The Beginners Mind + Multi-Level Employees

Business brain episode 467 for Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take all kinds of topics, things in our business lives, things in our personal lives. We run them through our business brains to give us personal perspective and to train our business brains to be a little bit better, to tune them perhaps to be even better and allow us to keep on living that charmed life. Sponsors for this episode include Pearl Diver, where you get to visit pearldiver IO and learn who is visiting your website. We'll talk more in depth about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. You know, I find myself often explaining the name Business Brain because I always want to be clear when I'm talking to somebody about it's like, well, no, Dave and I are not the business brains. It's a collective that we are fine tuning our business brains together, learning from one another, you know, feedback from listeners, all that kind of stuff. So I love it. I find my, my tuning is getting more and more fine, especially I think the last, I don't know, half dozen shows or so. I've really enjoyed it. So I hope that it's working for everybody else as well.

And let us know. Feedbackusbrain show. We want to know if it's like, if it's helping you, if there's more we can do, if there's ideas you have. Feedbackusinessbrain show. You want to talk about this concept of you brought to me and I would like to talk about this concept of multi level employees or the off work conduct of. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah.

I saw a tweet that I came across talking about someone posted, hey, how would you handle an employee posting something and I got quotes in the air inappropriate on social media could reflect badly on your company and, and you know, that's kind of a sticky area. Can you, how do you, or can you advise people that what to put. No, you, I, I don't think you can.

Right, but I don't, I, I might actually, I might disagree with that. It depends on what it is and.

And yeah there is what they do.

And yeah there and what they do for you and you know, I mean people put in their Twitter bios or their Facebook files or whatever, you know, these tweets are personal and do not reflect the opinions of my employer. That's. And that, that, I mean it's a smart thing to put there, but it's a hedge. But I think it's also safe to assume, you know, but if someone, it depends on whether that's true or not. Right. If someone's using their personal Twitter account or personal Instagram or whatever, never mentions anything about their job, never relates it to their job, there's zero in there about their work. And you know, they post something that you as an employer are uncomfortable with, you kind of got to leave them alone. That's my, that's my feeling on it.

I agree too.

Ever. If there's, there, there's, you know, these things aren't binary. Right. If there's the nuance of, well, if they're posting a bunch of stuff about the work that they do and then they're posting some like weird thing in their personal life that isn't good for your business's brand, that's different. I'm not saying it's definitely like Terminator offense, but it's a, it's an offense. It's something to have a conversation about. Like.

And that's what. So that one of the, one of the folks that responded in there, this is what got me thinking. They, they said yeah, this is a challenge. And when they hire employees or during the course of having employees, they say, hey, we have two types of employees. We, and our preferred employees are team members. We invest in team members. We committed to providing them all the hours they can handle. We, we develop a career path for them, training. And here's what they say. They we expect you to be a professional as a team member consistent with their position. Da da da. And they, we defined a professional as a good ambassador for our company and trade because this was a contractor. Okay 24 7. And then they, they would explain how the, they thought the post was not professional. It wasn't like, hey, it's not appropriate or whatever.

Yeah.

But you know, and so you know, they say you can't tell them how to act. You can only explain how you would like them to be professional and how that impacts their future at your, at your business. So I, I thought that was pretty intriguing this multi level employee status that I mean I'm all about career paths and, and really giving employees a, a, a, a clear vision of where they could go with your business because I think it really helps them and it helps you and being able to say, yeah, we have employees but we also have team members and this is how you become a team member.

And the latter instead of the former. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was kind of cool. It's interesting. I'm trying to think if I've ever had to discuss, like, you know, someone's social media presence with. Personal social media presence with, with an employee, because it, it didn't, you know, fit with what I would have preferred them to say. Like, I don't think that's ever happened. And I, And I don't even think I've ever been in a position where I've had to make the decision as to whether or not I want to have that conversation. Right. Because I could, I could be upset or concerned about something and also choose not to mention it. Right. Like, you know. Yeah, I don't even think I've been in that scenario. Although maybe there's something the back of my mind is saying that I have.

But it, yeah. And, and I just.

But it depends. Yeah, it, it, it. Like, to me, it depends on their reach, too. Like, if you've got an employee who is, you know, has. Has 50 Twitter followers and no one in your industry that matters listens to their personal Twitter profile, you know, like, that's one thing. But then if you've got somebody that's got, you know, 25,000 Twitter followers, in part perhaps because of their position in the industry, which is what then led to their position in your company. Right. Different now. It's a little different. And. But usually the good part is you get to know those people and you don't hire the ones that are out there, you know, spewing things that.

Yes.

That either upset you or upset the public in general. Right. Like, yeah, because there's a, there's two things. Right. It's like, well, you said that on Twitter, and I don't like it, but it's not offensive to the world. It just happens to not sort of align with me like that. Right. That's one thing. And to me that you sort of dismiss that. But the other is if they're out there spewing hate. Yeah. You know, objective hate or something. It's like, well, dude, you know, that's a whole different thing. So. Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully you didn't, you know, make the mistake of hiring that kind of person in the first place. But I love this concept of explaining how, hey, you can post whatever you want, you know, but we, I don't think that's a professional, you know, post, especially if it's like, to your point, Dave, if it's related to your industry, your trade, or if they're. If they are very well known within your industry. So, you know, hopefully you can have a discussion and, you know, and that's just that this one aspect of this. I love the concept of the this pathway to becoming a team member and you have to earn it. And we're going to do a show soon about being in service to your employees, which I think is very important, but also they need to be in service obviously to your business and giving them that clear defined path. This is how you become a valued team member. Call them whatever you want. So many employees don't get that message and that's why I love this concept.

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You have?

Yeah, I have.

You brought it up a few times.

Yeah. And it's a topic I love and it is the concept of beginner's mind. And I would, I would love to hear your, the way you perceive this topic.

Yeah. So this beginner's mind is, you know, we all build up, for lack of a better word, our own biases and viewpoints and frameworks over time. And if we stick to those all the time, like, I know how things are, I know how things work. I've been in this situation before. We often, or there's a possibility at least that we're going to miss out on something, totality, a relationship that didn't, you know, start because you thought something. But this beginner's mind, in my understanding, is to kind of clear yourself of those preconceived beliefs, to open up.

You.

Know, opportunities that may come that you may be missing or lean in in a different way.

Yeah, I, I think of it as approaching everything like a child. Now, I don't, I don't mean like a, an immature person. I, I mean with the, the mind, the, the intellectual curiosity of a child is perhaps the right way to say it. And it's like, okay, here's something that I don't know about. Let me do my darndest. And it's not easy, right? Like this is, you know, it sounds simple, but, you know, to approach it with, okay, let me just be exposed to this for the first time without assuming anything. And, and when you can do that, a. It's a fast track to learning things because you're not getting in your own way. But also you, you put yourself in a position where you might actually change your mind about something because you are learning new things. It makes you, it makes me a better learner when I can succeed at the beginner's mind concept. It was taught to me by, by Greg Snyder, who was my co founder with Backbeat Media years and years ago. He has, I bought him out 15 years ago or something like that because, remember Greg? Yeah. He. Great guy. Yeah. He. He wanted to leave this business because he had started the Brooklyn Zen Center. And for those of you who know the origins of beginner's mind, this won't come as any surprise at all because it really is a. A concept that has. I don't know if it originated in the Zen teachings, but it certainly is embraced by and foundational to the Zen teachings. Yeah. It would not surprise me if it was sort of, you know, part and parcel of, because it's how they approach everything. It's like, get, get out of your way and just see the information for what it is, not what it means to you based on something you already know. So. Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

And I'm a big fan of this. Yeah.

Yeah. One definition I really like, it struck with me.

It's very simple.

It's living in the moment with as few fixed beliefs as possible. And it. That's so important when you're looking at what could. Thinking at it with our business brains, you know, some opportunity. Um, I really got. I'm in the middle of. Of selling a piece of property to the federal government and buying another piece of property. Sure. And I've really tried to step back and think of things in a different way at the beginning of something that could have been a problem turned into an opportunity. And that, that, that childlike, you know, thing like, well, let's, let's just see what happens. Let's not presume that this is going to turn out bad.

We know what to do if it goes sideways because we've been there before, you know, is some version of that. So that's fine. And we can trust ourselves that when we get there, if. And when we get there, we know what to do. But let's not assume we're going to get there because that assumption might be the thing that leads you down that path. You know, you're like, well, yeah, I know how these things impact it. So I'm going to influence this without thinking about it.

Right. Yeah, you do it. And, and you'd be so amazed like it. Especially in this transaction. And most people that have dealt with the federal government, maybe it seems like they haven't had a good experience, me included. But this time I really worked hard to be friendly and to work through it and to get to know these people and try to figure out what they were looking for. And lo and behold, it went really well after. You know, you had to push back and forth a little bit, like any negotiation. But the one thing it also, this beginner's mind does. It makes you a much better listener. And because you're not trying to solve something while you're hearing someone else talk, you're really just like, okay, I don't know. And you said that earlier, Dave, that, that those three words are probably the most powerful way to start to get in this beginner's mind framework. It's just, I don't know. So tell me and let me see how this unfolds. And I love it. I think we could use it more in our business, you know, working with people, employees, partners, negotiating. I think it's something to, to continue to look into.

Yeah. The concept of beginner's mind might be the ultimate tool in tuning our business brains, or at least one of the most important ones. I don't want to say it's the only one, but. But yeah, yeah, I like it. I think it's great.

And if you've, you know, you know, a couple things. One, if, if you have this, any sort of framework like we talked about before, the ads, you know, of multi level employees and bringing them on, or maybe if you want to relate it to social media stuff, we'd love to hear from you. Feedback at BusinessBrain show. And if you have a beginner's mind, please share your tools with us so we can all get better.

Yeah, absolutely. Again, that's FeedbackusinessBrain show. And thanks to our sponsors, of course, Pearldiver IO and Keep Living that charmed life, huh? See you next time.