Building Superhumans: Honesty as the Bedrock for Growth | #SuperhumanFramework

Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome to let's Build Superhumans with George B. Thomas. We're talking about honesty, pillar number seven out of ten.

We're almost there.

Down, man.

Can you name them all now? No. I'm not even going to get you to try.

Something that I think is hard for everybody to learn is we got to say this. We got to communicate like a thousand times before people, you know, really sinks in. And there's always some first viewer. So I should be seasoned for this at this point instead of having to build it from scratch every time. But without notes, I guess this is how it really works. We've got holistic, helpful, happy, humble, humility, holiness. And last week was hungry.

Yes.

And now honesty.

I love it.

What are we being honest about today, George?

Well, we can be honest about whatever we want to talk about because it's your show. But, Chris, I do want to start in a maybe a little bit different of a place than we've started historically with these previous episodes, which, by the way, if you're watching or listening to this, we know you're probably working on an Excel spreadsheet and it's over on a side monitor and you're listening. But if you're watching or listening to this, the Superhuman framework was built for a specific reason. Not just to be able to talk about these 10 H's, not just to be able to have the four cornerstones that we also, like, kind of dive into here, occasionally here and there. But Chris, and listeners, viewers, we built the Superhuman framework to help solve problems. I want to just drill that home. I should probably have started every episode with that. Is that the Superhuman framework, the passion, the purpose, the persistence of putting these pieces of content out, of creating these things? I'm here to try to help solve problems. I jokingly say now I've used the last 12 years of my life to help humans make millions of dollars with HubSpot. And the next 12 years, or maybe the rest of my life, I'm hoping to help them save billions by improving themselves, teams, and the cultures that they live in. So with that said, today we're talking about honesty. And if I let myself imagine how humans are going to engage with this, there's probably folks out there that might have a hard time connecting honesty to teams and company culture. I mean, let's be honest, no pun intended there, by the way. At first, it feels like a personal growth topic. And it is like it absolutely. Like, if you're. If you're not focused personally on how to be honest, what honesty means in your life, then you know. But here's the thing I want to drill in to the fact that honesty doesn't stop at a personal level. While it works and it's great there, it doesn't stop there. It actually ripples outward and impacts everything, like how teams operate, how entire companies function. And when we start to combine honesty with transparency. I knew you were excited to hear that word. You immediately started shaking your head. When we combine honesty with transparency, we unlock a whole new level of trust, accountability, and performance. And so we have to stop right there and think for a second. Are we getting the performance out of the individuals and teams and the organization as a whole? Are we sitting here keeping each other accountable in a healthy, by the way, another H pillar? And is there a bedrock of trust in the things that we do? Because as they say, Chris, honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom, and without it, everything else crumbles. And that quote from Thomas Jefferson reminds us how foundational honesty is not just in our personal lives, but in. In business, too. And so I want to talk about real problems we see in teams and company cultures that could be transformed by practicing honesty and transparency. And my hopes, too, is to have time today to even, like, give you some action items along the way. But these are things that we see over and over again, and they're holding organizations back from achieving their full potential. And Chris, you can thumbs up, shake your head, whatever you want to do. When I start to list these out in the chat pane. By the way, if you're watching this live or you're watching the replay or listening to it, maybe come up from your Excel spreadsheet and just put an A. Amen, brother, if one of these rings true to you. But lack of trust, fear of speaking up, poor accountability, resistance to change, unresolved conflicts, low engagement or morale, silos, and poor collaboration. And the one that just kills me is lack of clarity in decision making inside of organization. So, and I know that's like a handful of problems like, oh, and I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, right? And we can't cover all those problems. But Chris, today I do want to focus in on three of these problems because I think these are like linchpin items that if people start to pay attention, the rest might fall in order. I want to focus on these three. Lack of trust, the fear of speaking up, and poor accountability. Chris, one of the biggest issues we encounter is a lack of trust within teams and between leadership and employees. When there's no trust, communication Breaks down, We as humans hold back, innovation stalls, and the progress that everybody's seeking slows to a freaking crawl. And here's the kicker. Only 49% of employees trust their senior management. Only 49% of employees trust their senior management.

By the way, not my optimistic number.

Yeah, not my stats, by the way, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. But Chris, that's less than half, which that might be inflated, but that's the stat we have. Where my brain goes is that's a fricking serious problem. Because without trust, collaboration can't happen. Without trust, everything else falls apart. And this is where honesty and importantly, transparency play a critical role. Because when leaders and team members are transparent about everything from company challenges to data daily interactions, guess what? That trust, that right now isn't there for many organizations, it gets rebuilt. People then feel safer to speak up. Humans take risks. Humans truly work together towards a common goal. A culture of honesty opens the door to trust. And trust is the bedrock of any high performing team. Lean into it, look into it, research it. Don't just take my words for it. Chris. The second thing, the big issue is something that we see all the time. And it is one of the things that I battle daily in our organization because I don't want people to have this. It's a, I've been there, done that, but it's the being afraid to speak up. And it could be something as simple as sharing a new idea, pointing out a mistake, raising a concern. Many people stay silent out of fear. Organizations have to realize silence is costly. And I'm talking about ROI freaking dollars. In fact, Gallup found that only 3 in 10 employees. Chris, 3 in 10 employees feel their opinions matter at work. What? You hired the people because they were these dope humans that you wanted to insert into your organization, but only maybe 3 out of 10 of them think that they even matter in the big scheme of things that are happening to me. Maybe I'm just weird, but that's incredibly low. That number to me, blew my mind. If your people, if you're a leader, a manager, any type of human that has other humans around you, if your people don't feel safe to speak up, you're missing out on the best ideas, the best problem solving, the best, the, the best version of your team and what it could be. But when you combine honesty with transparency, you then can create a culture where people feel safe to be open and share their thoughts without fear of. Because I didn't say it the last time, Retaliation. Nobody wants to be retaliated on. It's like, no. Like, I'm just. I'm. I'm safe. I got my coffee, I got my computer, I got my work. Just, can I get through this day and somebody not pile their ish on me? And we shouldn't have to live in that type of culture. It's a game changer. Honest, transparent communication encourages humans to share their real opinions. And that's when you start to unlock the innovation that we're looking for. Chris. I love Brene Brown. And she has a quote that says, because I got to see her twice at HubSpot's inbound events over the years, and I'm like. And read her book, and I'm like, that's amazing. But she says, clear as kind. Unclear is unkind. When we're clear, Chris, when we're transparent, we invite people to engage, and that is where we start to create the magic. When those first two things that I talked about are rolling in a. In a culture, rolling in teams, rolling in individual humans, then we end up with. I honestly think this is how we end up with the toxic waste dumps that we end up with. And that's poor accountability. Poor accountability just drags the individual human and the teams down into the gutter. Too often, teams don't have clear ownership of tasks, and when something goes wrong, people point fingers. I wish more people would own up instead of point out. Anyway, just a. Just a simple concept that you might think of when it's you as the human. Like, am I owning up or pointing out which one do I want to program my brain to choose moving forward? This lack of accountability, Chris, creates confusion. It creates delays and ultimately lower performance. And research shows that 82% of managers. Chris, you're probably getting excited. Ooh, this is a high stat. 82% of managers admit they struggle to hold others accountable effectively. So in the stats that we want to be high, they're low. And in the stat that we want to be low, it's high that we have a problem. See, without honesty and transparency, how can anyone be clear on their responsibilities? When teams embrace honesty, they take ownership, not just of success, but they take ownership of the mistakes that happen along the way, too. Transparency in accountability means everyone knows who's responsible for what, and that clarity leads to better outcomes. Now, I know I'm maybe waxing somewhat aspirational as I'm saying this, but people I don't believe live in the space in which we're dreaming to create in more organizations.

They do not.

Yeah. An accountability expert, Henry Evans puts it like this. Leadership is not about being in charge, which, by the way, I'm the leader. I'm in charge. But he says leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. I'm going to purposely let that sit for a second for you who are viewing or listening to this. Leadership is not about being in charge. It's about taking care of those in your charge. And you can't take care of your people, your teams, or your company without an honest, transparent approach to responsibility. So, Chris, for the listeners out there, it's time to look at your own teams and cultures. Are you dealing with low trust, fear of speaking up, or poor accountability? If so, like, time to make honesty and transparency a core pillar of how you operate. The old way of working, where people hide information, operate in silos, or avoid responsibility, guess what? It just doesn't work anymore. And if you want better results, you have to shift to a culture of openness, trust, and clarity. That's how you start building teams that perform at their highest level. And it's how company culture can truly thrive. Chris, I'm on pause there. I'm going to get your thoughts. Like, where you at, brother?

Couple things to connect to your opening statement. The problem, like connecting what Georgia said as a leader. The reason to solve for transparency. It's really easy and this is what I proved internally to get people on board with making millions. Right. The problem that needs to be solved is losing billions. At the same time. I. Yeah, it's not in me to do one knowing that the loss of billions is happening. Right. To just a personal story to kind of put this in perspective. I worked with the same agency, you know, twice at two different organizations because I trusted them and they actually did their best, like, to help me as an internal, you know, marketing leader trying to grow a team that hasn't existed. And because of the challenges of not having control over a lot of things related to digital transformation, while you're being asked to be the one to digitally transform the organization, I think that I can. All right, I'm going to sneak in HubSpot and it's going to create transparency needed. And I'm going to use this agency and they've got a proven framework and we're just going to move forward with it. But at some point, like, you just hit the wall. And anything that is not tangible or like, measurable, that's happening in a negative way almost always comes back to transparency to the point where last year I was going to I just had this daydream of, like, speaking about this topic because I do think it's the number one problem in most organizations is lack of transparency. And I imagined. So we're all in the room. We all get excited about this new plan, this new initiative. All right? We're going to start doing the right things. We all just jump in the car and we're going to take a trip. And lots of stops along the way. And the first stop is transparency. And we're like, oh, that one feels hard. I don't. I'm not going to stop there. Everything else is ruined. Like, everything else doesn't matter. Because of all the reasons that you mentioned, I think there are seven of them. They will all happen, like, guaranteed. Things will get harder, they will take longer, people will get pissed off, and all these things start to roll in. And that's where you start pulling back from the plan. You're like, okay, we're compromising. We're constantly compromising, constantly settling, decision by committee. All this stuff happens. And that's the time element, both from humans taking time, humans, emotional impact, and the longer it takes to realize the opportunities. That's what is in those billions of dollars.

Yeah. And again, we're trying to solve that problem while fixing other ones as well along the way. But it's funny, because you know me, Chris, I try to put myself in the shoes of the human. My dad used to say, don't judge a man unless you walk a mile in his moccasins was his thing. And so, you know, I. I've even said I'm kind of waxing aspirationally. And what I want to do is I want to add some clarity to everything that I just said. And when I say that, what I think we need to do is when we say honesty pertaining to the superhuman framework, what do we really mean? Because I can say words, but if we don't have a joint definition of the word that we're using, then again, all of this might fall flat. So, Chris, when. When we talk about honesty in the superhuman framework, we're talking about more than just telling the truth, because most times, that's where people. Oh, yeah, I tell the truth. I'm honest. And that's like the level in which we go. What we're talking about is living with integrity, transparency, and accountability in everything we do. Again, a little aspirational, because we're human. We all have our things. But integrity, transparency, and accountability are the word cloud that you should start to build in your brain. It really is aligning what we say, what we do, and how we show up with who we really are. Chris, you used a real world example. I'll give you a real world example of this. When I first left agency life, I launched out as a solopreneur. I did not want to manage humans. It was just going to be me. George B. Thomas, llc within the first six months, we had enough humans that we were actually an agency. But we are hiding the fact that we are agency under this cap of like, oh no, it's George B. Thomas, a solopreneur. I couldn't stay that way. It wasn't my native nature to like be fooling people. And so that's why we literally launched Sidekick strategies because we were an agency. So how about we align with what we say, what we do, and how we're showing up with who we really are? We, we're a fricking agency. Right, but that's hard work. It's the foundation for growth, though. When you can actually have this integrity, when you can have this transparency, when you can have this accountability, when you can show up as who you really are, that's the foundation for growth for personal and professional. By the way, on the individual level, honesty means being real with yourself. It's about having the courage to face your weaknesses and recognize where you're falling short. Without that self awareness, real personal growth doesn't happen by being honest with ourselves, Chris, and transparent about what we need to improve. We start living with purpose. That word might sound familiar since it's one of the four cornerstones and that's where true transformation begins for us as individual humans. Now, on the team level, honesty is what builds trust and creates a space where open communication and transparency can thrive. Teams that practice honesty don't shy away from tough conversations. I'm going to ask you, in the last week that you've had, this is Thursday, so we're talking Monday to Wednesday. How many tough conversations have you shied away from? Just this week. You see, because when you're in a team that practice honesty, you actually embrace them. It's about transparent feedback. It's about clear roles. It's about creating psychological safety. And without honesty and transparency, teams fall apart into these silos and passive aggressive behavior. And I know you just immediately thought of somebody on your team when I said passive aggressive behavior. But that's because we're not setting them up for success. We're not injecting this honesty from a teams or company culture perspective when they're present, when honesty is present, when, when, when These things of transparency, accountability are present, collaboration becomes seamless and innovation takes off. The third level, the company level, honesty actually has the power to shape your culture. It's about leaders being transparent, not just when things are good, but when there are challenges too. Employees can sense when they're being kept in the dark, and that breeds distrust. But when leadership is transparent, when they're open about the why behind decisions that are being made, trust and loyalty from the employees, the teams, the individual humans, well, it has the potential or most likely will grow a company that is rooted in honesty and transparency doesn't just spin a narrative. Also been there, done that, seen it, threw the T shirt away. It creates an environment where people feel valued, aligned, engaged, seen, heard, valued, a culture of worth. And that's how you build a company where people want to stay forever and contribute as much as they can because there's honesty in what's happening and why it's happening. Chris, what are your thoughts on that?

I mean, like, if we just look at the passive aggressive behavior, people don't own or hold themselves accountable most often for me, for assuming positive, positive intentions because it's literally high risk, not in their best interest, like in these cultures. Right. But it's so human for us to want to, like, say, like, hey, yep, that was me. Or like, I know what's going on and there's something. We end up doing it. Like, we try to mention stuff like under the radar or indirectly, which equals passive aggressiveness. So. And this is where, like, I told myself early on, like, I don't want to. I'm not going to get good at that game. So that resulted in me getting let go twice in 10 months because I was the one saying, yep, I own this challenge. Like, this is hard. Like, I understand I might be creating a lot of problems, but this is what I was asked to do. This is what the board, everybody's approving this mission. So. But then I'm the only one. And not to make this a sob story or anything, but, like, once you're the only one that puts yourself out there and there's punishment, there's literal, like, disincentivization that everybody else can see. It's like, there's always a story being told. Either you're in charge of it or you're not. And when everybody else sees that, they're like, oh, I'm not raising my hand for shit. Like, just tell me what to do. Like, there's no benefit to me for putting myself out there. And this is. Comes back to the Safety. This is what we talk about when it's safety. If I feel it's unsafe in any way, I'm not going to speak up. I'm not going to try new things. Just pay me. And this is a transactional relationship. And, you know, I'll try to get that somewhere else. And then we have. Was it three out of 10, you know, don't feel like their opinions matter.

It's crazy. First of all, Chris, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Like, it pains me to know that you're basically part of a statistic that is directly aligned to the conversation that we're having today. And, you know, a couple of things that popped out of my brain as you mentioned. You're like sneaking in HubSpot and communicating under the radar and like, these things that, like, we feel like we have to do. But the third thing you said is because we're the one, this is where it's all falling apart. It can't be the one. And the magic is when the human is honest and the teams are honest because the culture is promoting honesty. It is literally a not to go a HubSpot or whatever, but it is a flywheel model honesty when you get all three people in there. But I want to dive into because I want to make sure in a little bit of time that we have left, like, sweet. Okay. We know there's these massive set of problems. We understand what the pillar of honesty means pertaining to individuals, teams and organizations. George, it sounds kind of tough. How do we put it in practice? Right, Chris? I literally know there's listeners that are probably thinking, I have no idea how to actually put honesty into practice in my life, especially in my team. And it feels out of reach for the company that I work in or the company that I own. I get it. The reality here is honesty and transparency don't just happen. Nope. Don't live in that world. It's not just gonna happen. Honesty and transparency are intentional practices that we need to work on every single day when we wake up. How are we making sure that honesty and transparency are at the root of it? So let's break it down a little bit into three levels. The individual, the team, and companies. And what happens when all three, because we kind of alluded to this, Chris, align around honesty and transparency. So for individuals, it starts with self reflection. Get real with yourself about where you're at. Ask yourself tough questions. And I know right now I'm speaking to whoever's watching or listening to this individual humans, ask yourself questions. Like, am I being true to my values? Ask yourself questions like, where am I holding back? Don't get me wrong, it's uncomfortable, but once you face it, you can start making changes that align with who you truly are. Like my friend Liz likes to point out, you can start to show up as a whole ass human. Honesty and transparency with yourself create personal growth. Because you stop avoiding the hard stuff and you start tackling it head on. This is one of the reasons I love the fact that we launched the beyond your default podcast and newsletter and community is because having those hard conversations, having to answer the hard questions on a weekly basis because we're doing a podcast around these topics that most individual humans struggle with. Like it was like we can't avoid them, we're freaking talking about them on a podcast. Let's like tackle them head on. And the amount of personal growth over the last year plus of doing that podcast is crazy. So how do you do that? Not that you have to start a podcast about all of your ish and stuff. I'm just saying how do you implement, how do you ask those hard questions in your life? At a team level, it's about creating, fostering, building. You use whatever words you want, but it's open, transparent communication and open feedback. My brain goes to like hashtag no judgment, hashtag like zero expectations. Just the flow of conversational data from one mouth to a set of ears to get the communication and feedback that is needed. Now on this one, you're gonna have to start small. Create a space where people actually feel safe to share their challenges or mistakes without fear. Like you might even hold regular honesty check ins where everyone can speak up about what's working and what's not. I'm even to the point where I'm accepted of a box that can be completely anonymous that you can put anything in. And at least if that's a way that you're gonn communicate because you're not afraid, do it. When teams embrace honesty and transparency, this again is where trust grows, collaboration gets easier and performance improves. Every leader, when you hear that sentence, you should realize this should be a focal point because you win in the long run. At a company level, honesty has to start with leadership. I'm if you are a leader of an organization, if you are a manager inside of an organization, consider yourself a leader. By the way, you don't even have to be a leader to be a leader. But leaders need to model transparency in their decisions and communication. When there's a big change coming. Don't just say this is the way it is. Explain the why. If there's a challenge in the organization, don't hide it. Talk about it. Reward transparency when employees admit mistakes or share tough feedback. I didn't say fire them. I said reward transparency when employees admit mistakes or share tough feedbacks. I didn't say yell at them. I didn't say write them up. See, when you reward it, that's how you create a culture where people feel safe, engaged and committed to the mission that is the organization. Now, there's a key thing that if you know, you know and you'll tune into that. Is your organization a mission? Does it have a purpose? Do people have the passion that they need for it? Are they willing to be persistent in the thing? And here's where the magic happens, Chris. When individuals, teams and companies all embrace honesty and transparency at the same time, the impact is exponential. Think about it. If everyone is working on being honest and transparent with themselves, honest and transparent with their teams, honest and transparent with the organization, you create a powerhouse of these two words that every organization should be focusing on. Alignment and trust. When you have alignment and trust, problems get sold faster. Engagement goes through the roof and everyone is rowing in the same direction. With two more words that every organization should be focused on. Clarity and purpose. Alignment and trust. With clarity and purpose. That's the real power of practicing honesty. Not in isolated pockets, but as a unified force across all levels inside of your organization, your teams and your humans. And Chris, remember the problems. Lack of trust. Honesty builds trust by fostering transparency and open communication. Fear of speaking up Encouraging honesty creates psychological safety Empowering employees to share ideas and concerns. Poor accountability. Honesty promotes ownership ensuring that everyone is clear on responsibilities and expectations. Lack of clarity and decision making. Honest communication of the why behind decisions increases employee buy in and engagement. Unresolved conflicts will Honest conflict resolution prevents issues from festering and strengthens team dynamics. Low engagement or morale. Transparency from leadership helps employees feel connected and valued, boosting engagement. Silos and poor collaboration. While honest communication across teams breaks down Silos improves collaboration. Resistant to change who move much ease. Honesty about the reasons for change helps reduce fear and resistance, fostering adaptability. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we start solving these problems one step at a time by embracing honesty and transparency at every level. Chris, before I kind of wrap up, what are your thoughts? Where you at brother?

I want to give everybody a heads up what the initial challenge is going to be. And I've seen it also. Like every time I read a book about growth and and what top organizations are Doing and like. And the reason it always comes back to culture, communication, alignment. Right? There are people that, and there's no judgment here. This is what they've had to do to get by. If there is no structure, they have to create structure for themselves to be successful. That sometimes means they have profited off of and have been successful based on the lack of accountability, based on all gray areas, based on be able, being able to win in, like in the margins. Right. You need to get to this place of this is who we are moving forward. Transparency is going to be one of our number one values as an organization. And then it's in both best interests of the org and these individuals who. This will be new for them to say in or out, it's okay either way. If it's out, we'll help you find a place. But there's no more gray areas. It's not going to be comfortable for you if that's how you've been getting by. And sometimes it's some pretty high performers. And this is what is, like, it's not in their best interest to let them, you know, think that they might not need to change or that there's still going to be space for them. So you have to find a way to. And if you were to train on anything immediately as a leader, this is where I think this is very much top down only because if you try to do this from the bottom up, like we said, like, you're the first one out there. I had people directly say, like, Chris, we don't think you're taking into account the personal risk. And I'm like, you might be right, but I just can't, like, I can't let that, that guide me in these situations. So as a leader, like find, like, just train on those challenging conversations to be like, hey, this is the best for everybody. We would love for you to get, you know, on board with this, but we understand that might not be your jam and we're happy to help you find, you know, success elsewhere, but you don't have to go home. But you can't stay here.

Can't stay here. Yeah, my brain goes, one bad apple ruins the bunch, right? Especially when you're trying to do something like this and, and listen, I fully understand you might be watching this or listening to this and you're like, but I'm not the leader. Then your job is to plant the seeds. Like, how can you, how can you give the Columbus principle to your leadership team? Meaning how can you help them realize they discover their own America when it comes to wanting to have a culture of honesty inside the organization that's a little bit safer than Chris's, I can't stand for it, so I'm going to. Which, by the way, admirable. Admirable. But you can again, plant the seeds. Chris, as. As we wrap up because, my goodness, time flies and we're having fun on these things. I want to leave our listeners, the viewers, with some actionable, like, takeaway stuff. So the challenge for everyone listening or watching today is this. Start today. Whether you're a leader, a manager, or part of a team, embrace honesty as the foundation of how you are going to operate, how you will operate. Take an honest look at yourself. Are you being real about where you need to improve? Are you open to feedback? If you lead a team, ask yourself if you've created an environment where people feel safe to speak up and own their work. And if you're running a company, reflect on whether you've built a culture of transparency where people trust you and trust each other. Like, this is your call to action. Take one step today to put honesty into practice. Have that tough conversation you've been avoiding. Set up an honesty. Check in with your team. Start building a culture where truth and transparency aren't just values on paper or your website page, but living, breathing elements of your everyday work. And the impact, it's exponential. When individuals, teams and companies align around honesty, trust is built, accountability thrives, and the whole organization moves in the same direction. That's the path, ladies and gentlemen, to becoming superhuman or a superhuman organization. And it starts with being honest with ourselves and with each other. Chris, dude, again, it's been awesome. I love making these with you. This conversation day is. I think it's definitely going to impact some folks in the way that they're thinking and moving. But take the challenge I gave you. Put it into action. Own your life and the places in which you work. Thanks, Chris.

Be honest. Start today. Find those opportunities and let's grow. Have a great day, everybody.