Clarifying the End State

Foreign. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining us at jlc, the Jorgensen Learning Center. This is part of our media production. This will come forward to you as a YouTube video and also as a podcast on whatever podcast channels you guys enjoy subscribing to. We think you're going to really like this one. And before I launch into the content, I'd like to get the gang that's with me online to introduce themselves. Our work is about everyday leadership conversations and conversational leadership. So all of our podcasts are conversations. Everything we do is a conversation. Hope you enjoy it. And right now, let me get the gang to give me a 30 seconds or less introduction of one another. So, Joe, tell me about yourself.

So I'm Joe Marshall. I was in the Navy for 25 years and had command of a ship when I retired from naval service. I then went on to be a senior executive in the government for about 20 years and am now working with JLC as an executive coach.

Great. Good to have you on board today, Julie. Who are you?

Hi, I'm Dr. Julie B. Wise and for for 24 years I was in education. I was a third grade teacher, a reading specialist, a literacy coach. And I got my PhD in education and continued to find passion in helping adults communicate better. Listening, speaking, reading and writing, ensuring that everyone has a common understanding and that we do it in our most effective way.

That's great, great to have you today, Julie. And you know, that sense of us helping people communicate more effectively, that's who we are. We're a process communications company. We build the capabilities for people to better understand one another in any meeting, in any conversation, any leadership conversation. It's great. Thank you. Vince, welcome. And who are you?

Hi, Ray. Thank you. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Vince Starks. I am like my friend Joe, I spent 30 years in the Navy. My pretty much background, I commanded Navy hospitals. So I've been very interested in healthcare and large systems and bringing teams along to positive and productive outcomes. Then I went on to work in government structures within the Navy leadership structure. And now I'm a JLC associate and I'm continuing to do network and help with people. And it's a pleasure to be with you today.

We're so grateful to have you here. And notice everybody eludes to something a little different. And one of the disciplines that we bring forward for ourselves, for those that we coach, is team learning. How does a team learn more effectively? Many people show up and ask us, tell me how to make my team better. We need Team building. We don't do that. Teams get stronger when they learn well together and that is our focus, helping people do that. So. Nicole, Hi and welcome. Who are you?

Hello, I'm Nicole Lyons and I spent 20 years working for a Fortune 50 organization where I held roles in everything from leadership development to strategy development to marketing and public affairs. And I am excited to be a part of this JLC team where I focus in on that leadership and employee development aspect that we've all talked about today as helping leaders to enhance their everyday leadership conversations so that they can help their teams win. So grateful to be a part of the conversation today. And I'm in.

Thanks. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's great to have you. I think one of the more interesting things about our work recently, in the last year, I'd say or two years, is we've been very clear that the quality of your leadership is revealed in the quality of your conversation. The second thing that keeps unfolding for us, no matter what your position is, no matter what role you have in the hierarchy, we all have one major responsibility that is to help the team win. Once we understand what that particular end state is that people want to get to, we try and help one another win. So thank you, Nicole, and welcome everyone. So nice to have you here today. To those of you that are listening or watching us on a YouTube video, I think you will find this conversation to be exceedingly fun and very vivid. So don't expect that this is a rated G conversation. It could be more than that from time to time and I don't want you to be offended by that. So don't be surprised that you might hear someone use an adult phrase or interesting euphemism. So as we go forward in this conversation, I'm going to set the stage by creating, you know, what are we talking about today? Today we're going to talk about leading toward a success condition and how that impacts planning. Now why do we talk about this? Pretty straightforward. People get stuck in day to day activities and they keep trying to refine whatever it is they're doing today. I'll do it a little better tomorrow. It's a great activity. You should do it. There's never a guarantee that'll bring you to that success condition. It refines your daily practice. That's a good thing. It's always good to reduce variation, right, in any system, but it doesn't always bring us to the desired end state. In fact, all of us on this call today, and I assume those of you that are listening have watched People go to retirement after fixing things little by little in that current reality and struggling to get to that end state. So I think it'll be fun for us to talk about today. At the end of this, each of you will be able to clearly identify how to first produce an end state before we run into the planning process. Sometimes we do it the other way around. Doesn't always have the greatest impact. With that said, this is one of our practices, is to check in, somebody states the intention. I just stated the intention. And now my friends and colleagues that are online with me here, they're going to get a chance to tell me what they heard and what it meant to them. Notice that phraseology, ladies and gentlemen that are listening, what did you hear? What did it mean to you? Vince, would you start.

I knew you were going to pick me first, so. So I'm really still winked at.

What was I supposed to do? You wink at me. Then I figured I should pick you.

Well, I'm really still processing what you. What you. What I heard, Ray, what we talked about was what I heard you say was there's a correlation between a success condition and an end state. And our ability to get to that end state is impacted sometimes by the planning process. And so the methodology do you use, do you plan initially to get to the end state, or do you begin with the end state that you want to achieve and then move to the planning? So we're going to have some discussion today around that difference of that nuance and how to get to what's the best way of methodology to get to end state.

Oh, you Beautifully stated. We're going to get to what I expect each of you be able to do at the end. But what you actually did, in just having a conversation and expressing to me in your words what you heard me say, you identified Stephen Covey's number one thing he taught begin with the end in mind. And very often I've watched people, I mean, I've watched this my whole consulting career. They run into a room and they start planning. I'm like, whoa, time out. Let's talk about what we want to get. What's our end state? What's the success condition before we begin to plan? It's almost like I've heard this many, many times. One was a computer company I worked for in the New York City area, went into a meeting and the guy said, we all know why we're here, let's get to work. And they broke up into small teams after an hour and a half. Everybody was doing Something completely different. There was no movement forward toward the desired end state because it was never even offered. That was great. Thank you. Thank you. Nicole, what you thinking?

What really stood out to me and resonated for me was the idea that we rush to start doing something and we oftentimes shift to those tactics. So we get seduced by doing the thing and we don't really take the time as leaders often to consider what is our desired end state and do we all have clarity about what that desired end state is. So that's what I keep thinking about is all the teams and leaders I've worked with that go to their, you know, their annual planning meeting and they're ready to determine what it is they want to do. And the focus is always just on the, okay, what are we going to do? What are our tactics?

Yeah, tactic, tactic. And so one of the things that I remember Joe Marshall teaching me when he was working in a very, very significant position at Biomed was that strategy is long term. Tactics are what's right in front of us. And I do think that's taught in the military culture and I don't think it's taught well enough in private sector. It's like what's in front of me. I'm going to create a tactic to resolve an issue or a problem. Strategies. No, that's more, that's longer term. And it's harder sometimes to get people to really catch on to that. That was really good. Thank you very much. Jules, what you thinking?

I'm thinking about how to get clarity with the end state. I love words and a lot of times I'll go in and people say we need to improve our communication. And so I'll say, well, what's communication? And then we've got to get a little bit clearer with that and on and on and on. And so not only is it just what is our end state in our success conditions, but can we really specifically define each and every one of those into actionable steps and make sure that we have a common understanding before we start our planning?

Yeah, that's actually quite beautiful. You have experience with me, people that just want to start planning and that's not the answer. And people have always said we have a communications problem. So what does that really mean? So a lot of the work we do in our executive coaching and development of other people is when they say, well, I've got this issue. Well, tell us more about the issue, tell us more. And try to the best of our ability to understand their picture of what the issue Actually is. It's just really, really important to get there first before we can offer any suggestions or recommendations or movement. That's beautiful. Joe, what you thinking?

I'm actually interested to see where this conversation will evolve to. I think what I've heard is that we want to talk about some clarity around desired instates. I think this is an important thing, especially for leaders because I think many times leaders spend a lot of time internally marinating on what the end state is, but it's not very well expressed or nor is it well understood. So I think going to your point Ray, about the meeting where. Well, we all know why we're here, so let's get to it Is an apocryphal story then moving beyond that idea that okay, the end state and do we agree on the end state? Then how do you plan effectively to get there? So I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Yeah. And it's a feedback loop. It's not one or the other. It is a connected feedback loop. That's great, Joe. So I'm going to poke you guys in a minute to give me an example of an end state that you've seen for yourself. I'll do an example one to get us started. So step one in this process today is we'll create a picture of an end state and then you can all weigh in on it. Then I'll ask you guys to give me one or two of your own and we can go forward from there. And I think the biggest invitation from me and this team is to be very cautious about making assumptions about people's understanding of the end state. Because I watch that apocryphal story happens all the time. And it happens, believe it or not, in medicine as much as it does in the private sector or in schools. We all know what to do. Let's move. No, we don't. We all have our own opinion about what to do. So end state. So here's an end state for us to think about. The first quarter of this year is unfolding right now and I'd like to know from each of you, okay, if you're working on your physical capabilities. I want to improve my physical capabilities. I want to be at the end of this quarter. I'm going to be in an enhanced place physically. Remember how I was working on physical, Emotional, intellectual and spiritual. Those are the four cornerstones of a human being. So let's talk about physical for a moment. I want to be physically. Really, really fit. Physically. Whatever, whatever you describe to me. So what is your End state. At the end of this first quarter of this year, what is the end state that you're looking for physically for yourself? Julie, why don't you start us off?

Well, I've had the wonderful opportunity of gaining the COVID 20, so I would love to lose £20, which would get me back to 140. And as I play around with that end state and trying to define it, I've fluctuated by which way is going to be most effective. Before I had kids, before I was really busy, it was easy for me to say, that's it, no more sugar, no more this, that. And I'm going to exercise, I'm going to lose £20. And it would come off easy. Well, now as a 48 year old and all the things that I have, I just don't have that discipline or I don't know exactly what it is. So even though I have the end state of I want to lose 20 pounds so I can get into my pants. When I start traveling again to do training, I'm having trouble with the planning. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. So I have an end state, but how to get there, I'm not quite sure.

Yeah, so this is interesting and I'm going to ask the three of you to weigh in on this. So she just gave me evidence that she achieved an end state, lost 20 pounds. I can fit into my pants again, right. That's evidence that I achieved the end state. So I want you to channel her. Be empathetic with Julie for a moment. How would you articulate the actual state of being? She gave me evidence of being in her end state. How would you articulate that end state as a state of being? Nicole, what would you say?

I think that's to me stating a level of comfort with her physical self and those measures of success is like fitting into those pants, fitting into some idealized version of herself or her former self.

That is beautiful. So it's almost like there's a picture. I'm trying to create a state of being. An end state is a state of being what you guys have instantly. Julie gave me evidence of that state of being. So I really want to get there. Joe, talk to us about this. What are you thinking?

Yeah, so I think we would all like to weigh 140 pounds. But moving past that, I think I really like the way Nicole characterized it, that it's kind of a state of being. And then there are things that you can do. You can, you know, hike 10 miles or run 10 miles or bike 10 miles or whatever it is that there's. There's other. And you can fit into the pants. And so there's other measures. But I think that idea that you're in a spot and you're able to have that validation, to have that reassurance, because there are things that you can do. I sometimes look at TikTok, as you all know, and I saw a TikTok the other day that was about. On this very subject, actually. And the individual in the TikTok said, I'm really motivated for the new year, for my diet. It's day two or three. I drink a gallon of water a day. I've had no sugar, and I'm incredibly sad. And so going to the other extreme, maybe that's the state to avoid, is kind of the sadness, because then that leads you down paths that aren't going to be successful and productive.

Yes. So there will always be some slowing actions that show up as we are attempting to grab onto the growing actions that will let us achieve the end state. But notice, gang, we are working very hard right now to say this is an end state. This is evidence that tells us that we got there. Vince, how is this landing on you?

So, you know, I was in a slightly different space. What I was thinking was, when you use this example, that you certainly created a dangerously safe space to have my colleague on talking about her weight, her pants and her hips. But what struck me was the correlation of, you know, Julie's open statement was the COVID 20. Wait, so there was this correlation of what things look like before COVID and where it is today. And then the end state is to get back to pre Covid. So it wasn't when she was a teenager, but it was very specific towards what we're experiencing today. So I was correlating pre Covid, post Covid and then the end state.

No, no, that's absolutely wonderful. See, there's a space for us to look at distinction between the way it was or the way I think it was and the way it is and the way I want it to be. So this has become immediately an incredibly important conversation for others to listen to so that we don't keep dropping into metrics. Oh, if I just could lose 20. Oh, if I just weighed this. Oh, no, no, no, no. Something more is here about end state. So if you had to say, what would be a desirable end state for yourself physically? And this, remember a state of being. What is a desirable end state for you? What is the state of being? What is the essence of that state of being, if you really were moving toward that end state, what would that sound like to you, Julie, you set to start again since you got us going beautifully?

Well, I take what Joe said about, you know, sad or happy and I would definitely want to be in abundance of feeling like I'm feeding my body nutritious things versus I'm lack of and can't eat and can't wait till I lose the 20 so I can go back to eat the donuts, you know, so abundance is something that I'm thinking of. Nutrition, positive growth, and I feel better, healthier, have more energy at that weight.

See, that's beautiful. To be healthy, to be energetic. These are end states. And then the language you were using around that end state is. This is the evidence that would tell me that I'm getting to that place. And also you created a plan to get there. Okay, I'm not going to eat anything. I'm going to drink water and not eat sugar and get on this journey going forward. Right, that's the plan. But the plan is absolutely useless without the end state. And I'll give you a great example of that. I work out not as much as I should, but I work out every year. When I would go to the gym in January, it would be jammed. All the New Year's resolution people were there. But their New Year's resolution was never about an and end state. Their New Year's resolution was I'm going to go to the gym. That's an action that may be tied to a metric. And if I go to the gym every day, I'll lose ten pounds. So they create an action connected to a metric. And they rarely, rarely state the end state. I'm going to be fit physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I'm going to be fit, I'm going to be healthy. That is different than saying I'm going to go to the gym every day and I'm going to lose ten pounds. I'm going to stop eating sugar, blah, blah, blah. All of those are fraught with this planning structure. We're going to hurry up and plan what to do in order that I can hit a vision. That is really not a vision. It's more like they're making a plan to create a metric which may not allow you to achieve your desired state. Joe, what are you thinking now?

I'm thinking, Ray, about how this conversation ties back to other conversations we've had about self talk and the power of self talk. And again, that we all talk to ourselves at three times the rate that we're having this conversation and ourselves are we're validating or we're denying or we're categorizing the things that we are hearing, making up our mind about those things. And then of course, when we get off of a call like this, or we're just by ourselves, that those conversations are happening at six times the rate of a normal conversation. And the fact that once you internally give sanction to an idea that your subconscious accepts it as the way it is.

That's beautiful.

So the. So again, okay, so I'm gonna go to the gym every day. You know, you don't. Okay, so you do it. You go to the gym every day. And again, you tied it to the metric. And you're not really going through this process of assessing what is my goal? What am I actually trying to achieve here? And I think that is perhaps the most, in a way, if you will, the most paralyzing of questions. What is your goal? It forces you to reflect on what am I actually trying to do here as opposed to what is the activity I'm going to get busy with?

That is so great, Joe. I mean, what you articulated was. One of my very first big teachers was this Dr. Deming guy who I loved him, total quality guy. And he used to say that people do making working, they making working every day at work. And if they don't ever tie that to the end state that they're trying to get to, they'll do making working until they retire. And this connectivity to self talk is critical because as I begin to tell myself what I can and can't do, I'll make that come true. I will absolutely make that come true. That's brilliant. Thank you, Joe. Vince, what's thinking?

So three words. As I listened to Joe break that down now, the three words that resonated with me were reflection in state and the overall connection. Just the importance as a leader to not only develop an end state, but there is an important component to being able to reflect, to take that self talk, deliberate self talk and ask what was I trying to achieve or why did I take these steps and what was important? Just the ability to deliberately know that you really need to take time to reflect upon those actions, to be aware of your self talk, which is an important component, and to see how those things really come all together to help you get to your end state was what was resonating my mind as I listened to Joe explain that it was powerful. Thank you, man.

That's magnificent. There's a reflection piece about saying to yourself, and then of course to those that you work with, if we were completely successful, what would it look like? Not what are we doing? Not what's the metric? What would it look like? And for years and years I never got that. I was always just going to outwork that guy. When I was coaching young people in sports, I was going to outwork the other coach. Right. It took forever for me to get to that space of what does the desired end state look like? Joe and I and Vince, we work with and so do you, Julie and Nicole, we all work with people. One of this gentleman in bumed leadership, he talks about this all the time to the people he leads. What is the desired end state? What does success look like before we jump into the planning process and everybody's really good at planning, really good at designing plans and then we have a tendency to fall in love with, get stuck on our plan rather than keep our eyes on the end state. That was just really good, Vince, thank you. Nicole, how about you?

I keep thinking about how critical it is to create an emotional connection to that desired end state and how that vivid, how vivid that picture needs to be of what does it really look like and feel like to be in that desired end state. Because motivation is a myth. Like motivation is not going to drive you to reach that result. It's about having that emotional connection to that desired end state and thinking every day about what is the one thing I can do today that is going to move me towards that desired end state.

So that is brilliant at so many levels, Nicole. So what you really defined was one of the legs of the three legged leadership style stool from a learning organization. Aspiration and motivation is truly a myth. I can go be motivated by a motivational speaker and I love them all. And for an hour or two I'm really excited and then it goes away. Aspiration is about do I see the end state and how do I develop myself. Personal mastery to help myself become stronger and better to achieve that. This was just great. But let me just say to my colleagues how magnificent you guys were on this call today. And to those that are listening, I invite you to take some reflection time to think about the end states that you wish to accomplish or create. Find that picture of success. And Colleen said it, excuse me, Nicole said it. And we've all alluded to it. The more vivid the picture is, the more likely it is you'll go there. Your planning process then becomes exciting because now I'm planning to create what necessary evidence has to unfold to show that we got to the end state. You guys were magnificent today. Let's do a quick checkout. Part of the process, ladies and gentlemen, that are listening and viewing is that we work hard on something, then we take a deep breath collectively and individually and we do something called a checkout. We have lots of tools for checkout. You can go to our website and see tools for checkouts. But for this one today, I'm going to use one of our tried and true ones because I watched lots of emotion in the faces of my friends and colleagues. What resonated most with you today in this conversation and why? And remember, ladies and gentlemen, we are all practicing. We are all practicing executive coaches. So we are all thinking about the people we work with as we have in this conversation today. What resonated most with you and why? I will start with you, Nicole.

I think really just hitting home the idea that starting with the end in mind is always the place to start. And that applies to us as we're doing, planning conversations as leaders. But it also applies to us as we're setting personal goals or helping our kids or people we know with their personal goals as well. I think it just opens you up to a different kind of conversation. So I'm taking that away with me today and I'm out.

That is beautiful. There's an everyday leadership conversation that we can all have regularly about end state and are our practices moving us toward or away from end state. Vince, what resonated with you today and why?

Yeah, so what really struck home with me was the importance of self talk and reflection as a leader. I think we are busy, so busy doing, doing, doing that you really, really need to give yourself the space and the time to ask yourself what's your purpose? What are you trying to achieve? And then to reflect upon was it successful? How's it going and are you communicating what's being delivered? So self talk and reflection are the two things that I think I would most take away from our conversation today.

And I'm out now. That's beautiful. I get lost in the same spaces. I remember one time, many, many years ago, I went to a meeting and I looked around and I said, has anyone seen Ray? And it was just, I was not there. My work was there or my do list was there. My chart paper was there, but I was no longer around. Cause I lost myself in the day to day to day to day stuff. That's just a great comment. Thank you. Joe, what resonated with you and why?

I think the thing that I take away is thinking about the role of motivation in setting goals. Because again, I think we talked a little bit about motivation and how it fades pretty quickly. And I think that could for many of us who have been in the military. Again, you're frequently astonished by how many projects you seem to start every day. But then by the afternoon they faded. You were really motivated in the morning, but somehow it left you. And so I think just thinking about the role of motivation so that motivation is properly checked, channeled, and properly understood and properly used. And so, Ray, I would ask that perhaps at the end of this session, for the benefit of those who are listening and also those of us who are participating, if you could give us maybe a reference or two where we could go to learn more or read more about some of these things.

Thank you, Joe. And I love that that you hit upon an incredible piece. It's easy to be motivated first thing Monday morning after you've thought about all the things I want to do. By the time lunchtime comes, it's like I'm tired. I haven't quite got there. What is this? You know, what's distracting me? And I sort of get grouchy about whatever distracts me. Aspiration much more significant in the literature. Much more significant than motivation. Beautifully stated. Thank you, Julie. What resonated and why?

What Nicole said resonated with me because I am. I know for a fact that I'm stuck in the house and I want to feel happy, so I eat chocolate or, you know, I'm bored, so I eat a whole bag of chips or, you know, whatever. And so I'm. When I think about feelings, which I never do, but that could really help me get clarity, to realize, you know, what would it feel, feel like to be able to get back in my pants again? And what would it feel like to eat nutritious meals? And that helps me stay in a state of future. And then I would not eat the cookies now because I know in the future I'm going to feel so much better if I don't eat them and I'm out.

That's beautiful when you have that kind of really clear, vivid picture of the end state, all of a sudden, what I'm doing in the moment, I can question. If I don't have that, I can say, well, I'll just do better tomorrow or in the next hour, or rather than this donut, I'll wait an hour and eat then. And then I'll eat it. So really nicely stated. Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, those of you that are listening and watching us on YouTube. Aren't they wonderful? I mean, this is such a great group of people and the insights they bring to me all the time. Deepen my own understanding of the work which I'm really trying to learn. I'm a learner and I'm learning and learning and trying to get better at the practices that we share with other people. So Joe's question was really beautiful and I always would invite people to come to our website www.gojlc.com there's some materials and more coming on the website about the three areas that all of us work on all the time. Aspiration, understanding, the whole, seeing the interdependency in systems and using conversation and conversational leadership as a way forward. Now I would go on to any of the sites run by Peter Senge, Daniel Kim, SOL Is the Society for Organizational Learning functioning beautifully up at mit? There's also Amundsen and Garvin at Harvard who are doing beautiful work on the conditions necessary to have a learning organization. They will be very similar concepts that are portrayed and related in those environments. Those are places to go. And if you want more, then write us a note and we will take those notes. Any comments or questions that we have and we'll get to even more. And be looking forward to an annotated bibliography that we are working on right now to take all the big pieces that are out there that we talk about and create a quick annotation on all of those. See which ones are interesting to you. Thank you so much for being with us. Take care of yourself. Remember, every conversation is an opportunity for a leadership conversation. Thank you Lady Ladies and gentlemen, sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast.

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