226 - Unleashing the Power of Emotional Listening in Leadership with doTERRA International's Shannon Bible

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Shannon Bible, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the Executive Vice President in charge of the global customer experience for a company called doTERRA. Which can be found at doTERRA.com. That's spelled D-O-T-E-R-A. Thanks for being here. This is going to be an interesting conversation. You have a very interesting career trajectory.

Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And I'm excited to be here. Absolutely.

Let's start with your backstory. You're a Utahn, so BYU, right?

Yep. Yep. Graduated from BYU and then stayed really close to home.

And what happened after that?

Yeah, so graduated BYU. I actually majored in English. I love English. I actually love the reading more than the writing. Yeah, you're a great prolific writer, so I admire that. Out of college, got hired on with a great company called Nu Skin Enterprises that resides in Provo. Came in really as a promotions manager, so I did a lot of writing and managing some of their promotional materials and different things like that. And within a year I took over, got into the events management role. And started doing events first just in the US, and then it expanded to North America, and then we expanded out to Europe and included South Pacific in our region. So it's a great, great place to start. A lot of great mentors there, learned a lot about the industry. They're a direct sales company and Nu Skin is as well. So great background there. And then yeah, made my way over to doTERRA.

Yeah, the events business is days and days of easy work and then 100 hours of intense, no sleep work. It is.

It's like putting together all these plans, little details, right? Day, day in and day out. And then all of a sudden it's all over in 3 days. And at the same time, you're trying to empower and enlist an entire army of staff and personnel and different personalities to all come together and make it work. And I think that's why I do love the experience of events so much. There's nothing quite like a live event.

So tell us about— you moved over to doTERRA and you obviously moved up through the ranks. Tell us about the company.

Yeah, doTERRA was— we just had last week our 16th birthday anniversary. So doTERRA is really for our size, we're relatively young. So 16-year-old company. We are currently open in 25 markets throughout the world. And if, and that's counting Europe as one market, so you broke that up, it'd be even more. We've expanded quite quickly. Originally, most of our growth of course was started here in the US. We're an essential oil company. Essential oils really are taking, we, we really refer to a lot of the plants and things that come from nature's gifts of the earth, and it's really harnessing those gifts in their most pure and safe form to, for other uses. So we found that essential oils empower a lot of people. A lot of families to take control of their health, to enhance their lives and just make everything better. We have a, a saying, we say an oil in every home. And it's lovely to be associated with such a purpose-driven company.

I wonder if we have some of your oils. I read a study, my wife is a, among many other things, is a doctor of, uh, oriental medicine, acupuncturist and herbalist. And she knows all about essential oils. But I, a study came out last December that showed that when you diffuse essential oils for 2 hours while you're going to sleep, dementia and Alzheimer's goes way down and cognitive abilities go way up. And she has always suffered from ADD and ADHD, and she is finding that using those, we rotate every night to different oil. She said, what do you want us, what do you want tonight? And she has found that it has dramatically improved her cognitive functioning.

Wow. Yeah, that is an amazing study. And I think one of the things that's is so powerful with that is the oils that come from doTERRA specifically are in their most pure form and their most potent form as well. So little goes a long way. And the, we have a broad variety. We source from over 47 countries throughout the world because we don't think lavender frankly doesn't grow best in Utah Valley here. Pretty irresponsible of us to be trying to make oranges grow here. And right now, peaches and cherries, that's our jam. We've got that here. But so we source throughout the world to make sure we get the most pure and the most potent and helpful, like with the most benefits associated with the different chemical constituents of each oil. The other thing that I really do love about doTERRA, and I'm very proud to be part of it, is our— an initiative we have that's called Co-Impact Sourcing. Basically, there's a few ways to source oils and harvest and different things. There's some companies and people who have huge productions like large farms and everything, and there's a place for that. For most of our oils, we source from small farmers in that we really go to where this plant or product grows best. And then we partner with small farmers to— and we help them. We help them learn how to cultivate their land and how to do crop rotation to keep the, the plant and the product so pure. And it's been a beautiful partnership. We say we, we want to source the best and help the most.

And so when you're going, I saw in, in our Authority Magazine interview that you've actually went over to Kenya and worked with some of these small farmers. And I'm curious, do they aggregate their crops and then in a co-op and then distill the oil, or are most of them distill their own oils, have their own distillery?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it's, it depends on the area, but in the area where I was in Kenya, there is a distillery there. That doTERRA partners with to, so that all those small farmers can bring their crops in. And because again, there's very important things that have to be followed as far as when you harvest. The best season for harvesting is this time of year. And so all the farmers will focus in on that and get that and bring into the distillery. And then we have great, we are, we really focus on paying fair pricing and partnering with these farmers long-term. And when I was over there, I was, I felt so lucky. I got to go with some of our, our distributors who we call our wellness advocates. And they all pay their way. They, this is something that they want to go and experience, which is, speaks volumes to me. And I was able to take my daughter. She had just turned 16.

Wow.

She was nearly 16. And yeah, we went to work. We got to meet a lot of these farmers and their communities because that was something I don't think I realized is that it's not just a little farmer with their plot of land. They actually though then go out and a lot of their people that live right by them are their family members or close friends, and they actually as a community farm that land and it sustains a number of families for the entire year when they do that and do it in the right way. Yeah, we went and installed some irrigation systems. We had a, a foot pump that we would use. So now they've got a, they've got an irrigation system that they can use this foot pump. It was a good workout, I will tell you that. And they can get water to their crops so that they're not solely dependent on the rainfall. And beautiful.

Good for you. So obviously you're passionate about what you do. What is it that gets you up in the morning to go to work?

That's a great question. I do love the people I get to work with and interact with. Being in a customer experience, and I also say leader experience role here at doTERRA, I get to work with amazing teams internally who really want to figure out and do what's best for our leaders and our customers in doTERRA to help them share oils and share, share our products with as many people as possible. I also get to work directly with our customers and our leaders, and that brings me a lot of joy. I love to see people grow and develop, and if I can play a small part in that or clear the path for them, that brings me a lot of satisfaction and joy.

Wow. Good for you. And so you've been doing this for a number of years now. What do you think is unique about you that you bring to the table that's made you so successful?

That's a difficult question. Sometimes it's hard to talk and see that in yourself, see what's unique. One of the things I love doing is, and I'm pretty open with my teams on this, I don't think I necessarily always have the best ideas. I have a lot of people I've worked with, so many people who just, they love to dream and come up with new ideas and new concepts. And I can do that. I definitely can, because I'll do it out of a sense of responsibility. And if it's my role, and I will get that done, I will accomplish it. But it brings me so much more joy to get a group of talented people together. And a lot of times that's an internal thing here on our teams. We'll pull someone from our IT group and someone else from our product group and someone else who deals in marketing and someone else who's in customer service and come together, present a problem or an opportunity. And I feel like we always end up with a very solid solution coming out of that. And also as a leader, I feel like I get a lot of buy-in from the different teams that I don't necessarily have authority over. They don't report to me. And, but if people are involved in the kind of ideating on a concept and they're part of the solution from the beginning, they tend to be a lot more supportive and I tend to be able to get things get done quickly that way. So I do love that aspect, and I feel like a lot of the management team has commented on that to me as one of the strengths I do have.

So you're a convener?

Yeah, I—

that brings me joy, definitely bringing people together to solve a problem or to create a new opportunity. And you have a unique ability to bring disparate people together with different viewpoints, perspectives, skills, knowledge, and meld them into a unit to focus on whatever it is that needs to be focused on and keep them focused.

Yeah. And that is something I've had to figure out how to do over time.

Where did you learn how to do that?

Yeah. To keep everyone focused.

Yeah. And just to lead it, to do that kind of leadership work. It sounds, I don't know if you know the difference between technical and adaptive leadership. Have you ever run across that? It sounds like you're more, you're, you trend towards being more of an adaptive leader. Where you're creating a learning environment for your team to work in rather than some technical leader who's just telling people, here's the recipe to follow. About that?

Yeah, I would say, I definitely would see that. And there's always like balconies and basements to all of those different types of strengths. And one of the things that I've seen, and I'm currently very, to be very transparent, dealing with currently, okay, we've created this more adaptive environment and people are contributing and everything. Okay, now how do we get a little more tactical with it? And really coming together to say, now this is a great idea and people are bought in. Now, what are the steps to actually execute it? What do we need to do?

That's the strategic and tactical part of leadership.

Exactly. And I think there's a great way to bring both together. I think sometimes I fall short in assuming other people are going to do that. And I need to be a little more aggressive at times, not in a bad way, but in a assertive way of saying, okay, let's all get on the same page with the idea and the concept. We all agree on that. And now let's get on the same page with the steps we're going to take to actually—

time and action plan.

And then I'm Achiever is my number one strength. Then it gives me so much joy when we're able to get things done. And I think everyone here is so much happier when they can see a project or something progressing or an improvement that's being made. I love that.

I wanna cycle back cuz I'm not sure I understood your answer. How did you learn how to convene and lead and be an adaptive leader?

Oh, that's a good question. I think I definitely started out not with that perspective. In school, when you have to do a group project, I always dreaded them.

You're an introvert.

I didn't, and I feel like it was probably a trust issue thing too. On my part, just thinking, not thinking that other people weren't capable. I think I felt more, I felt such a sense of responsibility to an assignment or a project that I knew that I was going to take most of it on myself. And, and when I started my career, I did that. And it actually, as an individual contributor, it got me pretty far. People were, I think people were impressed because I'd volunteer to take on additional things. Often. And it caught me, I think I caught people's attention that way. And I wasn't necessarily trying to, I really just like to learn. I'm curious and I like to learn new things and I'm okay. I like to work hard. It's fun. Moving into management and a leadership role, it, I had to conscientiously change.

It's different being a producer versus being a leader.

Yeah. And sometimes as a leader, it's hard to really feel because you can't, there's not as many things you can check off your list. Um, and so I had to find ways to trick myself into that just a little bit. So I still felt like I was achieving things, but in the process of, I was letting my team members take things. I remember when I was in my first management position and I had such a talented events team there. We were a team of 4 of us. We weren't big. But they sat down with me one day and said, Shannon, you need to give us more. Like, you're trying to take out— and I don't think they felt I was micromanaging because I don't usually have that attitude. I just didn't want to overwhelm them, or I didn't want them to think that I was a leader who wasn't also contributing. I didn't— I don't like that thought. Um, but them sitting down and saying, like, we want to learn some of the stuff you're doing, actually, by you keeping things even though you're trying to protect us and you're actually stunting our growth.

And that had to be eye-opening.

Yeah. And they were, we are close to this date. This was a really close team and I am so appreciative of them saying that to me because that is the last thing I want to do as a leader is make it so that because in my effort to not overwhelm anyone or still look like I'm personally contributing that I am stunting their career growth. So that, that changed me. Like that moment I was like, yeah, I can still provide coverage for them and a clear direction and help clear the path for them. But I need to let my team members run and course correct where needed.

Right. Of course. Leaders provide 3 psychological services to a group. Then the difference between a team and what, what the leader provides is services that create a team rather than having a mob. A mob doesn't have a leader, right? Team has safety, direction, and focus. And there was a, a Google study a couple of years ago that showed that the only factor that separated Google's top 10th of 1% teams from everybody else was the fact that they had psychological safety on their team. I'm— you strike me as being somebody who probably, whether you know it or not, creates safety. And I'm curious if you reflect on that. One, is that something that you think about? And two, if so, how do you go about creating safety.

Oh, thank you for saying that. That's very kind. I think I definitely, that is an emphasis for me with my teams. I want them to feel, I don't ever want them to be afraid. I want them to feel responsible. I want them to not want to disappoint either themselves or me or their position or the company. That's important. But I think one of the ways I create, hopefully create safety for my team is that I'm pretty transparent and open with them as far as the things that I personally am still working on or ways I fall short. I also ask a lot of questions. I was, and they're not demeaning. That's important to be. They're really sincere and I'm being curious. I was asked when I first started at doTERRA, I started, I was over recognition, which is something that exists a lot in direct sales where basically we're tracking all the leaders and all the amazing things they're doing and rewarding them and recognizing them for it. And I was a recognition team of one, which it was just, I'd gone from managing a team at my previous company to just, it was just me.

You were the producer and the leader.

Yeah. Which actually I was back in my, in my lane. It was my, I love that.

Right.

But After I'd been here about 8 or 9 months, they asked me to take over a big account management team that was in need of a manager. And I had never been in that role before. I had been around it enough to know what I didn't know. And so I told them, I said, as long as you, I know what I don't know, and I'll never claim to know something that I don't know. So if that's a strength and you want me to lead this team, I can. And I had a lot of work to do to earn the trust of that team, especially as someone who came without the background and without fully understanding their function even. And so I came in really pretty humbled because I felt really overwhelmed being in charge of this team. And I asked a lot of questions and I used, I used them as my, I told them, you guys have to be my eyes, ears, hands, and feet here. In so many ways. And it truly became a great partnership. And there's even things today about, like, our compensation plan here at doTERRA is amazing. It's very robust, but there's things about it, and I've been here 11 years, that I still go and check with people. And I call people on my team to say, hey, will you check my thinking on this? Am I thinking about this correctly? And I think because I'm willing to ask questions And then it allows them to not have to, they don't have to know all the answers. In fact, I don't trust those that do sometimes. There you go. Because I know I don't know all the answers. And if we can create that type of safe environment to, and the environment to try new things and not be too afraid, it does make it a very fun work environment for me personally. And I hope for my teams as well.

Yeah, that comes across that way. You come across as being very powerful. In, in the right sort of way, not in the command and control style, which a lot of men adopt, which in my opinion doesn't work. So this show is called Listening with Leaders, and I told you a little bit about my background before we started the show. I am a lawyer turned peacemaker. I was a lawyer for 22 years and then got my master's degree in peacemaking and conflict studies, became a peacemaker, and discovered a very powerful tool for stopping fights and arguments. In any situation within 90 seconds, which became the title of my fourth book. Oh, and as I said, I've worked in places as disparate as maximum security prisons, training lifers to stop prison violence, to the Congressional Budget Office, where I trained senior analysts how to deescalate members of Congress and staff.

It's quite the wide range there.

Quite the wide range. Like I said, if I can teach those two groups, I can teach anybody. But this show came about because I got really interested in listening and leadership. And one of the things that you've said is that you learned how to ask questions in a non-invasive, non-threatening kind of way. But tell me about your listening skills. You can ask a question, but then what happens when people start talking?

That's a good question. I, yeah, I don't know how intentional I've been with my listening. It's probably something I could continually be working on. I do, I feel, I think this happens with all of us where we're listening to someone and then we missed what they said because our brain went elsewhere. Yeah. And usually great thoughts. It's not like I'm thinking about Saturday morning cartoons or anything. It's usually very work-related and it's usually triggered off of something they said.

That's right.

So when I lose or I'm not tracking well, or I lose focus, I actually am pretty honest about that with my team. And I say, I am so sorry. And devices don't help this right now. Devices. And that's one thing I've had to learn.

Making it worse.

Yes. Yes. And like I got myself a watch to wear that, that pings me and stuff. And I've, I literally have to control myself as I'm having a one-on-one conversation with someone and I just refuse to look at it because I have found that otherwise it's, I'm having a conversation and doing this.

You're getting bored. Your brain is getting bored.

Mm-hmm.

So you're looking for a distraction.

Yeah.

And, um, I would say I'm going to give you the secret on how to stop that.

Oh yes, I need to read your book.

You do. However, in the meantime, the secret is learning how to ignore the words and listen to the emotions. Ooh. When you listen to emotions, you'll remember every word that's spoken because all memory is associated with emotion.. And so you don't have to pay attention to words. And because you're focusing on emotions, you're using a completely different part of your brain, and you can stay engaged with anybody and never get bored because their emotional experience triggers your brain. We're all designed through evolution to be able to listen to emotions. We don't pay much attention to this ability because we have a culture based on the myth of rationality, that we're all rational beings. We're not. We're all emotional beings. And we evolved, communication evolved through emotion. So we don't, this is not, as far as I know, I'm the only guy that's teaching this out there right now. But when you learn how to listen to emotions, you stay focused and you can stay focused for as long as you need to stay focused. When you just, what's going on? What are they feeling? What's their emotions right now? And That's the great secret.

I love that so much. I was actually just thinking, I'm like, I should, as I, because I keep little notes as I meet with different team members, I should, I don't know if this is something you train. You tell me, you coach me on this, okay?

I absolutely do train on this.

Um, but I think even like putting a little box to say what was the emotion of this conversation, like, huge. I love that.

And you, when you get your teams focusing on listening to emotions, and then the next step is not only do you listen to emotions, but you reflect back the emotional experience of the speaker. So I'd say, so Shannon, you're really excited about the idea of learning how to listen to emotions because you see the amazing potential that it has in developing your teams. And this could be a whole transformational experience that you're going to be able to take yourself and your teams through as they learn how to take their performance to a whole new level.

I love that.

You see how it works? Notice no I statements, none of that active listening stuff that doesn't work. All you statements. So ignore the words, listen to the emotions, reflect back the emotions with the you statement. That's the secret.

I love that. And I think, I think one of the reasons people key in on listening so much is because, is because no one quite knows how to do it.

That's right.

That is, that's like a secret. I feel like I've learned a secret like magic trick.

Now think about childhood. You were not taught how to listen. You were told to listen. You were told to listen in school. You were told to listen to authority and be quiet. That is not teaching you how to listen. And we carry the same— we carry this into adulthood without having been taught proper listening skills. And I'm of the belief that if we knew how to listen, we wouldn't have nearly the problems we have with our political polarization that we have today. All people want right now is they just want to be heard. They just want to be listened to at every level, whether you're in corporate or you're out in the community or you're in a prison. First skill we teach our inmates is how to listen to emotions. And they— and just doing that, besides the 200 other skills we teach them, they stop the prison violence. Wow.

That's amazing. I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah, of course.

I'm gonna put it into practice.

There you go. One more question and I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us? Ooh.

One thing about me. It's probably that I actually really love being home because I'm very much on the road a lot with my job, and I pride myself on— I do, I love what I do, and I'm so grateful for that. But I do, I want to do— there's— I have this like envious thing for people who have a little more time at home than I have, especially as a mom. It's tough, and all working moms and all working fathers feel the same type of a thing at times. But there are things that I always try, I always try to flex talents in some areas that I don't get to do at work. And I'm not actually very naturally gifted in many of these areas, but I've taught myself to crochet. I've gotten quite good at it.

Good for you, crocheting.

I know that's, you see me on an airplane, that's what I'm going to be doing, Doug.

Absolutely.

My new initiative is to learn how to knit. I bought myself a whole little training course. Again, I'm not a very artistically talented person. But I can follow instructions and I love it. And so I do stuff like that at home.

You'd never know it unless I told you, but I'm a jazz violinist.

Oh, really? Do— are you in a group?

Do you play? No, not right now. I live in rural California. I've been looking around for musicians, but they're pretty hard to find. I'd have to go down into the city to find them and I don't wanna do that. So I just play for my own enjoyment.

And that's—

my brain, brain going.

I love learning things like that about people. I learned one of my, one of my managers is a concert pianist.

Like, wow.

She was like, yeah, she did all the like Miss Idaho pageants and everything. And she's a concert pianist.

And that's why I always ask the question because you just never know.

Yep.

Well, this has been a great conversation, Shannon. I've really enjoyed meeting you. Thank you so much. My list, my audience is gonna love this.

Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's so great. And thanks for the amazing tips. I can't wait to put them into action.

Oh, you're welcome. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnoll.com.

DougNoll.com/podcast.

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