How Michael Reddington Moves People From Resistance to Commitment

I know this is easier said than done, but number one, suspend judgment. If people feel like they're being judged in the conversation, it's dead on arrival. Number two, remember the totality of the human experience. Any one of us would have made any number of different decisions if our life circumstances were different. Now, as we proceed in the conversation, hopefully we're going out of our way to build credibility through our words and actions, not by just telling somebody how credible we are and then allowing them to save face and lead them to make the decision to tell us the truth so we can begin to make.

That forward progress from Good day listeners. I am Jeff Duden and we are on the home front. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, encouraging entrepreneurs to take action to transform their lives, impact communities and enhance the lives of those they care the most about. All the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it counts. So if this sounds like you, check us out@homefrontbrands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. We will be looking for you here today. On the home front we have Michael Reddington, a personal friend and incredible presenter and lecturer and trainer. Welcome, Michael.

Jeff, it is great to see you. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's awesome to be here.

So Michael is an expert at moving people from resistance to commitment and he's an Executive Resource Certified Forensic Interviewer, president of Inclusive, Inc. And author of the Disciplined Listening Method. His public speaking career began way back in his teenage years around New England, educating audiences on the benefits of including students with and without disabilities in the same classrooms. His speaking endeavors continued for several years as he facilitated training courses for investigators at the organizations where he was employed, invited by companies, governmental agencies and executive groups to facilitate his programs across the United States, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. And he's led over 1500 programs and educated over 15,000 participants. Michael, so excited to have you on the home front with us today.

Thank you. Thank you again. It's always great to see you and just even play a small role in the amazing work that you do.

We appreciate it and you already have impacted me in a tremendous way as well. You know, we're going to get into this concept of listening and some of the things that you share around interrogation and interviewing and all of the amazing things that you've done and you've packaged that for corporate America as well as personal people. So we're going to pack into all that. But before we do, can you go back and just start a little bit and give us your background? Maybe go way back to your youth and just share your story with us?

I will, and I'll try to keep it a reasonable length. I'm a New England kid, born and raised. So I grew up probably like most boys around where I live, I wanted to play center field for the Boston Red Sox. That was life's goal. So I grew up, you know, like a lot of people playing sports. My grades weren't awesome growing up. Long story short, like you, like you mentioned, I ended up graduating from a high school where the students with developmental challenges were involved in the regular classrooms. And I got there my sophomore year. So for, you know, whatever you would call it, preseason football camp, when we showed up before the school season started, that's when I met the first student who was involved in that program because he helped support the football team. And so once classes started and I realized that he was in some of my classes, I started spending more time with some of the teachers and support staff that were working with him. And I was very fortunate to begin to develop a relationship with the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. And at that point, as you mentioned, that's where I really started getting involved in speaking and educating on something that to this day, I still believe is a really important topic. So with that, I went to college straight out of high school, assuming that I was going to be a high school special education teacher and baseball coach. Now being fully aware that the Boston Red Sox were off the table. So I figured that the special education teacher and baseball coach would be where I would end up. And that's where my career started. But as you know, I'm susceptible to peer pressure. And in the 90s, a lot of my friends were making money hand over fist in the financial industry. So they talked me into trying that. And I did. And I lasted for two years, one month and two days. That is an accurate number. Probably two years, one month and one day longer than I should have been there. And literally one night, knowing that this is not what I want to do, I was driving home, I was at a stoplight next to New Hampshire College, and they had a sign that said, now enrolling evening classes. And I literally thought to myself, maybe I should get a business degree. So the next day I signed up for my first business class, started going back to school and decided, I'm going to get a business degree. Figure out what's next in my life. So I went back to school full time. It took me a year and a half to finish a business degree. Summers went straight through and. And I was that kid that left the house in the morning with all three meals in a cooler, eating out of my car, going to classes, working at night. I was loading freight on airplanes in the winter at Manchester Airport in New Hampshire. Not the smartest job I've ever agreed to do. I built elevators, I drove delivery trucks, drove forklifts, did whatever I needed to work at bars just to make money. And then one day I was having a pint of Guinness with a friend and I feel like I've made some good decisions over pints of Guinness with friends. And I was telling him how I needed another job, and he said, why don't you come work with me? He was in the field of security, so I said yes. And what started out as literally a part time job to help pay the bills, yada, yada, yada, eventually led to where I am. So Mark and I got promoted to management. At that point, my focus shifted and was really looking at internal operations and how employees were creating exposure and loss within the organization. And once I was introduced to interview and interrogation, that's really where my life changed and set me on the path to where you and I eventually met.

And I'm so glad we did. You really started in loss prevention. So loss prevention for the audiences, you go, you're in a retail environment, you're in a big box, what, a Neiman Marcus or a Target or anywhere like that. And you are the one that's responsible to reduce theft. Not only theft from shoplifters, but employee theft, which is a big problem that we have. So talk to us a little bit about that environment. And then how did that lead in development of your interrogation training and all of that?

So I got moved down to Connecticut. They told me it was a promotion. I relocated down to Connecticut with the promise, and this will, this will play itself out, but with the promise that if I turn that location around, then bring me back to Boston, which is where I wanted to be. So I've been there for maybe a week. And I would love to tell you that I caught my first person stealing, but I just happened to be standing in close proximity to a terrible thief. And so I called my boss and I was like, hey, his name's Adam. Like, hey, Adam, here's what I got. He said, it sounds like you got him. I said, I know I got him. He said, good. Do you think you can get him to confess? There's only one acceptable answer to that question. So I'm going to say yes, because I have to. And then I'm assuming Adam is going to tell me how to do it. I say, yeah, of course. He says, good, call me back and tell me when it's done, and hangs up the phone. It's like, well, wait. So literally, I stumbled and fumbled my way through that interview. To this day, couldn't tell you why that guy confessed, but he did. Started a few more investigations, was able to close a few more out, and then Adam, he's still a friend of mine to this day, sent me to my first interview and interrogation training class by a company that would eventually hire me with Glender Zalowski and Associates. And I remember sitting in the front row that day because I was the last one to show up. I got stuck center, front row, and I was listening to Chris Teach, who became a good friend of mine down the road, literally. The clouds parted, the rainbows came out, the sun shined, and I decided, this is what I want to do. So I was fortunate to be in an area where there were a fair amount of people making regrettable decisions on a regular basis, so there was no shortage of people for me to talk.

Target rich environment.

Yes, that's a good way to phrase it. So I quickly became fascinated with why people would choose to not only tell me so much about what they did, but write it down and shake my hand after I went. When I was living in Connecticut, I went to one unemployment hearing. And unemployment hearings don't typically go the way of the employer, just how the system is set up, not saying it's good or bad. And the way they used to work, at least in Connecticut, was they would ask the person who no longer was employed what happened. Then they would give us a chance to tell our side of the story, and then they would make their ruling. And it was largely set up to be in favor of the employee. And if they have a family to still support, I understand why it's up that way. So literally, the woman reads, the mediator reads the case report, looks at the guy and says, can you tell me what happened? And he looks right up at me and he's like, no, that's it. That's everything. That's what I did. I mean, Mike was really nice. I appreciate it. That. That's it. And she looks at me. I'm like, I got nothing to add.

Like.

And so reflecting on why do those things happen? And honestly, I believe it comes back to just embracing the totality of the human experience. Like we're all people that would make different situations in different circumstances. And then learning the tools and techniques necessary to connect with those people, to share this sensitive information unleashed my geek and just dove into as much interview and interrogation research as I could. I eventually ended up, I guess here's the playoff on the Connecticut story. When I did turn that store around, they rewarded me by sending me to New Jersey instead of back to Boston. So I got down in New Jersey, ended up earning my certified forensic interviewer designation and built a reputation for myself in the industry. And that's when Wicklander Zaloski, the world leader in non confrontational interview and interrogation training and advising, called and asked me to go work for them.

The core of what just floored me when I first met you and we, we met in a, in a vistage. You came and did a vistage talk and I was just absolutely floored. And then we got together and I said, you know this concept of confession. When do people confess? Why do they confess? You have a 76, or at the time your firm had a 76% confession rate. So you walk into a situation, somebody's been stealing VCRs off a loading dock, you have no evidence, you have no idea who it was, who it is, and you go through. And 76% of the time the person that's in the chair confesses to it. So, and for me, this was like, I, I just, I triggered on that and then I did my research into your work, brought all of our franchise coaches in for a three day training with you, and then hired you as a speaker to come speak to some of our groups. Because the impact of confession, I mean, we lie to ourselves. Do we really know what the problem is? Are we making excuses? So my thinking was, could we use your work around getting to the root cause, getting people to really admit that maybe they weren't running the sales plan the way they should, or maybe they weren't coming across as a leader or building whatever it was. Could we help our franchisees be more successful by using, using your content and your intellectual property and your methods and your tactics? So what I'd like you to just succinctly put is like, why do people confess?

I'll try to be succinct, I promise.

You got, you got 40 minutes, so go for it. Take 38 of it on this topic, because it's the most. I know you can do it. I know you can do it, but it's fascinating. So, so go for it.

Instead of thinking it as confession, which is a perfectly accurate word just for people that might be viewing the conversation differently, let's think about it as sharing sensitive information under vulnerable circumstances in the face of consequences. So people have, and this goes across our, we're talking before we hit record, our personal life, our business life, investigations. So people have information that is sensitive. It could cause them to feel embarrassment or worse. If they share it, they're feeling vulnerable in the situation and there's some sort of consequence. It's not necessarily jail or losing their job, but it could be somebody from your organization coming in and reworking their entire framework of their agreement because they haven't been holding their end of the bargain. It could be having to go home and tell your husband or wife what's going on. So in that situation, for those circumstances, people will generally tell the truth when they believe the truth either is known or will imminently be known. They see credibility in the person who is asking them questions and they have the opportunity to save face and protect their self image in the process. And honestly, that third part is where people make mistakes the most because they come in with, you know, this, I have to interview you. So now this conversation is about me. I have to win. I have to beat Jeff. I'm the, I'm the shining knight in this conversation. Jeff is the criminal. He, he owes it to me to tell me the truth. Absolutely none of that is true. You owe it to yourself to protect your self interests. So if I want you to tell me the truth, I need to structure the conversation in a way that allows you to see credibility in me without it being forced upon you. That allows you to make your own decision that, yeah, the truth is pretty reasonable to access right now. So now would be a good time for you to impact the decision making process and then allow you the opportunity to save face as we go through that conversation. And honestly, sometimes that manifests itself in the way that drives people nuts the most. People will give an initial excuse for why they did or didn't do something. I'm sorry I did it because I'm sorry I didn't do it because I'm sorry I said it or didn't say it because. And as leaders, when we hear that excuse, fireworks go off in our brain. Like that is unacceptable. We need accountability and we attack the excuse. But what we don't realize is right before the excuse came the confession. And that's the toughest piece of information to get. Like that is literally the toughest thing we can't solve problems that aren't on the table. They were willing to put it on the table by using the excuse to get it there. But we're too busy being offended by the excuse to realize they just gave us what we need in order to make progress in this conversation. Do the thing they're not expecting you to do. Instead of forcing accountability now, which nobody wants, look right at them, say thank you, use their name, give them a validation statement and ask them to tell you more. So it could literally just sound like this. Thank you, Jeff. I hadn't considered that. That's a valid perspective. Please walk me through in more detail.

I did it. I did all of it. I admit it.

But now if it is an excuse, it's going to unwind and you're going to come back to accountability and you're going to feel better. So anytime we're thinking about asking somebody to share information with us, if it's sensitive information, they're at all feeling vulnerable and there's any perception of consequences involved in the conversation. I know this is easier said than done, but number one, suspend judgment. If people feel like they're being judged in the conversation is dead on arrival. Just let that go. Number two, remember the totality of the human experience. Any one of us would have made any number of different decisions if our life circumstances were different. When we're having this conversation with somebody, let's keep that in mind. Now as we proceed in the conversation, hopefully we're going out of our way to build credibility through our words and actions, not by just telling somebody how credible we are and then allowing them to save face and lead them to make the decision to tell us the truth so we can begin to make that forward progress from it.

One of the things that you share with us is observing changes in behavior. And one of the little breakout phrases in your book says the farther away from the brain a bodyguard is, the harder it is to control. Just because somebody gets uncomfortable doesn't necessarily mean that they're lying, but it does mean that they're uncomfortable. Can you talk a little bit about how you use body language and, and what are the triggers there? So in a normal conversation, there's a huge percentage of it is non verbal. What percentage?

Depending on who you believe. The range that we like to use is like 55 to 65% because, you know, everybody's different culturally, personally, those types of things. But certainly the majority of the communication generally leaks from that channel.

Okay, so. So you're observing changes in behavior, manifestations of Crossing arms or somebody's foot starts going when you start talking about a certain subject, how do you use that in a normal conversation?

Great setup, and I love the way that you entered into it. Just because somebody is uncomfortable doesn't mean they're lying. All of the myths that are associated with truth and deception are essentially centered around the thought that people are uncomfortable when they lie. So if they show uncomfortable behavior, that must mean they're lying. If they look comfortable, that must mean they're telling the truth. I have interviewed way too many liars that were all too comfortable looking me in the face and lying. And the single most uncomfortable person I ever interviewed was innocent. I knew she was innocent when she got there because she wasn't managing the facility when the theft occurred. She had been brought on after, but I had to interview her first to confirm some basic operational details. And unfortunately, the VP of HR didn't think to tell her that we were coming and I would need to talk to her. So we literally knocked on the door before the facility was open. The manager comes over, opens the door with her fresh cup of coffee in her hand. She looks at Beth and says, I didn't know you were coming today. And right then, I want to hit the timeout button, like, this is already bad. And then she. The HR executive makes it worse by saying, oh, I apologize. This is Mike Reddington. He's a certified forensic interviewer, and he has some questions for you about the theft. The innocent woman was literally shaking so hard, it took me 30 minutes to calm her down before we could have the conversation. So when we are engaging with somebody on any type of high value, impactful topic, really what we want to do is exactly what you said. Look for their changes in their comfort level. Are they appearing to be more or less comfortable as the conversation goes on? And we love to say that when a behavior changes, it's infinitely more important than what behavior changes. So at the beginning of the conversation, if. If it's, you know, relatively calm, relatively stress free, I want to get an idea of what do you look at and sound like when you're pretty stress free in the context of this conversation? Once I have that visual established now, as the conversation continues, I'm looking for deviations from that.

Okay, so. So just as a point of emphasis, when I've observed your work to. To establish that baseline, it's like, is this your current address? Is this your name? Is this. You know, how long have you worked here? Just basic questions that don't get at anything. They're easy they're softballs. And it. There should be no lack of clarity around what the answer is. So. So you start by just doing that into a conversation. You also try to come off as very, very authentic and approachable because you're trying to make the person as comfortable as you possibly can. Correct.

100, 100. And yes. In a formal interview setting, I might ask you to verify your address, your date of birth, your employee number, your Social Security number, whatever it might be. But even in a casual conversation, if I'm going to buy my next F150, when the salesman is trying to build rapport with me, I'm establishing his norm. When was the last time you had a day off? What time is your lunch break? If we can't do the deal today, what time do you get in tomorrow? I'm asking him questions he has no reason to lie to me about, so I can get his norm before he probably lies to me. As we talk about buying this vehicle.

Yeah, yeah. Your wife is in all kinds of trouble, I can tell you. It would be. I can't even imagine having a tough conversation with you about, you know, did you take the trash out or something more material in your house. I mean, you got to be able to put the. Can you put. Well, there you go. Yeah, there you go. Acquiesce, my friend.

Yes. And the answer to your question is, can it be put away? Yeah. But it's also keeping in mind what's most important. So in my house, I love my wife. She's an amazing woman. She's also a chief human resources officer who met me for the first time in an interrogation class I was teaching and has attended any number of classes. And so, I mean, we work together on a lot of things.

She knows what you're doing.

Yes. Nobody means more to me than my wife and son, so it doesn't matter what the conversation is about. The end goal, if we're going to use business talk, the strategic goal is the health and prosperity of my relationship with my wife and son. So that is the overriding principle to our conversation.

Yeah. So as you move towards. And I don't want to take us off the process of, you know, getting. Working through this interrogation, but, you know, manipulation with good intent. So if you're. If you become more skilled, if you take your book, the Discipline Listening Method, you apply these things, you're going to be. You're going to be a 10 times better listener, which means you're going to be a 10 times better communicator just by understanding the Content of your book, which is incredible. You're not in a situation with a key employee. You're trying to manipulate them with good intent. You're trying to get an outcome that's going to be good for them. You're trying to get an outcome that's good for their team, that's good for our customers, that's good for our franchisees. So, you know, all manipulation, even though it has a negative connotation, is not bad.

I agree. I agree 100%. We put a bad label on manipulation, but it's really the intent and the goal. The intent, the goal, and the means used that make it positive or negative. We manipulate people all the time. I have to manipulate my son every morning if we're ever going to get out of the house. Like, we manipulate people all day long. What's the intent? What's the goal with the meat? What's the means that's going to make it positive or negative?

So now you've established a baseline, and you're in an interview with somebody. Where does it go from there?

So really, from there, I don't want to get locked into just zoning in on somebody's face or zoning in on somebody's hands or zoning in on somebody's feet. What I would really like to do is as I'm having the conversation, either while I'm talking and while they're talking, that would be not either or. But as the conversation is going back and forth, I want to remain in tune to the totality of their communication. Number one, is it congruent? Does the emotions they appear to be displaying, do those emotions align with the words that they're using? That's one thing I'm looking for. But then for those behavior changes that you mentioned, in order to give them value and potential meaning, they have to be associated to the trigger that most likely caused them. So if I'm having a conversation with somebody and while they're talking to me, they break eye contact, well, what happens? Is that a natural break on their personality or cultural norms? Did somebody just knock on the door? Did the phone ring? Like, did it. Are they. Is there a window behind me? And a car just drove by? There's lots of reasons why they could have broken eye contact. Or to use your example earlier, are they not following the sales plan? And when they started talking about the sales plan, now, they broke eye contact, they looked down at their hand, they started fidgeting with their wedding ring while they repositioned themselves in their seats. Cross their legs. At this point in time, they're talking lower and slower using vague, non specific terms. So now all of these things paint a picture. It's not just he played with his ring, it's that entire picture that we're seeing that's telling us, okay, this person is uncomfortable talking about their sales plan. That doesn't mean they're lying to me. I need to see that discomfort and now think to myself, okay, what's the most likely reason they appear uncomfortable? Then how do I use that intelligence to approach this conversation from a different angle to make them feel more comfortable sharing more detail and opening up? So we like to refer to them as like alert signals. You start looking uncomfortable about. And by the way, it could be more comfortable if I'm having a conversation with you and all of a sudden I ask you a question and you sit up straight and give me a little smirk and a fast answer. I know you were prepared for that question. And I have to start asking myself, why did Jeff prep to answer that question in advance? Is he trying to give me a scant answer? Is he trying to prepare something else? Is he just really proud of it? And I need to start going through the same process there too.

You shared with me that people are more likely to confess when they come to the place where they believe any reasonable person faced with the same set of circumstances might do the exact same thing. So, for example, they're behind on their bills. They were going to steal some money out of the till. Maybe they even had the intent to give the money back. It was a loan. You know, other people. The boss takes money out of the petty cash drawer. I just need money because I got to make this bill. I'm waiting on my check. I'll put it back next week. Nobody noticed it's missing. Then that starts this pattern of behavior. So there's this reasonable person threshold that people have to get to where you have to make them comfortable to say, you know what? This doesn't make me a bad person. This just makes me a person that was in a set of circumstances that was very reasonable, and most people faced with the same thing would do it again. That's where this whole concept of embarrassment is worse than failure. Because now if they believe that any reasonable person faced with the same set of circumstances might behave in the same or similar manner, that reduces their embarrassment of it.

One of the things that we love to give people the opportunity to do, and this is true in business as well, is blame the circumstances in order to feel comfortable talking about the details. And in business that runs so Counter to our hyper accountable culture that many of us want to drive. And I get that. But again, we can't fix problems that aren't on the table. So if I let somebody blame the circumstances to start talking about the issue, I can circle back to the accountability on the issue after the fact. So yes, in an interrogation setting, we're not making threats or promises. I'm not looking at them and saying, dude, I would have done the same thing. But we are making illustrations at different points in the line, empathy statements, if you will, that allow them to first be very clear that they're not being judged and then second, allow them to start connecting those dots on their own. Because you're right, you're right conceptually and you're right factually. Conceptually, we don't want people thinking I'm a bad person. We want them thinking, yeah, I'm a good dude, I just made a bad choice because this was happening. But factually, off the top of my head, I don't know that I could describe, I wouldn't name them, but I don't know that I could describe five bad people that I ever interrogated. The overwhelming majority of them were good people that made a regrettable decision based on a situation that they couldn't figure out a better way to handle. One of the analogies I used to use, and we can certainly gauge the audience reaction to the appropriateness, is it's like having somebody in deep water. I might need them treading water for a while, but I can't let their head go under. Once their head goes under, this conversation's over. There's no hope, there's no outcome, there's no reason to get better. So yeah, I might need to leave them in the water, but I can't let their head go under. And thinking that you're a bad person is pushing your head underwater. You talked about lying to ourselves before. That type of negative self talk. If it's a mistake in our personal or business life, we just made a decision we'd love to have back.

So. So as a part of a process in this, leaving a way out, a back door somewhere for these people to go so they don't feel trapped and cornered. I think that's part of the art of it is because if you, if you get them to a place where, where you force them into a statement that, that they've just made a declaration, now they've got to defend that to the end. So now you've just made your job, they're entrenched, it's harder and you might not get there.

You're 100% right, to quote Sun Tzu, never fully encircle your enemy because you force him to fight to the death.

That's. That's the art of war, baby. Right.

I don't. I don't want to do that. So, yes. Leaving them the excuse, the way. Well, you know, I only did it because I needed this, or I only did it because I didn't think about that, or I only did it because I was conscious of concentrating on this.

I want to use an example as kind of a word of caution. You shared with me a video one time when we were working together about a gentleman who was working maybe on a loading dock, and there had been some things stolen. The game was, is this person guilty? And we were watching this video of this guy, and he came in and sat down, and he could not sit still. So he's. He's going crazy. His foot's going, his arms going. He's folding his legs. He's not looking at you. He's not answering these questions. And he even refused, if I remember correctly, to give his address. Like, he wouldn't. I stay there sometimes maybe like he wasn't even. He wasn't even answering the baseline basic questions. Come to find out that he had nothing to do with the theft. And when you told him that that's what you were there investigating, he laughed and he relaxed and he thought you were there to collect his back child support. So.

Correct.

You know, you. You, you think you, You've got your man, or you, you at least have. You're observing something. There's all kinds of discomfort, behavior going on. There's deceit, there's. There's lying. It was because of something completely different. How often is that the case? And how important can that be for the people that you coach today? Executives and people in corporate America?

You remember that example pretty well. And the way you describe it is accurate. If people had the opportunity to actually see how bad that guy was flopping around and how evasive he was being in his word choice, I mean, there's no way that most investigators would look at him and not immediately be thinking, wow, he must be responsible for more than I even thought about. And it turns out not only was he not responsible at all, but once he knew it wasn't about child support, he snitched on a couple of dudes that were involved. You got to talk to these guys.

I'm just saying.

Couldn't have ended much better. To be completely honest. I don't have a number to put on this. But thankfully, in the world of investigations, it doesn't happen a whole lot. We were a little bit more exposed to it because, as you mentioned earlier, we generally only got involved with. And WC's an organization, still does. They only get involved with cases that have multiple suspects, no evidence, everybody's already been interviewed, nobody's confessed before. A couple of weeks or months have gone by. Now they call us in to come in and clean, clean it up. And thankfully, as you've mentioned, roughly 80 or so percent of the time we're able to do that. In that situation where we're coming in with so little information, we need to be much more open and aware that just because somebody's looking nervous early on doesn't mean we know what's making them uncomfortable. They could have any number of negative expectations or worries or concerns coming into that conversation. But even spin that into some of the other examples you've made conversations with people at home. You know, my son is not a teenager yet. We try really hard to communicate with him now in a way to lessen the stress and the worries and the expectations when he is a teenager. But whether we're talking about conversations with our children, our family, people were in business with, just because they come in looking uncomfortable doesn't mean we know what they're uncomfortable about. So if I'm working for you and you call me in for a meeting and I'm sitting there thinking, and you're thinking, mike hasn't been executing on his plan. He's probably going to be pretty nervous and defensive. I hope I can get through that because I like the guy. I'd like to get him back on track if I can save the relationship. I just got off the phone, had an argument with my wife. I'm worried about something that's going on with my, like, physical house. How are we going to afford it? What are we going to do? I walk in, I sit down in front of you, and I look like a wreck. Our expectations are the first filter that all of our observations travel through. And that's what we start prescribing meaning, or how we start prescribing meaning to our observations. So you would naturally start thinking, yeah, he's a wreck. I'm going to have to get through this. And I'm sitting there, I'm not even listening to you. I'm thinking about the conversation that I had with my wife. So it's very important for people to elevate their situational awareness and understand that until we have a very clear correlation between a behavior and a stimulus, any level of confidence that we ascribe to the meaning of that behavior is risky at best. Until we have multiple instances that we can start to create trust.

You said the word empathy a while ago. I just. Before we pivot, you said in your book, time is the enemy of empathy. What is, what does that mean?

We can own our brains, can only focus on one thing at a time. And all too often especially, and it's even worse since we've gone largely virtual. So if you and I are having a conversation and I look at my watch and I'm like, damn, Jeff, wrap it up. I gotta be somewhere in three minutes. I've now literally prioritized being somewhere else in three minutes over the quality of this conversation. So now my stress levels are going to start rising, not because of this conversation, but because of where I want to be. And as my stress levels start rising now my blood and oxygen are flowing through my brain too fast. I can't stay calm, I can't listen. I'm talking to myself, so I can't possibly be listening to you. I'm giving you non verbal behaviors to shut you down so I can leave. And I'm literally sacrificing any amount of quality that might be left in this conversation. So I know that people, especially your audience, people that are running franchises, starting franchises, taking on so much responsibility. I understand that we don't have extra minutes in our day if we really want to maximize our conversations. We don't need to spend more time with people necessarily. But we need to make that time feel slower. We need to let the clock take care of itself.

Got it. That's. So maybe transition strategies when, when you're in that situation because you have to leave in three minutes, you're in the middle of a great conversation. Probably a transitional strategy to park it with respect, you know, maybe sit up, get better eye contact to full face them and say this is so great and just start, you know, maybe that's where you throw out some. Just name reality. This has been really great. I think we've made a lot of progress here. I'm excited about that. I want to continue with these couple of things and move forward. Unfortunately, I've got to move to a 10 o', clock, but let's, let's make sure that we get some time on the calendar to follow up. Something like that work.

It does. And I love how you started it with this has been great. If possible, give them a specific example because how Many times have we been told, yeah, this has been great. And it feels like a blow off whether it is or isn't. But if we can say to somebody, this has been great, and then give them one or two specific things they've said or you've accomplished during the conversation, here's one thing we accomplished, here's another goal we can get to. If possible, pull out your phone and offer a specific time or. One of the things I love to do if this works for people is tell somebody, I should be back in the office this afternoon, Monday morning, whatever. Please interrupt me at your convenience.

Oh, wow.

Because when I tell somebody, just come see me. They peek in, they see me talking to you, they walk away. But if I say interrupt me, I'm now giving them the power in this conversation. So now they can just waltz right into my office because I told them to interrupt me. So now they feel more validated up front and more likely to engage on the backside.

Perfect, perfect advice. Let's transition. We're going to go two places. First, I want to go back to your transition to entrepreneurship. You had an incredible career with the industry leading firm. Why ultimately did you choose to start inclusive? And can you reflect a little upon that journey and maybe how you ultimately made that decision over time?

It got to a point, you know, we're probably talking eight years into the relationship where they are the leaders in what they do like, period. End of story, top of the food chain, that's it. But for me, I was fortunate that I had met people like yourself, either through Vistage or YPO or other organizations that, that you've been affiliated with. And they kept continually asking me to work with them, their leadership team, their sales teams. I'm getting calls from people who run ridiculous businesses saying, mike, I've got this negotiation coming up. What would you do first having those conversations, it dawned on me that essentially you and I were solving for the same exact problem. We were just doing it in different conversations. So then I started diving into the research across the spectrum of business communication. And while I started diving into that research, I came to two key realizations. Number one, the best leaders and the best interrogators capitalize on the same two core skills, vision and influence. Influence. And then number two, the cognitive process that interrogation suspects experience when they truthfully commit to saying I did it is essentially identical to the cognitive processes that employees experience when they commit to saying I'll do it. And customers experience when they commit to saying I'll buy it. And when I came across that I Literally sat back in my desk, threw my hands up in the air, and I'm like, why am I still doing this? From my perspective bias for whatever it is or isn't worth. I feel like a lot of business communication training philosophies have been put in silos, right? This is conflict resolution, this is leadership, this is negotiation, this is interviewing. When in reality, if you put those on a Venn diagram, you're looking at a circle. So what if we started chipping some of those walls down and we took the research and best practices from across the world of interview and interrogation and business communication and put them together in a way where people now have the tools, the skills, the perspectives necessary to reduce missed opportunities and increase commitments to action in all of their valuable conversations. So now I started nerding out, and I start working on what eventually becomes a discipline listening method. And it just became my passion to the point where one week I'm teaching the sales team. One week I'm working with CEOs, the next week I'm teaching interrogation. I felt like I came across perspectives that, as far as I could tell, weren't out there. And I have the empirical evidence for how well they worked and the success behind them. And so if this was going to get out to the world, I had to lace up my boots, put my mouthpiece in, and go make it happen. And thankfully, there were people like you along the way who gave tremendous perspective and helped me through the process.

You know, that's when you know what's right, is when it's like, I have to do this. You made that connection and you had that epiphany. Still, in that moment where you got rid of the paycheck, how did you negotiate with yourself to overcome that fear and kind of burn the boats?

Two things. One, I negotiate with my wife.

That's. That's always a good move.

She's the rock star of our house, make no mistake. So she really started pushing me towards it. Once she and I started having those conversations, you know, time commitments, budget, these types of things, you kind of touched on it to make the decision to burn the boats. But once Brooke had hit me in the face enough times with, I had her full support. This was what I needed to do. I believed that I could make money on it. I believed it was something that I could hit the ground running and doing. And it was a natural extension of my content, my experience, what I've done. And thankfully, the unwavering support of my wife and the potentially foolish confidence I had in myself made it easy to strike that match and walk away.

And that led to inquasive. So who is a client for Inclasive? What is the scope of services? What does Inclasive provide to the marketplace?

We provide customized training engagements for CEOs and senior leadership teams. We do programs focused on sales and negotiation and candidate interviewing. Those are really the three core silos, if you will, or verticals that we operate in. And when we look at the core components of those programs, each one is individual based on the research and the application and the skills for each. But, you know, you're looking at strategic preparation, persuasive communication techniques, those strategic observation techniques, evolved questioning techniques, all of those things that we've kind of touched on before. We also do some advising. Well, we'll participate in some of these conversations, one on one small group advising as well. And we've got some exciting things coming down the line as we look to productize a lot of the IP that you've mentioned before and continue to create new vehicles and new ways to get it in organizations in people's hands.

Is it generally one client, one engagement, or do you do seminars where companies can send four or five people at a time? Time?

Generally at this point, it's one organization or a group of organizations per engagement. I'm currently working with a small group of organizations down in Florida. They've got some common threads. So, you know, we'll put it together and, and I'll facilitate it in a way that it. It re. It. It aligns with each organization. But at this point, to steal a word from our friends across the Atlantic, their bespoke programs customized for each client.

Got it. So if people wanted to reach out to you, Michael, and inquire about it, where's the best place for them to find information and contact you?

The company Inquasitive the programs we offer. That's inquasitive.com I N Q U A S I V E For me, if they're looking for more content, more insight into my background, what I do, it's MichaelReddington.com if they're looking to learn more about the book, it's disciplined listening dot com.

Fantastic.

And I'm on LinkedIn. Michael Reddington, CFI and I'm.

Yeah, you're a lot more like Raymond Reddington, man. I'm telling you from the blacklist. You're like a matt. You're like a stone cold killer when it comes to this stuff and so much appreciate it. How's the jiu jitsu going, by the way? I know you've won some tournaments.

I have. Thank you for asking. It's going well. I'm coming off a torn lcl, so I'm just getting back into it.

Okay.

But doing a lot more coaching. My son is in it, so I'm doing a lot of the coaching with the kids classes, doing more of the coaching with the adult classes. And I'm at a point now where I'm looking to just actually drill a lot more and dial in specific parts of my game. But I'm having fun with it. It's how I keep my sanity.

Did the jiu jitsu correspond with the beginning of your business or did you do it before that?

It's a great question. I had been training jiu jitsu before I started my business, but if you go all the way back to when I started learning interrogation, I started training martial arts as I started learning interrogation. So I was really beginning to develop those two skill sets simultaneously. And I honestly believe that they both made me better at each other. That strategic thinking under pressure, the kind of the mental chess game, one after the next, you get put in a bad position, you still have plenty of opportunities. The strike didn't land. Where's the next one coming from? And honestly, even staying calm, sitting four feet across from somebody with no barriers. So I do truly believe that in the beginning of this portion of my career, that starting the martial arts training at the same time was instrumental in my early development.

You find alignment in your life in the oddest places. So that's fantastic. Well, Michael, this has been amazing. I really appreciate you being on. One last question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in someone else's life today, what would that be?

I'll choose this one. For now, Life is a series of solvable problems. You can choose to focus on the problem or choose to focus on the solution.

Beautiful. Michael, thank you so much for being on. This has been incredible. We appreciate the contribution that you've made on the Homefront today.

Thank you for the invitation. It's great to be a part of it.

Thank you so much 100%. And as always, this podcast has been brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform, all the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it counts. So if this sounds like you, check us out@homefrontbrands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness. Building your dynasty on the home front. Michael and I will be looking for you here. Thank you, sir. Thank you.