use the hashtag #H2HChat. That's H number 2 H chat on Twitter. And you can follow along with the conversation that's going on. Also, in about 10 minutes, we're going to start taking your questions and asking them of Henry. So please make sure that you're putting your questions out there so that we can start collecting them. We have a few already. And then also, I wanted to— before we start taking the questions, I wanted to dive in on one piece of the book that really kind of grabbed my attention, Hendry, which was the art of effective asking. It is such an easy thing to say and a hard thing to do. You know, how to ask somebody something correctly or to do it with a way that you're not going to jeopardize the question itself or make somebody feel, you know, like it's not gonna, it's not gonna come across right. Or, or perhaps you're asking someone to do something that's hard to ask. How do you guide people into asking, asking different questions and doing it effectively?

Well, that's a great question, Bryan. You know, questions should be contextual. Right, and one of the— so obviously this book Shiftability has been written for salespeople, and one of the biggest challenges that salespeople have— in fact, it's probably for anybody, but we've written it with a sales bent in mind. But you know, often salespeople believe, you know, they have to do ABC, right? Always be closing. And so their challenge is they're afraid of the close, so they don't really build the value proposition up front. And so, part of the question that, the way that I believe in working with people is to lead people to your solution rather than lead with your solution. People don't buy coaching, for instance. People buy themselves, right? They buy the vision of themselves on the other side of their issue, right? So, when they talk to me, I want to know what's going on, what is it that they want to achieve, what's the organization that they want to design. And then I show them a roadmap there and show them that coaching is a vehicle. They don't buy coaching. They buy the vision of the future that they saw. And so one of the ways to make sure that you're asking effective questions is to make sure that you've already developed and tailored some way of connecting what it is that you're about to ask into the mindset of the person. What's really important is that the person who's on the other side of your question has heard you. You know, one of the biggest challenges I find in working with leaders is they, they do all this work on figuring out their communication, but they don't really listen to people. You know, for instance, you know, just because you're talking doesn't mean that's what, you know, you're saying something, that's what people are hearing, right? People can't hear what you're saying while they're busy listening to what they're thinking. I mean, if you're married, you know that this is true, or you've been in a relationship or with a significant other for a while, you know that there are times that you say something and you can see that they're not hearing what you're saying, they're hearing what they're thinking. In fact, they might just be waiting for you to stop moving your mouth so that you could say something, or they could say something. And so a big part of, of asking an effective question is understanding what the client or what the other person is actually thinking so that you can position the question in a way that they can hear it. Another part of this that's really difficult, Bryan, is we are afraid of tension. We're afraid that if I'm going to ask this question, it's going to be difficult for somebody, that that tension somehow is going to kill me. And as I mentioned, or alluded to at least earlier, you know, I was involved with a number of environments where there were hostile situations. And one of the things that you learn when you're in environments like that is that the tension that you feel Doesn't always belong to you. The tension belongs to the scenario. The tension belongs to the situation. Now, if you take a look at the book that we wrote, the, the kind of the whole branding or the feel around that is that the idea of water. And Bruce Lee said, be like water, my friend, right? That's where the whole idea of shiftability comes on. I don't personalize the context. I don't personalize the environment. The fact that there's tension in the room or tension in the relationship doesn't mean that that tension is mine. When we get stuck is when I personalize the tension, when I personalize the difficulty for somebody else. So I want to avoid them to feel uncomfortable. The reality is buying is uncomfortable. It's a big decision. Making a commitment to working with your services, making a commitment to going a certain way, selecting an individual to come and work in your organization, there's going to be tension there. So part of what I do and what I think, you know, our growth in leadership is our ability to navigate tension, to live with it, right? And I think the older we get, the more we realize that life is filled with paradox, right? The way you thought it was going to be, it doesn't turn out that way. And your ability to manage that tension and not personalize it and have it become An identity conversation, meaning I'm not good enough, my product's not good enough, or that like that, is kind of the key. And so part of what I work with people is to show them the distance between the tension in themselves, the tension in the scenario, and the tension with the prospective client. And when you can recognize where that is, you can be hard on the problem, soft on the people. Right? And you can do what I call objectify the conversation. And what that means is I now make myself an ally to the person on the other side and say, let's explore this, let's collaborate, and let's figure out a solution. It's not a win-win. In fact, it is an opportunity to discover a much bigger opportunity that we may not have seen before. I don't have to compromise my values. I can adapt because I'm being like water. I can shift the scenario in order to adapt for that.

OK, so, so go ahead.

I actually, I'm watching the comments here in the Twitter stream here, and Alan Berkson made a comment that he thinks you need to write a version of the book for kids or teens on how to manage tension. I know he's— we have an upcoming tween, as I know you do, and this is great information for them. And also Terry Duperron, if you remember, one of our previous IBM futurists, he's also on the chat. And he said that Hendrik Kotzia is the capital E in emotional intelligence. So shout out to Terry. Yeah, and you were talking about tension, and that's kind of where my head was going, because we first met you when you were helping us facilitate some workshops with people of— and large groups of people, you know, 30 to 50 people in a room, and having a very limited amount of time to be able to get them to do their best work and get them to a place of, you know, open thinking very quickly. Do you have any, you know, insight or advice that you might be able to share with the people watching?

Absolutely.

How, yeah, how could they, how could they help do that in their organizations?

So whether this is with your tween or with teenagers, this methodology works, or whether you're in a hostile scenario with a hostage or like that, which is sometimes how it feels having a tween, right? It's like, am I being held hostage by this little person? And, you know, it's a very simple methodology, and I know I'm oversimplifying it while I'm saying it, but I want to share it anyway. There's 3 principles. It's match, pace, lead, right? Match, pace, lead. And anybody who's done any type of NLP training or large group awareness work will tell you that they're familiar with this methodology. But matching means that I am able to actually walk into this scenario and recognize where people are at. And, you know, some of the training that I got was, you know, literally dilating your eyes to the same level Taking a look at, you know, noticing where people's, you know, blood pressure is. You can see in their neck how fast their heart's beating, how fast they are breathing, and then take a look at their body language. But when you're in a scenario where there's tension, match it. Just— and we, what we come in and our first thing is, hey, relax everybody, tone it down. That creates more resistance. So, you know, matching it where it's at and saying, hey, tell me what's going on. And, and you keeping yourself calm but matching where people are at lets them know that you're serious, right? That you're wanting to engage where they're at. So match that. And once you've matched it and you've paced it in your body language, you can actually bring people to your level. Now, between match and pace, you have to establish authenticity connection, right? So you've all seen the, you know, the hostage movies where the guy goes in, he matches the scenario. And, you know, shows he doesn't have a gun, and then he starts a personal story. He tries to create some type of connection. When you're working with a young person or when you're working with an organization where, you know, you walk into a room, there's a lot of tension, match the room so that people know that you're there and then personalize some experience. Now, this can sound very much like a politician or diplomatic, but there's some real value to this by being able to walk into a room Matching where people are at, and then doing the work of looking people in the eye and saying their name. Say their first name. You know, what most people do is they walk into a tense scenario and they depersonalize and create an authoritarian type of experience, and that just causes even greater disruption. Come in. I mean, it's— here's Nelson Mandela walking up to me. Obviously I'm tense, I'm concerned. He walks up, asks me my name in my own language, asks me my study. and then asked me what my contribution is going to be. The guy looks me in the eye, speaks to me in Afrikaans, takes the tension away in a second. I, you know, I was surprised. When you walk up to people, match where they're at, look them in the eye, have some interest in them, that's where that pacing happens. The second piece between matching and pacing, creating a personalized experience, authenticity, is creating some structure. And this is, this is key. And this is, you can only do it once you've done this personalization, is to say to people, hey guys, I realize there's a lot of challenge that's going on, a lot of concern that's happening in this room. We're going to do 3 things. I'm going to listen, and I want to make sure that I hear everything that you have to say. We're going to like take a look at it together, and then we're going to come up with a solution. Now I'm just giving you some 3 things, you know, it might be something for people to think about when they go do a town hall somewhere. But, you know, here, match where people are at. Don't try and convince people. Match where people are at. Listen, and then create some structure and say, hey, here's what we're going to do. Now, you may not be able to calm everybody down, but you certainly will win a whole bunch of that group through. So first thing is matching, then create a personalized— in between matching and pacing, create a personalized experience. Create some type of structure, and then you pace. Meaning, if you say something, make sure that people are hearing you. So, hey, I think what I hear you guys saying is this. Is that correct? Giving them the opportunity to, to, you know, affirm back or reverberate and change. And then once you've paced that and people feel like they're being heard, now you can lead. Now, the key in a large group who are challenged, very challenged, or hostile, if you would, don't lead in some type of far-off, hey, this is going to be better next year. Get very clear. So what I say is the more stuck people are, the closer you bring point B. So in a large group like we were doing in New York together, you have 30 people like that. Everybody's super intelligent, got a lot of great ideas. Go in. I don't know if you remember, I did a mindfulness exercise to just match everybody, get them onto the same level, created structure. We're going to address these 5 things. And then we had feedback from everybody. And, you know, you had a bunch of wild cannons and great, you know, mustangs and everybody doing great conversations. And then I would count down and say, in 3 minutes, we're going to stop and we're going to do this. Please continue your conversation in 2 minutes. And then in 1 minute. And then boom, I call time. Now I hold my authority only after I establish some true authenticity. So match, pace, lead is kind of the way. Be authentic, create structure in the midst of it. And I know I'm, I'm oversimplifying it, but really, if you don't do those things, your natural tendency is to go into a scenario with an authoritarian way, and you're just going to create more distance.

I could keep— and Courtney could keep, I'm sure, to ask you questions. We'll weave some questions in, but we're going to jump into, um, the Q&A portion of your questions out there. So make sure that you, uh, keep your questions coming. We've got a few here already. And for each person that asks a question, you are going to be put into a drawing. We're giving away— or Hendre is giving away 2, uh, books. So you're gonna get to, uh, his new book, Shiftability. Um, and this, this book outlines a lot of what he's talked about, but dives in even deeper. So, um, obviously really, uh, really cool. Thank you, Hendry, for giving those books away. And we'll capture everybody's names as they ask questions, and then at the end we will, uh, do a drawing and let you know within the next 24 hours who wins one of the 2 books. So, um, so, okay, so the, the first question here is from Katarina Anderson, who, um, we know from Italy. We met in Italy. Uh, great, great lady, and she has a wonderful business actually helping In the wine industry, I only know that from from history.

So that should get an applause.

Wine industry. All right, we'll break a rule and do it. Yes. So so she asked, so when you present changes that meets with resistance, where they try to push you out of the picture, how do you deal with that?

Okay, great question. Ciao, Katrina. Come stai? Great question. So, the key thing in this scenario is you're matching where people are at. So, the big question I obviously have for Catarina is, you know, how did you get in, right? What's the mandate? One of our biggest challenges is we want to lead change that we don't have a mandate for. So, if I'm going to lead change, I'm going to make sure that I have the mandate for it, meaning that I have key stakeholders who have bought in. People don't do change because it's the right thing to do. I mean, come on. I mean, how many of us know more than we actually practice, right? So one of the biggest challenges in the world is that I know what I need to do and I'm not doing it. In fact, there's a Jewish scripture or Hebrew scripture that says, with knowledge sorrow increases, which means the more I know, the more depressed I become. And so, you know, people don't change because I know what I should be doing. People change because they have commitment. And so part of the breakdown is the reason people are resistant is because we've tried to intellectualize why the changes happen rather than personalize why the change is relevant. And as much time as I need to convince people intellectually, I need to give them the time and work through the methodology to personalize their commitment to this outcome or to this change. And we often think that if we can get people to agree in their minds, that they'll act with their hands. But, you know, Courtney, you always ask about the 11 inches, right? I can— if I can get somebody to know in their head, it doesn't mean they're going to act with their hands. It has to go through their heart. It has to go through their soul. It has to be something that they truly believe. Just because I agree that it's possible doesn't mean that I'm actually going to act on it. And so we spend an awful amount of time on trying to convince people in their minds, but we don't spend enough time on personalizing it for people so that they actually believe it for themselves. I have to create a personal view of the future of myself in it before I'm going to act into it. And so people don't act according to what they know, they act according to what they believe. And so I know that if people are resistant They aren't believing yet. So I need to make them believe. And believing is not just a head thing, it's a heart thing. And that's really where they personalize it for themselves. And so, Katerina, when I find people are trying to move me out, they're not moving me out because the plan is not agreeable or because they don't agree that it needs to be done. Somehow I have lost the connection on the personalization. So I need to do that work. And and win them back over, they're not going to be won with an intellectual battle. They're going to be won because they believe something that they haven't believed before. So the first thing I need to do is I need to find out what is it that they believe. What do they believe? What, what, you know, what have they made up about the future that causes them to be resistant? Is it a fear-based belief, or is there a fundamental thing that I haven't addressed yet? And so their resistance is an opportunity for me to discover How I am not communicating clearly. Because if I can communicate clearly, then they will hear. And sometimes people will say, hey, I agree with you. I can see what you're saying. This is just not for me. Now, if I have the mandate for the change, then I can say to them, I get that. I understand that this is not for you. But the mandate says that this is where we're going. Therefore, you're not going with us. Or if I don't have the mandate for change, then I need to do the work to get that mandate. But I can't change what I don't have a mandate for. If I'm not tasked to do it, just because I see it doesn't mean that they're going to take it. And that's, you know, that's especially if you have a kid, right? You can tell them what you think they should be doing. But if they don't give you permission to work with them or work alongside them, good luck. They're going to do whatever they want.

So, so before I move into the next question here from our friend Brooke, Aslam Errol, she is great, always a great H2H chatter. Before I move into that, I'm curious, how is, is what you're talking about in your personal life and your business life? Is there a difference, or should the approach be exactly the same?

Well, you know, Bryan, I believe that I'm a human performance specialist, right? So that's kind of the work that I do. So, you know, I've worked with so many different diverse companies who do all kinds of different things, and there's no way for me to be an expert on big data or data loop or data lake or all of the above. There's just no way. But, you know, my field of study is human behavior. And so I believe that people are connected, how they are at work and how they are at home. And yes, people like to make a difference and say, hey, I want to leave work at work and I want to, you know, be focused at home. But the reality is we live in a different world. So many people work from home, right? So many people, the whole world is kind of connected now. And that means all of my worlds are connected. So I actually believe in congruency, finding some type of integrity so that I can be at home who I am at work. One of the things that I do know, just based on my last point, is just because I have the skill to see something doesn't mean I have the permission to address it. So my wife will tell me, hey, you know what? I'd rather you just be my husband right now because I haven't paid you to be my coach. How about that? I'm gonna steal that. And you know, my initial response always is, but you know how good I am at coaching? People pay me. You're getting this for free. This is awesome. You're getting

this

for free. Is it

really free?

I don't know. Yeah, it's never for free, right? There's no such thing as a free lunch. And, but, you know, part of it is recognizing again what I said in the previous point. You cannot coach what you don't have a mandate for. I got to win people's willingness to have me participate with them and engage with them, right? The mandate doesn't come because it should be done. The mandate comes because people say, I'm ready to transform. I want to participate. Let's go there. And that's key. And so, In our house, we have, you know, we have a ground rule of shared challenge, shared achievement, right? So, hey, we're better together. And it's— we have to work towards it. You know, it certainly hasn't been that way all the time. And it's been challenging many, many, many times. And so, you know, choosing to be better together includes forgiveness and not bringing up that, you know, bad stuff, or when we bring up stuff from the past. that we sit in it, we recognize it, we say sorry again, how many times, as many times as it takes, and then we keep moving forward, right? So, you know, Disney's provided us with an amazing amount of anchors of better together, keep moving forward, you know, The Incredibles, every, you know, every movie they come out with has amazing anchors. And so, hey, if all else fails, watch a Disney movie and give each other a hug, you know what I'm saying?

That's the quote of the day. If all else fails, watch a Disney movie. It'll always make you feel better.

All right, so, so Brooke, our friend Brooke, um, she just said, uh, first, before I ask her, I wanted to bring up her tweet because it's a really good, uh, tweet. I wish we cheered for everyone who believes in human touch in our real lives and human in all the right places. Thanks, thanks, H2H Chat. So that's a great tweet. And just to kind of transition into her question, she said, my experience is that unless the leader or CEO believes change is necessary, there's no way to help them transition. Do you agree?

I agree. And, and so I agree because it's really important to have the CEO there. I, I have worked with organizations where the board has actually called me in. Because the CEO, you know, is not, doesn't have the high emotional intelligence, but they're an incredible finance specialist, or they're a great dealmaker or something like that. And so, I think it takes a team. I think the leader needs to acknowledge it, but that doesn't mean they have to champion it, right? Often asking the CEO to champion something that is outside of their domain could be very difficult. I think sometimes what people are looking for is they want the CEO to say yes and be the champion. And you know, you have to realize you work with a lot of different personalities. I've had CEOs agree, recognize that it's so, and then behind a closed door tell me, say, Hendra, I don't know how to do this. I'm in over my head. In fact, I would say, you know, I've had the privilege of probably coaching close to 1,000 CEOs, you know, of small to large organizations over the last 20 years. And I would say 75% of those at some point have said, dude, I'm in over my head. This is too much, right? I, I, you know, either I'm going to lose my family and keep the business, or the business is not going to go somewhere, or these people are going to find out I don't have everything that I take, or the board's going to take me out. That fear-based conversation. So I want to give CEOs a little bit of slack in this sense and say, Not each CEO or every CEO is going to be able to become the champion. Now that doesn't mean that we don't want their buy-in. I often want somebody in the executive suite, I want the executive suite to sign off, I want somebody in the executive suite to be the champion, but sometimes we bring it in. We, you know, we've actually had board members become active. You do need somebody who can personalize, you do need the CEO's Buy-in, but you don't need him to be the— or her to be the champion, right? It could be, you know, it could be a whole team effort in that. Now, it is very difficult to do a large-scale change if you're not a revenue generator. So I would say when HR is trying to do large-scale change, that could be very, very challenging. When you know, a division of the organization, even the marketing team, that could be a real challenge. But you know what's interesting is today the CTOs and the CIOs are being invited into the office and they need to do a large-scale change. I'm working with an organization, they're hiring a new Chief Digital Officer and it's a big logistics organization. They've been shipping stuff for the last 20 years, right. Going digital is really scary. So now the chief, you know, this new digital officer needs to become a champion for change, and it can't just be because he's right about technology. He has to, or she has to be able to learn how to work with that executive team, win them over, get the mandate from them to lead the change, and that doesn't mean you go off and lead the change. That means that you bring them along with you. So Often the change happens from somewhere else. It's certainly easier if you're a revenue generator or a driver, or you add to the cutting of costs or something like that. It's harder when you're a cost center. It still can be done. We've done it. I've worked with a number of HR folks who've, you know, led change in their organization. But that's usually when the scenario is more of a burning platform and we need to fix something, which is a harder type of change, then we have a huge opportunity and we need to go after it. So certainly difficult, but it's a team effort and it can be done.

I love what you said too about, you know, I think a lot of C or executive level people within companies are really fear-based of showing any type of vulnerability for Out of fear that it's going to make them seem weak or that they— Vulnerability can be a huge strength for them, you know, openly being able to admit to a safe space that they really are over their head and they don't know what they're doing. And then having people like you, you know, help them through those times of difficulty so that they know how to delegate it out. I wish, I actually wish more executives or leaders would, would do that.

Well, I find that it's, it's certainly an upward trend, right? There's more executives out there who are open to coaching, who are getting that type of coaching, and who are willing to do that. I think more and more people are recognizing the power of authenticity and creating that human interaction, right? That you don't want to just be seen as the boss. want to be seeing. Actually, in fact, I had a conversation this morning with an executive who said he was, it was, you know, scary for him to talk to the CEO because he didn't want to seem like he was complaining, but he really wanted to share with him some of the concerns that he had. And so we spent 30 minutes thinking about, well, you know, what would be the benefit of actually talking to the CEO? And, you know, and, you know, a big part of that conversation was, well, the CEO is such a driver and, you know, he's always got it, he's on a train, he's on a mission, and I don't want to interrupt him. I'm like, yeah, I get that. So, you know, we figured out a strategy together to be able to talk and get that conversation going. And at the end of it, you know, I think he's— this particular executive is going to be the better for it because that CEO wants to connect and wants to shift.

Okay, so we've got— obviously we've got some great questions coming in. Thank you, Hendry, for staying with us here on some great questions from from the HH community. You guys are killing it. Thank you so much. Um, Chris, uh, there's, there's a good question. Actually, there's a whole bunch of great questions here. Um, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speed through them if you don't mind doing like maybe a minute or 2 answer per. We're gonna do a lightning round. Um, Chris Nicole said, how do you avoid the trap of communicating bad news? It's not person— in quotes, he said, it's not personal, it's just business. Such a relationship killer.

Yep. So one is, how do you avoid it? Well, you don't avoid it. You have to be able to bring bad news, right? And so I think, you know, I hate to do this, but in the book it actually talks about how to deal with tension. And there's 5 different pieces around how do you deal with the tension of dealing with difficulty like that. But a big piece of it, and I'm going to run through those things, is one is recognize that what you say is not always what people hear. You're not going to be able to explain an emotional thing. The fact that you bring bad news will, will mean people will have an emotional response, and no amount of explanation will change an emotional response. People will feel bad. You explaining doesn't make them feel less bad. Give them structure and make it very, very clear what the next steps are. But if you avoid bad news, it's going to— people are going to make assumptions. Give the bad news. Bring yourself personalized into it and show people very clearly in a short amount of time what's going to happen. Give them direction, right? People thrive on direction. If you give them bad news and direction, it's correct. It's, it's— you're going to have a much better, better response. If you give them bad news and no direction, they're going to make up in their head. And so part of us, what we want to do is we give bad news and then we want to make people feel better. You can't make people feel better. It's not— no amount of, of, you know, but this is— we had to do it. Let me explain to you the numbers and the business and everything like that. You know, be transparent as much as you can be, but don't think that your explanation is going to change people's feelings. People are going to feel bad, and it's okay if they feel bad. It's okay. Give them direction.

Um, so I, I see you have a sunburn on your head. Is that what we're talking about here?

That's

exactly what happened.

So on Friday I had this meeting. I was a little late for the meeting. 8 people sitting outside and in the sun. I never go in the sun like that. And I— what I should have said is, hey everybody, let's get up and let's go out there and get into the shade. And I didn't. And the price you pay for not being authentic is a sunburnt head. So there you go.

And he did tell me, for everyone watching, he did tell me ahead of the show that he had that, so I'm cheating a little bit. But, um, okay, so, so Janet, uh, Fouts, um, wonderful friend, actually just right down the road here from us, um, in— surprisingly, we, we never get to see each other. We live 5 minutes away. But Janet, great to see you here on HA Chat. Um, hopefully get to see you, uh, sooner than later. Um, our— her question is, what about if the lower echelon doesn't get on board? How do we inspire the entire organization?

Well, so, you know, a big part of things is momentum. And I think, Bryan, one of the challenges is if we wait for everybody to be on board before we make a change, we're going to have difficulty. And so we want to make sure that we're— when we make change, we have executive buy-in and then we have champions. And, you know, one of the things that I think is important is that the executive team make sure that they do personally, in a human way, interact with people at every level of the organization, right? So being willing to hear, right? You've got to be able to sit down and hear people and have people feel heard. That's the whole idea of town halls or that type of experience. A town hall cannot only be a projection. It has to be a two-way conversation. The reality is that People at different levels of the organization have different sets of values by which they judge the decisions that are being made. And so again, you cannot explain things enough to prohibit or make sure that people are not going to have feelings. People are going to feel difficult, you know, or feel uncomfortable with certain scenarios. So you have to understand that people being on board Doesn't mean that they are super excited. Some people are reluctantly on board. I don't know if you've had that, you have that family member, but I'm sure if you've gone to some type of event or somewhere, you always have that person who complains all the way there, and then when they get there, it was the best time ever. And you're like, really? Did we have to spend 40 minutes trying to convince you to get there, and now you're having the best time? No, you must have a bad time. Why do you get to have the best time? The reality is people have that experience. Some people are, they're complaining, but they're still on board. And so part of the work is being able to figure out the distinction between complaint and objection. Complaint is sometimes just people's personality. It's just their style. You know, listen, I'd love to say it's not true, but there are a lot of whiners in the world. Right? And we're not talking about the same type of wine that you and me of Vos do, but you know, it's, it's different type of wine, right? And there are people like that. And you have winers who are super competent and, you know, they're good at, at the work that they do, but they're just, you know, they're complainers. An objection is when somebody says, no, this is not going to work, or there's a fundamental shift in in, or resistance in the sense that they are not going to participate. Then you have to make a decision. Is there objection of such a nature that you need to consider that and say, hey, you're right, we never saw this, let's take, take that into heart? Or that objection is at a place where, you know, it's personalized for them and they're not able to move with where you're going. So, yeah, not easy, because I think in the perfect world we'd like to have a place where there's no complainers, everybody's super happy, super excited, and And the reality is, you know, there are people who are at, you know, the Super Bowl and they're not having a good time because there's not enough popcorn or peanuts, right? There's just that human nature that some folks have that, you know, they're not excitable type folks.

Okay, so with just 2 minutes to go, we're going to do an even faster lightning round. We've got the first question is Terry, our friend Terry Duberon, who I think was at the IBM event as well. He's been at IBM events.

We talked about this

already. OK, so you did this.

You weren't listening.

I was moving to other questions. And the second one is Angus Nelson. How do you get head-based corporate leaders understanding that heart-based understanding isn't woo-woo or fluff?

Woo-woo.

Well, one of the things that we do is I am always very, very excited and committed to talk about real numbers. We are not here to make people feel better. At the end of the day, when a business hires me, it's because they want ROI. They want the bottom line to work. And I'm, you know, fundamentally, you know, deep down, I believe in personal responsibility. You know, I believe in a company's ability to make money, because if they don't make money, they can't create jobs. So, as a human behavior specialist, I can't resist the conversation around money. So, I have done my homework, and I continue to do my homework so that I'm able to have a conversation about the numbers. I want to hear it. So my job is to make sure that I can address the questions that they have. The reason I— the reason people resist woo-woo, you know, fluffy stuff is because a lot of woo-woo fluffy people can't speak to the business issues. It's my job to make sure that I can speak to the business issues. And if I can't do that, then they have a legitimate complaint against my woo-woo fluffy stuff.

Okay, awesome. I think, um, I think we are right up at the top of the hour. The, um, the only thing I want to congratulate you, Hendrée, and everybody who's taking part here, um, on is that we just, uh, we are— we have been trending number 44 in the United States on Twitter. So congratulations, uh, Hendrée, and to all of you for participating in today's HHH Chat, it's really been a phenomenal chat. Hendry, thank you so much. We're going to take all of the people that ask questions, even if we did not get to them, you're still entered into the drawing. And we're going to take all of them, and we're going to give away 2 books on Hendry's new book, Shift Ability. And then we'll also get a link out as well on Twitter so that you guys can go to Amazon if you'd like and purchase a book. Other than that, thank you so much, Hendrik. Where can everybody find you?

You know, my Twitter handle is @hendrikutsia. You can email me hendrik@shiftability.com. My co-author Mitch Little, who's a fantastic guy, heads up the sales organization over at Microchip. He's on shiftability.com. I'm sure you can ask him a ton of questions. He's been around as well. But you can go to, you know, get me on, find me on Twitter @hendrikutsia. H-E-N-D-R-E C-O-E-T-Z-E-E, or you can find me at hendrecoteze.com. I'd love to answer your questions. If you have questions, please email me and I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you, Bryan and Courtney, for what an incredible opportunity. Thank you guys, it's been awesome.

You got it.

Yeah, thank you.

And, um, and we will see you soon. Everybody out there, thanks again for joining us for another HCA Chat. Uh, we'll see you back here same time, same place next Monday. Guest to be announced here in the next day. We'll see you soon, okay? Cheers, everybody.

Bye.

Bye.