Finding Brave 154: How To Stop Micromanaging and Move From Doer To Leader, with Ed Evarts

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. How are you? How's it going? I think this is coming to you. Oh, I can't even say. But not, not when we're doing it. But I hope things are, are really going well for you. I pray for that. And I'm so excited to have the wonderful Ed Everts. Did I get it right, Ed? You did with me today. We, we were yakking up a storm before we recorded. There's, there's a. There's a lot we love to talk about, Ed. Right there is.

Most of which we cannot talk about today.

That's right. You will not be hearing it, my friends, but you will be hearing other things that are so amazing from Ed's mouth. And we are talking about how to stop micromanaging and move from doer to leader. I wish I had listened to this 25 years ago. So we're to going, going to lay it on you about what we've seen in terms of the leaders we've worked with. And as an expert in that and your own leadership work, you know, often we teach what we often need to know or sometimes we're only one step ahead of what we're teaching or behind or. What am I saying? What I mean is I think both of us probably have lived a lot of what we're about to talk about that. Those moments where we knew we were not the best leader we could be. So we're going to really be honest with you and help you be the bravest leader you can. So let me give you a little bit about Ed so you understand. Ed is the founder and president of Excellius Leadership Development. Love that. Love that name. He's a leadership coach, a team coach, and a business strategist. I really would love to talk about team coaching, too. He's the author of the brand new book Drive youe Career, 9 High Impact Ways to Take Risk Responsibility for your Own Success. And Ed is a fellow podcaster. I've been on your wonderful podcast, Be Brave at Work. Can't thank you enough for taking the time, Ed, to join. All right, let's hop in. Let's hop in. Let's talk about what is it that you see in working with so many leaders and managers? What are they doing in terms of mucking it up, micromanaging, doing, making their teams and staff crazy? What are the mistakes they're making, Ed?

Well, I think the challenges that many leaders face are surprisingly consistent from role to role or organization to organization. I mean, in their mind, their situation is very Unique to them. But for people like you and I, who meet hundreds of people during a year, we start to see patterns and trends that surface. And you know, micromanagement certainly is a classic behavioral challenge that most leaders have. We'll talk a little bit about that. Delegation or the, the lack of delegating, which is part of, I think micromanagement is another behavior that people have challenge with. Communicating communication skills is another key area where people don't feel they communicate effectively or not in the right ways, don't do it enough, or just don't do it well when they do it. So, you know, those are three behaviors that I think if, if I talk to any individual who is looking for a coach, I would bet you that one of the three areas they would mention is that they either get feedback, they're micromanaging, they're getting feedback that they're not delegating, or they're getting feedback that they're not a great communicator.

And you also, I want to talk about this a little later. Empathy. It probably doesn't come out from their mouths that I'm not empathic or empathetic, but it probably comes out in other ways. I, you know, my staff seems to think I don't understand them or I don't relate well to them. But I do want to touch on empathy. It's such a vitally important aspect of interpersonal connection. Right?

It is, it is. And I would tell you that as I look at individuals that I work with professionally, empathy is the most significant skill that's absent in most corporate leaders. And not completely absent. It's not like it's a 0 or 100 game. Right. You either don't do it at all or do it all the time. It's a spectrum. But, you know, they're lower on the spectrum than they should be. And I think it's the number one area of interest for most leaders and that most leaders are not doing enough to help build strong relationships with teams, colleagues, peers, subordinates, whatever. It's not done enough in the workplace.

Oh, so let's start there. Let's. It's, you know, being a former therapist, it's one of my favorite things. I even did some training with parents about if you want to build self reliant and self confident children, empathy is critical. And they're like, what are you talking about? You know, so can we start there and then work backwards? How do you, when you're assessing a leader, how do you know empathy is the problem? How, how do you see it how does it emerge?

Well, most leaders have an idea of what they want to work on to be more effective, and they've collected that information either through 360 or from performance reviews. You know, at some point it's bubbled up where, you know, I need some additional assistance in order to make progress. One of the areas of assistance is coaching. There's also training and other things you can do. Coaching isn't the only answer, but it is a key answer that people look at. And so typically, when we interview folks for consideration to be their coach, they will share that they have gotten feedback that they're not empathetic enough or could be more empathetic in order to be a better leader. Certainly, as I work with people, to be honest, I haven't seen it too much where I said to somebody, gee, you shared with me four things you wanted to work on. A key. Another area is empathy, because you are very low in that arena because, you know, most of the time we're working one on one. And so I don't get the opportunity to see them with others. And so I don't see it enough to say, gee, I just saw you had a conversation with Bob, who works in your office, and that would have been a great opportunity to be empathetic. And you didn't demonstrate it. Right. So can you.

I know exactly what that means to me. Can you. For. For someone listening who think. Thinks that might be me. People have told me that. Can you tell me three strategies or ways you intervene to help someone develop empathy?

So, you know, it starts with really them being aware of the fact that they need to demonstrate more empathy in the workplace. And for me, empathy. And there's a lot of different ways you could define it. And I'm certainly not a scientist. I haven't studied empathy technically, but, you know, I believe it's meeting somebody where they are and not where you are, because people who meet where you are don't connect with people. Well, when you meet with where they are, depending on where that might be, your likelihood of connecting with them is important. So, you know, I think there's several things people can do. You know, one of them, and this is the hardest, is the first step, which is to build your awareness of other people. You know, your social awareness of how people are, how they behave, and do you see deviations in respect to how they're behaving that might provide you an opportunity to be empathetic. So if you're an upbeat, talkative, positive person, Kathy, and you come into the office, one day and you say, hey, and you go to your cubicle, that might be a signal to me that you're not having a good day. That good day could influence the workplace. And that's why this is so important, because emotional intelligence, of which empathy is a behavior associated with emotional intelligence, can influence the business in positive or negative ways. So that's an opportunity for me to connect with you, to see what might be going on and seeing if there's a way that I can help you.

I love that. So, you know, when I think about empathy, a lot of it is how I speak to you. So I want to give a tip, but I want to go back to something you said that was so interesting. So I think, you know, briefly, one of the hardest things in my entire life was becoming a therapist, where I had to sit with a pedophile, an abuser, bad stuff. And I remember my first, you know, month of doing it. I'm sitting with a guy who hauled off and, you know, smacked his daughter. And he came from a place where I said, tell me about that. And he said, look, she's being disrespectful, and I have to teach her. And my words weren't getting through. So to me, it makes sense. And I just want to share what empathy looks like in that situation. If I. And I really feel this is true, whether you're a leader, a manager, a teammate, if I come in and blow over you about what I think you about what you are doing, and it isn't good, you know, let's call him Dan. Dan, let me give you some teaching here. You hitting her is blah, blah, blah. It's not going to. He doesn't want to hear that. And if I come across not meeting him where he is, and that doesn't mean accepting it and loving it, it means meeting him where he is that he believes it's the right thing to do, that if I don't do that, I've lost him. So what the heck am I doing as a therapist if I'm judging him and separating ourselves? So I had to learn, and it was so hard. I gotta find some way to love this person. I gotta find some place to connect. And I got very good at it because you can kind of see when you don't, you lose the person.

You know? Yeah.

Tell me what you think from that story.

Well, what I'm thinking of is, you know, most of the empathy opportunities people will have in the workplace vary. You know, I'm thinking about habit number five from Stephen Covey's Seminal book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And habit number five is seek first to understand, then to be understood. And unfortunately, we live in a world where first we want to make people understand us, and then if I have time, I'll work to understand you. And I think if it was opposite and we all worked a little bit harder to understand others, why do you feel that way? Where is that behavior coming from? Who else did you know that demonstrated that behavior? If it was you, how did it make you feel? Did you like it when your father hit you? Those types of things, your likelihood of being at their level of where they are and then building from there to your point is greater than just coming in at a much higher level and saying, oh, you can't do that. It's really inappropriate, and I don't ever want to see that again.

Right.

So, you know, seeking first to understand. And again, it's just. Kathy, it's just this awareness of how people behave and building a skill set around how can I be more observant of them so I can detect when there's a deviation? That I could step in and demonstrate empathy, I think, is a huge win for most corporate leaders.

It's a great strategy. So what I wanted to loop back on in that situation where the person walked in and wasn't their upbeat self. And you're suggesting that the leader note that and understand there's a shift and, you know, show that you care. Do you think that that's how a lot of people understand that they're not empathetic or empathic, that people feel, he doesn't care about me? Is that. Is that what's coming out mostly?

I think so. I think that's one of the ways that it does come out, that through some feedback mechanism or if people came in to talk to others about me, to give me feedback, you know, I might hear in that conversation circle that he doesn't connect well with people. I don't know if he cares for me or not. I've had people say, I don't even know if my boss is married or has children. There's such a gap between me and that person. I don't know anything about them. He comes in or she comes in. The work is the work, it gets done. And then we go home and there's no personal interaction. And I say personal, I don't mean, you know, going out for margaritas and going swimming in each other's swimming pools, et cetera. But, you know, some greater awareness, because people are holistic entities that bring with them, everything. You know, if I have a disagreement with my wife today and then go to work, it's not like once I walk in the door at work, I've forgotten it. I still may be irritated. I still may be angry. I'm still thinking about when I get home tonight. I'm really going to bring that topic back up again. It really influences me in the workplace, and it would be great if there was somebody to say, gee, Ed, you don't seem to be yourself today. Is everything okay? I might say, no, everything's fine. I don't want to talk about it. Or I might say, gee, it's funny you should ask. I'm having a tough day and it would be great to talk with somebody about it. You don't know unless you ask, but that's what you want to practice is being more available to others, even if they don't take you up on it.

I so love this. And what comes to mind is, in my last two years in corporate life, I literally felt that no one knew who I was. No one cared.

How is that possible? Kathy.

I think I know what you mean, but I don't even want to know. You mean, I talk so much, how does someone not know?

No, but you're a very outgoing, positive person. I can't imagine that you wouldn't be well known in your organization.

Well, let me be clear. Thank you for that compliment. I'm taking it in. They saw me as that. What I mean is just what you're saying. Who you are at work is not everything. I was a mom, I was a singer, I was a tennis player. I had a, you know, a musical life. Nobody cared. Get the work done, sign the contract, bring in the million bucks. So I can't emphasize this enough, people. If you feel like you're an island and nobody cares and no one asks you one question that isn't about work, you're not going to be happy.

Well, there's a chapter in the book you mentioned, Drive youe Career, called Play the Hand you've Been Dealt. And that surrounds largely this reality that you have to play the hand you've been dealt. And if you have been dealt a workplace where people don't care about you as a person, they can care about you as an asset. Like, come in, do the work at home. I don't care anything else about you. You have a choice to make. And just like a poker hand, you can't dictate the hand you get dealt. It's the hand you've been dealt, and it's either going to be a great hand where people love you and you have great relationships and they will go, listen to you sing and you know you have a wonderful life with them, or it's a bad hand. Right. Where people don't care. And so you have a choice. And that choice is either to fold, which is move on and find an opportunity that better connects with you as a person. You can bluff. I'm not a big fan of bluffing. I think you can bluff for a couple of days, but not for an extended period of time.

Meaning to be who you're not.

Yeah. Pretend everything's great.

Right.

And that's. Ironically, that's where most of my clients are. They have tough relationships or tough workplaces, and they're just bluffing, making it seem like it's better than it is, or getting by, or it's a paycheck and they're not doing anything. The third choice, of course, is taking action. Right. Turning in some cards with the hope that you get better cards. But you have to do something. So, you know, in that scenario where you're describing, especially if it's a place that's low empathy, and I've worked at, with people who work in organizations, that empathy is not a word that's even used.

Yeah, they have. It's soft. It's soft dumb skill. People think.

Yeah.

Affecting my bottom line.

Right, Right. You have a choice to make, which is, is this a place I want to be? Is this a place I want to change? Or do I want to get out and find a place that better suits my skillset?

I love it. I'm gonna leave you with. On that note, with. With something I learned in therapy. If you're unhappy about something, you have two choices. You have three with your. I love that analogy with the cards. But it's either you change your feelings about the situation or you change the situation. Otherwise nothing's gonna change. Oh, I love it. Now let's move to the micromanage managing thing. You know, I call it in many cases perfectionistic over functioning, which I see in doing more than is healthy, appropriate, necessary, and trying to get an A plus in all of it. And it's crippling for you, and it's crippling for everyone you're micromanaging and over functioning around. But can. Can I hear your language about it? Why do people do it and how do you help them stop doing it?

Well, I think first we need to understand why people do it. And again, this. I'm not a scientist, so I've not studied this topic specifically, but with the clients I've worked with, I've seen it. And it's a very, very common behavior. And the pattern I see most often is people who have grown up within an organization. So they came in as a independent contributor and then they became a supervisor, and then they became a manager, and then they became a vice president. What we have a tendency to do is we bring everything with us that got us there. And that includes all of the details, all of the knowledge, all the information, because, hey, I got promoted. No one can do it better than me. I must be great at this. And I want to make sure everybody knows. And rather than realize that the organization needs you now to shift your focus from doing the details to being more strategic and future focused and planful, understanding the risks that might be happening and things of that nature, I stay stuck in the details because that's what got me this job. And so we get stuck there. And the reason that exists of that type of behavior is because organizations just are not structured to notice it and do anything about it. So if all that work is getting done, that's all they care about, not who's doing it. Unless I observe it as a leader and say, gee, why, why did I see you at that meeting today? Or why does this report have your name on it? You have employees. You have them for a reason. I say that a lot to leaders who micromanage, which is you have employees for a reason. They should be good at doing this. If you're still doing this, that's a problem because it means you don't trust your employees. And that means there is a functional issue in your relationship with them, which doesn't mean that they're living up to their potential. And they could be exit, you know, prone to exit because you're not giving them the ability to get the job done.

How fantastic a way to put it. Can I ask you this? I think that what I see is a number of people have actually said this, these words. I was great at that job as director and I'm supposed to be strategic and I don't know how to be. In fact, I have a dear friend, Dorie Clark, who is just so amazing she's been on the show. I believe that she did a LinkedIn learning course on strategic thinking. And it's one of the most, you know, viewed taken courses I have. I would love to take it. You know, how she. And these are short modules, but how you teach strategic thinking. But do you see that, that it's not Only the fact that they've, they're bringing everything with them to that higher level position. But they may truly not know how to do the higher level strategic work. They just don't know how. Or maybe they're not even good at it. Do you see that in your work? You do.

So I do think we live in a world today where people move from role to role and ascend through role to role quicker than ever before. You know, I love the old IBM model where I started in the mail room and I retired 45 years later as the senior vice president of sales. But that took 45 years. Now people want every two years to three years to four years to move to the next role. And what happens there by default is you're just not as prepared for that new role because you've got there so quickly. And so you know, hey, what a boon for coaching, right? That people need help fitting into their new role and being more expansive and knowledgeable and impactful to the organization. But the reason that happened is because the organization itself created it. So I think there's a couple of flaws in the system. One is we move people too quickly up an organization. For example, I have a client company that has a person who is just anointed president of the entity, who in his prior role was a brand manager, didn't even do all of the steps that were in between. Now, he might be great at it. I'm not judging him as a contributor, but the mo. It's that model, right, of move, move, move people who are ready. Secondly, there's not really infrastructure built around how you're doing what needs to get done. If we have a report that's due or. Yeah, if we have a report due or presentation to be done, I'm not asking how it's getting done. I want to ensure that it gets done. And so if it gets done, I don't sit down and do an autopsy with you on the steps that you went to get it done. I pat you on the back and say, great job. And so it just perpetuates itself, Kathy, because we don't have the, the systems and process in place to ensure that people who get elevated, especially once they get to the vice president level, are now focused on the future and have given up. And when I say give up, I mean have given up all of the detail work. Can they ask questions and be observant? Absolutely, because they are accountable for it getting done. But that's what their employees are for. And if they don't have good employees or People who can't get it done, they need to work on that to get good people or improve the skill set of those people to get better.

I so love it.

But that's not what's happening.

No. And you're also bringing up. I don't know enough about the history of work, but I was talking to a client of mine who landed an amazing job, and she has a boss who has said something to her that you just don't hear many bosses say.

And she.

And she's very senior. She said, what do you want for your career going forward? I want you to think about that because you're a real driver here. And what you want, you can get. But what do you want? And my client admitted, I don't know. I don't know. I can't figure it out. So, thankfully, coaching. But how many bosses do you know sit down and say that? True mentors.

True. Yeah.

Strategic advisors. Go ahead. I'm really interested in hearing what you have to say.

Yeah, Well, I think this is another flaw in the system. And I know our goal today wasn't to talk only about flaws in the system, but, you know, not having career development discussions are missing in most organizations around the globe because we're all get it done, get it done, get it done type people. And we're focused on what comes out, not how you got there. And we're not spending enough time talking with people, not about projects, not about clients, not about initiatives and goals. How are you doing? Are you enjoying what you're doing? Is this on the career path for you? Do you feel good about where you are? Some people don't. Some people think by the time they're 35, they should be a VP. And if they're 36 or 37 and are not yet, that's creating a personalized pressure on them. So, you know, those are extremely important, ironically, extremely important conversations that you should be having with team members that don't happen in corporations today. So we're. We're more focused on getting it done. We're more focused on activities versus career development when we should be talking more and more with people like your boss did or with for your client, about where they are and how they feel about where they are.

Love it. You know what it reminds me of? Is it Noel Tishy? Is that how we pronounce it? Who wrote Leadership Expert? But he wrote about teaching your teachable point of view. And, you know, I try to do this with my staff. I have a funny anecdote. I remember when I was managing whatever, a $30 million budget. And there were so many line items that I didn't care about. You know, I just didn't care. And my boss. So I was the vice president, there were three. And we reported to a senior vice president, and he said, chastising all of us, look, you got to manage this money as if it's your money. And I remember going, okay, I'll try. But, you know, I didn't know how to do it. I didn't have the feeling now that I'm managing not a $30 million budget at all, but my own business. And I see that my staff, who I. They're not my staff, they're contractors. And my team, they would do. They'd take a bullet for me. I mean, I love these people, but are they managing my money the way it. As if it's. Are they managing their time and resources as if it's their money? No, I don't think we can do that. I think it's really hard to do that. But why I bring it up is if we can teach our teams how we think. So instead of what I'm finding is this is like sounding self congratulatory, and I don't mean to, but when I'm brainstorming 50 new directions and I'm dumping a lot on my team, if I feel that if I don't give them my teachable point of view, it's going to just feel like a fire hose. Why is she doing all this right now? Do we really need to do this all in December? And so if I can share, here's where I'm going, here's where I'm thinking the new direction for me is, and really teach them how I make a decision, I think they're more on board. What do you think about that, Ed?

Oh, absolutely, Kathy. I think you said it eloquently, and I don't think I could say it any better. Bosses should meet with their subordinates once or twice a year. It's not even a huge commitment of time. And it could be during another activity like breakfast or lunch. So you don't even have to add it to your agenda to talk about you. To talk about your interests, your state of where you are, where you want to go, and how I can help you, especially if you're somebody who they think highly of. You want to ensure that those types of conversations, and you want to be realistic about it, you might say, look, you know, we'd love to make you a vice president at this company. Here's how it might happen and it will probably take two to three years. So now I know that. Right. It's not going to happen on January, but it's going to take a couple of years. But at least now I know that and I can stay focused and engaged as long as I'm still seeing those types of support structures in place. But, you know, again, unfortunately, these are not the types of conversations that are happening. We're not providing each other feedback on things we could be doing differently to be more effective. We're not talking about career, we're talking about projects, initiatives. We've got too many conference calls, too many meetings. We're running from meeting to meeting. Every day feels like a sprint to just survive as opposed to spending time on the things that you and I are talking about that I think are more impactful and helpful.

Love it. There's a few other things I want to get your take on. Soliciting experiential feedback and psychological bravery. One thing we haven't touched on, and I bet it falls into one of these categories, if you're going to be a great leader, you also have to say the hard stuff. It can't all be a walk in the park. I mean, people need to see. Your people need to see where they're falling down a little bit, where maybe, you know, I've had situations where I've had to say to a person working with me, you're asking a lot of questions. And it's okay that you're asking me questions, but these are questions you can answer. So what I'm needing from you is that you think it through first. And then when you have a question, I'd like you to propose the answer you think is best. And I've had situations where the person can't do it. They can't do it. And I know there's a little bit of a gap of critical thinking, so I've had to figure out what I'm going to do with that. Is it serious enough that remedial work has to happen, whatever. But what I also see is missing, and maybe this is part of what you call psychological bravery. It's not all a walk in the park. To manage people. You have got to say the hard things that, that are out of love from, from your heart. But here's what I see needs to shift if you want to really grow. Is that part of what you think psychological bravery is?

Well, I think what you're talking about is what I call fairness. And first of all, leading is not easy. So no one Ever said it's easy. You know, there wouldn't be a million books out there on leadership if it was that easy. Right? So it is incredibly complex. It changes on a regular basis. Just as soon as you figure it out, suddenly your team's going to change and the priorities are going to change and the business model is going to change. You know, everything might change. So leadership is an ongoing educational process. But if you imagine a balance with a statue in the middle, to me, that statue is fairness. And on one side are the positives, right? How do I give complimentary feedback? How do I recognize people in ways? How do I ensure they're engaged? Right. These are all the positive things that I do as a leader to help that person grow. And the other side are the more constructive things. How do I give people feedback when things aren't going the way that I want? How do I potentially even terminate somebody from the company if, in fact, after multiple opportunities and training and learning and giving them everything that they should get, they just are not the right fit for the role? Neither are harder than the other because they should be balanced. And so a fair leader is somebody who can pat you on the back but also slap you on the back of the hand if you're not doing what needs to be done in a very respectful, candid way. I know I would want to work with somebody who told me just as much of the things that I'm doing well as things I could be doing differently to be more effective because I'm more apt to grow. It's not like work is a race where there's a line. As long as I get past the line, I'm okay. You know, the line keeps moving, and I have to keep growing and evolving in order to make great progress. And so, you know, I think psychological bravery, psychological safety, comes from candor, respectful candor to people on things they're doing great and things that they're not doing great in a very balanced way.

Beautiful. Beautiful. You know, one thing occurs to me. I had a client once, and it's come up many times after this, and she said, I hate my boss. I hate my boss, and my boss is terrible to me. My boss is terrible. So I said, flesh that out. Let me understand. You know, she micromanages all these things we're talking about. And I said, I want to ask you a question. Let's call her Sarah. Sarah. Yep. Tell me what you really think of your boss. Do you respect your boss? No. Do you feel you could do your boss's job? Yes. In half A second and I should be doing her. And so I said, you know that she knows you feel that, right? And her eyes got big. So one thing I want to tell everyone, you know, as a therapist, I felt this, but long before everything is energy. And if you hate your boss and think they're dumb as dirt and that you should get that person's job, they know it. And the human, the human instinct is to protect ourselves from a threat. So if you're putting out that energy, you're never going to get unless the person's really oblivious. But they're going to feel it and you are going to be a threat to them. And threats are not easily withstood. You're going to, it's not going to be pretty. So I said what I'd love to do rather than what you think you hired me for, which is to, you know, move you out of this boss. I want you to give me three months and I want to work with you to turn this around. That you stop hating your boss, that you start to see your boss work. It was truly magical. And I am not joking. By the end of six months, she was promoted and they had repaired the relationship. So would you. You know, it's probably not your realm to talk about energy as much as maybe it would be mine. But you probably see that a lot in the dynamic of someone struggling with their boss. But really it's co created. It's not just the boss is terrible. Well, sometimes we do have terrible, narcissistic, you know, what do you think about that story, Ed? Have you seen that kind of dynamic?

Oh, I would tell you that probably 85% of my clients, and I've not been studying it, but just as an observer of it, 85% of my clients believe they could have a better relationship with their boss. And it's not all the time that they hate them, but they just believe that they could have a better relationship with their boss. And in fact, chapter one of my book, Drive youe Career is called how to have a Positive Relationship with your Boss. Because I do believe in energy. And a good colleague of mine is an energy manager, not a time manager. Because time is fixed, but energy is variable. And we tend to put energy on things we like and we don't put energy on things we don't like. And so you want to manage your energy level more effectively. And if I don't like my boss, I'm not going to put a lot of energy into that relationship. If I do like my boss, I'm going to Put energy into that relationship because I want to keep it going. And so how do I shift that energy? And so I do believe that for people to have more impact on their career, and that's why the subtext of the book is, you know, how to ensure your own success, not somebody else coming in and doing it for you. But you need to ensure you have a positive relationship with your boss. And some bosses it is impossible to have a positive relationship with because it is a relationship. There are two people, not just you, but you want to look back six months or a year from now and say, you know what? I did everything that I could to have a positive relationship with Ed, you know, and I could list it for you right now. He wasn't game, he wasn't interested. He never gave it back. And so I just either settled in and wrote out the relationship or I moved on. Right? But I didn't bluff, right? I didn't pretend that everything was great and said, oh, thank you, you're the best boss ever. And then at the water cooler said, oh, my God, what a terrible boss. Worst boss I ever had. But, you know, I tried to make it better. I think, Kathy, that's an important point, because I think for people to be drivers of their career and to ensure they're moving at the rate they want to move, they have to ensure they have a positive relationship with their boss.

That's the truth. The 85% that. That say, I wish I had a better relationship, do most of them think it's the boss's fault? They don't. Of course they don't. They don't see their part in it. So you're doing that same work.

Well, let me just quickly mention to you, you know, a question I love to ask, which almost always throws a person off, is, you know, they'll say, and I start asking during interviews, can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with your boss? Because I now have a high expectation that it's going to be, well, it's not great. And in those 85% of the time when it's not great, my next question is, so what are you doing to perpetuate that? And they're like, what are you talking about me? It's my boss. And I said, well, that's something that we should think and explore about, because this is a relationship. And I don't know that you're the victim here, because you might be in victim mode, where it's always you that's getting impacted. There may be things that you're Doing that could be fostering or you know, putting a little fuel on the fire that if you did it a little bit differently might make things better.

Sounds like you had some marriage and family therapy training over there. Marriage and family therapists. Think about the system. That nothing is in and of itself. It's all related to the system. Sounds like you're on all over that. Can I ask you this question? I'm really asking you because I'm picking your brain here. I have this funny little thing. If someone. And it doesn't happen much anymore because people know what I'm all about. But it used to be that someone would say I would like coaching because I'm a director and I want to be a vice president and I want to make 50,000 more. And I will say to them now I don't work on that goal. And they're like, what? What kind of coach are you? And I say what I would work on is how do you become a higher level contributor so that that will come naturally. But once you are that you may not want to be a vice president at this company. You may, you know, you may find you're on a whole other path. But I don't want to talk about the title. I want to talk about how you are contributing. Do you hear people complaining about they're really fixated on I need that title to be. And I need to add almost always people fixated on that don't feel recognized and valued.

So I do hear it. I wouldn't say frequently, but it does come up. And I will tell you, most people say, I really want my next step to be a vp. I should have been a VP by now, I'm not a VP by now. But then they'll also say, oh my God, that sounds so horrible. This really isn't about just being a vp. Yeah. So they do try to self correct because I think they realize that it's not just about title and role. Not all the time, but you know, with some degree of frequency that might happen. So you know, we live in a very hierarchical structure in organizations. And you know, a lot of organizations are trying to get flatter and not have titles and things of that nature. But you know, some people do see career path as an active, engaged process. And as I mentioned earlier, if not, if I'm not a VP by 40, something must be wrong. Right.

And I need to clarify because some people are thinking, what is she talking about? Don't get me wrong, I want everybody I work with to earn as much as they can. And Be an incredible contributor and rise with greater leadership responsibility, if that's what you want. What I mean is being fixated by the words in the title. That's not, I don't think what you want. And when you're doing that, you're missing. It's like that relationship again. What are you doing to be the higher level Perfect?

Yeah, I tend to be more, I tend to be more behavioral based and so it's, you know, what are the behaviors that you aren't doing or could be doing a little bit differently so people see it more often.

That's it. Finally, since this is Finding Brave and yours is Be Brave at Work, your podcast, any words, remaining words about how we can be braver in our work, in our leadership, as a manager, as a leader, as a team leader, what else can we tell people?

Yeah, well, interestingly today, but we had to reschedule it. I was planning on recording my one year anniversary of Be Brave at Work where one of my guests was the host and I was going to be the guest. So we had to reschedule it for next week. And in that session I plan to share what people can do to be more brave at work. So I love the fact that our topics so overlap and, you know, one area I would tell folks that, and this is based on the conversation that I've had with, you know, dozens and dozens of people over the last year. You know, one area that people should think about to be braver at work is presence, which is if I'm going to have a conversation with somebody that's going to be tough, I need to be highly present in that meeting. Meaning I'm listening. Well, I'm curious. I'm fully engaged in helping this person be more successful. I'm not just running in and hitting them over the head with a two by four. I'm not thinking about the other 50 things that I have to work on. I'm not doing it in 10 minutes when, you know, because I've got a meeting at three or whatever it might be, you know, I'm fully present and prepared to have a great conversation with somebody. And I think that's something everyone should think about. How can I be highly present to help this person? You know, most people, even though they want to give people feedback, you know, they tend to go to the negative more than the positive. It's, gee, I don't want to say that because that might hurt Ed's feelings. How can I help Ed? Because the way he's behaving is having a negative Impact. So I want to help Ed, not hurt Ed. And if you can get to that context, your likelihood for success will be significantly greater.

I adore that comment. You know, I think, again, a lot about therapy, training, and how that's helped me in every possible way. But part of that is that deep. You're looking into their eyes, you're feeling what they feel. You are not just waiting. I'm not. You know, it's funny, these podcasts are like that for me. I'm not. I have no idea what I'm going to say while you're talking. I'm just. I hope you feel it fully engaged. And then, you know, I will write down a word. Okay. I think I want to talk about energy, but I don't want to focus on what I'm writing and what I'm thinking. I want to be fully, emotionally, physically, spiritually, behaviorally present for you. And I think that one of the challenges people have is they're not using used to what that is. They're not like, if I were to give a tip for somebody about how to be present, it's take three deep, long breaths. I mean, three breaths actually change your nervous system. But as a singer, we have to. We have to breathe deeply down here. Diaphragmatically supported. Honestly, when I do that, I feel differently. I'm not so full of the chatter up here. So there's all sorts of strategies about. Maybe you even have them in your book. But how can we be more fully present that we're not just waiting to jump in and give our response, but we're truly there for that person and listening. Any any more tips about how to be present?

So in reality, I don't know that there are great tips in my current book, Drive Career, on being Braver at Work. Even though, you know, being brave is an important leadership characteristic, I'm a big believer in the number three. And so my third book, Kathy, is going to be called Be Brave at Work. And it's going to be focused on taking ideas to action. And we're going to be talking specifically, really recapping the conversations that I've had with others, all with their approval, of course, to talk about what bravery at the workplace looks like, feels like, why we avoid it, and what we can do differently in order to be more effective. So I think there's a lot of lessons and learnings. You know, there's. That everyone experiences it and, you know, I don't like using the word everyone because there's always, you know, you can't Always, but a few outliers. But I'm pretty comfortable saying that. I think everyone has experienced a moment where they could have been braver and didn't and regret it. Gee, I should have said something and I didn't. Maybe it was at a meeting, maybe it was to somebody or did do something that required, amongst many emotions, feeling bravery and did something that made a difference. And so I hope people can learn from that. I hope they learn, as I'm sure they do, from your podcast and from my podcast. Everyone's experiencing this. Everyone defines it a little bit differently based on their life. And here's what they're doing in order to make great progress.

I love it. When's that book coming out?

Oh, it's like two or three years out.

If you said this year, I was gonna fall over. You're so prolific, Ed. Where? I just love it. I love every word. I love it when people come together. You and me, you are our guests. And we're from such a different trajectory, yet we somehow dovetail so many ways. And it's fun to talk to people who don't agree too. We don't all have to be the same people. But your background is so fascinating in the way you approach helping people be the best they can be.

I love it.

Where do people learn about you? Where do they get your book? Tell us everything.

Well, you can email me@edxellius.com and that's exe double L I US.com you can go to my website, excelius.com and when you go on it, a pop up will appear where you can order the book Drive youe Career or you can go to any of your favorite online bookstores and order it online. And I hope you do. But more importantly, I hope you do because I think there's some valuable lessons that I've learned over the last 12 years working with clients that I think can positively influence your career development.

Well, we know that because we just got a big dose of it for a half hour. Good luck with your book. I hope it continues to rise those charts and get in the hands of a million people. Ed, thank you for being here.

Thank you, Kathy, for having me.

Oh, my pleasure, people. We want to hear from you. Ed even gave his email. That's pretty incredible. And we'll link to it below. We would love to hear from you. You know, I'm micromanaging and I think it might be because I'm afraid or. Let us help you. We're coaches. We love it. Let us hear from you wherever you see this, that would be great. And if you know, I know I don't ask this on the podcast much, but if you're listening to it, some people say it's their morning thing. They do in the morning, listening to the podcast. Give us a rating, will you? And a five star or whatever you want to say on Apple. We'd love to. We'd love to hear what you think and we hope it's moving you forward. Thanks again, Ed. Come back with your next book.

I will. Thank you, Kathy.

Thank you, everyone. Have a fantastic week and we will see you next time. Bye.