The Critical Need for Improving the Emotional Agility of Leaders

Have you ever wondered why your team isn't hitting its stride despite all the talent that you've brought on board? It's just not performing up to what you expected. Maybe you've noticed things like high turnover, a lack of energy, or that unsettling feeling of burnout creeping into your office. It's frustrating, right? I mean, let's face it. You have the vision. You have the skills and the drive. But something is still And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is the Strengths Based Leadership and Culture Coach, Dr. Matthew Norton. And today, we're going to be pulling back the curtain on a critical issue that is silently draining the life out of your business. It's stalling growth and keeping your team from reaching its full potential. And spoiler alert, it's not what you think. But it's something every leader, every leader needs to hear. So stay tuned. You won't want to miss a second. Second of this. Now, here is a shameless plug. I built this podcast to support business operators and their managers just like you. I have enormous gratitude for the experts who grace this channel each and every week and the amazing value that I think we bring to the forefront. But I need your help. Please, if you're watching this and you haven't subscribed to the podcast, please make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. If you're tuning in, it's really important for the Google machine to be able to see my show and be able to share it with like-minded people just like you. And please make sure that you share it with your circle of influence, within the people who you know could use this information. I'd love to see the business community really support the work that I've been doing for 205 episodes. And keep in mind, it's all free. We ask for nothing in return. So, please go ahead and do that. Okay, end of shameless plug. Ages ago, I have worked with a brand new supervisor. She was like most of us. She was promoted because she was outgoing, great with customers, and a real people person. She was a great performer so her boss promoted her to Supervisor. But the skills that she used to win over her customers didn't work with her team. You see, she was a people person in every sense of the word with an extremely generous servant heart. She was there to serve her customers before she got promoted. Now, she was there to serve her employees. But instead of delegating, she would do the work herself. She said, I knew my people had their jobs to do and I didn't want to interrupt them. If there was work to do before the end of the day, she would do it after hours instead of asking her staff to do it. She'd do it before she left. And she said, I know my staff have their families to get to. I just don't want them to stay late. So, I just do it. But the outfall, her staff didn't think that she trusted them. The biggest problem was when crisis hit. She completely fell apart with things like high turnover, disengaged employees, and the ever-present cloud of stress hovering over the team. But those were just the symptoms of the bigger problem. She lacked some skills as a leader. But even more importantly, she lacked emotional agility. And that brings me to our Question of the Day. Do you ever feel like your team isn't reaching its full potential despite all the efforts you go through to motivate and lead them? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Go ahead and share your experience on social media. Maybe share the link to this episode on social media. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and put down your comments. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is just absolutely Spectacular! I'm thrilled to introduce— sorry. I'm thrilled to introduce Matthew Norton. He is a true pioneer in the world of leadership and human behavior. With decades, decades, 3 decades I believe, Dr. Norton has dedicated his career to understanding what makes people tick. And more importantly, how to harness that to understand what drives success in both business and life. Dr. Norton isn't just a theorist. He's a practitioner who has developed groundbreaking strength-based assessments that have transformed countless leaders and teams. As the founder of People Purpose, he's helped businesses across industries unlock their full potential by focusing on the often overlooked elements of emotional agility. He's here today to share his insights on how you can turn the tide in your organization leading with both head, and heart to create lasting impactful change. Matthew, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Oh, thank you, Marc, for all those kind words. I feel special. And I'm still tapping my foot based on that music while we were waiting. I was waiting to get on. That was really good.

Well, thank you. Hey, maybe before we get into our topic today, can we dig a little bit deeper about how you serve your clients, what kind of clients you deal with, and how you How you support them?

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty much industry agnostic in the sense that wherever there's people, as per People Purpose in my company name, I love to help. I love to work especially with visionary leaders of the business. And that's where I feel like most of the challenges begin. And it's also where we're able to go deepest. I feel I can make the biggest impact. So, leaders, teams across any industry and using guided by strengths-based assessments as you mentioned that I've even developed of my own to kind of help guide the personalization of that coaching.

Yeah, so interesting because I've just been talking about this idea of personalization within our teams that we can't treat our team members Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I, I think it makes me think back about when I first started using assessments, uh, way back in the '90s, just to, uh, kind of betray age there a little bit. But I had at that point, I have 3 same-age daughters, right? So they were all 16 at that point in time. And I realized because it was a kind of a mixed assessment, right? complex blended family that I inherited within a fairly short window of time, and I felt ill-equipped to know what to do with all of this. When I started using those assessments, I decided, okay, I'm going to have my kids take these. It was very interesting to begin to see the unique differences between them that somebody could have said, well, of course, I see that they're not the same, right? But even intuitively, that would be the case. But I realized that in many ways, I was parenting them as almost a package, especially because they were 3 girls the same age. But then I started thinking about how this applies to the way that we are coaching and developing leaders and team members in our organization, which is kind of a little bit of a one-size-fits-all package approach, right? We're missing the nuances that are going to really speak to that individual.

Right, right. And so, we talk about personalization obviously when it comes to customers. What you're advocating now is personalization when it comes to our employees.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that's where it starts. I was in a conversation with somebody yesterday who has team members with 3 team members. And they were feeling not super respected, not super valued, their input not really And I ended up saying to them that I honestly believe that it's the team that comes first before the patients. In that particular case, these were their patients. Then, that the owner-doctor was so focusing on them and stepping over the team and their needs, which meant that they were not a united force to be able to deliver even greater patient experience.

Yeah. So, in that context with businesses, it's funny because I do think that we do compartmentalize. As leaders, we tend to compartmentalize what's under my direct control. And then, we end up stepping over our team in order to achieve other things that we perceive just like my new career supervisor that we start assuming different things about our team members. And so, then we're not giving them the power to be able to step up and show what they can do.

Yeah, just a little piece of the turnover or toleration problem that we have going on in the workforce, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about this concept of emotional agility. Why is it so critical for leaders in today's business environment to adopt some semblance of emotional agility?

Yeah, well, I think on the most fundamental level, being in the world of people in business. I like to tell people that it's your people that are driving your performance. But for all of us, it's emotions that are driving us. And so sometimes people will think, I don't think that's true, really. I'm rational. I'm logical in the way that I choose to do everything. But research would kind of beg to differ with that and that it's emotions that are informing and influencing all of our decision-making and the relationships that we have with other people. So, I think it's the emotional piece that is most missing. I work with a lot of genius, smart, and incredibly technically skilled individuals that never— many of them in small business never really learned— in professional small business never really learned business acumen. But they learned less about being leaders of people. And now suddenly, they are in a leadership position. And they don't really know necessarily how to coach and guide and develop people. And so, those emotions are driving them, positive or negative. Those emotions are driving them. The impact spills over onto the team. And the patients, or clients, customers experience and feel this as well, even though we tend not to think that's true sometimes.

Yeah, I hear stories about certain leaders in the workforce when I'm talking to people within an organization. They'll turn around and they'll really talk highly about one particular manager and not necessarily about another manager. And so, is this where emotional agility becomes a determining factor in whether or not a leader is successful or not?

Well, I think emotion— let me just kind of maybe lay out the elements of emotional agility for a minute, which is there's 5 different pieces. So, the first The first one is self-awareness and impact. Am I aware of my own emotional state and then the impact of that state on the people around me and even upon my ability to achieve my goals? Then that self-awareness moves over into self-management. If I'm not really aware of my emotions, then it becomes very difficult to manage or redirect them. But is the state that I'm in Is that helpful? Is that what is actually going to be most conducive to the team in this moment, to the people that we're serving? So, a lot of times, that's where the key issue is. If I'm in a place of fear or frustration or anxiety, then I need to get shifted out of that as soon as possible because the impact on others is huge. The next one is inspired engagement. Are we Are we doing what we're doing because it's in us to do? Because we are driven and inspired from the inside as opposed to simply an outside benefit or consequence such that when things get difficult or maybe we're not getting all of the outside reinforcement affirmation that we're looking for, then we lose that motivation and then we tend to struggle more. Then it moves from that intrapersonal, those emotions within us, to the 2 interpersonal ones, which is compassion. Compassionate understanding. Otherwise, you could say empathy. Am I able and willing to put myself in somebody else's shoes? What would it be like to be them? Beneath what their behavior is, what might they be wrestling with? Could I understand them? Maybe they're a different style and have different strengths than me. Maybe there's other factors that I'm not considering. And so that's a key piece, moving to awareness of other people. And then the last one is called relationship influence. After I'm aware of other people, how adept am I at the social skills that are important to be able to reach across and help somebody be more successful, to be able to come together as a larger team and make an impact?

So, I mean, those 5 key components, I can absolutely see it. But what does it take for leaders to kind of assess themselves Are there any kind of telltale signs that a leader or a team is lacking that emotional agility?

Yeah, I mean, part of it can be that you start to notice that there is too much turnover, that there is a lot of extra negative stress, that sometimes drama may be in the environment, that people are starting to separate off into smaller cliques. But, but the, uh, it becomes very difficult once, once the stress levels rise to be able to stay in a positive state, right? So you begin to notice more anxiety, more frustration, more anger, maybe more worry. And so I think it's, that's, that's often where I will find people or people will find me is that they will become aware that a team member is not functioning at the highest level. That's a first symptom that they they will see. And it's only in that initial conversation where they will begin to go, oh, so maybe since there were several other people in that position that no longer work here, maybe it could be me. Maybe I'm part of the challenge because that's not the tendency, right? We see the problems in other people before we tend to see them in ourselves.

Yeah. And I was just going to mention that when people see the symptoms, I've dealt with countless business operators and managers. And when they talk about the fact that my employees are lazy because they don't want to do the work. My employees are quitting to go across the street for 25 cents more an hour. My employees aren't taking any kind of initiative. So, they're not creative thinkers and so on. And they're pointing to all these different symptoms And to your point, they're not necessarily looking at the underbelly of all these symptoms to find out what the root cause is. So, how does one then get to that tipping point of humility to turn around and say, you know what? As a leader, maybe this is falling on my shoulders.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good question. Kind of a hard question as to what it will take to have that awareness. I think that's part of why I did create a As we were mentioning earlier, a 3-minute free business emotional health scorecard that anybody can access. I believe you said that would be in the show notes for them to do.

Absolutely, yes.

And it will give it— it will look at a number of these different indicators to be able to say, what is the emotional health of our business? And it's not something people are typically thinking of, right? We're looking at numbers. We're looking at production. We're looking at all those things. But we're not typically looking at at taking the emotional temperature of things. So, I think that's a key piece. We have to have awareness. If we're not aware that there's even an issue or what does that issue even look like, then it's really hard to be able to do anything about that. And I think one of the key factors is we have to admit that in business, there's a lot of stress. Small business management and team members at any point in a larger business. So, what happens with leaders? When they're under stress? Do they have the kind of body, mind, spirit skill sets to be able to thrive under those stress conditions? Or are they getting overwhelmed and perceiving threat? Are they feeling like this is— there's a threat, a danger to the success of my organization? Are we going to make it? Are we going to be able to get to those places? Which then leads People who have lower emotional agility to hold tighter, to start to over-control, to micromanage, to begin to set a tone. Or they go the other way and just kind of abdicate their responsibility, check out under that frustration, and they don't show up as real leaders. So, I think beginning to see those things and beginning to see ourselves, it just starts with seeing ourselves more clearly if we're in a leadership role and we want to better impact our team.

Yeah, no, I can absolutely see that. For businesses, like I'm sure that you say that people will call you when certain things happen. What are the long-term consequences for businesses if leaders lack developing this emotional agility with themselves and their teams?

Well, I think that, I mean, the primary thing is that ongoing stress leads to burnout. It leads in leaders. It leads to I have clients that are spending the vast majority of their time as business owners in that negative space of anxiety and frustration. And they're not going to be as focused. They're not going to be as creative to find solutions from that place. They are going to alienate the team. They're not going to see opportunities for growth and development. But they're going to put pressure on those team members to deliver in ways that they are probably ill-equipped to deliver to compensate for what's not being brought to them. And that will burn them out as well. So, we've got a lot of frustration and it kind of ties into Gallup's findings that in the State of the Global Workplace that about 70% of the global workforce is not really engaged. It's like I'm showing up but I'm not really in with what you're talking about. This doesn't— I don't know.

Yeah, sorry. When you add to that study because I read that study as well, that 15% of the workforce are heavily disengaged. So, these become the cancers in our organizations. These become the gossipers and the poison that we're surrounding ourselves with because they are not just not showing up and just doing bare necessity. They're going in there and actually being a detriment to the business.

Right. Yeah. And we're not going to inspire anybody. You're right. And I mean, that has to get resolved, right? That gets resolved by ideally by preventing people from ever getting into that place, which means that we could do some of what Gallup recommended is creating a strengths-based workplace, right? Thus, the strengths-based assessments that I'm coaching through. But also, a purpose-driven, not just a paycheck-driven mission. And also, that there would be ongoing growth and development. So, is anybody coaching these people? Is anybody checking in, getting their input? What do you need? How can I help you? But that takes a leader that is themselves in more of a positive place where they've got the bandwidth to serve. You can't really even see other people, let alone reach across and help other people if you are burdened with your own negative emotions every day. That's why the emotional— that first emotional agility piece is to be able to see myself. And am I— do I have peace? Am I thriving in joy in what I'm doing? Do I feel like I'm riding the crest of the wave? Or is the wave constantly crashing on my head? And therefore, I can't inspire anybody from here.

And to that end, the first step would then pick up the phone and call an expert like yourself. to come in and help figure out how I can change my mindset first because I can absolutely see it. You can't go in and policy make a positive work environment.

No.

Starting tomorrow, everybody's going to come to work happy.

Okay?

Yeah, yeah. I'd love to dig into some strategies that leaders can use immediately to improve their emotional agility. And we'll get to that. Right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with Dr. Matthew Norton. Matthew, prior to the start of the show, you mentioned something about an online course or online program that you have. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so I created because this is such a big deal and not everybody knows how big of a deal it might be. be for them. I created a very low barrier to entry, $97 a month program that involves the opportunity to take my emotional agility assessment, get an 18-page report that goes with that, then to be able to have training guides for each of those 5 areas of emotional agility that I mentioned, as well as to do 2 live group coaching calls where we will break this down, provide some strategies, be able to kind of coach through even some of the anonymously submitted top emotional challenges that people are experiencing. And so, if anybody wants to know more about that, you can go to peoplepluspurpose.com/30dayeabreakthrough. 30-Day EA Breakthrough and learn more about that. It's got a lot of the research as to why this is so impactful on there, a lot of expert voices and testimonials. But then, the precursor to that might be then taking that 3-minute free Business Emotional Health Scorecard to then say, oh, maybe I do have a need. Maybe a step in that direction would be meaningful for me, for my organization.

Yeah, I'm always looking for what is the first step in identifying areas for improvement. So, in our context, it's how can people assess the current level of emotional agility and identify areas that they need to improve within their corporate culture. And you just mentioned probably the first step is that 3-minute survey.

I think so. I think so. It's free. People like that. And it's quick and easy. And it will provide a report and give you a score as to kind of where you sit with that. And then, Then, you could then look and see, well, if I was to do something and should I do something? Is it urgent or is it somewhat of a need that I should try to do soon? Or am I already amazing? Right? And sometimes, even if you feel like, okay, overall, I think we are pretty amazing, then can we even do better? Can we be even more exceptional? And what is next? How do we take this even to the next level to keep building this organization the direction we want it to go?

Yeah, it is interesting because the more you uncover knowledge you didn't have, you realize, gosh, there's so much I don't know. But the more that you kind of uncovered in little bits, the more questions you have. And the more you're able to then arm yourself to be able to take the next step following it. It's interesting.

Yeah, yeah. And I think too, it's like as we continue to go through life, in our personal life as well as in our business life, if we're taking on more challenges intentionally or more challenges simply find us, which they will, then those new challenges then challenge our skill sets in that area. I'll have people sometimes when we're going through this training and talk about how much of the time are you spending in high positive stress as you're taking on these challenges in a workplace that really you are voluntarily saying, I'm taking on stress by coming in. I'm choosing to take on challenges in this position, but is it high positive or is it high negative? And am I anxious and worried and frustrated a lot of that time? But so people will often say, well, I mean, is that a bad thing that I'm there sometimes? It's like, well, if when you're taking on new challenges, it's hard to know how to have all the skill sets to thrive all the time and be in high positive.

Mm-hmm.

So you can use those higher negative states to be able to also redirect and provide the energy for growth. And to realize that, yeah, that's part of my commitment to keep going up the mountain. And if you're in a committed personal relationship, more things will occur over time. And you've got to then raise the level of your skill sets to be able to thrive rather than just surviving in that relationship. Business, personal, it's really the same.

Do you think that being able to define our The important virtues and our value system that we have internally. Do you think that that plays a big role in how we kind of take that next step into becoming more emotionally agile?

I do because I think that's part of trusting ourselves and trusting others. What are we collectively committed to? What am I committed to as a leader? What is this business built upon from a values perspective? And one of the core 4 assessments that I use is called Inspiration Sources. So, of these 7 different sources of inspiration, what is the makeup of our team? Where do I lead from in my inspiration? And then, how are these other people different? But how do we blend that together in with those values? And then, how do we bring emotional agility where we're different? A lot of emotional agility needs will show up in a workplace because we have different styles and different strengths. And we don't naturally understand or enjoy everybody who's on the journey with us, right? We're different. And you should be more like me is kind of a natural subconscious conclusion to draw. And if you're not, I don't know what's amiss with you, but you're not really cooperating with my agenda here. But that's where— so emotional agility allows for not just accepting people in their difference. But ultimately, being able to celebrate the fact that we're different and we can be an amazing team, a more amazing team together because of those differences. But without emotional agility, we're going to tend to collide more than we're going to complement.

Yeah, because again, we do have a tendency as human beings to finger point when things aren't going our way. And it's easy to blame other people for what we perceive to be a shortcoming.

Yeah, I almost never get hired by a business owner, almost never, to say, can you help me be a better leader? It's almost always being introduced to me, reaching out because I've got a problem in my midst. That if you could fix that, I've had so many people tell me, if you could just fix my office manager, all would be well with the world. And I'm not sure what fixing them actually means sometimes. But then, there were so many others that didn't get fixed. So, that's where I think it's that dawning awareness on the part of the leader where I know that we've really gained ground and they're willing to go, oh, so maybe it's me that needs to be better.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because I talk to other consultants and I laugh at the fact that we can't go up to a leader if we see something going on in a business. We can't go up to a leader and go, excuse me, I'm just a coach and I just wanted to say how much you suck being a leader. So, if you need my help—

Right, right.

It just doesn't work that way. We have to come to it on our own chances. You mentioned several times strength-based assessments. For the people tuning in who don't know what that is, could you define them and maybe tell us a little bit about what role they help in helping us develop emotional agility?

Yeah, yeah. That's a good question. So yeah, I think people want to be seen and understood for their strengths, right? We are unique. We all bring from our life experience and from just who we are something different to the workplace, just like in an athletic team. Everybody brings a unique strength. So, if we took a basketball team, for example, we know as the coaches assemble those 5 people to play together, they know exactly the key strengths that each other is bringing. They know exactly when to feature and highlight those strengths so that we can win. We have to thrive as a team. And a lot of times, it's not just the teams with the greatest individual players are not always the ones who are the champions. Right? It's the ones who play best together. So, if we can understand those strengths and it begins even from a hiring process, I will use those to help guide hiring decisions to be able to say, is this person a good fit for the role of what we've benchmarked as strengths for that role? But also, when we have assessments on the existing team prior to that, then how does this person fit and complement those other team members? Do they bring something unique? And also, where is their potential?

Right.

Potential for conflict that we might need to get out ahead of. But then also, how do we personalize growth and development based upon their driving inspiration? There are 7 different reasons in that inspiration sources to why people care. What is it that is going to make this workplace experience amazing that I would never want to leave because those Those inspiration sources are being touched on a regular basis. So, we look at behavior. We look at inspiration. We look at cognitive styles. And we look at emotional agility. And because there are differences in all of that, then we need that emotional agility so that we can see how we can play best together and not collide in those differences. Complement versus collision.

I love that. I love the intentionality. that you indicate through doing these assessments and kind of predefining, doing the work ahead of time before you ever sit down with a potential hire. My background is in hospitality. So, I can't tell you how many times I've talked to managers who are like, if I could just hire somebody with a pulse, I'll be fine. And ultimately, it causes them more challenges than it actually solved.

Right, yeah. And sometimes people will tell me there was only one candidate and we need somebody right now. I keep trying to keep thinking too, like in sports, for example, you've always got people on the bench. It's not like if somebody were to get injured or somebody needs a breather, right? Sorry, we're going to play with less people. You'd lose all the time, right?

Right.

So, but in small business, you don't have extra people that you're paying to be available. And not playing, right? So, how do we best do that? How do we kind of keep building a bench in preparedness? What are like once we get somebody, do we keep actually searching for new people and have that ad stay out and maybe have some people know our culture and know us as leaders and what that we're actually valuing these things and then go, wow, this is amazing. I want to work at a place like this that actually. Makes the effort to see me and know how to feature me. Like, how awesome is that? But then they get lost a lot of the time. So, how do we keep in touch with them so that we've got bench players who could be readily retrieved? And a lot of times, people will say, I kind of intuitively sense these things about people. I'm pretty good in intuiting for my hires or intuiting Intuiting what their needs are. And I just want to challenge people to go, nah, to realize you're not— you might be kind of good, but you're not that good. Because I've been using assessments 26 years and I think I'm pretty good, but there's things that surprise me all the time. So, as much data as we can have about humans, like people talk about, this is a soft science, right?

Yeah.

It's a human science, not soft skills. It's human skills. But If we can have data, why not have data to help inform our decision-making?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And to your point, again, that intentionality is I think the key to knowing that you cannot keep doing the same thing you've always done and expect the different results, right? That is absolutely the definition of insanity. For those people who are tuning in who this is really resonating with them, could you let them know how they can get Yeah, I mean, my website is peoplepluspurpose.com.

Because some of the things we've mentioned are brand new and are not even on the site yet, one of the best ways would be to send an email to team@peoplepluspurpose.com, team@peoplepluspurpose.com. And that way, and say what resonated with you, what your interest might be, and then we can point you in the right direction or give you a link for that because we're always creating. And I guess one of the downsides of creating is that the things like a website are not always perfectly reflecting what you're offering in that moment. So, but would love to have a conversation with anyone if there's an area of potential interest there.

Lovely! Thank you for that offer. I'd like to get into some of the most common challenges that leaders face when trying to improve their emotional agility. And we'll get to that. Right after this.

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Welcome back! I hope you are getting tons of value from today's episode. As you can tell, Dr. Norton and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or somebody you know might be planning a leadership retreat, or a conference, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. The links are in the show notes. So, don't be afraid to reach out. Matthew, how quickly can businesses expect to see results after starting the transition into emotional agility improvement programs?

I guess I've got 2 different answers on that. One is how quickly can we begin to notice something because I'm a big fan of noting small small progress? Because small progress, being able to assess a sense of— to assess progress is one of the key factors in being happy, right, in the research. So, are we looking for small changes? Can we discern that? For a lot of people, it's like, until I'm great, then I'm not sure if I've gotten anywhere, right? I mean, I still have some challenges. So, I think it's setting reasonable expectations, but I've had clients within 2 weeks begin. If there, if we can work with a leader who's ready to shift and then begin to spill that over onto the team right away, then within 2 weeks, I mean, I could tell you right now, one of the newest clients that I have, the team is already incredibly optimistic and hopeful. We've had just after, we just had a conversation on Monday and they are just like, Thank God you showed up. We were praying for you to appear in our lives, right? And the business owner, even though she's incredibly burnt out and been frustrated and trying to make them be different for her, she's already beginning to see and they're already saying she's even improving and we haven't even done a whole lot yet. So, I think it's that awareness and a commitment. And the ability to see hope. It is like in my previous doctoring life for patients that I had so many people leave the first day that said, thank you, doctor. I feel like you understand and I have hope again.

Mm-hmm.

And my Coach at that time said, you know, really what your primary role is, especially when you first are getting going with somebody, is you are a hope merchant. You are their merchant of hope. They need hope because we can't keep moving forward without hope, and people get hopeless, and that just is just going to drive everything down. So I guess the the first answer is it can be within a week or two. The other answer says we need to have a longer-term perspective because of the tendency to think Rome was actually built in a day, and if we don't get this all like we want. If we don't see that by week after next, then somehow we're falling short. Habit patterns are learned and memorized, wired into our brains over months to years to decades. It does take time to change. But when you can see encouragement, I mean, it makes a world of difference.

A couple of things that resonate with me is the fact that it took years to get into the situation that you're in right now. It didn't happen just overnight. the solution. Number 2 is this idea of hope. As you were talking, even before you said the word hope, it popped into my head and saying that this is truly a virtue that would help tilt the scales of results. Because when people have hope, they will work harder to achieve it. However, that is not done through a promise statement. That's not done at a monthly meeting where you're going to say, okay guys, we're gonna change, okay? And then, people leave and go, oh, I'm also full of hope now. The hope is actually realized because they're seeing some action towards the goal, right?

Yes. Or even that somebody even understands like the beginning of hope, I think, can be even before maybe even action has been taken. The fact that you heard me. Like for team members, sometimes it's just like, I feel better if I just actually believe I was heard, that I'm valued.

Yes.

Like, you actually want to know where I'm struggling and are asking where you can help, how you can help make my life easier. Where am I underequipped? Or even if you see me and I really am underperforming, can you guide me? Can you coach me to be better? But so many of these, especially in small business, there's nobody who typically has the designated role of coach.

Right.

When I'm working with small professional businesses, what? The doctor owner is also in their spare moments going to be the person coaching, having regular coaching conversations with the team? Possible.

Not when your revenues is tied to your performance. I mean, as a doctor, as a dentist, as whatever, as a practitioner, you're making money when you're servicing patients, Not when you're sitting down trying to coach employees.

Right, right. And if you don't have very many team members or you don't have anybody who has a role like maybe an office manager, a director of operations, somebody like that. But you're not going to have that in a real small business, that role. But somebody whose role could be dedicated towards developing the team, coaching their development because that I think makes the world of difference. I have a law firm that I'm working with to where it started off more personalized just with a couple of attorneys and their ancillary small staff. But as it's grown to 30 or more people, there's a feeling of disconnectedness and who then is checking in. And so, just in one conversation yesterday, that was one point that this one team member said, I just feel like There could be check-ins, couldn't there? Couldn't the owner still maybe give 5 minutes to me and the others once in a while? And so, it's not like he wasn't even asking for much. It was just like, but I feel like I'm just part of the machinery now. I don't even—

Right.

And it's sucking some of the life out of him, right?

So, for people who are really interested in this concept of emotional agility, what common pitfalls should people be aware of when they try to implement or try to enhance emotional agility among not only their leaders but their staff as well?

Yeah, I think part of it is that you don't have to be perfect. It's the emotional of my Core 4. The emotional agility assessment is the one that we don't share with everybody. The other 3, because we wanted to try to make a language and a culture framework to be able to build upon, personalized. Emotional agility, we keep that back because it does feel a little more personal. It's the only one where higher scores are typically desirable. And so, the idea is not to be perfect. The idea is to see, can we grow? And it's also important to be honest. Are we honest with where we are right now? We don't need to try to make ourselves seem better than we are, either for our own sake or to portray that to others. I understand the desire to portray that to an employer or prospective employer. But if we really are dedicated to growth, then where are we truly now? And to look for those small growth opportunities. So, I think that's part of it. Not expecting perfection. Not expecting immediacy of I think the importance is for the leader to go first. Just like if you want to improve trust, leader go first. So, if you want to improve emotional agility, leader volunteer. Don't try to fix the team without you being included in that journey. And also, is there a context? Do we have a vision and a mission somewhere we're collectively going that gives context to why this even matters that we would get better? for the journey that we're on together, right? So, where are we going? Where are we now? Where are we tending to be stuck? And then, how can we shine the light of that emotional agility insights onto where we may be needing a breakthrough, right?

Right, right. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned the mission and vision. Being able to, you know, a manager pointing to, but my mission and vision statements are right there. But in order for it to be working, the leader first has to be living those principles.

Yeah, I think so. Otherwise, it just seems like hypocrisy. It seems like, why should we care? Because yeah, I don't even believe you care, let alone the fact that I don't really see this being played out in our daily lives here. Like, yeah, we did that. We even had one practice where a where a patient had macraméd the entire mission statement. And it was up on the wall in the break room. But when I was there on-site visiting, I said, does anybody, you know, does this matter? Is anybody paying attention? I said, hmm, yeah, maybe for about an hour the day that we talked about it. But since then, not really.

It's kind of irrelevant. It really is interesting, this whole idea of being able to kind of live the principles that we want to live. It kind of ranks up there when you're demanding that your customer service agents be the best customer service agents. But then, you treat them like they're dogs. It's like, well, how are they going to treat the customers if you're not treating them like they're your customers?

Yeah, very good point. Yeah, it's true. A lot of these things are not logical. But when we're struggling back to being in those negative emotional states, Yeah. We just have a hard time seeing clearly. Like, I don't even know where my solutions are. I know I'm struggling, and it must be that something out here needs to shift, right? Because I don't want to keep doing this even anymore if it's going to stay like this. I meet people at that place sometimes, but it's like, I don't know where to begin. So, I think it comes back to that hope. It's getting some data so you can see what would actually be some meaningful first steps. And then, how can we start to work on something?

And I guess that could be the very first step that anybody tuning into this episode could look at and say, I've tried everything. I still have bad attitudes on the floor. I still have attendance issues. I still have tardiness issues. I still have all these different human behavior issues that you've tried to policy into Correcting and it's not worked, maybe now is the time that you look and you go, wait a second. I've tried all that. Maybe it's me first.

Yeah, maybe it's me first. And maybe it is at an emotional level. The emotional level is not what's talked about in workplaces. I mean, it's not. Yeah, I don't know if the thought is, well, that's more private or it's not relevant. I don't see what that—

Or it makes me weak. It makes me weak to talk about emotions.

Yeah, yeah, makes me weak. But all these things we're talking about, these places, these negative stuck places that are not engaging the team, that are not building trust, that don't feel like we're for all of our people, there's emotions permeating all of that. I mean, this is— we are not— I mean, that's one of the things actually when people people think about not losing their jobs. It's like, what is it to be a human and not an AI bot or something, right?

Right.

What will never replace us is that we are sentient beings that actually care at levels. But emotions permeate that. We need to stop being afraid of the emotions. And we need to start looking at how we can bring a greater humanity, which would be a reason if we fully brought that, if leaders and team members fully brought the best of that and we actually worked on it with intentionality like you mentioned, then we will never be replaced. We'll never be replaced in any given role, in any particular position, or just as humans in general in a workforce.

Matthew, this has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Absolutely. Thank you, Marc. My website is peoplepluspurpose.com. You can contact team@peoplepluspurpose.com. You can find us on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, wherever you want to go there. You can check out— I've got the Compass with Dr. Matthew Norton podcast, and I also host a podcast called The Truth Behind Dentistry that Marc Haine is going to be on as a featured guest here soon.

I look forward to that. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

I'm not sure if I have anything that we haven't mentioned to say, except I think I would leave it with leader, visionary leader, that the peak success that you're looking for begins with you. And maybe one additional piece on that is if you can see yourself as the first hire, Like, if I'm— would I hire me for this leadership position? What are the benchmarks of success in that role that I'm being hired for? Where am I strong? Where am I not so strong? Now, we can actually begin to, with intentionality, do something about that. But it starts with you, the visionary leader.

Love it. Matthew, thank you so much. I really I really appreciate you being here and sharing your knowledge, your passion, and your expertise. Thank you for doing this today.

Absolutely! Thank you, Marc. Appreciate the opportunity.

Got any questions about today's episodes? Or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc. Well, good news! You can snag a spot on my calendar. Just hit the link below the one marked Meet with Go to podcast.marchaine.com and you're all set. And as always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. Make sure you subscribe to this feed. By subscribing, you'll get notification whenever I bring you fresh new content each and every week. For the moment, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to tune in. And I hope I hope this has been a valuable use of your time. It's been great hanging out with you. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I dare you to be the exception.