Inside JLC: Reinventing Your Leadership Team, Part 2

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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here at JLC Media. I have two of my very special friends and colleagues with me today, Joe Marshall and Colleen Sullivan. And I'm really looking forward to this. We just did a webinar on reinventing your leadership team which came out in the January February HBR magazine. We loved it. It was put together by Matt Manny, Paul Linewind and Blair Sheppard. And what they did is they made a case as they did this. And I'm looking up so I can just read this little piece that I highlighted for you guys. And it had four sections we were going to work on. The first section was, you know, what's your leadership teams? What are the roles and responsibilities necessary so you can reinvent yourself, reinvent your team, reinvent the organization in a way that it meets the customer and the customers needs. So it's a big piece on this and these four ideas resonated with us so we brought them forward in the webinar, our monthly webinar. This is a deeper dive in each of the pieces and I think you're going to hear from two exceedingly powerful professionals about how they've thought about this. But in the setup between Languin and Matt Manny, there's a, a sentence here that just resonated with me and I'd like to lay it on two sentences. It says the following. Addressing a company's leadership gaps, however, is not merely a matter of building individual executives skills, although that's desirable. The need to improve collective leadership is urgent notice, urgent. And these researchers, these people come from Price Waterhouse and Cooper and, and they're the ones that do all the deeper dive work when they're trying to build little sections of the system that are more and more effective and more aligned to outcomes. So I thought that was really interesting. The need to improve collective leadership is urgent. Not just a good idea, not something we should think about maybe over coffee or over lunch or over dinner. So I thought that was really significant. So before I shift you into the second one, the first one, like I said, was roles and responsibilities. We did that already. Now we're going to talk about the right people. But I prefer that the two of you react to what I just gave you as a startup for this one. Who'd like to go?

Sure, I'll go ahead and chime in. I think the one piece that's really resonating with me so far in the setup is this sense of collective leadership. I think each. I work with a lot of executives and they're Focusing on things to help their personal capabilities and to develop their own personal practical knowledge so they can be more effective. And I think the. Which, to your point, is really good. But just like on any sports team, I played soccer for many years and coached it. And I can tell you I can have one or two incredible all Stars that are going to go to State cup and do amazing, but they can't go on their own. So it's this sense of how am I intentionally developing the capabilities of the team to work together. And I think that is really where you can produce the results and really move the organization forward in the direction that you want to do it.

Before we got on, you and Joe were talking about the need for leaders to recognize that the journey is as important as the destination. And the few coaches that coached me, the people that mentored me as a high school and college coach, were very clear. In fact, they were very clear. The score is a side effect of an effective, effective use of your team as they move towards the goal, which is, you know, you got four quarters. So as the fourth quarter ends, if we did well together over those four quarters, the score will be a side effect of that. The better we are together, more likely we are to win. Joe, what are you thinking?

Yeah, so a couple of things. I think in some ways you posed the perennial question of how a room full of people who have an IQ of somewhere between 100 and 130 can now have a collective IQ of 60. And I think, to get right to it, I think the way that happens is through poor communication. The way that happens is through poor communication practices modeled by the leader. If you expect your group, if you are the leader of a group and you are expecting better results, then you have to accept, acknowledge, and act upon your responsibility to support and nurture and in every possible way, the communication in that group.

Yeah, I think I love that a lot, Joe. In fact, you might actually have the right people in your group right now. And if they feel like I can't say what I'm thinking, I can't share my thoughts about whatever it is we're working on, that IQ starts drifting lower and lower and lower. So if there is no if, the leader is not doing something to provide incredible safety so a human being can take a risk and say what's on their heart, the chance of them making the best possible decision diminishes rapidly. So this sense of the right people. I think there are many leaders that have the right people in the room, and sometimes they're struggling to build that communication, disciplined communication structure that would enable them to really open up and talk about what their wisdom is so it can become collective wisdom. I think that was really good, Joe. Colleen, anything to add on that piece? I'm going to go back to Joe on this next one.

Sure. I think when Joe is speaking, what surfaced with me is that sense of the leader needs to model the way and intentionally develop and sustain safe space. That's critical. You want to get to where people feel comfortable in stating what's on their mind, in offering information and offering an alternative perspective, in getting to this collective leadership with the group. In order to do that, it's critically important that the leader, if they say that's important to them, they behave in a way that is consistent with what they're expecting the others in that leadership team to do as well.

Yeah. You know, Colleen, I love those words, and I do think that's right. We have. Someone has to model it right. At the same time, we learn to shut up in elementary school.

Yeah.

It's not something that, oh, it's the leaders. No, this is a cultural development where it's really good. If you give a wrong answer, bad things happen to you. Or if you act out, bad things happen to you. Or if you ask questions when you shouldn't ask questions, bad things happen to you. So this is not something that is, oh, we're being stifled by my leader. No, I think we're being stifled by the developmental programs that are out there. Well, intended to help kids get to a point where they can really think well and share their thinking. So I really. So I like the way both of you have set this up, that sensibility that if it is like, I don't want to look stupid, I don't want to look like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't want to look like I failed. If that's really how we feel when we walk into a boardroom or any kind of conference area where the leader is and my peers, what can the leader do to stop to make people feel more comfortable, to create psychological safety? Joe, what's the first thing that you did? I know you did it. What did you do to create psychological safety for those that work with you?

Well, I think if you wait to the meeting to try to do it, that's not going to work out very well. Because much of the world can remember the old adage about, well, if you're thinking some things and you're not sure, you know, don't look foolish, don't speak up, because if you speak up, if you speak foolish things, then it will remove all doubt and you'll have yourself labeled. So that old adage is frankly a product of zero safe space. I mean, that's the kind of thinking behind zero safe space is, okay, I can't say what I'm thinking because they'll all think poorly of me or they'll think that I'm wacko. I think, again, the trust and the intention that a leader has to express before in individual encounters, the idea that he or she is open to conversation, is listening, is listening to other viewpoints, is welcoming of other viewpoints, and the fact that you demonstrate vulnerability throughout. I think that's one of the things that a leader can do in a meeting, is to again, put down his or her guard and express some of their thoughts to demonstrate vulnerability on occasion. I know I have taken the path of going, okay, I don't know how crazy this is, but what if we just stopped doing this altogether, you know? You know, what would you guys think about that? You know, what's. What's the baby that gets thrown out with the bathwater if we do that? And then I think through demonstrating repeatedly that kind of openness to conversation and vulnerability, then I think there's. You have a greater chance of opening up, of getting the group to open up to you. Now, I don't know if that's what you were thinking about here, Ray, or.

Not, but you extended it beautifully. So here's what I was waiting to hear you say, and you said it beautifully. If you just show up at the meeting, say, okay, safe space here, but five minutes ago, you chewed somebody's ass out for making some kind of thing, Right? You've now not. You really don't mean that. Exactly. So one of the things I thought that Colleen did beautifully about two years ago now, maybe 18 months, she said, you know, every conversation is a leadership conversation. Every conversation is an opportunity for me to create the necessary psychological safety, my language, safely, dangerous space where people can say hard, dangerous things. And Joe, I think, I actually think you laid that out beautifully, that if we just wait for the meeting to do this or we just do it at the meeting, someone's going to call bullshit on us because that's really not what we. We're not behaving consistently so that these conversations, even when you go after somebody for something, that's a problem, right? That doesn't have to turn into the battle of the ladders. That could just be something. The psychological safety can be maintained in any conversation. Even when it's something significant that you are concerned about in terms of the performance of an individual, that was really, really good. Jo. Colleen, where are you on this?

Yeah, I guess where I'm at. When you were talking about what are some of those things that you can really do? And I think some of them is just about being intentional and consistent. I think you've already been modeling some of the things you can do. You close the loop. So what are you thinking and what are you hearing? As a leader, I don't need to be the one. If it's my meeting, to be the only one speaking, and if I am saying, right, that I want to hear other voices, but then I don't pause and ask a question so I can surface people's thinking, am I really interested in what they have to say? So how can I think about simple things? Right. And another one that you've done consistently, Ray, is acknowledge and respond respectfully. I mean, think about if I show up in the meeting and I'm offering my thinking and it's different than the leaders, or it is something that's outside of the box. Like Joe was saying, how is somebody respectfully saying, thank you so much for offering your thinking. Does anyone have a different perspective? Any of that type of inclusive leadership language expands and creates that space for people to offer alternative perspectives.

I think you just said that beautifully. In any leadership conversation, if you can close the loop, which is. Colleen, what I heard you just say is there are opportunities, and if we miss those opportunities, it confuses the culture. That's my interpretation of what you said. Right. If I'm saying I want a culture of psychological safety and I don't acknowledge you and I don't respond respectfully, then I'm in a different space. I'm creating a different kind of space. And yes, I am doing my. I mean, it's. Both you and Joe have. And the other associates have said this to me all the time. This stuff is so deep in me, I don't even notice what I'm doing when I'm doing what I'm doing, because I'm not making a plan as I'm talking. I'm behaving consistently with the values I have purposely intended in a very disciplined way to put inside of me. That is really powerful. So, like saying things like, okay, I think this. And I think I heard you say this. Did I get that right? Yep, you did, boss. Okay. I'm wondering. I'm wondering if there is anyone else in this room that has another perspective that sees this differently. That doesn't necessarily see it the way we're starting to lean. And I watched somebody do this in a state legislator environment. He said, I'm leaning this way. I'm beginning to think this is what we should do. Can somebody help me off my ladder? Because I'm really getting up to that top of my ladder and I'm starting to get firm top of the ladder. For those of you that haven't heard about that, and we have lots of podcasts on that, and writing means I have come to a conclusion based on my attitudes, beliefs, biases, and assumptions. I've come to a conclusion and somebody help me. I mean, I've actually heard the two of you say that to each other. Help me. I'm up my ladder on this one. Okay. I want to make sure that I am thinking this through. Well, Joe, we're coming near the end. Give us some good final thoughts here.

Yeah, so I think a point I wanted to mention again, since we're talking about assembling the right people for your team. Many times an important element for people is the character and personality of the leader and the environment that's around that leader. So I think leaders struggle many times with feedback and how feedback is delivered to employees. And I think when it's harsh and not well delivered, then I think employees tend to sheer away from that type of leadership. And I think many times leaders are harsh without understanding that they are being harsh. And so this is how I think about it, is if you imagine a production line in a huge building somewhere and there's a small office, and in that small office is whoever's in charge of that production line, that site, and he or she is looking at the charts from yesterday, and they go, oh, we didn't produce enough units yesterday. So they stand up, walk out of their office, go down on the production line, and start taking it apart. You know, well, is that going to make things worse or better for today's production numbers? Probably worse. Okay. So that's the effect of corrosive and negative feedback. And again, there's nothing in this that says that a leader isn't direct or isn't firm. But when you give feedback to people that is really focused on their shortcomings and the things that they are screwing up, then that impairs their learning ability. That actually, from research, it demonstrably puts them at a learning disability issue. And I think there's evidence of this all over the lot. Tom Landry in Dallas coaching the Dallas Cowboys. Pretty common. Oh, yeah. They film and They've been doing this for decades now. They film all the games, and then afterwards, they show all of the. All of the problems, all of the missed fumbles, all of the, you know, whatever. Missed passes. Well, you know, one of the things he did was he said, I'm only going to show the players the things that they did well. That's right, because I want them to grow on their success. So I admit that there's a Pollyannish piece of that, but there's also a strong message that says, if you want people to grow and to be able to do things that they are not doing today, they have to take that personal, practical knowledge that they have today, feel confident in that, and then see how they can link from that to something else that is new or different for them, that they may not be doing well. And I think that's the spirit in which feedback has to be offered. Turning it into an existential crisis of, oh, my goodness, the boss thinks terrible things of me. And I just have to figure out how to survive to get through this. I mean, you know, if you're in an existential situation, you're not thinking about learning. You're thinking about, how am I going to live through this day, through this hour, through this week, through this tour, whatever.

I have had jobs that have frightened me and made me. I was, like, uneasy, scared during the time because I was afraid the boss would come by. And it wasn't something I could just say, well, I feel hurt and I'm walking away. If you have a family, don't do that very easily. Not right away, anyway. So, Joe, your points are powerful. Actually, one of the kids that graduated from the high school where I served as assistant principal at that time went to play for Dallas, and that was one of the things that he brought. He spoke at our. One of our graduations, and he said it was. For most of the players on the Dallas Cowboy team, it was revolutionary because typically they would point out all the missteps and miscues and mistakes. Nothing wrong with saying these things didn't go well. However, you know this from all of our systems work. What you focus on grows. If I start focusing on the things that will bring us to another level. Not because I missed the kid or didn't catch the. Didn't intercept the ball, or I blew a block, or I went on and on, those. All those things happen. And he was beyond revolutionary. And one of my heroes was John Wooden, who actually spoke about Coach Landry as one in football, who was attempting to do the same things he was trying to do in basketball, and both of them had incredible, incredible runs. Colleen, what would you tell our listeners right now based on our little comments and comments and comments about getting the right people in the room?

I really like just our conversation so far. And I think just what resonated with me and surfaced was if a leader is really trying to get the right people in the right spot, how often do they pause and reflect? Do they reflect and say, okay, am I creating a space so I can have each one of those people think about what are they doing well, what is going to take them to that next space? Just like how Joe described with Tom Landry and what he was doing. So how often does the leader lead those types of really appreciative inquiry types of conversations? Because that's what you described, Joe, beautifully. How often do they lead those types of conversations so they can learn? Because I might think that Ray doesn't have the goods, so I might already have a mental model about him and be up my ladder thinking, oh, he's not pulling his weight, Joe. I think we need to find somebody else versus pausing to reflect and to create that safely dangerous space so people can talk about what it is they. Where they view their strengths and where they might need some support so they can grow in those areas, so they truly can bring their best self to work and produce the desired results.

I would just add in one other thought there, Ray. So the. Because we've talked a little bit about the ladder of inference here, a couple different places, and made reference to it. And the ladder of inference, I think, is a hugely powerful tool. And again, we talk about it, we have papers on it, we have podcasts on it, and there's plenty of stuff on the web if anyone wants to follow up. But, but another aspect of using the ladder of inference, which is about how people communicate, is it lets you make, as a leader, it helps you figure out how to make those different elements of the team fit together. Because you do have members of the team who will be inevitably in any group, somebody who will be hypersensitive to criticism. Okay, so, you know, you can destroy that person and you can destroy that person's performance by being hypercritical of them. So, so, so how do you make that fit with, you know, the, the other person who is incredibly outgoing, never does anything wrong, you know, you know, so again, you're, you've, you've got to figure out how these pieces of the team can fit together. Often a leadership question is, how do I do that? I believe at least part of that answer lies in the ladder of inference and figuring out if ultimately the team is a good fit together. Because if you have someone who is persistently negative, who is persistently Pollyannish, who is persistently in one quadrant, then all right, maybe you can manage that. Maybe the juice is not worth the squeeze. And I think that's where it helps the leader make those choices.

I think making those. Thank you, Joe. It's beautiful making those choices. Critically important. Sometimes it is not a good fit. It's just not a good fit. And, you know, this sensibility of being able to identify what works well, what are some strengths on this particular team did not mean that Coach Landry kept everybody because he traded people and fired them and said, you're not a good match for us right now. Now, how he did it, I don't know because I wasn't in those meetings and conversations. But to Joe's point, sometimes a person's learning style is so, so outrageous. It requires too much attention and depresses the team. And if that happens, the leader needs to make a decision, because you can only give so much of your attention to somebody who is, quote, a bad actor, end quote. And there are bad actors out there. There are people out there that are struggling with themselves, struggling with. With the way they live in the world. And so those of you that are listening, don't ever get the idea from us that we think everybody's fine. We don't think that, okay? We have dealt with people that have been struggling in systems and nobody even called their hand. That's so sad. Don't even let them know that your behavior is negatively influencing this team. If you don't tell somebody from your perspective what you think's going on, they're going to wander away saying, all is well, she's good. I speak the truth. And then some other nuts in the hallway going, thanks for saying that. Nobody else would. I'm like, okay, this is a recipe for disaster. And those of you that are listening, do your best to get the people in that particular leadership team that seem like to you at first. First blush, after getting to know them, they will speak their mind. They want psychological safety. They get the idea of being mutually invested in one another. They get all that, and they want to play. You can manage the disparate ways people work in a team once you have those few things unfolding. But, ladies and gentlemen, a bad actor is a bad actor. Sometimes they don't belong, and sometimes they need to find another way, way forward. Colleen, final thoughts.

Yeah, I just want to also, you know, go back to just quickly some of those things we talked about. Creating psychological safety, acknowledging responding respectfully, the importance of reflection, and also the importance of feedback. And so keeping all of those in mind really help you develop and assemble the right team. And if you want to learn more, we've got podcasts on every single one of those on our website, as well as webinars with great additional information. And I'm out.

That's beautiful. Joe, final thought.

No. Good conversation. Thank you. It helps. It has helped me today, so. And I'm out.

Thank you, brother. This always helps me because I need to keep reminding myself. You brought up so many pieces, both of you that sent me. I had to go keep coming back to listening because I was off in another place all the time. So I'm going to close with a story. When I was working in the state of Florida, Florida was not very populated in the mid-70s. It was hard to find teachers. And you generally could find people from other states, generally husband and wife teachers. And we would get some. And I had a wonderful pair. And as it turned out, I thought they were going to be great. They went through the interview process with wonderfully and Mrs. Was phenomenal. Mr. Struggled, struggled, struggled, hung on for a couple years. And I finally said, I don't think we can continue with. With your performance here as an educator. They were both very upset with me. Both very upset, blah, blah. And so we did shake hands. And I wish them well and they wish me well, kind of. I think their tongue was in their cheek and they left. Four years later, I get a phone call from this gentleman. He said that was the best thing that ever happened to him because teaching was not his game. He found himself in a research laboratory back in their home state because that's where they did go after they left us in Florida. And he had and still has having, because I hear from every once in a while, a wonderful career. Those of you in leadership, this ability to be really as truthful and honest as you can be about the performance of somebody helps them make decisions that will have impact later on. I bet both of you have done that to people many times. Those of you listening, if you want to chat with Joe or chat with Colleen, hop on the website, ask for a discovery conversation. It's 30 minutes on us. We love to talk with you. There's so much here. There's so much here about leadership, leadership teams. It's what we do. That's our whole gig, working on leadership and leadership teams. Be well, everyone go to gojlc.com to get more information about who we are and sign up for Discovery Conversation. Take care. Thank you for listening. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety.

Of programs for individuals and organizations to.

Enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.