The Hidden Cost of Frustration: What It’s Really Costing Your Business with Andrew Oxley

You know what's quietly draining your profits, driving your people away, and sending your customers to your competitors? It's not your strategy. It's not the economy. It's something a little bit more insidious. In one word, it's frustration. That slow, silent killer that creeps into your workplace culture, creeps into your customer experiences, and even into your leadership systems. And while some people don't know it even exists, the people who do, most just ignore it expecting it to go away. And then of course, you got the others who just power right through it. But here's the big thing. If you don't learn how to decode frustration, it'll keep sabotaging performance right behind the scenes. And you will never ever see it coming. And that's what we're talking about today. On Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode of Experience Leadership. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I'm so glad that you're here with us today because my guest is Executive Coach and author Andrew Oxley. And today, we will be unpacking how frustration, yes, that gnawing silent tension hiding in your workplace, how that is actually one of the most overlooked and expensive performance killers in your business today. And we're going to explore how to spot it, how to decode it, and turn it into your next strategic advantage. My one request is to please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast and make sure that you share This episode with your circle. I'd love to see how the business community really supports the work that I've been doing. And of course, it is free. You know, when customers quietly disappear and your best team members suddenly disengage, it's rarely about one big failure. It's about repeated frustrations, silent friction that builds up until something breaks. And the big thing is here, frustration isn't a sign of weakness. It is a signpost. But only if you know how to read it. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, I have to ask you, what's one area in your business where frustration keeps showing up? But you've just learned to live with it. You feel it every single day and you just figure that's the way things are and you live with it. What about from the viewpoint of your customers or your employees? I'd love to get your stories. Why don't you go ahead, share this episode on your favorite social media platform, hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership, and make sure that you hashtag it because that'll keep you part of this conversation. and then put your comments down. I'd love to hear your stories. As I mentioned, my guest today is Andrew Oxley, the executive coach who's been transforming businesses and has results for over, let's just say over 25 years. Because if I say over 30, Andrew, it's gonna make you sound old. We'll just say over 25. Andrew is the founder of the Oxley Group and the author of The Four Faces of Frustration. From leading one of the top From transforming sales teams at Trane during Toronto's massive building boom to guiding Fortune 500 companies through sustainability leadership change, Andrew's secret sauce lies in turning daily friction into lasting results. Andrew, welcome to the show! It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc. It's fantastic to be here.

So, let's talk a little bit as we kick off. Who are your clients and how do you serve them?

Well, first of all, my clients have evolved over the years. I actually started out working when I first started this business after what I affectionately refer to as my midlife crisis with small entrepreneurial companies. And I got started working with some companies in Atlanta, Turner Broadcasting, Coca-Cola, Progressive Insurance, and then I got pulled nationally working all around the country with many of those firms. And so, but my love probably is working with small entrepreneurial companies, small to medium-sized businesses, typically 50 to 500 employees.

Nice. Nice. So I'm really interested because one of the things that appealed to you coming onto the show is that you have a great book. Could you talk a little bit about your book and why, what makes it so special?

Well, I like to think it's special because of course I wrote it, but I would just say most business books are long and boring. You know, most people read probably the first third of most books that they pick up and they're like, I think I got the sense of what this book's all about. So I wanted to write a book that was more of a fable. It's a story. It's a, it reads like a normal book, but the lessons are embedded within the book. So I've rarely met somebody who's picked up the book who has not finished it. It takes probably 3 hours to read the book in totality. And it's a story about a guy who takes over a company and he's struggling to connect with his leadership team. And he realizes through the process of learning this model we call the 4 Faces of Frustration, that he was the cause of much of the frustration in his direct report group. And his direct report group was frustrating not only their peers on the executive team, but customers and people within their organizations.

And so, that's a beautiful seed into what we're going to be talking today. You know, one of the things, as I opened, I talked about the idea that leaders, I don't think, understand frustration. They understand kind of all the things they can blame. But I don't think they understand frustrations. What are they getting wrong when it comes to this? Yeah.

Well, I think it, you know, anybody who says they're not frustrated is probably living in a Skittles universe where, you know, everything's just wonderful for them. There's probably large amounts of drugs involved. Everybody's frustrated at some level, right? We actually react to frustration very differently. Now, the first thing that leaders get wrong is that they actually seek what I call the cold comfort of validation. So they have a frustration, you know, maybe my favorite one I hear from leaders right now is young people today. You know, young people today, they're just, they don't want to work. They're, you know, blah, blah, blah. I always say complaining about young people is like yelling at the wind. The wind does not change and you're exhausted at the end of it, right? So young people today are actually the most innovative, creative, energized group ever with more access and understanding of technology than there has ever been in a generation, but they have to be managed differently. So whether your frustration be, young people today or customers or demanding customers or a lack of engagement from your workforce, or maybe your frustration is with your kids or with your spouse. I mean, whatever that frustration is, the first thing we have to recognize is the person who can empathize with our frustration is probably not the person who can help us the most. The person who could help us the most is the person that says, well, you know, you're partly to blame. And so, We don't like to hear that. We're like, no, wait, I'm not the problem. You don't understand. I want to go back and talk to the guy who told me that I wasn't the problem, that they have the same problem as me. Years ago, one of my mentors told me that the amount of progress you make in your life will be directly proportional to the amount of honesty you can accept about yourself.

Hmm.

He went on to tell me that he didn't think I was particularly into honesty. And I was like, well, wait a minute. And he's like, see, that's what I'm talking about. So, you got to be honest. You got to seek people who you enough and are successful enough to point out where you could be contributing to the very problems that you're experiencing in your life. Because it's always at its core, it's always us first, maybe not primarily or singularly, but we got to start working on ourselves first. When you start trying to fix somebody else, they aren't usually very receptive to that agenda. Yeah.

And it's so interesting because all the virtues that it takes To come to that realization that it falls on our shoulders first, like the virtues of humility and the virtues of even grace of being able to say, I am an imperfect being. And so being able to kind of tip into that and realize that, you know, when any issue happens, I think we're really quick to pointing fingers. And then because of that, we don't actually see what the actual problem is.

Right.

So, when it comes down to like frustrations, let's talk about internal and external frustrations. How do they show up differently, let's say, between customers and employees? How does it differ?

Well, let me go through the general model first because that'll help. Then, we can certainly go to specific examples. But so, everybody gets angry from time to time, right? At least most people I know, they get angry. And so, but 3 of the 4 communication styles actually transition through anger into frustration. One of the behavioral styles actually maintains looking angry. So that's who we call the Reds. Reds transition through and— or sorry, don't transition. They stay looking angry. There's a second behavioral style, communication style called Yellows. And they sort of start to become very optimistic when things are not going well. And they start telling you how everything's going to be wonderful. And it's just everything's going to be awesome. The third behavioral style that transitions through anger is what we call Greens. And Greens actually just stop talking. They just stop communicating wholeheartedly. And the fourth one is Blues. And Blues, well, they start asking absolutely tons of questions. So, those are the 4 different communication styles. And they do respond very differently. So, if you start to recognize the different ways people act during frustration, Then you can start to modify and use different strategies to bring them back away from being frustrated and have a deeper dialogue with those particular individuals.

I like that because it kind of seeds that you understand first. It forces us to do that Stephen Covey principle, right? Seek first to understand. So, being able to look at and being able to pinpoint where people are on the frustration spectrum, where their communication style is, will help us adjust as leaders in helping them overcome kind of whatever that— and addressing whatever that frustration is. Yeah.

So, when I first started using this model, in all of our leadership coaching, we try to create really simple models that explain complex things, right? So, this model does 2 things. It helps leaders understand how they appear to others when they're frustrated. So, years ago, I was having a conversation with my wife who has been a fabulous mentor for me. You know, we should all be blessed with spouses that sort of help us. And she's a great help to me. She really is. And she— we were having a conversation, I thought, one time. I thought we were just having a conversation. And she looked at me and she said, why are you so angry? Which really made me angry because I didn't think I was angry.

Right.

And I said to her, I'm not angry. And she said, now you're angry that I told you you were angry. And I thought, oh my gosh, I am. And I thought, I wonder if I come across this way to my employees when things aren't going perfect. And the answer, of course, was I probably did, right?

Yeah.

So, the first thing we have to recognize is we have to recognize what happens to us when we're frustrated. We think we hide it so well and we actually don't, right? So, which face do I move to? The red, yellow, green, or blue? Now, the second thing that it helps you with is to recognize that And this was something I struggled with. Greens are the biggest group in society. They, and by the way, if you have long-tenured employees, they probably are greens because greens are incredibly loyal and they'll stick around whether they're good or bad, they stick around. So when greens are frustrated, they get quiet. Well, greens and yellows, when they're frustrated, they start talking. So the presumption from green or from yellows and reds is that if you're not talking, you're not frustrated. Well, Marines stop talking. And so recognizing that, ah, they've stopped talking, I am frustrating them at this particular point. So it helps you understand yourself first, but then it helps you understand other people. Because we were all brought up with this idea that, you know, and I don't know, Marc, you probably heard the Golden Rule growing up, you know, treat other people the way you would like to be treated.

Right.

Which is fabulous advice in morality and ethics. It's horrible advice in relationships, because what if they don't want to be treated the way I want to be treated? What if they would prefer to be treated differently? So what we really should do is treat people the way they want to be treated. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of leaders are not very good listeners. They're good talkers, not good listeners. Or they are really good listeners, but they have difficulty being assertive enough to get their points across, and they feel like they get ignored in conversations. So this is a great model to understand yourself, but it's also a great model where you can start to understand other people better as well.

Yeah. And so, I encourage the audience, if you're tuning into this, rewind and understand those different communication styles because I know that they're around you everywhere. Your whole book, Andrew, is around this idea of the 4 Faces of Frustration. You've created a model around 4 types of frustration. What are they and how can leaders recognize them in action?

Yeah. So, the first one is anger, which is super easy to recognize, by the way. There are people you probably know in your life. It's never fast enough. It's never good enough. You ask them when they need something and they say yesterday. So you've essentially failed right out of the gate, right? In their defense, they're not angry. They're passionate. Well, sometimes they're angry, but they're passionate and they're passionate about anything that they have an opinion on. They want to move fast. They want to get things done. And it's not that they don't like people, but by gosh, they're annoying sometimes and they just want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Can we talk later, please? There's stuff we need to get done. So that's the red. We call them red because red is the color of passion, right? The second face is the yellow or the optimist. And this is the happy face, right? So these people, when they're frustrated, they start trying to convince you that everything's fine, everything's good, everything's going to be fantastic, right? They're very verbally persuasive and you almost would, you just always feel good when you're around these people. They just, but then you leave them and you're like, oh my gosh, we didn't talk about the real issue. We never really talked about it. So that face is the face of optimism. They're just happy-go-lucky and they've always, they can always put lipstick on the pig and tell you what's good about the problem that you're dealing with. The third face is the face of non-emotion. So the face, it's the green face where, where there's just all emotion goes away. And you gotta be careful with these people because they actually are plotting your demise usually when they stop talking. And they're thinking about all the things that are gonna go wrong, but they've given up trying to communicate with you cuz you're not listening. So, they just get quiet. And the third face is the blue face, which is the face of sort of looking worried. And these people just start asking tons of questions when they're frustrated. And they just— so, what happens on teams is that the people we're working with respond not at their best when they're frustrated. I like to say we respond as the ugly gremlin version of ourselves, not as the best self, but Sometimes it's our worst self. So if I'm working with a red and I'm a yellow, I start trying to tell the red that everything's gonna be fine. Don't worry. Everything's fine. Trust me. And if there's 2 words you should never say to a non-yellow, it's trust me, because that means you should not be trusted. It means I just want you to go away so that I can go do my job. And so what we're trying to do quite often is to just be left alone. Well, that's not a team. That's just a collection of talented people who happen to cohabitate at different times, right? And so, the recognition that I am annoying this person. Now, you asked about customer service earlier. We do this to our customers.

Uh-huh.

Now, the difference with customers is they're not related to us and they don't work for us. So, they just leave. When we frustrate them, they just leave and they go somewhere else. And rarely will they say, you frustrated me. They say things like, I think I'm still looking. I think I'm, uh, You know, I'm just shopping around right now. I don't need help right now. And these are all not true. Well, sometimes they're true.

It was fine. How was everything? It was fine.

It was fine. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, and as entrepreneurs, as leaders within entrepreneurial businesses, we live and die based off customer feedback. But if the way we respond to a customer discourages further feedback, then they just won't tell us. One of my favorite customer service metrics, because there's only 2 reasons to survey your customer. One is for marketing purposes, which actually is not a customer service survey. It's a marketing initiative, right? The other one is to get true feedback. And Fred Reichheld wrote a book years ago called The Net Promoter Score. And I came across this when I was working with Progressive Insurance. And basically that it's a simple question on a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our business or service to a friend or colleague who was looking for a service like ours. Now, there's only 3 answers you need, a 9 or a 10, which means, you know, think about some restaurant you love and you would recommend it. Like, you'd give it a 9 or 10. You'd tell people, go there, right? A 7 or 8, he calls those neutrals. It's fine. It's good. Did what it was supposed to do. Not necessarily telling people about it. If they said, should I go there? I'm like, sure, it's good. You know? And 6 or below, which are what we call detractors. A detractor is somebody who doesn't want to do business with you again. In fact, they'll tell people not to do business with you. So the net is the promoters minus the detractors. And really good companies, really good companies have scores in the 60s and 70s. That's a good company. Bad companies have negative net promoter scores.

Yep.

And that's why they're churning through their clients. So if you just ask customers that question, you'd get a very quick— and by the way, you do it in a survey without them having You don't know who they are. You'll get an idea whether you're getting referred or not getting referred.

Right. It's really interesting because when it comes time to doing those kinds of surveys, as you know, I used to do secret shopping. And it was amazing to me that I would be engaged into coming in as a secret shopper and tell us anything you see. Tell us everything. So, on the secret shopper, all we do is just list observations. We don't say if they're good or bad. It's up to them to decide if it's good or bad. But I can't tell you the number of times that the business owner gets super, super defensive when they see something like fingerprints on the window. Well, why do I care there's fingerprints on the window? It's like, you don't have to care there's fingerprints. If you don't think that's important, then ignore it. But to other people, people will go, oh my goodness, I didn't realize my windows were dirty all the time.

Right.

And so, it's really interesting how, you know, when we get survey results, The impetus is to get defensive and start justifying. And so then, what do we need to do to shake out of that? And that's what I'd like to dig into right after our break. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights!

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Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I'm speaking with the author of The Four Faces of Frustration, Andrew Oxley. And this idea of being able to get feedback To being able to be open to what people are frustrated about, but checking our ego at the door. What's the step that we need to do to make that happen?

Yeah, I think the first thing you have to ask is, when someone gives me feedback, what does that mean? And for many people, it means I'm doing something wrong. I'm failing. So, defensiveness is a very natural reaction to experience when you receive feedback from somebody. There are only 2 responses that you can get when you get feedback or you give somebody feedback. You can choose to learn, or you can choose to defend. But you cannot do both at the same time. And sometimes people say to me, well, I learn by attacking ideas. I'm like, not unless you're open-minded to the fact that there could be a better path. So, I do this exercise often with groups. I'll ask, especially if it's a large group, a tech group, I'll say, Put your hand up if you believe you're relatively open-minded. And Marc, how many hands do you think go up?

All of them.

Everybody. Everybody's open-minded. Yeah. And then I say, how many of you, upon looking around the room, saw somebody's hand up and you thought, hmm, I don't think they are? And there's always this, there's this nervous, you know, chatter that goes through the room, you know, like, oh my gosh. And say, so do you know people who aren't open-minded? And they're like, yeah, we do. I'm like, well, everyone thinks they are. Yeah. So what's, what's really going on here, right? And then I say this, morality and ethics aside, are there things you're not open-minded about? And they think for a minute. They go, yeah, there's things I'm not open-minded about. I'm like, well, what do all those things have in common? And what they have in common is we already believe we're right. And so I said, wouldn't that define every closed-minded person on the planet? The reason they're closed-minded is that they believe they're right. So when you're giving feedback to someone and they become defensive, it's because they already believe they're right. And that you just don't understand. So you don't open somebody's mind with a hammer. I mean, you can, but it's very violent. You open it with a chisel, right? So if I start to see defensiveness from someone, the question I need to ask myself, well, now that's interesting. Why would that be? What is the story that they're telling themselves in their head that caused them to become defensive? And so what we usually do when someone becomes defensive, we become more aggressive, more assertive with them and try to make our point. So, we're actually also being defensive. So, we get defensive, so we become defensive. If I'm going to be a leader, I need to model that which I desire from others, which means that if I see defensiveness, I need to model being in a learning frame. And I need to say, so help me understand, what do you think is happening right now? What do you think I'm saying? How are you seeing this situation? In other words, I focus on what's happening with them. And then I ask them, if you could do this all differently, how would you do it differently next time? Because the reason people become defensive is they can't change the past. They can only change the future. And what most people are doing, they're validating why they did things the way they did in the past. And what we really want to do is we want to focus on what are you going to do differently next time? And so, there are a couple of strategies there with defensiveness. First of all, recognize that you cannot become defensive when you face defensiveness, although that's what we often And second of all, you need to switch the focus from past to future so that people can talk about what they would do differently based on what they know today. And they'll often say, well, I didn't know. Well, of course you didn't know. Absolutely. This isn't about finding the blame. This is about learning from what actually happened.

Yeah. It's so interesting because I, as you were saying that, I was going through all sorts of conversations that I've had in the past. About, you know, why people get upset. You know, I firmly believe that as adults, we stop telling other adults that they've hurt our feelings. And a lot of times what I find is a lot of interpersonal conflict is because somebody didn't feel respected. They'll use words like, I— they didn't respect me, or they picked on something, or they don't understand, right?

Yeah.

These are all kind of the, the monikers we stick behind the the frustration side. And so, this whole thing about being able to have a level of humility and curiosity so you could start asking questions, I think then becomes the key.

Yeah, for sure. You know, you mentioned about feelings and 2 of the 4 behavioral styles are more in touch with their feelings or at least more willing to talk about them. That's the Greens and the Yellows, the happy people and the quiet people when they're frustrated. Blues, the question askers, and the Reds who are sort of like the angry face, they tend to not want to talk about feelings very much. Feelings are important. And years ago, I was talking to somebody and they said to me that feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are. And I remember looking at them and saying, well, clearly that's wrong. And they said, yeah, that's why your people won't talk to you. And I said, wait, my people won't talk to me? And they're like, yeah. Because when they tell you how they feel, you tell them they shouldn't feel that way.

Right.

That's not what's going on. So I had to come up with a model that helped me have this because, you know, feelings are neither right nor wrong, but they're based on something. So when someone says they— they don't usually say, I felt disrespected. They say, that person doesn't respect me.

Right.

Now, that actually is a feeling, not a fact. But you can't say that to someone. You say, that's not a fact. That's a feeling. But what you can say is say, so what I hear you say is you felt disrespected. Now, what I did was I just labeled that a feeling in a nice way.

Yeah.

I said, can you tell me what happened that caused you to feel that way? And then they'll tell you the event. And you say, oh, so what I hear you saying was when Marc walked by you in the hall and he didn't talk to you, it made you feel disrespected.

Yeah.

Okay. So here's something, a little neuroscience fact for your listeners. Emotions last 30 seconds. Emotions are a neurochemical wash through the brain, right? They last 30 seconds. Now, all your listeners are thinking right now, well, clearly that's wrong because I have some emotions that have lasted longer than 30 seconds. So how is that possible? Well, what happens is that when an event happens, we experience the emotion and then we tell ourselves a story about what happened.

Right.

And if it was an intense emotion, we keep telling ourselves the story. We retell the story. And every time we tell the story, we get in the wash of emotions again. And after a while, we start to confuse the emotion with the story, with the facts of what actually happened. We really believe the emotion.

Yeah.

Because it was our experience, right? So the question we have to ask is, if I'm experiencing emotions that are negative, what story am I telling myself about that event? And is it a helpful story? I mean, is it helpful for me to believe that Marc doesn't like me? Do I know that as a fact or do I just feel like that's what's going on? And if I feel like that's what's going on, maybe I should talk to Marc about that.

And so, how do we shake that? So, as leaders, we're always going to have people who will say their feelings are their facts. And I believe that as long as we believe that's the fact, no matter what you say, it's like, you don't understand. You weren't there. He disrespected me.

Right?

So, as a leader then, we're asking those questions. But as long as the person we're speaking to kind of has this framing, how do we start helping them shake out of that so they'll take a second, take a breath, and realize, wait a second, there's a big difference between what you felt happened to you and what actually happened and how you interpreted it?

Yeah, and I think that the getting someone to tell you what actually happened that caused them to feel that way is the start, right? So I say, well, Marc walked by me in the hall. And say, well, let me ask you a question. Do you want to have a better relationship with Marc? And they'll probably say, yes, I would love to have a better relationship with Marc.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what are all the other possible reasons why Marc might not have talked to you? And they say, well, he could have been busy. He could have been preoccupied. Maybe he has a lot going on in his life. But that's not what's going on. He just doesn't like me. I say, well, let me ask you a question. Is it going— if you want to have a better relationship with Marc, is it better for you to believe he doesn't like you, or is it better for you to believe he was busy? So what we do is we attribute negative motives to people.

Yeah.

And then we construct a story. What we need to do is find a positive motive that allows us to act in a manner that will improve the relationship. The other thing I could do is I could, if I'm coaching this person about Marc, I could say, have you talked to Marc about this? That's hard to say. Nobody wants to go, you hurt my feelings.

Right.

But what I could say is I could say, Marc, when you walked by me in the hall yesterday and you didn't talk to me, it felt like you were ignoring me. And then you ask a question, you say, is that what was going on? And Marc would say, oh gosh, no.

He's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize I treated you like that.

Now, here's the interesting thing. We actually call this— it could be that you're calling out bad behavior because what you just did, you just let the person know that Oh my gosh, I really wasn't. But they know it now, right? So, we're calling out bad behavior because you did it in a really polite way where the person has an out. But if you go to the person and say, you don't like me, they're going to say, of course I do. Well, now we're having an argument, right? So, you ask a question that allows the person to get off the hook.

Yeah. Is it fair to say that when we're frustrated, and I said this at the very beginning, I believe that frustrations are a culmination of experiences. A lot of it's centered around the fact that we all have experiences as far as how we're going to be treated, what kind of experience we're going to have in any one transaction. Would it be fair to say that me walking past somebody and not saying hi to them might be an indicator that they believe something about my behavior, about my personality, about my belief systems that kind of is in line with prior In fact, we say there's 3 things that people lean into in that particular area, Marc.

The first one is past experiences with that particular person, right? The second is past experiences with people like that person. So, maybe the position they hold in the company, or it could be a person who acts that way or sort of looks like that person, or maybe they're from Canada, you know, like I am. I've met Canadians before.

So rude.

Yeah, exactly. So the third one is a little bit different and it's harder to sort of get your mind around. But what we tend to do is we tend to project our motives onto other people's behaviors. So if I were to walk by someone in the hallway and not talk to them, it would be deliberate. So therefore it must have been deliberate from Marc.

Hmm.

So if I came in and yelled at someone, I would have to be off the chart upset. So they must be off the chart upset. If I didn't talk to somebody, I would be feeling this. So therefore they must also be feeling it. So we all think we're normal, which is why we think other people's behavior is abnormal. And yet normal is actually not, it's not, it doesn't exist in behavior, even normal functioning human beings. There's no such thing as normal. Normative means it's more likely to occur than not. And the biggest communication style group is 34% of the population. So that means 66% of the population is probably going to act differently than you in most situations. So, projecting my motives onto other people is actually a little bit of a dangerous game.

Yeah. I like to believe that normal is a setting on a dryer and it's the only place where it resides. Having said that, you know, this is a fascinating conversation, Andrew. For the people tuning in who this might be resonating with, how can they get a hold of you if they'd like to tap into your knowledge?

Yeah.

So, we do put out all sorts of free training material. I actually have a 90-minute free training workshop that people can engage in. where we just give away a ton of information. So if you go to transformingresults.com, that's transformingresults.com, you can sign up for that workshop. If you go to Amazon, you can order The Four Faces of Frustration on there. It is actually written by my mother's favorite author, and only because none of my other siblings have actually written a book. But yes, it's available on there.

And so you can honestly say that you're on the bestseller list for that one critic.

I am, uh, yes, absolutely. I'm not sure I'm my father's favorite author though, but my mom's definitely.

It seems to me that, you know, what we're talking about today, once we understand kind of which face or frustration we are— we're seeing or we're experiencing, the solution then becomes pretty self-evident. Is— would you say that that's the case?

Yeah, I would say it is, that it's not complicated. Now, what's not complicated is not always easy to do, so I'm going to use my red friends as a As an example, since I actually have a fair amount of red in my behavioral style. So, you know, if we think about emotional intelligence, part of emotional intelligence is self-awareness and part is self-management. So I may be aware that I've got a temper, but I'm like, well, what do you want me to do? Like, I mean, people are just, they're just, they're just don't, you know, do what they're supposed to do. If people would just do what they were supposed to do, I wouldn't have to be so angry all the time. You know, so there's a certain amount of emotional maturity that comes along with this that you have to recognize that it's It's not enough to recognize I have a predisposition to acting a certain way. Maybe I have a predisposition to withdrawing from conflict. I don't, you know, so I have to first understand what my natural tendency is. And then I have to realize that behavior does not equal skill. So just because I'm comfortable with something, say I'm comfortable with conflict, does not mean I'm good at conflict.

Right.

It just means I'm comfortable with it. Just because I'm uncomfortable with conflict doesn't mean I can't be good at it. So, comfort and skill are not the same thing. The question is, what is the skill I must develop in order to be more competent? I actually have a theory about the Peter Principle. You ever heard about the Peter Principle?

No.

It's where people get promoted to their level of incompetence. So, here's what I think is actually happening there, at least part of what's happening there. If I'm a particular behavioral style, I'm going to pick on yellows now. I'm a yellow, gregarious, outgoing, fun-loving, never met a stranger, good at building relationships with people. But what we know about yellows is they're not very detail-oriented. So I could probably get along quite well for a long time in my career just by force of personality.

Right.

But there will come a point where I will be promoted to a level where that lack of detail orientation will bite me in the butt.

Oh.

And so, what we— the other thing we haven't really talked about is while each one of these styles have strengths, they have attached weaknesses in the way that they represent. And so, if you don't develop skill and competence in the area of your weakness, eventually it will undermine your success as you progress in your career. One of the things when we're doing executive coaching, we really have to work with people on it. We have to work with them on Distinguish from the things that they're successful because of, from the things that they're successful in spite of.

Right.

And sometimes what people do is they conflate those 2 things and they think they're successful because of everything they do. And like, no, no, no, you'd be more successful if you did a little less of this or a little more of this. So, you know, that's the other thing. You know, when you're talking to people, you gotta have people who will talk to you and and share insight with you about who you really are and how you're coming across. Because otherwise, we get in our own little echo chamber and we think we're wonderful. Because of course, in our minds, we are. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the way we come across, but if we stop trying to grow, if we stop trying to get better, then, you know, we go backwards.

Yes.

And that's why I love podcasts like yours, Marc, because there's never been a time in the history of mankind where there's been more information out there that will help you improve, And become better in whatever area of specialty you have because, you know, now you can just pop in a podcast and listen to all sorts of people give you information and insight that wasn't available even like 10 years ago. This kind of thing wasn't available.

Or without having to commit to, you know, a 300-page tome of some aspect that you had to read through or you had to spend oodles of money to go to a seminar.

Yeah. Exactly.

No, it's really interesting because so, you know, people who are like— so my components within the leadership realm is the fact that leaders have customers, they have employees, they have a real balancing act. So from what I'm getting from our conversation today is we not only have to understand what our communication or our frustration face might be, but how do we deal with and build the capacity to be able to deal with everybody else's And their faces and their communication styles and how they're going to interpret information as well.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, the easiest thing to do is the pace at which we communicate is sort of wired in. Some people are fast communicators. Some people are more deliberate and careful communicators. Some people like to think and speak at the same time, and some people like to think before they speak. I had somebody ask me one time, they said, do you ever think before you speak? And I'm like, not normally, no. And they said, you really should. You know, which I don't think they meant as a compliment. So what happens is when you're talking to someone, if you're a faster communicator, you're always trying to speed up the other person if they're a slower, more deliberate communicator. And the world is evenly split on this dimension, by the way. Yes. So you have a 50-50 chance of annoying people on this dimension. So, and if I'm a slower, more deliberate communicator, I'm always trying to slow people down, right? And as soon as you do that, you break rapport in the relationship and you start frustrating the other person. Now, interestingly enough, you don't have to modify for very long, but you have to match where they are. And then once you match them, then you can move to a more— because now you've got rapport, you can move to a more deliberate pace for you of either faster or slower. But that's not what we do. If you're a fast communicator, I'm a slower one. I'm trying to slow you down and say, well, listen, we've got a process of how we need to do things. And you're like, process? I don't want to follow a process.

Let's get her done.

Let's get it done. Yeah. So this is the easiest thing to do. Like when I say easy, it's easy, so easy to do. You, as we're having this conversation, you're probably thinking, I know people who are super fast communicators and I know people who are very deliberate communicators, right? So you can see this, you can see this when you go into a restaurant and the server comes up to you. You know, how do they tend to move? Do they move quickly? Do they come up and do they start interacting with you and they're asking lots of questions or are they more deliberate and careful. And if they're the opposite of you, it immediately starts to frustrate you. Like, what's wrong with them? Why don't they speed up? Or why don't they slow down? They're not listening to me. So, you know, pace is the easiest thing to see, and it's the thing that we get wrong the most.

Interesting, because that— now the challenge then becomes for the audience tuning in is to start looking intentionally at some of the most frustrating interactions they've had And figure out how can I meet them where they are so that we can kind of move together. You know, as, as you were talking, I was thinking about different metaphors. You know, the jets that are flying that need to get refueled by these massive air tankers, right? Like, how do they coordinate that, right? First and foremost, a jet can't go as fast as the jet needs to go or wants to go. He has to match the, the tanker. In order to be able to fuel up. Runners who have got the stick. What do they call those runners now? I lost it in my head.

Like a relay?

Relay races, right? In order for the new relay racer to grab the stick, they have to start matching the pace of the person who's coming up behind them before they can be free and run as fast as they can, right? So, there's all these metaphors just all around us. So, how do we build that intentionality, I think, becomes the key. It's how do we stop ourselves to become more intentional in the moment when we know, wait a second, I'm getting frustrated?

Yeah.

You know, so one of the things we say is that of the 4 communication styles, the 4 faces, there's one that is very frustrating for you. And so what you have to do is you have to recognize what's— who are the people that really frustrate me? And then what you need to do is you need to find people in your life that probably have that communication style that you already have a great relationship with. And ask them, how do I need to interact with people of your communication style more effectively? And they won't have to consult a manual. They won't have to tell you, you know, let me go look that up. They know. They know, here's what you need to do to be able to build a relationship with people who are more like me. And so the beautiful thing about this system is it's what we call an observed system that has face validity. It has statistical reliability as well. But it is obvious. If you read the book and you study this system, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, it's everywhere. You know, there are red, there are yellow, there are green, there are blue. But they're much more than that. Of course, we're not just a color. But it gives you so much insight as to things, the things you should not do with that particular behavioral style.

Right. And so again, the onus is on us to be able to act in a way that is most conducive to that relationship. In order to fulfill sets of expectations. It's not up to us to think, well, they have to change.

Right.

I love that.

I had a leader some years back who said to me, he said, she said, she said, why do I have to change? I'm the boss. I'm like, because you're the leader. The leader has the responsibility to be flexible. The element actually with the most flexibility has the most control.

Right, right. And the leader has as much control and as much flexibility as they desire.

Right, exactly.

I'd like to get into some of the common challenges and pitfalls as people kind of tune into this and realize they have to change. My fear is that people will get into band-aid stuff and go, okay, from now on I'm going to do this without really thinking through and being highly strategic. And so, we'll get to that right after this.

Attention meeting and event planners! Is your company or association planning a live or virtual conference, seminar, staff retreat, Are you looking for a fresh, energetic perspective on what it takes to put on a jaw-dropping experience for your customers or staff? Book customer experience expert Marc Haine for your next group event. Past participants have said, Marc kept us in stitches while teaching us how important and powerful actually designing our customer experience can be. Read more testimonials and find out how Marc can serve you and your group at marchaine.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-A-I-N-E.com.

Welcome back! I hope you are getting a ton of value from today's episode. As you can tell, Andrew 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 someone you know might be planning a leadership retreat, or you're just planning a conference and you need experts to come up and influence your audience in some form or fashion, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. So Andrew, for the people tuning in, cautionaries and pitfalls. This whole idea of, yeah, I know I have to change. So starting today, I'm going to change. What should we be aware of to keep us moving forward in a positive momentum rather than causing even more damage because we think, oh, okay, I'm going to have to become a green now?

Yeah.

And so, what you want to be is flexible. You don't want wholesale change. So, a red will never become a green. A yellow will never become a blue, right? So, the question is situationally, where do I need to slightly be different perhaps, right? So, the first thing we want to realize is That, and I think James Clear in Atomic Habits said this best. He said, we do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. So what is the system that you're going to use to remind you that you need to be different? So wholesale change is very different and not really even our objective. The question is, what is one small behavior change I could make? And who do I need to make that behavior change with? And how can I do it consistently? So for example, Somebody who is a blue, who maybe has a lot of questions when there's a change coming up, they can be viewed as a pessimist. And I don't like that word, but that's, let's be honest, that's the way some people are seen because they can always see what could go wrong. And so what happens when someone starts to view you as a pessimist is they start to think that you really don't want things to work out. And so they've actually assumed what we refer to as negative intent on your part. The way to get around negative intent is to state positive intent. So if I'm a blue and I see a bunch of problems with something that my boss is wanting to do, I could say, you know, Sally, I'd really like this to work out. And I'm very committed to what you're talking about. I do see a couple of challenges. Would it be okay if we talked about those? Don't talk about 10. But what we typically do, if I'm a blue, I say, here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. But you know, I want this to work out. Well, by the time I get to, but I want it to work out, no one believes me because I just told them 10 reasons it wouldn't work out. So, state your intent upfront and then share a couple of big reasons. So, in answer to your question, Marc, what you need to do is you need to figure out who do I need to be different with and what is one small change that I need to make? I was coaching some leaders this morning and a lot of them were pretty hard-driving leaders. What we would refer to as reds. One said he was a bright, shiny red. So, he said— I said, what's one thing you need to do differently with your people? He said, I need to listen better. I said, well, how are you going to remember to do that?

Hmm.

So, we have this little trick that's not really a trick. It's a methodology, a system that we use with people. It's our habits that create our results, not our intention, right? So, what we need to do is you say, what's— when people set goals, we have them set them this way. At least once a day, I will. So at least once a day, when I would normally tell one of my employees what they need to do, I'm going to ask questions and try to understand the way they see the problem. And they say, well, shouldn't I do it more than once a day? Listen, if you can do it once a day, you can do it more than once. But if you say, I'm going to do it from now on, you're not. And you are setting yourself up for failure. And failure begets failure. The more— every time I fail, I reinforce in my mind that I can't do it. But every time I do it, I reinforce my mind that I can change. So, we would strongly recommend identify a small change and just try to do it once a day. And when you do it once a day, celebrate. I did it. I'm off the hook for today. I don't have to do it anymore today. And it'll start to become a habit for you.

It really is as well. It is trust building because a lot of what happens and a lot of what we've been talking about today, a lot of perceptual distortions, a lot of Unmet expectations all falls into this idea that we perceive a lack of trustworthiness in somebody. We're perceiving that somebody's got their own personal agenda. We're assuming that they have negative intent. Like, it's all about this idea of building trust. So, I really love the fact that, take, you know, make one decision about one challenge that you're going to overcome today. Once. Just do it once and see what happens and see if it changes anything. Because I do think that a lot of times when people go, okay, I realize I've been, I've been an absolute idiot. So from now on, I'm gonna be, you know, more friendly with my staff. And then, you know, for the first 10 minutes of the day until the next crisis hits, people are going, what's wrong with Jim? Because he's never acted like this. And then crisis hits and you go, oh, there he is. There he is. He's here now.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's absolutely true. And, you know, this goes back to something you talked about earlier, which is humility. Which is telling people what you're working on. Like, I love this idea that sometimes leaders feel like we say, well, like, if you're going to work on being more inquisitive and being a better listener, tell your people.

Yeah.

That's what you're working on.

And it creates accountability, creates ownership, and it creates a new sense of trust as long as you live up to it.

Correct.

Yeah.

And then, when you fail, admit it.

Yeah.

And apologize. Screwed up. So remember I talked about people have a story they're telling in their head?

Yes.

So if I am a pretty hard-driving boss and I'm never— nothing's ever good enough for me, the story my people are telling in their head is exactly that. It's never enough. It's never good enough, right? So if I want to change that perception and I talk to my people, you know, I noticed that I know I have really high standards and I sometimes drive pretty hard and I maybe don't listen and don't coach and try to develop you enough. And I'm really going to work on that. And then I said, but I need your help. I'm going to come and I'm going to ask you how I'm doing from time to time. So let's say, for example, I do pretty well and I do pretty well and weeks go by and I'm checking in, checking in, checking in. And they tell me occasionally, yeah, you're doing really well, Andrew. You're doing really well. Well, 3 or 4 or 5 weeks go by and maybe I have a, I regress and I say, I'm so sorry. That wasn't the way I wanted to be. And they say, you know, but you've been doing really well. Well, contrast that with me working really hard and doing really well for 3 or 4 weeks, but I don't tell anybody what I'm working on.

Right.

Everybody's observing I'm different, but they're like, you know, what's going on with Oxley? You know, this isn't like him. And then I have that regression and I blow up and they're like, oh, there he is.

There he is.

There he is. He's back. You know, and I say, but I've been really good for 4 weeks. Well, people don't believe the story we tell them.

Right.

They believe the story they tell themselves.

Absolutely.

So, what you have to do is check in with people, not as a technique, but as a reality test. How am I doing? And if they tell you you're not doing so great, and if you have humility, I say, well, help me understand what's going on. Yeah.

André, this has been fantastic. This has just been awesome. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

So, if you would like the Four Faces of Frustration book, it is on Amazon. The Four Faces of Frustration. That's That's the easiest way to get my book. The other thing you can do is you can go to transformingresults.com if you've enjoyed this conversation and you'd like 90 minutes of what we call the Leadership Blueprint, where we help you blueprint how you're going to get from where you are to where you want to be. That's a free workshop, no strings attached. We're just happy to provide that. If you like what you hear there and you want to know more after that, that's awesome. If you don't and you want to execute the blueprint on your own, Well, we wish you all the best in every success.

Terrific. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts, Andrew?

I think it's the only thing I'd share with your audience is that, you know, as you move forward in your life, if you're a leader, there will always be a gap between where you are and where you want to be. So, don't be frustrated with the gap. Celebrate the progress you've already made and realize that if a journey is not involved, a leader is not Ooh, nice.

Lovely. Thank you very much for being here, Andrew. It's been really great. I've enjoyed this conversation immensely, and it's made me even ask questions, which I think is always great— questions of myself, questions of my experiences. So I've loved every minute of it. Thank you so much for doing this.

Well, thank you for having me, Marc. I thoroughly enjoy being your guest.

So do you have any questions about today's episode? Or maybe you're thinking Hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc or Andrew. Well, good news. You can snag a spot on my calendar. Just hit the link below, the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com and you are all set to go. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you make sure that you subscribe to this feed and make sure you follow me on social media. That way, you get notifications when I bring you fresh new content each and every week. So, join me, won't you? Thank you again for joining me. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com For a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's content invaluable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Mark says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and. Dare to be the exception.