The Psychology Behind High-Performing Teams

I have to tell you, after 30+ years leading and training in hospitality, most leadership problems don't show up in strategy decks. They show up in things like reactions, tone, silence in meetings, that tight feeling in your chest right before you have to have a tough conversation. Today, we're talking about the invisible forces running through our leadership, whether we are aware of them or not. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is Manny Fittoni. And today, we are unpacking why great intentions alone don't create great leaders and how maybe aligning the conscious and the subconscious mind changes everything. So, if this is your first time with us, I'd like to say, hey, welcome! If you find this episode valuable, please check out our past episodes. We have a whole library of 5 years now of episodes for you to be able to play into to answer all sorts of your leadership questions. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. That way, you get notified whenever we bring you fresh new content each and every week. So first off, I want to acknowledge you. Thank you so much for investing your time with us. Time of course is our most valuable commodity. So, I'm glad that you're here today and I hope you get lots of value. When it comes down to leadership, imagine being handed the cockpit of a 747. No training, no simulators. They just hand you the keys. I don't know if planes have keys. But let's say they hand you the keys and they say, good luck. Don't crash. That's leadership for most managers. They get promoted because they were good performers. They start businesses because they're good technicians. But nowhere are they trained to be good leaders. And so, they end up leading using instinct, pressure, Half-remembered examples of bosses they either loved or swore that they'd never become. And without realizing it, they project old fears, perfectionism, and control patterns straight onto their teams. So, that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, where in your leadership are you saying the right things but consistently getting the wrong results? I'd love to find out what your stories are. Go ahead and share a link to this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership and put down your comments. I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. As I mentioned today, my guest today is the mind leadership expert, Manny Fittoni. Hi Marc! Manny is the CEO of My Growth Corporation and brings over 30 years of executive leadership across finance, management, and large-scale team leadership. What sets Manny apart is his ability to bridge psychology and business, helping leaders understand why they do what they do, not just what they should do. He's also the author of the brand new book, The Mind Congruency Effect. And his work helps leaders eliminate self-sabotage, sabotage, unlock sustained performance, and create environments where people actually want to show up for work and do their best work possible. Manny, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.

Thank you, Marc. Much appreciated. Looking forward to it.

Yeah, so maybe could we start a little bit about who your clients are and how you serve them? Sure.

Okay. So, in regards to businesses, and we deal with businesses of all sizes, We have— can you hear me properly? I'm just noticing a lag.

Yes, yes, you're doing just fine.

Okay, that's okay. So, we deal with all types of businesses and in particular leadership and how leadership affects the business overall in getting results. And we talk about different elements of it, how to frame that for managers And then, for them to then understand that in a lot of cases, managers actually self-sabotage their own teams without realizing it.

So, when we think about this idea of self-sabotage, why do so many capable professionals struggle once they step into these leadership roles? Because they get promoted for a reason or they have the impetus to take the risk to start their businesses. Why are they struggling so much?

I think your intro actually captured it. You know, you can be really good at the job that you're in, but suddenly you're put in charge of other people's lives and other people's careers. And depending on how you are structured or how you think determines on how they react. So, you can be the best salesperson in the world. And naturally, at some point, someone's going to promote you because you're really successful at sales. But because you're good at sales doesn't mean that you understand the psychology of a team of 10 people or 100 people. And so until you start to understand yourself, you're going to have issues dealing with getting results from a team as opposed to yourself because you can control yourself within reason.

Right. So, before we go any further, I'm just going to ask you, could you please look at the camera?

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, that'll be much better. Okay. So, I'm just going to clap just to continue on. So, it's interesting because promote people who have a scope of experiences. I call it their bubble, right? They have their belief systems, their value systems, and so on. And they have even their own experiences. Like I know that when I first started in leadership, I was 17. I was promoted in McDonald's and my boss Steve was an absolute— like he loved to yell and scream and demean. And I thought, you know what? When I step into this role, I'm not going to do that. But then, I was evaluated as being a piss-poor manager because I didn't yell, scream, and berate the staff. So, how do those experiences kind of create the definition of the kind of leaders we're going to become?

So, they definitely do. But it depends on the personality. So obviously, I have observed many, many managers over the years, both as a manager executive, etc. Yes, you're influenced by what you see. This is no different to dealing with your parents, by the way. But you're also influenced by your personality. So let's say for— I'll give you an example. Many years ago, I was working within a company. My boss was okay until his boss changed and his personality then changed. And he started bullying his staff, which he didn't do before. So there is a difference between a leader and a manager. And this is some of the distinctions that we need to look at is what makes a leader and what makes a manager. Anyone can be put into a management role, but not everyone necessarily has leadership skills. And I'm happy to elaborate on that when you're ready.

Yeah, no. So I truly believe that leadership skills need to be trained. But to your point, you mentioned about our parents. We were brought up a certain way. Those biases, those value systems and such actually define what kind of leader we become. So, how does the subconscious conditioning that we've had over the years through elementary school, high school, parents, how do those override the conscious intention of, hey, I want to be the best manager I possibly can be?

Well, think about it this way. I'm sure there have been times in your management career or any part of your career where you've gone, oh, I don't know if I can do that. Someone's asked me to go ahead and do it and I can't do it. Or I'm going to resist it and give you every reason why I can't achieve this. Right? We've seen that before. We all do it in different elements of our lives. So, the question is, why can this person do it and I can't do it, and we've both got 2 arms, 2 legs, etc., and there's nothing wrong with us. It's the conditioning. So let me talk about mind congruency, which is where you're kind of leading towards. So when I talk about mind congruency, everybody knows that there is a conscious mind, and the conscious mind does a few things. It's our short-term memory. It understands that we exist as, as humans, like We recognize ourselves and it's logical and it makes our goal setting. You know, when I say I'm gonna set out to achieve a KPI in business, it's the goal setting of what I'm gonna do.

Now, behind— I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. There was a bang outside and then my internet died.

Okay, so I don't know if it's me or it's you, but I have internet connection. So, all right, do you want me to pick up from where we were before?

Yeah, yeah. So we're talking about, uh, so if you want to just introduce your, um, your, um, yeah, microgravity. Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay, so let me just find the— Yeah, so we're talking about everybody having their own bubbles. Their bubbles are their past programming, what their high school teachers said, how they grew up through different levels of education, what their parents say. And how does that subconscious kind of conditioning that we've had over our our lifespan really override the conscious intention of what we want to do as great leaders?

So, let's understand the subconscious firstly. The subconscious holds all your memories. And the best way I describe it is think of an operating system in a computer. So, when you receive your computer, it comes out in its packaging and it's got everything that you want, your keyboard, etc. The operating system is the programming that sits within the computer. So you type something in, and if it's programmed correctly, it'll give you the result you want. Now, the problem that you're going to have is if your programming is not correct or it's been affected in some way, you're going to get a different result than the next person. So a lot of these influences come from childhood initially. So when you're born, you don't come with speech. You might make some noises, but you don't have any speech. You are— what you're doing up until about the age of 10, even though you can speak within a few couple of years, is you're observing, you're picking up habits, you're picking up gestures, all these things you get from your parents. So think about people in your life today or your parents. or people that cared for you when you're a kid and go back and have a look at which things that I've picked up that are just like them. So your operating system was created by somebody else in some ways. Now that's the early stages. Then you get the teenage years and you start to idolize your celebrities and, you know, those type of people and, and your peers. You worry about your peers' things. So you pick up different things in this programming. By the time you get to this management role, a lot of your programming has been set. It isn't permanently fixed. It can change, which is the great news. But the issues are, is you're not aware of it. Most cases, we're unaware. I'm sure if, if you and I are in the same room for a while and you might do something, then I go, Marc, where did you— where did you do—

who—

which parent gave you that? Who does that out of your parents? And you might reject it at first, but after a while you go, yeah, yeah, that's, that's my father. He does that all the time. I don't even realize I do it, but I do what he does. And we all do this. So, so the subconscious becomes our operating system. So you have a conscious mind, you have a subconscious. The conscious mind is saying, we're going to head out as a team and get a target.

Great.

Subconscious says, I'm a little bit fearful of doing that. So at some point, I'll do things to sabotage me or my team, not on purpose necessarily, but it starts— we start to do that. Now remember, you have X amount of team members in your team, all with their own operating systems. If you as a manager or a leader because you want to become a leader as opposed to just management is unaware of how to work with this, how to change this both in yourself and in others, then you're not going to get the results you want. So, I create a 3-point framework for managers to create high-performing teams.

I love that. But before we get into the 3-point framework, When people are tuning into this, are there any indicators that we are running on our programming versus running on our best practices or our intention? Because I think a lot of people tend to blame their surroundings and to blame the people that they're supposedly leading. I see a lot of people and I tease. I've said this on the show many times that when you're pointing at somebody, you're pointing 3 fingers at yourself. And really, we are to blame. But typically, when we have a problem, it's like, I don't know what's wrong with my team. Like, I can't tell you how many times I've told them they have to do it this way. And I've told them many times that the outcome is this. What the hell is wrong with them? So, how do we switch that script to make it inward focusing? And so, what are the indicators we should be looking at in ourselves to isolate and understand and go, oh yeah. Yeah, my dad used to do that too.

Right. So, I always say it's the word awareness because we're so busy as managers that we get lost in the rat race and in the mouse wheel. We need to start becoming aware of decisions that we make and how we make them. So, I talk about when I'm running sessions, I firstly start sessions talking about different management styles. Because we all tend to adopt a style.

Right.

And each style has its purpose. The only problem is if you're fixed in one style, that style will only work in certain circumstances. And so, you need to become aware of, hey, I'm using the same style in everything that I do, which means not every person is going to react positively to it. And also, it isn't appropriate. It isn't appropriate to be authoritarian in a normal work environment, but it is in a crisis situation when one person has to make this decision and make it quickly. So, you need to understand that there are different styles first. And what style are you using? Once you understand your styles, then it's a matter of— that's when I then lead you to these 3 points. And that comes back finally to the mind of how is your operating system? Once you get how you operate, then you can look at who's in your team and how they're operating and how you bring them together. Because as we all know, anyone who's been a manager and anyone that's listening all know that everybody in our teams are different. Nobody's the same. We have different backgrounds with different experiences. We bring all of that to the table in our work life. And we are trying to be a magician and make them all work together. And it's never perfect. I don't think I've ever seen, and I've taken teams from zero to exceptional results, but it came down to certain things that I did for that to happen.

So, I'd love to tap into The steps that you have in order to do a deeper dive into mind congruency. And we'll get into that right after this.

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I'm speaking with the author of The Mind Congruency Effect, Manny Fittoni. Manny, why don't you do a shameless plug for your book since I just did mine?

I didn't do a lot of shameless plugs. Actually, I have the book here, but I always have it on my desk. So, The Mind Congruency Effect, oh, you've got it there, effectively is not just about business. There is a chapter that talks about business and leadership. We talk about different elements, but we discuss what mind congruency firstly is and how you can start taking steps towards changing yourself. Because as the book says, it's about transforming you first. We tend to walk into business environments, especially when we've got other people around. We understand ourselves, we understand we're driven, especially entrepreneurs. We're really driven people and we can't understand why everyone else is not exactly the same as us. And that's a frustration. So, and I see you laughing there, so you kind of get what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

Why is not everyone the same as me? I'm a great operator. I'm self-driven. Not everyone's like me. Well, not everybody is like you. But then, do you know, if I interviewed you as a manager, do you know what motivates your staff or do you just tell your staff what to do? And there's the difference between leadership and management. Managers are put in charge of people and they understand how to do— they might be good at directing. You do this, you do this, you do that. Delegation is only part of management. Leadership is taking them on the journey with you and together you are creating something great through a vision that you have given to them. And most managers can't articulate a vision because they're really articulating their boss's vision if they're articulating it. It's how you articulate it. So, there are ways of taking people on the journey with you. And that's how you build high-performing teams by understanding how to take them on the journey.

I laughed as you were saying that before because I can't tell you how many managers I've dealt with that looked me straight in the eye and go, I don't understand it. It's common sense.

Or maybe it is common sense, but then it's like reading a book. We all have our own filters. You and I can read the same book and you can say, I got all this out of the book. And I go, I didn't see any of that. I thought it was just this. Right? So, we are really becoming experts at people. Now, some managers might go, that's not what I do. And I go, that's exactly what you do. When you become an expert of dealing with people, They will take orders. I'm not saying there aren't times they don't do what they're meant to do, and you as a manager have to make decisions around that individual.

Right.

But I will give every person in a team the opportunity to rise to their best, but I will give them the tools to rise to their best. Because just as you have never been taught how to be a manager, they have not necessarily been taught how to work within a team. and a high-performing team. They've just done their job as they've been doing it for the last decade or so. And no one's ever shown them how to rise to where they could become more. And a lot of people respond to that when you take that challenge on.

So, this idea then of adopting to become a leader because the last year, I've really been going from this idea That really, we have to stop being managers and we need to start being coaches. It's one thing to say, I'm a leader of people. But really, I think what happens in too many businesses is we bog down these leaders with too much work to do that they cannot be an expert in people because they're given, oh, I need this report by Thursday. Oh, don't forget to make sure that data gets entered properly. And oh, by the way, this other department needs something from you. Right? And so, we end up kind of handicapping our leaders by giving them kind of the grunt work instead of saying, feel free to delegate this to this resource or feel free to do this. You just make sure that you're a really great coach for your team. Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, that's a very, very fair assessment. And it isn't an easy answer necessarily. I mean, if you're a small business person, everything kind of revolves around you. And you're busy and you're making decisions from finance to sales, etc. So that's hard. Larger businesses have exactly the same problems. Having worked for very large organizations, it's exactly the same problem. They have way too much work and they're trying to juggle and they're hoping that their staff can do that and sometimes they don't. But this is called investment.

Yeah.

When I invest in an individual, I get a better result and I know I can pass things on to them. If I decide that— I've worked for an organization, very large bank at one point, and they had a policy that if a person doesn't perform in 6 months, you just fire them. Now, I don't have that attitude because it costs money to replace staff.

Yeah. And you spent 6 months investing in them. It's like you're gonna take all that investment and flush it down the toilet.

I worked for that organization, but it was a— they had another organization that I worked under, and I had a different attitude. My view is I can mold people if they want to be molded. And it's one of the first steps that you get an indication on is, is this person receptive to being more? And that's where you build rapport with the person first. You know, if you've never been a manager before and suddenly you're put in charge of people, you have different responses mentally. One is, I'm the big boss now, so I can tell everybody what to do. And that does happen in management. And then there's others who have what you're referring to as the coaching or the nurturing, bringing out the best of the individual. That mentality brings out a much better result. And I've taken over teams that were poor performing. I've gone to speak to the staff and they've said, I don't want to be fired. I know I'm not performing, but I'm new to this organization and no one's helped me. There's no one being here for me. So I would make a promise to them. I will show you how if you give me your best. And some of those people in my past career have gone on to become— even during that period of being in the team of being some of the most outstanding operators in the whole organization. But that was my investment because it's worth investing in your people.

Yeah. And it's also this idea that there's a level of humility that's required as well. It's like for some reason when we get promoted, it's like, oh, my bosses have all the answers. I better not show any weakness. I better be the boss that they expect me to be. And because of that, we end up kind of putting on this persona. And now, we're no longer human. We're no longer telling people that we're fallible. Like, I can't tell you the number of times I've gone into a hospitality situation where I've been asked to go in and change the culture. And when I go to the staff and I said, so, we have this problem. So, what are your thoughts about it? And right away, like the eyes glaze over and they're like, what do you mean? You're the boss. And then, when I say, well, here's the thing.

That's exactly the right approach. Because you'll know from your own coaching that when you start to ask the team what they think, what's working, what's not working, you suddenly get absolute nuggets of knowledge that the boss is not even aware of. And I've seen that in small business where we've sat in a room, I've gone around a room, and the secretary says, well, actually, no, this is not working. And the boss is going, I didn't know any of this.

Why didn't you tell me? You never asked.

Yeah.

Well, and this is the basis of Undercover Boss. For years, we had that show on TV called Undercover Boss, right? And how many times are they just absolutely amazed at what the staff have to put up with?

Yeah. And so, when you know your people and you understand how they think, and that's your job. It's actually part of your job to understand It's like being given a machine to work with.

Hmm.

And you're given the machine, you never worked it before, and you go, yeah, I'll just press a few buttons, this will make it work. You may get the result you want or you may not get the result. Or you can decide to understand it, grab the manual and go, ah, I could do this, this, this, and this with it. And I didn't know because I wasn't prepared to understand it.

So, a lot of what we're talking about is kind of how we're wired to be intentional and to be curious and so on. Let's talk about this mind congruency that you introduced a little bit earlier. How do we— you mentioned that kind of these 2 minds. Can we define it in simple human terms what it looks like?

Okay. So, the conscious mind I always think of it like a thinking mind. In other words, it has the short-term memory that you have. It's more analytical. It's where you're aware of yourself. That's what the conscious mind does. The subconscious is like the operating system. And I think I may have explained this before we captured it, but it's a little bit like a computer program on your computer when you get a computer. Yeah. If it's the programming is designed to come out a certain way, so if you program it incorrectly, you might get something really weird on your computer screen. And that kind of happens in our lives is we're unaware of this programming. You sometimes you notice it, but you're unaware of it. And so a boss might say, "I need you to do." what you might think is impossible, but your colleague goes, yeah, of course, I'll just get it done. So why is it impossible for one and not for the other? It's your programming. It's understanding the subconscious. Now, people that achieve many things in life are able to align the two together. They go out to set a goal, whatever that goal looks like in business or personal life, and their programming Does not sabotage or fight them because you're unaware of all this. You're unaware that you're doing what you do. It's a little bit like a phobia. Some people have phobias of dogs. Now, I love dogs. You might love dogs, but you might have a phobia of dogs. So why have you got a phobia and I don't have a phobia, but both of us are mentally fine? There's nothing wrong with this. Something has happened in your past which changed your programming that triggers off the way you're going to operate in that situation. This happens in management and in business. Now, I'm an entrepreneur as well. As an entrepreneur, we face lots of challenges, and depending on how big your team is determines on how much you're going to be doing of that. Now entrepreneurs, the difference between an entrepreneur and a manager is an entrepreneur understands persistence. They know that failure is not something that they enjoy, but it's something that they have to get around. They have to say to themselves, but there's a solution, there's another solution. But a lot of us say, no, you know what, that's too hard. I tried it 2, 3 times, I give up. Let's do something different. Let's change jobs. Let's do— there's a massive difference in just the thinking if you listen to that alone. And so, changing the way you operate determines if you're scared of the dog or you're not scared of the dog.

And sometimes it's just exposure. It's because we have knowledge gaps that we don't realize we have. Once we've overcome those knowledge gaps, then all of a sudden, that phobia, that hesitation, that uncertainty gets cleared up very much like picking up the manual to that piece of equipment.

I used to see this a lot in sales. So, I'd worked in financial planning for many years. I had been one for a few years in my younger days. And I did a lot of executive roles around that. And in financial planning, they have what they call a fee-for-service. You know, you're asking me to have a look at your financial situation. I'm going to do like a 70-page document and work out exactly where we should go, but I'm going to charge you $2,000 for that, for example, for all that work and knowledge that you're paying for. Now, one person, I could give this exercise to you, Marc, and you go, yep, not a problem. I'll do all that and I'll tell my clients $2,000 and I'll do it quite confidently. I could give this to the next person, they go in their head, they may not be consciously thinking of it, but in their head they're going, $2,000, who would pay $2,000 for that? I think this is a $900 job. That subconscious or that thinking is sabotaging their results.

Sure.

So I've taken sales teams from X amount of dollars to much higher because I changed their thinking to understand that you have to understand the value first, so in your, in your psyche. So when you're telling someone else, of course it's $2,000, you're worth $2,000. But a lot of salespeople, if they're asked to sell things at high prices, either can do it congruently Or they struggle with it and the client picks up on it. They go, $2,000? What's the value in that? You don't believe in it. I can tell from your body language.

It's interesting that you said that. I just had a coaching call with a speaker today and they had quoted their fee. And then, they told me what they followed up the quote with, which was, but if you think that's too expensive, then And I'm trying to teach speakers that when you quote your fee, say the number and shut the fuck up. Don't say another word, right? But again, that's the programming of I have to justify. I have to understand where I don't want to lose the gig. I want to make sure I get the contract. And it's all this fear-mongering as well, right? So, we're pushing ourselves into the corner, forcing it. And then, of course, the person turns around, well, if you could do it for half the price, then I'd be happy. Okay, done. And it's like—

So now you're getting mind congruency because the goal was to charge X amount of dollars for my work. It's a lot of work what I have to do.

Sure.

And knowledge, right? But the subconscious is the one that's sabotaging you. It does not believe what you want. And this is what happens in all aspects of our life. We go charging out, I'm gonna go do this, I'm gonna go, or I'm— if once I've got my degree, I'm ready to go. Knowledge is part of it. So you've talked about skill sets, building skill sets are very important, but they need to be an unconscious competence.

Sure.

They need to be something that you do. You make it become natural after time because the subconscious now knows how to do it without you even thinking about it. And like the phobia, no person that's scared of a dog consciously thinks— well, normally, unless they've got a— unless they keep seeing dogs, um, thinks, I'm gonna— I'm going to just be scared. They don't want to be scared in front of a dog, but they— but they have this trigger.

Yeah.

That triggers off in the subconscious and it triggers off the amygdala, which is your fight— where your fight and flight environment is. And you decide to flight, you decide to run away, whereby the rest of us that go, oh, look, it's a dog, I'm going to pat it. So until we learn how to change these things as business people and as managers, we will come across circumstances that we will start to play the avoidance, will avoid things. You'll be in a management meeting and the boss will say, well, I need this. And you'll give every reason. And especially if you're great at convincing people, you give every reason why the business couldn't do that. So, you don't have to do it because you can't do it.

Right. Well, and again, I've worked with emerging leaders, people who got promoted into leadership roles. And when they see behavior happening within their ranks, And they don't address it. It's like, well, I didn't want to address it because he's a good person. So, I'm sure it's not going to happen again, which we know is a lie. Then, it's like, well, why didn't you do it? Why didn't you address the issue? Well, because I just— right? And then in it, the more you dig into it, there's fear of being judged.

Compromise.

It's fear of being wrong. It's the other person's going to get mad at me. Or the one I heard the most probably is, well, I didn't want the employee to start crying.

Right. Right.

And it's not your goal to make someone cry. But when you're a manager, it's almost a parent situation.

Absolutely.

Sometimes, even though this might sound the wrong way, take it in the right frame. Sometimes I see people through their children's eyes and them as a child, not their own children. So, I could talk to someone and they're telling me things and I'm going, yep, they would have done this as a kid. They would have done the same type of things because that was the program. It was set back then and they're still running the same program. My job as a manager, as a leader, to take them to high performance is to understand their operating system and then help them change it through a motivational and encouraging and nurturing environment.

I love that. I love that. For the people tuning in, how can they get a hold of you if they'd like to work with you?

So, they can go to our main company, which is mygrowthcorporation.com. There, you'll see all the different things we're doing. We've got a lot of programs that we're working on. But manyfortini.com is the training part. So, if people want me specifically for this part, that's where you go.

Okay, terrific. And we'll put the— we definitely have it all in the show notes. So, you mentioned before about those 3 steps. 3 steps to create, really move us from this problem state of not understanding how our subconscious is really handicapping us to kind of the desired state where we now have congruency. So, what are those 3 steps?

Okay. So, I'll call it a framework. So, let's say you walk into a new team. You don't know anybody in this team. First part is environment. And what I mean by environment isn't that the offices have to look beautiful necessarily. It's the understanding that this is how we operate as a team. So, the first thing I do when I used to take on teams, depending on how large my teams were, is I would do one of two things. I either had a team meeting where I kind of talked about what we want to achieve. I am giving an idea of vision, what my vision looks like. But then I always follow that up with a one-on-one. And the reason I do the one-on-one, even though that is time-consuming, is I need to understand who is sitting in front of me. Why are they here? And I would sit there and I would have a conversation. And they naturally, when they get a new boss, are on their best behavior. They're watching how I operate. And they won't necessarily— they're thinking— they won't tell you everything they want to think. Your job is to make them feel comfortable. Building rapport is the first key in that environment, is they need to feel that you're somebody they can talk to rather than fear. A manager that walks in thinking that fear is their approach is probably going to lose their team in a short period. So environment is, this is what we're trying to achieve. As a group, and that needs to be articulated. People need to understand what we're trying to achieve. Otherwise, everyone is running their own show. And people do run their own show within reason, within the parameters of the big show of what we together are trying to achieve. So a lot of my basis in regards to management, although I go across all styles of management, which is The best style is consultancy. I consult with you. If you were working with me, Marc, rather than go, oh, well, you're my employee and you just do what I tell you to do, my attitude is, tell me a bit about you. I also want to know about your family. Why this job? What made you choose this company in particular? I mean, there's a lot of companies that do this. What made you choose this? I get you here to make money. We're all here to make money because that's how we earn our living, but there's other elements of a job. So what I'm trying to get to is their value systems.

Right.

What do they value in work? If you're a creative person, maybe there's a creative approach to how you do what you do. If you're a competitive person, which is great for sales, then you need to— then the framework Is this is what we're aiming to do. Here is what we can do. So if you're going to come back and go, well, I want more money, I'm going to go, well, this is my budget, so I can't do much about it, or I don't have that authority, for example. So they need to understand. So that's your first bit is your environment. Your next part is true leadership. And true leadership is It's not about all delegation. People are watching you like children are observing you. If you've got kids, those kids observe you. Oh, look, mum swears every time she drives. That's gonna— how I— that's how I'm gonna drive when I get older, right? They're observing us.

Yeah.

And you know what? When you say one thing and you do the opposite, you've lost their respect.

Right.

They also need to understand—

Or created uncertainty.

Yes, correct.

Right? Because they don't know what the actual standard is because you said the standard is one thing. You proved it and modeled it as something else. Now, it's this massive confusion.

Yeah. And that comes back to the first point of the environment.

Sure.

What does this look like for all of us? For example, we support each other. Leadership is showing those traits that I'm in there with you. If you're caught in a situation whereby— I've said I've worked for very large organizations and small ones. In a large one, other departments can attack your staff because they need to interact with them, but they're not always necessarily got the best intentions.

Yeah.

Your staff need to know in this great big organization that you are their buffer, that you are the person that will step in front of them and protect them if they're doing the right thing.

Sure.

If they're doing the wrong thing, they also need to understand that that's not acceptable in our environment. We need to be doing the right thing by people. So, leadership traits cover those things. The last one is the mind congruency. And as I said, there's 2 levels of that. Number one is, do I understand my operating system, how I'm operating? Because everything I do is projected onto my staff. And as I think I mentioned at the very start of this show, is that I've had managers that were okay when they first came on board and they were great and they were supportive. And then they had a manager put pressure on them and suddenly they were the worst person to work with. So, were they demonstrating leadership just because they were taking orders? Or is there a way that they could project that to their own team with the same message but not delivered the same way?

Right. Yeah. And there are so many different components in there. What I'd love to do is I'd love to talk a little bit about some pitfalls and some cautionaries as people try to wrap their head around this idea of being intentional around being congruent with their programming and with their outcomes. I'd love to talk a little bit about what they should be on the lookout for. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back. As you can tell, Manny and I are really, really committed to supporting business operators and business managers just like yourself. So, if you're looking at maybe having a leadership retreat, if you're maybe, if you know somebody who's planning a conference or a convention, franchise show, whatever, and you think that we have some content that we could share with your audience, please make sure you reach out to us. Our contact information is in the show notes. Manny, one of the challenges I think that a lot of people have is we understand kind of the developmental and the personal evolution we need to take. But it's one thing to say, yes, I want to change. And we start to change and we're super intentional until we get massive pressure, until we get into crisis. And then, I find that when it comes down to our behavior, we regress back to the way we used to be. So, how can we use this mind congruency to improve decision-making while we're under that pressure?

So you're absolutely spot on. We do fall back, but we fall back to the program.

Yes.

So if you're able to change your program, your response is different. You and I can both be— you could be really good at high-pressure situations, and we both have the same boss, and it's given to you and you're fine, and I'm not. So that means my programming needs to change. Means I need to learn how to cope to deal with that. Now, sometimes that's exposure. You get exposed enough times that it, it overcomes you so much that it becomes part of the program, because repetition is one way of making changes. Do things enough times and you become an expert at it.

Yes.

But that also go the opposite way, is if you do it in the negative or the wrong way, it becomes a bad habit for you. that you're applying every single time.

How do we build in the accountability? Because I mean, part of that falling back to old programming means that we need within that context of that high-pressure situation, whatever, we need somebody to help ground us so that we understand that we're stepping back into our old programming. Because I think in the middle of the crisis, we're not actually that intentional.

So I think you're leading towards coaching in regards to that conversation. I always suggest that you find that mentor or a coach in particular that's trained, that's able to firstly recognize things that you don't recognize in yourself. So I had a coach many years ago. I had one in my 30s. And she was great. She didn't come from my industry at all, but she was smart enough to kind of make me see things differently. So it's like a great salesperson. The ability to reframe how you see something or how your subconscious sees something can give you a different perspective on how you operate. So it's like me selling you something. I can say, this is a great car and you can drive and this is really— Or you can use like the Steve Jobs way. Steve Jobs didn't— when he sold the iPod, if you've ever seen the video of him selling the iPod, he didn't say, oh, this is really great and it's got this many megs. And he said, I can put 1,000 songs into your pocket. And people instantly had the image of what that meant. That was powerful. His speech was powerful. He reframed what this little thing in his pocket could do. It wasn't a stack of data or a stack of songs. Well, it was, but it was, I can have 1,000 of them instead of what it was prior to that. In my days, it was either a Walkman or the boombox you put on your shoulder and walk around going, hey, I'm playing my music, right?

Yeah.

It's a different way of looking at it. And so, you do that with yourself. But this is why a coach— I always say part of what you need to build is what I call a focus ensemble. I talk about this in the book as well, is that you need a person that's dedicated to you and to, better words, project managing you. One works on your mind, which is your coach.

Yeah.

It's a little bit like when you run your business. You have your accountant, you have marketing people, you have all these experts. Unless you've built the experts around you, you're probably going to get the same result.

And so, knowing that, knowing that the expert component is the integral part there, I've talked many times on the show about doing peer-led groups, reaching out to Chambers of Commerce, to people who are in different industries to create some sort of like a mastermind so that people can compare and be able to hold ourselves accountable. What about going to our actual staff and having them help us create that accountability?

So, that could be in the form of a 360 feedback. I'm assuming that's what you're referring to.

That could be. That's one tool, yeah.

I think that's why I always use the term awareness. If you're really paying attention to a person you're talking to, you're going to notice things when you talk to them. So you can say something to a staff member and they don't have to say anything. Their response or their look or their micro movements in their face tell you a lot of things about how they're reacting to you and what you're doing. So most, most of us just don't pay attention to other people. We talk to them, we listen to them. It might be active listening, but we don't see it because the body expresses, expresses what we're thinking. And that's where we need to start paying attention when we're dealing with other people.

Yeah. So as we're making this shift then to become more conscious of this, are there any other cautionaries or pitfalls we should be aware of as we try to evolve ourselves to kind of be more centered to our conscious connection?

Pitfalls. I think the pitfalls are that we fall into the programming. We, as you mentioned before, under pressure. You're under pressure. You fall into your programming. People that are into their own personal development invest time in themselves. So the question I would ask your listeners or viewers is to ask themselves, how much time did I invest in me this week? Or am I just still doing what I do every week? And 12 months from now, I will be exactly the same. I'll still have my job, hopefully. I'll still be doing what I've been doing. I'll still cope a certain way under pressure. But am I better than what I was 12 months earlier? Or am I going to get to the end of my career? And go, yeah, I got through my career, but really, am I any different than what I was when I was in my 20s or my 30s? Because those that are constantly improving themselves and finding ways to improve themselves become our leaders, become our CEOs.

Yeah. And it's incumbent upon us as being the leaders to help make that happen for our people. It's so interesting because I've had multiple conversations with people about investing. You mentioned investing in our staff. This is one way to do it. We can invest by physically investing in our staff, sending them to training, understanding where their weaknesses are, investing in helping them grow. We can invest in them by giving them our time, our next biggest commodity. We can invest in so many different ways. But then, it's so funny to hear kind of the mindset of, but I might invest in them and they might leave.

That's the wrong mindset.

Right.

But, and I said, so what? You want them to stay? You want them to not get better and stay? Is that the idea?

It's also the mindset of, I don't want them to pass me in the organization. That's also a mindset that some managers have.

Yes.

They might become my boss. So, you achieved what you were meant to achieve. You made them better than what they were. That's your achievement as a manager. You took an individual that was your raw clay, even if they've been working for a little while, and with your skill sets, you made them a much better operator in your organization or someone else's organization. That is an achievement. That's what leaders do.

And isn't that our legacy, Manny?

Correct.

Right. That's our legacy. Years later, right? They'll talk years later.

Do you remember working for Marc? He's the best manager I ever had. Not because he was just a nice guy, but because he was tough too. Look, I've had people that I've worked with that have said to me, you know, Manny, you were firm, like you were tough. But he goes, but you were fair. Yeah, like you, you, you were fair to us, but you kept the boundaries of what— you kept us on track. of, you know, this is where we're going, this is where we're going together. So the story that I give, I've given this story before at a conference that I was running many years ago. When I was a kid, there was a kid called Paul Sheehan and Paul lived up the road from me and he had, they're a bit wealthier family than where I came from, but him and I played sports together. And one day we were in what we call primary school. I don't know what they call it over where you are, but it's the kids from 7 years old, whatever, 6 years old, the first stage. And we used to play sport every Wednesday afternoon. But one Wednesday afternoon, they changed it up and they put us into all these different teams and they gave activities and everyone had to go through these different activities as teams. And there was points allocated if you met these Now, one of the goals or one of these activities was we had to run around as little kids around this oval, the outside of a cricket oval, which is quite large, especially for a little kid to run around. And so, we had to run around it. Now, Paul understood leadership even as a little kid. And he said to us, okay. Now, Paul was a— and so was I, we were chubby kids. We played a lot of sport, both of us. We love sport.

But, um, we also loved your mac and cheese.

Uh, well, no, no, maybe, but I don't think that was the case. I think it was just baby fat because it just fell off me at 14. Um, but effectively, um, we weren't long-distance runners. We both played Australian football, we played all the sports, so we loved our sports, but, um, we weren't long-distance runners.

But he—

but one of the people in that team was a good long-distance runner. We knew that he could run around it by himself quite easily. So what Paul did is he said, okay, the goal— the whole goal of this exercise is you had to get around it as a team within a certain time frame, certain amount of minutes. If not all members got across the line, you failed the exercise. So you had to find a way to get the whole team. So Paul said, okay, great. Russell is the person that can run faster than the rest of us. It's not Russell's job to run out in front and leave us behind. It's Russell's job to pace us. It's our job to keep all of us together to get across the line no matter how we feel. And so that's what happened. Timer gets clicked, we start running. Russell's pacing us. He's not running out too far in the front. He's keeping with us. But as a team, we're encouraging each other, and that's part of teamwork. You've created an environment that we start to encourage each other rather than going, I'm really unhappy that Mark beat me at this. You might have those feelings, but you also might have the feelings as well done together, we beat the other part of the organization.

Yeah.

You create that environment. And so Paul did that as a kid. We all got across the line, and now I'm sure at the time, Even though I like running and playing sports, I didn't like necessarily running around ovals, which for me was mindless, right? But they got me around and they got everyone else around because we stuck together as a team. We built that mindset, that global mindset that we can do this together.

Yeah. And so, had you had somebody on the team who said, I want to be the hero, then they're the ones who would zap ahead or they're the ones who would accelerate. accidentally trip one of their people because I want to be the hero. I want to be the first one across and the team be damned. And we know that in corporate toxic cultures, we know we have these kinds of behaviors.

Absolutely.

But I think it's still a great lesson. As we wrap up, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today? Anything we missed?

So, I think the thing that you need to think about is how do you talk to staff in regards to changing mindset. Which we didn't discuss. Um, the subconscious mind doesn't talk necessarily in language. It talks in metaphors and it talks in symbols. So think about watching a movie or think about a great salesperson. A great salesperson doesn't go, now here's all the stats. Yes, this is the percentage you're going to get. For example, that might be part of the conversation. They tell a story about another client and how This person can relate. A great manager or a great leader will tell a staff member a story that the conscious mind will listen to. But behind it is a meaning. The meaning is what the subconscious will pick up on and create the change.

And then from there, that's where the growth will happen ultimately.

Because the goal is to create the change in individuals. And that's where we teach this on how to create that story for managers who go and it tears down resistance.

Sure.

I love that.

Manny, could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Sure. If you go to mygrowthcorporation.com, you'll find us there and you'll find all our different businesses. that relate to our personal growth.

Excellent! And make sure that you click the links in the show notes. Manny, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you being here to share your knowledge, your passion, and your expertise. It's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for doing this.

Thanks, Marc. Appreciate it.

If you have any questions about today's episode, or you'd like a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes down below. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. As always, I am at your service. And if you need his help, please reach out to Manny as well. His contact information is in the show notes so you can take advantage of it. I mean, it's this idea of getting knowledge and then follow through. That's my challenge to you. Follow through if you need help. And if you haven't done so yet, please, why don't you make sure you subscribe to this feed and follow me on social media? I bring you fresh new content each and every week. And I'd love to connect with you on some level. So, feel free to reach out. Ask questions. Let's talk. Let's understand. Let's talk. Let's play. Let's have a good time. Thank you very much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Bye for now!

Bye!