Challenges of the C-Suite with Dr. Terry Hildebrandt

Good day, Terry. How are you?

I'm great, CB. Good to see you.

Thank you. Looking as handsome as ever. Oops, that's not politically correct.

We're all friends here.

Yeah. Okay, so everyone, this is The Challenges of the C-Suite, brought to you by the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. I am so glad you're here to hear us again, and this is CB Live. And today we're talking to Dr. Terry Hildebrand, who is a PhD, an MC EC— that's a Master Corporate Executive Coach with the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches— and he is an MCC with ICF. So he He is an authority, and guys, I want to just tell you a secret. He knows more about certifications in the corporate executive coaching space than anybody I know. He is a walking encyclopedia. So whenever anyone has any questions about the value of an assessment, we go to Dr. Terry. So Dr. Terry, what you going to talk to us about today? First, tell us about you.

Well, thanks, CB. That's a great introduction. Today I'm going to talk about a number of things, but before we do, just a little bit about me. I've been an executive coach for 23 years and work mostly in high tech as well as healthcare and education and many other fields, but those are my big 3. I live in Denver, Colorado. Been in Colorado now for 26 years. Can you believe it? It's been an exciting ride, especially through COVID lately. My own background, I was at HP for 22 years and started as an engineer and managed a lot of different areas, and then was also an internal coach for 11 years, which was where my coaching career started. I'm also an academic. I teach and work with doctoral students on dissertations in coaching and for a couple of years led a coaching school as well to train new coaches.

I didn't know that part.

Absolutely. I now I'm back and doing my own practice full-time. I really enjoy entrepreneurism the best. So that's my calling and what I plan to do from here on out.

Well, we're certainly fortunate to have you in the executive coaching space. That is the definition of the coaches that are part of ACEC. Absolutely. I think that's a distinguishing mark of ACEC is having strong business experience. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just get to it. Okay. So my question to you is, ready? Drum roll. Pretty I'm going to be poor tomorrow, but whatever. What are the 3 greatest challenges that you see that members of the C-suite have?

It's a great question. Certainly right now there's lots in managing all the change going on in the world today. The ones I'd love to talk to you and our listeners about today, Emotional self-management to deal with stress. I think everyone's under stress, probably at a higher level than maybe ever before. That's number 1. Number 2, I would say, is managing the political systems within organizations. Today, you can't really succeed as a leader, certainly not an executive, without political savvy. political savvy is one of my topics that comes up with just about every one of my clients. Then the third is really developing strong teams, which includes starting with strategy. Strategy seems to be the thing that everyone is learning these days and trying to get better at an ongoing basis. Sometimes they don't teach you this in a regular undergraduate program. Unless you've been through an MBA, Strategy is often a mystery to up-and-coming leaders. That's another one of my specialty areas that I really love working with leaders on.

These are all fabulous, and I'm going to pick my favorite first, which is managing political systems. I've never heard of it phrased quite like that. in organizations. You know, I have to share with you, as a Black woman in corporate America, which I was for longer than I care to say, I— you know what? I never quite got the political savvy part. And I'm not saying this is not something Blacks can't get. What I'm saying is there was no place to go to learn this. And I came from the world of the arts as an interior designer. And so I went to Parsons School of Design before I went to B-school. And, you know, the arts are just a whole different animal. We did not act like this. You know, everything was out in the open. Everybody was friendly and supportive of each other. Yeah, there was some competition, don't get me wrong. But it was, let's say, friendly fire. And the corporate world certainly wasn't that. I was so not prepared. That's where I want to start. How do you get prepared? How do you learn political savvy? What does it mean in the organization? Why does it drive you crazy? All those questions all mushed into one.

Great question. So So, you know, I did a lot of research on political savvy and how to develop it, and it really comes down to what I call the 5 steps. So I've got a model that makes this accessible and, and really something you can learn.

Okay.

Some people say, well, you know, you're great politically, but how do you do it? Well, I've given my coachees that I work with A really simple formula, and I'd love to share with you those 5 steps.

Yes, yes, yes, pens in hand.

But ultimately, it's starting with really good mindset about political savvy. A lot of people avoid it completely, thinking that it's dirty, or you hear the word dirty politics, and it doesn't have to be that. You can have clean politics. Ideally, every organization runs on clean politics, which is really about building allies ultimately. Starting with a mindset shift about politics that it doesn't have to be a negative thing. In fact, it can be a real positive thing if it's done correctly. I think mindset is important. The first step then, once you have the right mindset and you're open, to really seeing this in a positive light is to understand who the key players are in any given situation. And, you know, every political situation is going to have its own unique constellation of players. And some of these you might think are obvious, and they're the people on the org chart, but there's always these other people behind the scenes that you may not know even exist. And they're the folks who have the ear of the movers and shakers in any given situation, and and they're all vying right for their say and their influence. But trying to get a lay of the land and understand who those people people are is is number one, and I recommend you create a map actually writing their names down on a piece of paper so you can look at it in a holistic way. Once you figure out who they are, then you want to understand their interests, which is step 2. Interests are very broad. It might include their goals, business goals, personal goals, financial goals, promotional or career goals. It also might include hidden agendas, which is where people get tripped up a lot, is that they're not aware of an interest that a leader might have and they're surprised by their behavior in a given setting. But the more you know about their interests, the better off you are. Getting to know them is critical. If you have direct access, this means getting to know people as—

Wait, wait, is this number 4, getting to know them?

Well, it's part of understanding their interests. How do you get to know someone's interests? Is by asking them lots of questions, spending time with them, listening to them very carefully to what they are saying and what they don't say, what makes them excited, what makes them upset. You could infer in many cases even their hidden agendas by being very careful listeners. Also getting to know the people that know them. You may not have access to certain people very often, but you might have more access to their key people. I always say, get to know the executive admin. They know everything. They can be your best friend when you are trying to understand how someone might react to a certain situation. Certainly having access to their other direct reports and influencers is also really important. But spending as much time as you can on an ongoing basis. This isn't a one-time thing. It's an ongoing process of staying on top of people's interests, which of course, as you know, change over time. People do change their mind, and this is a moving target and something that is a living system that you have to be aware of. That's the second step, is knowing their interests. Third step is knowing who has power and who has authority. I defined authority.

Wait a second, I'm up to number 4 already. Go back to this. Number 4 is— what is it now?

Number 4 in your list is probably part of sub-step of number 2, which is understanding interests. I can give you all 5 really quickly. That might be helpful as an overview. Number 1 is knowing the key players. Number 2 is knowing their interests. Number 3 is who has power and authority. Then number 4 is looking at conflicts as well as alliances. Then 5 is developing your political strategy. Those are the high-level, the big 5.

Give me 5 again.

5 is developing your political strategy. Yeah.

Okay, you know what, I think we're going to spend this whole show talking about these 5. Okay, come back. Okay, let's take it apart now.

Excellent. So we talked quite a bit already about, uh, interests, uh, but number 3 is, is, uh, even more important in my mind, is who has authority, who has power. Where authority are the folks on the org chart that have the ability to make decisions and allocate resources, approve purchase orders, employee requisitions, things of that nature. Those in power are those that influence those in authority. You may not have the ability to make a decision, but you have power to influence those that do. Both of these different categories of people are important. Of course, all of them are on your key players list, but it's important what each of the key players can do for you or do to you in some cases. Getting a clear picture of who has authority and how much and who has power to influence those in authority is critical. We'll come back to this in a minute when we look at At number 4, which is where are the common and major conflicts and where are the natural alliances? Conflicts and alliances again are number 4. When you're looking at conflicts in any given situation, there's going to be some people who will support you and there'll be others that will really resist you or fight you on certain things. Even though they might be friends of yours in the world outside of business, any given situation, they may or may not be supportive of your position. It's really important to know and not assume that just because someone has been an ally in the past, they may or may not be an ally in this particular context. Being able to map out where each of the key players are and in relation to what you're trying to achieve or your particular goals that you are pushing is really important. The ultimate goal is to increase your number of allies and to reduce the number of conflicts, or, or at least manage your resistors. So that's an important element, is to really know where they stand. on any particular issue that you're trying to promote. Lastly, which is the most important piece, is developing your political strategy. What does that mean? Political strategy consists of how am I going to build allies and how am I going to manage any resistance that might be out there. Political strategy also includes things like timing. Is now the right time to move forward, or should I wait on this for a while until the constellation of players shift or there's more openness to this? As you know, timing is everything, CB, and I know you've experienced that. Sometimes people are ready for an initiative or some program and maybe they're not there yet. Or maybe there's a few key people that are supportive but not enough. To be critical mass. So that's one of the questions: is the timing right, or should I build more support or get more allies first? And if the question is no, that it's not the right time, then you might ask yourself, who do I need to work on to be stronger allies? You also want to know the extent of your— of the resistance. in place? How much pushback am I likely to get if I move forward with this or propose this? Who's willing to stand with me to overcome that resistance? Do I have enough, what I would call relationship capital around this issue where people will literally stand up in a meeting and say, yes, I support this initiative or this proposal? And this is similar to what you might see in political systems, right? Are they going to stand up and sign on to what you're trying to do, or are they more just behind-the-scenes armchair supporters that aren't really ready to put themselves on the line? And that's where the rubber meets the road in political savvy, is how many allies do you have and are they strong enough to overcome any objections that That might exist. Also, for the objectors or the people that might be resistors, how much power do they have? Are they likely to overrule you and everybody else that might be standing with you? Or are they someone that might be convinced to move forward with what you're proposing? Understanding the extent of their power and authority is really important. Then if they are likely to resist you, how can you manage that? Are there ways to meet with them ahead of time, what I call lining up the ducks, making sure that when you go into whatever forum that you're going to present this proposal, that they're not going to blindside you, or they're going to be clear about where they stand, but it'll be manageable. So really important piece there. I think another key element of political savvy is, if I move forward, I might win this battle, but will I lose the war? And what I mean by that is, what's the fallout? Maybe you'll get through what you're doing, but the next time you will have no supporters because you've burned some bridges, right, or upset some people. To the point that they no longer trust you. That's a really important piece because this is not a one-time issue, especially if you're an internal employee or even a consultant. You're wanting to build a long-term relationship that is going to last. It's always looking at the bigger picture of, okay, well, what's going to be the fallout if I move forward? Or will people be excited and enthusiastic and this will build my relationship capital? All these questions that we're asking here go into building your political strategy.

Terry, where were you when I was a kid?

Well, I don't want to answer that question. I might get in trouble.

That's good political strategy, Terry. I love that answer. Oh my God, have you written a book about all this?

Well, I've written a blog post which is on my website.

Okay, it's not on the ACEC website, thank you very much.

But we could get it on there for sure.

Okay, we really need it on there because I want to cut it out and put it on my wall because I'm still learning these lessons. So, okay. So how, you know, I'm— God, where do I start? I think I want to start with how do you manage the emotional self so that you can develop a political system? Because isn't that incredibly hard to stay focused when you're— when your mind is all upset about issues or an issue?

Absolutely. So I think a big piece of this is self-management, right? Because political battles or systems can be frustrating. They can make you angry if people show up and try and sabotage you. You can be frustrated not being able to meet your goals. You might be resentful sometimes, right? So, you know, you might be afraid to even move forward. So All these emotions have the potential of either supporting you in actually building your political savvy, or if you're not careful, they can sabotage you. I have a whole other system, which again is another 5 steps. 5 steps seem to be a good way to go with these.

What are we going to call this one? 5 steps to what?

5 steps for stress-free leadership.

Is there such an animal?

Well, uh, if you follow these approaches consistently, it will definitely reduce your stress. And I've been using it now for, uh, 3 years with my clients, and they, they find it revolutionary, uh, in many ways.

Give it, give it. I, I— because I could have used this the other day. Absolutely.

So do you have a particular— it's helpful to use a case study. If you have one, or just an emotion that is, you know, that might be coming up. So each of them go through the same 5 steps, but the— and it's called the TINNER method. And 2 of my colleagues that I've been working with have recently written a book on this subject. So you can go deeper if people are interested. And it's also on my website, so we can refer people. To that and learn more about the AC/EC website also.

I mean, can we share?

Absolutely. We can put a blog out about this method that would be useful, I think, for people.

This is great. I'm telling you that I really needed this this week, and it is only Wednesday. Right.

I can imagine, right? We all have things in our lives. Happened to me this morning, actually.

Yeah, I remember you told me. But, you know, I mean, this leadership thing, seriously, sometimes I want to just say it sucks because it's just— it is so— it was so much easier just to stay in your own cocoon, right?

Right. You know what, you know, dealing with people is messy, right?

You said a mouthful. Oh Lord. Okay, go for it. Yes.

So let's, let's use an example of frustration, which I think is pretty common. Um, and let's imagine someone—

Sabotage as one that's really common.

Yeah, that's another one too. Absolutely.

Let's go with sabotage first.

Let's imagine you're trying to get something approved through your, maybe your board of directors or your senior leadership team. Out of the blue, right when you're about ready to present this proposal that you've been working on for months, someone out of left field brings up an issue. that they feel is a showstopper. So what's your immediate reaction that often will come up?

Why the hell are you waiting till now to bring this up?

Right, absolutely. And, you know, we may be very frustrated by that, right?

Yeah.

So frustration is always tied to— and this is one of the breakthrough ideas— it's always tied to to not being on track to achieve a goal. In this case, our goal was to get this proposal successfully adopted with as least amount of drama as possible. Now this situation has created some potential roadblocks to achieve that goal. So then we, you know, the first step is the— is known as the T-step, which is release tension. So you're immediately— you're probably gonna have either tightness of chest, or maybe your head will hurt, or, you know, you're now, uh, exasperated in some way. Your heart rate may be up. And so to release tension is—

How about all of the above, Terry?

Right. So some deep breathing is one technique, uh, and that is been proven physiologically to calm down some of these things. So that's a really first step is to take some deep breaths. You might want to walk around the building. You might want to even, if you have more time, go to the gym and, you know, blow off some steam, you know, whatever it takes to get your body to release some of that tension. Then your brain can think clearly about this. without being overwhelmed by all those transmitters and the neurotransmitters that causes frustration, like cortisol and adrenaline that ramp us up. Now we're going to be calmed down a little bit to think clearly, which is the E step, which is name the emotion. We've already realized that the name of the emotion here is frustration, maybe a little anger. Maybe even a little fear. But we pick one of those and name it and say, in this case, let's assume frustration is the major emotion. By naming the emotion, we're actually acknowledging that we're feeling something important, and that emotion can lead us to some greater insight and wisdom to what's really going on here. If we're frustrated, then that means we're not on track to achieve a goal, which is the underlying need, which is to achieve a goal and specifically have this proposal go through smoothly. The O step in TENER is to be able to come up with some new options. And we have a number of knobs we can turn. The first is revisit our assumptions. One of our assumptions might be that either this is a huge problem or maybe it's not a big problem. Our immediate reaction might be, oh, this is huge. We might want to do a reality check and ask ourselves, okay, is this really going to derail my process or is this a red herring that's just out there to distract me and throw me off my game? Or if it is just a distraction, maybe we ignore it or address it in the presentation but not make a big deal of it. If it is a big deal, then we ask ourselves, okay, well, how do we create some path forward to address it? Maybe we want to quickly do some analysis. We might put together a team to work overnight to come up with some workarounds. We might even postpone the meeting if possible. To give us more time. We begin to think strategically about how do we deal with this new issue that's been brought forward. After we come up with some possibilities that are going to really work, we check against our criteria to say, is this good enough or not? Have we met the— come up with a solution That will cause us to not be frustrated anymore. Because once the frustration begins to lift, it means that we've done our work, right? We've addressed the issue, which is the last phase, the R. The R is the gut check, our resolution. So we ask ourselves, how do I feel about this right now? And you listen to your body. Do you still have tension? Do you still have any other emotion that's creating some uncomfortableness to you. If that has dissipated, it's very likely that we have addressed this issue.

Terry, can you do really all of this in the heat of the moment? I'm like, let me— give me the plate so I can throw it.

Right. Well, that's the release tension. You might need to throw a plate.

Oh, okay. Let me share that with my husband then.

You can buy some cheap ones at Costco, right? Okay.

Don't aim for the head. Aim across the room.

Maybe some paper plates.

Paper plates. Okay, that might work better.

But yeah, that is the first step though, is to release a little bit of that tension so you can think straight, right? You ever heard that phrase, I was so angry I couldn't see straight? Things— Yeah, absolutely. That's part of the process, right? And we want to acknowledge that.

I think he uses that trick on me because he'll do something to make me just crack up, and I'm like, wait a second, I'm supposed to be mad at you.

Speaking of the devil, that's a great technique when you're working with others, which you can use tenor to help other people manage their emotions, like your employees or your boss or your spouse.

I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, I've got all these written down, so I've got to now type them up so that I could put them on the wall. Okay, so now we've got the steps to solving, uh, let me say, backstabbers or self-sabotage, or, you know, I— whatever, um You want to think of. And then, so let's move into the 3rd area. Well, you know, it doesn't even seem to work after all of this intense conversation, but developing strong teams.

Well, you know, they can go together, right?

Yeah, yeah, they could.

The teams, one of the— there's many things that are needed to have a strong team, but one is to be able to have and support each other in dealing with emotional issues. Training a team in tenor and in stress management can really be effective, as well as political savvy. Because if political savvy is done well within a team, then you're always building allies and being open about where people stand and how to build a strategy that's going to help the team reach its goals, both internally with each other and then externally with their key stakeholders. I think part of team development includes political strategy as a team level, as well as emotional management within the group. The groups that really suffer, one of the biggest issues is trust. Trust is undermined when you have bad politics, And poor stress management and low emotional intelligence.

Yeah. So, okay, tell me more. Because what I see, I guess it's the same thing. What I see that's destructive in teams is— I guess I shouldn't say it's destructive, but I am, for lack of a better term. Groupthink. You know, you have one leader that influences everybody, and all of a sudden, you know, all the minds that you brought together that you thought had inner strength and could give you good direction and dialogue, they're all thinking alike. And that one leader may have an unconscious bias, may have A hidden agenda. And so now the whole team dissipates.

Yeah. Or I worked with one group, uh, years ago. I call them the head bobbers because whatever the, the top guy would say, everyone else would sit there and do this.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go like this now.

And I, I knew them well enough where I, I, um, implemented some strategies and processes to help them prevent that. What did you do? One of the things we did is I talked to the senior leader and I said, you are a very charismatic guy and people do like to follow you, and you're very persuasive. Maybe he didn't— he probably used this to his advantage, but In this case, it was hurting him because he would be the first guy to share his opinion about a strategic situation or a major business decision. And I told him, you know, don't be the first guy to speak. You know, wait and don't share your opinion because you're biasing the group, right? You're creating a situation where they don't feel comfortable sharing their ideas because they don't want to disagree with you. That was one thing. I would often facilitate these meetings and ask others, and I would even say, we're going to go around the room and we'll end with the general manager today, but we want to hear from everyone. Or we would even do more structured ways of getting ideas on the table by having people writing their ideas on Post-it notes, Then I would read each note or have people share one note at a time and go around the circle. We'd put them up on the wall and it gave us a way to understand how much support there was for an idea. Because if 5 people said the same thing, obviously that was an important idea to the group where normally we may not have gotten that level of understanding. of where people stood if we went with the typical MO, which was the senior leader starting with the conversation. We also developed what was called the 5-finger method. The 5-finger method is a way of polling where 1 means I'll sabotage it, I'm not agreed at all with this proposal. 2 is I'll likely resist it, 3 is I'll go along with the crowd, but it's not my way of doing it. 4 is I'm highly supportive, but have a few minor tweaks to it. Then 5 is I am all in. We would often have a discussion and I would put on the table the proposal and read it out loud and have people show their level of support. And if anyone was a 1 or a 2, we would ask them to share what their concerns were. And the ground rule was, is that if you don't do it now, you can't do it in the hallway later.

I love it. Okay, give us that again. So I've got 1, sabotage, right? 2 is likely resist.

Likely resist. 3 is Okay, but not my approach.

Okay, but not my approach.

Right, I'll go along with the crowd, but not my favorite approach. 4 would be supportive but have a few minor concerns, and then 5 is all in.

I love it, I love it. So Terry, you mentioned something that's very popular. I don't know whether it's because I'm now in a leadership role that I am having some serious doubts about it, but I understand the basic underlining methodology and rationale to it. But, you know, it seems like it flies in the way of cowardice leadership or not courageous leadership. And that's this method of wanting to take the pulse of people in the company or in a group or an organization absent the leader. Because I believe that it leads to groupthink and not as much clarity and honesty as it's proposed to be. Right.

Yeah, I think the belief there is the leader will—

Contaminate.

Yeah, or shut down conversation or maybe disagree and people will be fearful. I think that's a symptom of a bigger issue when people say that, which is a lack of trust in the organization. Instead of being able to have an open dialogue, with the leader, it is showing that something else is not working. Either the hierarchy is too strong or the leader's not listening or the employees lack courage.

Or is it symptomatic of the group that's proposing this? In other words, could the rest of the team be okay and you've got this group that wants to I'm using the hand motions because it's more expressive than what I want to say.

I think I know what you're meaning though. It's also potentially a method of control to control the communication.

Yes.

I think again, that usually goes back to not trusting that the leader will listen or not believing they'll listen, or that they want to bypass leadership in some way. It could be a power play potentially as well. I think there may be places for that, but you can do that in a lot of different ways that don't remove the leader from the equation, but can inform the leader in a more powerful way. Like something as simple as the Post-it note exercise, or in the virtual world today, it's posting things in the chat room or Q&A, and that can help people see what the ideas are. One of my favorite things I used to do when it was what I would call a high-risk situation is to do what's called the Delphi method. What? The Delphi method is a way of making a decision and gaining consensus within a group. In fact, they use it for the Academy Awards every year. It's usually done in rounds where the first round of input is a series of questions, can be one question but might be a longer set, and those questions are answered by all the stakeholders. Including the leader. The leader wouldn't be included in it, but no one knows who said what yet in round 1. But whoever is facilitating— and you can do this on automated surveys as well, but you can do it via email, whatever system you want to use. I used to, as the facilitator, would mostly do it on email and compile everyone's results in a way that was readable. Then I'd send it out again for a second round. Then everyone has seen all the input and they can comment on it and add additional thoughts in a brainstorming way. Then if there was still a need for a third round, you could even do a third round. But most of the time, the second round was enough. Then I would bring all that data back to the— the group as a whole, including the leader, and then we would deal with whatever showed up. It could be a powerful way to get ideas on the table really fast without even having a meeting. It's time-efficient and it also enables everyone to have a voice so that you don't get groupthink. It encourages divergent thinking. so everyone has a chance to hear what has to be said, including the leader's inputs as well. I did work with one group that took a whole year trying to come to consensus on an issue. It was clear to me they weren't really listening to each other. This wasn't a leader issue, it was a group issue. What I did is did the Delphi, In 2 meetings, they resolved the entire issue using this Delphi method because everything was there in black and white, everyone's voice was heard, and then the answer became really clear to them as a group.

That's really interesting. I guess the reason why I am still debating this absenteeism of the leader is Not only because of groupthink, but I also think that there's some validity in it. I know that I listened to a tape of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith who interviewed— I don't remember who it was, whether it was Alan Mulally or somebody else. And he said, what was the greatest thing that you've learned in coaching? And the response was that whatever I say when I'm near my employees becomes the golden rule. And sometimes I just want to hear them think. And so I've become more and more— personally, I've become more and more cognizant of listening. But I think there is— and I'm having this argument back and forth with myself— there is the ability to go to a meeting and zip it, right? And you get such wealth of information back by just listening versus not going to a meeting and having the results handed to you by a group of people. I think you're missing the fineness of the conversation. I could see lots of opportunities for disruptive think to come through. Yeah.

Well, because obviously, uh, depending on how the meeting results are communicated back, um, you're likely to miss important details and the nuance of what was said. And, and if it's in a written format, it's hard to communicate the tone as well. So certainly there's a lot that might get lost in translation between When you're not present. I would agree with that.

Yeah. I think I'm coming down to the point where perhaps it is as simple as this, training a leader not to say anything because it is incredibly hard. I started doing that in a couple of meetings and I literally have been sitting there like, Don't say a thing, but keep a smile. Don't say a thing, because I know that I'm learning a lot by not speaking. But you want to jump in and you want to give an answer because you know you have the answers to the questions. But in knowing that you know the answers to the questions, sometimes the answers are for the wrong question.

Really interesting point.

Absolutely. So I always— I, you know, I graduated from the New School of Social Research, and I have an expression that what I learned as a graduate student coming— graduating from there was that the answer is the beginning of the question. And I have started to work on myself To, to engage in that, which is to really just listen. As much as you want to say that's wrong or that's right, even stronger, that's right, because I think it's easier to say it's wrong than it is to say it's right, because it's right requires more listening.

Right.

You know, and more processing, because in there there's a nugget of information that's agreeing with you, but there's also a nugget of learning.

Because, yeah, you never know, um, what might come up that you can still go deeper on any particular issue and Being able to hear more before you believe you've got what you need might be that one key that opens up the next step. Absolutely.

I have found that out quite a few times since I've learned to be quiet. But I wonder how— I don't have an answer. How do people in the meeting feel Maybe you have an answer. With the leader, the C-suite sitting there and not saying anything, how do they feel? Are they comfortable?

I think it depends on the ground rules of the meeting and also the intention of the meeting. Being able to be clear about that, hey, I'm here to listen for this meeting, or maybe having someone else facilitate it. Where they aren't looking to the leader to drive it themselves. Or the leader can develop a new rule like I did with the one team that they always go last. Maybe what they say at the end is a summary of what they've heard.

Yeah. I love that. I love that so that everybody feels like they Right, exactly.

They may still say something, but it's acknowledging the group's inputs. I think part of it is about the culture of the team and how the meeting is set up. What's the role of the leader in this particular meeting and how we're going to do that?

I love that, Terry. I think that that's That's actually the key answer, which is to say— now, I think some people, I don't believe that I have this, is that they're afraid to hear the other people speak because they feel that it means that they're no longer respected or they're seen as not being the leader anymore.

Hmm.

How do you deal with leaders that have those issues?

That are fearful if they don't stay in control that they'll lose power. Or, well, you know, I think again, there's a lot of ways to maintain authority and also power, and listening is one of them.

I agree.

Yeah. So it's kind of non-intuitive, but quite powerful.

Hey, Terry, what do you consider— what are the 3 best? We're going to go on 3s, not 5s, because 5s I didn't prepare you for. But what would you say the 3 most important skills within the listening skills?

Number 1, I believe, is to quiet your own mind. Because many leaders are very quick thinkers, they're often strategic, they're often creative. All that's wonderful, but in the listening mode, you're putting your own thoughts on hold for a minute and allowing others to bring forward their thoughts. I think that is quieting your own mind, those voices inside is number one. Certainly things like meditation and and practicing quietness and listening in that setting can really help there. That's a big one because we want to jump in right away with our own ideas often as leaders. There's a little trick with that too called mind clearing. You can have a piece of paper in front of you and take a quick note so that you don't lose your thought. But it's to clear the mind so you can go back to listening fully by capturing that quick idea on a piece of paper. We use that a lot when we did innovation workshops as a way to keep people focused on the speaker. That way I think is number 1, is being able to quiet your own mind. I think number 2 is listening isn't just being quiet, It's also engaging the other person, which means asking questions and also being able to use body language to indicate that you are engaged. It might be something as simple as head nodding or eye contact, but a really short, powerful question, which is the bread and butter of coaching, is really critical too. For good listening is asking the right question and not a question to lead the witness, but a question that is genuinely helping the other person with their thinking, like going deeper into their logic, their approach, their insight, pulling out even more of what they have to say. The question is not for the listener, it's for the speaker actually.

I want to dive a little bit more into that because oftentimes people who ask questions, it sounds defensive.

Right.

Or maybe even not defensive, it sounds antagonistic. How do you ask that question when somebody is trying to present a new concept, Without sounding like, what are you talking about?

Well, a lot of it is attitude. I think having an attitude of curiosity is really critical there, as opposed to judgment. You know, if you're having an attitude of judgment, it'll come across as, as, you know, defensive or judgmental. If you have— and you can see this in political questioning, right, on TV. More often than not, it's a battle. The questions are intended to discredit the speaker. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about questions that actually support the speaker. The speaker feels validated, that they feel like you're really genuinely interested in them and what they have to say, that you're really curious. We can all do this. It's in the attitude of trying to understand. They might be questions because you really don't understand, but the speaker will be probably happy to answer those because you're really making a big effort to connect with them. It feels loving and supportive.

Yes.

Genuine and curious, as opposed to a battle or defeatist or judgmental or critical. We can all feel the difference. We can tell by the emotional content of the question.

I also think I want to add to that because I think people who are strong leaders like myself, and then you combine that with an— I'm an INTJ, my questions are going to sound hard and to the And so I've learned to say to people, I'm only asking this question to get a better understanding of, you know, the direction you're going into or to get clarity. And I think that that helps versus somebody thinking you're being a real smart aleck and just trying to pin them against the wall.

Right. So sharing your intention. Can certainly do that.

Like that, sharing your intention. Okay.

Sometimes it can backfire if it's not genuine.

Really? Tell me an example.

Well, when we see this more in political settings where they, they, they're under pretense, we'll say just— and you'll, you'll see, uh, the questionnaire Sometimes feigning, feigning their ignorance when you know they really know what they are talking about. They'll say something like, explain this to me like I'm a 3rd grader.

Oh yeah, okay.

That kind of thing. That's a good example of how that can show up. And so I think you have to be— the question has to— the motion and Context has to match with what you're really trying to do, or people won't believe it.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Yeah. Okay, so you gave us Quiet Your Own Mind, like for medication— medication. Gosh.

That might work too.

Yeah. What am I promoting here? Okay, I like that. And engage the other person. And what was the third one?

So I think the third one is to have presence, and presence is that more intangible feeling that you're really there with the person. that you're not checked out or thinking about something else. Or, you know, an obvious way you exhibit presence is the not check email while you're in the meeting.

Ah, okay.

How many people do that, right? They think, oh, I'll just answer this quick email. Meanwhile, someone's like sharing their deepest, you know, passion. And now, could you say that again for me? But, you know, on a practical level, it's It's things like that. But on a deeper level, it's having you really feel understood as a speaker, like you actually get people. And again, eye contact is a method to do that, body language. But it's really more of an energetic state. And I know that might sound kind of ephemeral, but we all have energy fields, right, that we are projecting. And we can tell if somebody's with us or somewhere else.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I've heard that in comments about how I interview people, which is, yeah, you were definitely engaged, CB. It felt comfortable. It felt like a natural flow. Not to be braggadocious, but I've been on interviews with people where You're sort of spilling your guts out and they just like, yeah, okay, give me some emotion here. Let me— I feel like I'm alone, right? Absolutely.

That's another great example is that emotional element of it. And really, it may be even excitement. Yeah. You know, or at least curiosity for what the other person's saying.

Yeah. Wow, Terry, this is such great information. I hate to end, but I think that we're coming up on an hour, and I definitely would love for you to come back.

I would be happy to. It's always a pleasure.

You have such a— your head is just a fountain of knowledge. I thought, you know, I know that you're very involved with coaching supervision. So when you said you were going to come on the show, I thought, yeah, no, this is not for other coaches, this is for leaders. And I thought, but I love Terry, I'm going to go with the trust factor here. I'm going to trust that he's going to say something that's appropriate for leaders of the C-suite. He's not going to talk about things that are appropriate for coaches to know. And boy, am I glad I followed my gut. You are just amazing.

So are you. Great interview. I really appreciate your thoughtful questions.

Thank you. Thank you. So listen, everyone, uh, who's on this call, this has been Challenges of the C-Suite, brought to you by the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. And we've had the honor and privilege of talking to Dr. Terry. And gosh, I, I just can't think of a better person to have on this show. As I said, we're talking a walking encyclopedia. And for those of you that are too young to know what an encyclopedia is, a walking Wikipedia.

Oh, well, thank you, CB, for your kind words. It's always a pleasure.

This is CB Bowman Live. Come back and join us sometime. Meantime, excellent success out there. Bye now.

Bye everyone.