0509 | Steve Lowisz

My name is Steve Loewes. I'm the CEO of the Qualigence group of companies including the Loewes Leadership Institute. And you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews episode 509, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round seven days a week. Join Mario Ficini for today's expert Authority effect interview. Ladies and gentlemen, have you ever wanted to have a better team than you do or just maybe get one or two key players on your team? What if you wanted to have have an entire team of top performers? What if you have top performers and you're not sure how to keep them or you're afraid of having them go somewhere? I have none other than Steve Loewitz on today's episode and he has spoke for organizations like Starbucks, TedX, Bissell, Whirlpool. I'm super excited because I had the pleasure of seeing him in person on stage and he is phenomenal. And he's going to be talking about building a great team, the human capital and how to actually have your business work from a personal standpoint because all the tech in the world is fantastic. We're using some right now. Hello. But you know what? I'm a firm believer it comes down to the relationships and the people. So I'm going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think you your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com.

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Steve Loewitz. Steve, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing fantastic, Mario, how are you?

I'm excited to dive right in and bring some value to the audience. Cause frankly, I need it too. And teams and relationships. It's like, you know, the great thing about tech is when it works, it's pretty cut and dry. I think humans are more diverse and deep and there's so many more nuances. So what, what's your secret to knowing how to grow a team and get the, get them all on the same page and all this stuff, I mean you can't just go if they're not just ones and zeros or in inputs and outputs and all that. So let's do a deep dive on the psychology of what makes people tick.

Well, first of all, Mario, you're not going to get 100% of the team on the same page. You're not. People are too different. So let's first kind of put that off to the side. Let's try to get the majority of people heading in the same direction, marching to the same beat, and so on. But everybody's wired by something different. We all know that. And a lot of people don't even know what their own wiring is, what they're motivated by in the first place. So as a leader, one of the first things we've got to do is figure out we've got to ask the questions. What's driving you? Why does that drive you? Why is that important to you? A lot of people have never even asked themselves that question. So we're doing them a favor by digging to figure out what is that thing. I'll give you an example, Mario. When. When somebody says, hey, family drives me, I'm sure, Mario, family drives you. What does that mean to you?

You know, like in the car, the station wagon, the plane. I'm teasing. It's so. It's been. I don't want to say ingrained in me because everyone says it's been ingrained in me since a young age. It's like, holy smokes. Any more platitudes. But it's just so important. It's like, what are you doing stuff for? It's not for an award. It's not for this. It's so you can have freedom and family, at least for.

And. But what does freedom and family mean to you? Like, how do you know you're doing what you need to do for you, for your family? How do you know you've achieved what you want or are achieving?

Help more, Help more people.

How do you define that?

Helping more people and having more time to be able to do what I want. I'm not tied to. I got to do the show 28 hours a day or publishing. 28. You know what I mean? I can go, hey, I want to take a three, four days off and just do it.

Helping more people. What does that mean with publishing?

Getting their message out through books, now.

We'Re getting more specific. Those are the things that, as leaders that we need to make sure we're doing with each of our team members because we make the mistake of stopping too short. Hey, career advancement is important to me, but what does that mean to you? I had. I had somebody leave me years. This is years and years ago, Mario. Career advancement was important to this person. So I started pouring all kinds of responsibilities on her. A year later, she comes to me and she says, steve, I'm leaving. And I said, why? She said, career advancement. I said, well, wait a minute. I gave you all these things. She said, steve, career advancement to me was becoming the best at the function. You had me in. You watered it down. That's not what I wanted. Like, think about it. They. She didn't know how to express it, but I never asked the question questions to determine what it was. I got it wrong.

So for her, the. It wasn't necessarily top pay, which I'm sure she had. You gave her and hours and this. It was. I literally want to be, and I know people like that, and I'm, I would consider myself one of them. You want to be the best at what it is and you don't want to be complacent or standing still ever.

And for her, though, it was best in one very. It was, it was a tiny piece of, of, of a broader responsibility. Let's say she wanted to be the best at that piece. And unfortunately, I took career advancement to mean she wanted more responsibility, broadening. That's not what she wanted. She wanted much more vertically aligned, much more deeper in that area. And I didn't give it to her because I made an assumption. So of course she was going to leave because I didn't give her what she needed. Because in all honesty, Mario, I didn't ask the right questions. And we stop short and make assumptions as leaders because we're not asking the right questions. Entrepreneurs are notorious for this.

When do you ask that question now?

From the get go, even before somebody comes on board, I want to know about that person. I want to know what's important to that person. Even if you think about the interview process, right. We're, we're asked where we're told, we're cautioned. Don't ask too many personal questions. Bs, right? I want to know what makes them tick and what's important. And as long as I'm not using that to discriminate against them, right, I'm not going to do that. But it's important for me to understand what's important to them because I want to make sure that I can offer that to them so that in turn they're successful. Otherwise, in a year, they're done.

If that. Nowadays it seems like six months, three months. So let me ask you, how do you ask the personal questions without doing anything you're not supposed to, let's say, because I know there's rules in this and that, and I'm sure it depends on the business and different things, but at the end of the day, how do you handle that sensitive nature?

Mario, in your life, as you think about your job, your career and so forth, what are the top three things that are most important to you?

Faith, family.

Faith and family.

Defined. For me, when you think about from a career perspective and you talk about family, what's the most? How do you define that? How do you bridge family and your career together? What's important to you? What do you need to be able.

To do time with family away from career, but have the career fulfilling enough that.

I'm not a bump on the log when I'm talking to family in a drain to society because I hate what I do.

So how do you measure that from a week to week basis so that I understand the way your mind operates? Mario?

We have KPIs that we follow to say, hey, are we doing enough with lead gen, helping enough people? KPI's short answer.

But my point is, if I continue to ask these why questions through the interview process, you're going to start thinking about all those things that are important to you personally, professionally, whatever those key things that are, even though they're personal, you're going to bring them into the table. There's nothing that says I can't ask about them if it's important to you. Now, I'm not going to ask you how many kids do you have? You know, are you going to have any babies? I'm not going to do any of that. But I do want to understand how you define family because you brought it up and how, and what's important to you and what you need to make sure that blend is coming together. I can ask those questions as much as I want to uncover. And chances are, when I'm asking the question, you're going to uncover something about yourself as a candidate that you didn't know.

I already am. You're like, let's go deeper and deeper. I'm like, wait, I'm just going to ask the one question. Tell us the answer. No, it's cool. Do, do and say whatever you want. Seriously. I actually love doing this live.

So I get it. So the candidate or the person, the interviewee, prospect, whatever the case is, because would you say that whether it's a prospect or literally someone you're a new hire, it's kind of the same thing because it's like you're, you're literally just trying to figure out the person and so you can best help them, right?

If, if your Mindset is wired that way. And that's. This is an important distinction between a good leader who really builds teams, who the majority of them go in the right direction, and a leader who builds teams who, on the surface, seem like they're doing it, and then they fall apart. If we want the best for our teams, it will come out too often. What do we actually want as leaders? We only want the best from our teams. So the questions fall flat because they start to turn into questions to manipulate the other person. Mario, we have got to stay away from manipulation. If our intent is just to get from, we're in trouble. If our intent is to help get for so that in turn, the other person chooses to give their best at work. Now we're onto something. We don't want to manipulate performance. We want to create an influence so that people choose to perform. That's when teams are going into the right direction.

I like that. This is reminding me of one of the talks we had at the last mastermind in person. I went to.

Too many people are, like you said, they're just out to how much output can I get from them, how much activity and all that? And it's like their life could be in shambles. They're not gonna be. Their life could be in shambles or halfway or at any point. You have no clue. And if you never ask, you're like, why didn't you get the. You know, I'll just say, TPS report done. And it's like, my car was on fire. My husband this, my wife that, the kids that.

Yeah. Think about leadership with empathy goes along exactly to what you're saying. Look, we always have people that are not performing their best at a given time. Right? We. So we as a leader, we got to have the conversation. We have two options. We can go in and say, look, Mario, you're really sucking today. What the hell's going on? That's option A. Right? And I know I'm being a little.

That would be the direct approach, wouldn't it? But.

But there's another way to say, Mario, you know, your numbers are a bit off right now, man. I'm worried about you. What's going on?

How are you going to respond to that one versus the first one?

Probably better.

Most people will. So it's still leadership with some accountability, but with a little bit of empathy, because I truly care. If you truly care about the other person, it will come out that you care. If all you're trying to do is manipulate them into performing for you, it's Also going to come out if it's not genuine. If it's not, you know, the buzzword is authentic. It's going to come out really fast and people will smell a liar really quickly.

Yeah. Authenticity. Be vulnerable.

Tell the truth. We all screw up, man. All of us do.

I got a question.

Yeah.

So without that direct approach and without the. You said it real smooth the second time, but you also had that accountability. What if someone hypothetically does care so much so they don't really want to bring the thing up because it might be nerve wracking for the person they're talking to.

Yeah. So it is the fear of accountability that leaders have that they don't, that I'm going to hurt that person's feelings. This comes up all the time. And we've got to reprogram our minds about our view of accountability in these difficult conversations. Right. When I use the term accountability, or you used it earlier, Mario, what comes to mind? What's the first thing that pops into your mind?

Doing what you're supposed to.

Yeah.

Or doing what's expected.

Or if you're the leader, what comes to your mind?

You hear that term making sure everyone's on track and making sure you're leading and you're on track enough that you can be an example. Not just, you know, there's this picture that comes to mind where it's like boss and it's there on the throne, whipping everyone and it's like leader pulling with them.

Absolutely. Okay, so think about it this. So usually when.

Second one, I guess, is the answer for sure.

Usually when the term accountability comes up, there's this image of I gotta hold that person accountable. It's a consequence they didn't do it. So there's some accountability. So there's a fear that sets in. I'm going to hurt the other person's feelings. That's not the original intent of accountability. It was, I'm going to be really clear on the expectations. I'm going to support you, train you, help you get there. I'm going to follow up with you to ensure you're getting there. And then if something's off the rails, I'm going to do the. Because I care about you, I'm going to check in with you and say, hey, what's going on and what's wrong? If we change our perspective that it's the caring thing to do, not the mean thing to do. But in order to do that, we got to reprogram our minds on this whole thing. If we don't Reprogram. Our minds will continue to be fearful of the term accountability because we think consequence 90% of the time.

I got you. Yeah, that's definitely a reframing from what I think most people are saying out there.

You want to hear a great story of how I learned about accountability?

Of course.

So this is when I was a kid. I was. I was probably 10 years old, and my father taught me to cut the lawn. And you know, the kind of guys or gals.

My first business.

Mine too. So, you know, the people. And you probably did this, Mario. You cut it on one angle one week, the next angle the other week. So they're crisscrossing. You have the hash marks.

Yeah, it keeps it better and they don't get frayed and.

And the lawn looks great. So my father taught me how to cut the lawn that way and it looked, it looked great. So it looked so good when I was 10 or 11 that I started to cut the lawn of my neighbors and I was making a good amount of money as a 10, 11 year old. But there was one house right next door. Mr. Pete owned the house and he and his wife, they were older, 60s, they were retired, they just every day were in the yard. They had the best looking yard in the entire block. I mean, it looked pristine. Well, I noticed at some point that the yard wasn't looking so good any longer. So I went over and talked to Mr. Pete and his wife had died, and he just didn't have the energy to do it by himself. So I said, Mr. Pete, can I do this for you? He said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to show you exactly how my wife and I used to do it. Are you okay with that? So he showed me and I was really excited and I did exactly what he needed me to do for about three weeks. The fourth week I was playing used to cut his grass on Saturday. My buddies across the street wanted to play football. So I basically did a half butt job, ran across the street, started playing football. Well, that happened for three or four weeks in a row. So the yard wasn't looking as good as it should. Now, Mr. Pete's a wise old guy. He's dead now, unfortunately, but he was walking his dog across the street where we were playing football, and he says, steve, come on over here. I said, Mr. Pete, how are you? He said, great. How do you think the yard's looking? And I look across the street with him and I started bawling because I knew it didn't look good and I knew it was important to him. And he said, steve, go get a garbage bag and I'll help you clean up. Like I told you. I wouldn't. I'm like, you would do that? He said, yes. So I grabbed two garbage bags, we cleaned up that yard. Now think about the. The message that he left, right? He didn't call me out. He taught me a lesson. He came alongside. Do you ever think he had to hold me accountable again? No, never. Because. Not because he manipulated me into doing it. It was because I took the accountability to do it myself, and I took pride in it because he taught me what real accountability was. We need to do that in our workplaces.

How long does it usually take you to teach this and have. Well, you're obviously teaching it now and doing a great job. How long does it take for compliance? And if you're teaching it today to a team, how long do you. Does it usually take to see it integrated?

Okay, so let me use myself as an example first. It took me 16 years of doing it wrong to learn how to do it right, even after Mr. Pete taught me how to do it. Not proud of that fact. But if somebody, if a leadership team is truly committed to doing this, you can see the results of it within the first couple of engagements with your team member. It's almost immediate in terms of initial results. When you. If this is. If this approach or something like this, the guide approach versus the drive approach is what I call it, is contrary to your normal style, Mario. Your people will respond to it, and then they're going to wonder, who are you and what did Martians take the real you? And they're going to be skeptical. And then it's the. The effect is going to fall away for a bit, and you've got to be the one who's consistent until they see that consistency that you really give a crap that you actually care about them, then it starts to stick. It could be three months, it could be a year. It depends on the relationship you have with your team now.

Okay, so expecting it to be in a week or two or even a month or two, may or may not be the case.

May not. It could. It depends on how close you are, but it could be this instant gratification and then you go into the valley and then you don't see it. You don't see it come back for another two or three months. And you as the leader, have to remain consistent because you're retraining your team, because you're a different person at that point. If you're truly going down that path.

How much would you say the KPIs and SOPs play into this as a baseline or a guideline throughout the process?

KPI clarity of KPIs that actually they can own, in effect, matter. Let me explain. KPIs can work against you. If the KPI. If the KPI I give you, Mario, if you were, if you're, we're working together, you're on my team, whatever the case is, and I give you KPIs that you feel you can't control, you can't affect. Is that something that you're going to strive to achieve? Really?

Probably not.

Probably not. However, if together we develop some KPIs, even if there's a negotiation, even if we don't completely agree, but at the end we agree that you can impact, you have influence over the achieving those KPIs, will you feel a little bit more confident about those particular KPIs?

Absolutely.

Okay, so that's step one. Let's, let's at least have some clarity and a little bit of agreement that you can affect step number one. Step two, if we wait, let's say the KPIs are quarterly KPIs. I give them to you today, three months from now, we sit down and I say, Mario, you didn't hit your KPIs. Was that an effective use of the KPIs? No, but, but that's what we do. What's an effective use of the KPIs?

Maybe having weekly or monthly check ins to see are you even in the ballpark of if this is the goal, Are you anywhere near it?

Yeah, it's not micromanagement, but there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, checking in, what help do you need to get to move forward? Are you making the progress you thought you want you were going to make? Mario, what's in your way, what's not, what's working, what have you. What's not working? Why is it not working? What have you tried to overcome that? What was your result with that? All I'm doing is guiding you to achieve your KPI. That's the role of a leader. Not telling you what to do to achieve your KPI. That is not the role of, of a leader. That is the role of a dictator. And we use that as a guise for leadership.

What if you don't have the sops to back it up at that point.

In your that we need to talk through it because if we, if we lay out the what the KPIs are going to be. Do we know how we're going to achieve these KPIs? No, we have no frickin clue. All right, what have we tried thus far? We have no idea because they're brand new KPIs. Okay, what do you think we should try? I have no clue. Great. I've got a few suggestions. Do you want to hear them that might help us get there? Yes. Okay, let's.

How do you get those people to get. Take the initiative to say, hey, I have the ideas and they're not relying on the leader to just okay, where are the instructions? What do I do next?

So this is the guide versus drive conversation that I've mentioned a couple of times already. Most people are in the leader drives. I follow. This is where most people's mentality is, Mario, because we've conditioned it and then all of a sudden we say, hey, I'm gonna, I want them to decide. And we just think we can flip a switch and all of a sudden they're gonna decide. You can't do that. You have to recondition them by asking questions. And this is the wrong question. Right. And I kind of referenced it jokingly earlier. Well, Mario, what would you do? You come to me and you say, Steve, I don't know what I should do. And I, I say, well, what do you think you should do next? How frustrating is that?

Pretty frustrating.

I'm, for me, I pride myself on being able to, I have a figure it out mentality. So yeah, it would probably take a lot before I came to you because I could, well, one Google, try and figure it out, talk to people.

Like I don't. I would literally run the gamut unless it was an absolute like, hey, here. Or at the very least, here's where I got. I only have this little bit of uncertainty. Could you help fill it in? But when it's like there's nothing now what? Now what now what? Like I could be doing this myself.

Yeah, without question. So one of the frustrations that I was alluding to is when, when we ask somebody, when they come to us for help on it and we say, well, what, what do you, what do you think we should do? It frustrates people because they're coming to you for help. So this is kind of one side of that. It's the questions you ask. So the question is not what would you do? The question is, hey, based on where you are now with this particular situation, what's working, what isn't working, why do you think that's not working. What are the obstacles that are in your way? What have you done to overcome them? In other words, what have you tried thus far? Often you'll hear a, oh, crap. I haven't tried anything thus far. Well, then why are you coming to me for help? So it's not that we don't want to help them. We want to guide them to. We want to reprogram, recondition them to. To start. To start doing what you just said, coming to their own conclusion, trying all these things. Because most people don't do what you just described, Mario, because they were conditioned not to do that. If it's completely new, it's new KPI, Something we've never approached before, which is where we started the conversation. They may be afraid to try anything.

Okay, And.

And in that case, we need to give a little bit of leeway. And this is where I would provide some suggestions. Hey, you know, I get. We've never done this before. I got three ideas. Do any of these sound like something that might make sense? That. Look, try it, and if it doesn't work, we'll figure it out. Right? And then we have to at least make some suggestions. But what I would not do is say, here's the one way I want to try it. Go do it, and let's see what happens. Because now you're directing. You're giving them no ownership in the decision of a couple of different options. People want options to choose from, and when we don't give it to them, they never get to the point of making their own decisions. They assume you want to make the decision for them.

I just want to make sure I heard you, because you're speaking to me.

A whole lot, literally. Okay, so you're saying the one option you would not choose is like, here's the login. Here's the thing. Figure it out. Give them at least a few options and say, which would you prefer?

At least. Here's some ideas I have. What do you think?

Because then there's some rationality that has to happen. Mario. Look, I'm not sure what's the best way. Here's a couple of thoughts. What do you think?

Okay, I gotta take this a step further because this is like, real, not hypothetical. And that was today, too. So what if they. What if the person says, oh, okay, no problem. Do you want to have a meeting, send some instructions, or have a training video? And then maybe I just replied back with none of the above. It's not that hard. You can figure it out.

So what do you think? They felt on their side when you responded that way.

I don't know, they seemed happy. But now that you're talking, I'm like, oh, maybe I should give them an option and do whatever they're most excited about. But the reality is it's not that hard.

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not suggesting that we be, we just want to be. We want people to be complex. We just want to.

We want to just give them what they want. That's not what I'm suggesting at all.

It's about. So if what they came up with does not make any sense at all, I would probably ask the question, why would you suggest that we create a training video? Why would you suggest that we do it this way? Really understand what the rationale is? Because there might be some. What if there's something you're missing, Mario, that it is a little more complicated than what it is or what.

Which is very true. And Claudia, if that's the case, I just have to say I'm sorry. I'm learning here too. And I know for she's going to be doing the show notes for this, so like, there's no way. It's like, oh, I learned something. And like.

But the flip side is true too, Mario, where if ask after asking those questions, Claudia may say, hey, you know what? None of those are the right move. You're right. It's not that hard. Let me just go do it.

The best solution, I'm trying to not overcomplicate things. And it's literally a copy and paste of a license key from one software to the same thing.

So to do a full on training or a full on this, it's like.

You don't need to.

Yeah, yeah.

So now you've got me really curious. And I want to understand now the.

Other person why they she around you watching.

So, so clap. So if it's just a, literally a cut and paste, why, what precipitated the thought? Because now I'm really, I'll, I'll say.

This, knowing my business. The precedent is we have do have a lot of SOPs and training material and training videos for as much as we possibly can. So that way if there's a, you know, just a rough reference guide, like in six months, if it's something you don't do every single day, I, I, I use my own book for a guide. Everyone's like, what's the answer to this? I'm like, oh yeah, oh yeah. It was good stuff I wrote like two years ago. So having that reference Is like, it's useful, but at the same time, sometimes I'm like, okay, this is going to take 30 to 60 minutes of like three people's time to create this thing. That's probably going to take 15 minutes to just do once a year.

So then, so is that reference, because you guys do that all the time. Is it such a strong reference point in your organization, Mario, that it overshadows how simple it actually is?

I think. Is that a trick question? I'm not sure if I know it's a real question.

Is it, Is it that important? Right. Why? If it's.

I would like to have an SOP around it. I just don't want. I don't want to spend hours making it and having it. So it's going to take three, four, five years for it to have a ROI and pay off to have it as a reference when really it's a five minute training. Click, click, login, copy, paste.

Then why Claudia think that that should happen?

Probably just because up till this point, it's one of the only things I haven't had a training or a video for because some of them I made years ago.

So here's the reality of it. We don't know the answer to the question.

Okay?

The key is we need to ask the question as leaders.

I am so tempted to jump into our internal messaging and just message her. Be like, are you around? Can you answer us? That is very good though.

This is my point, right? It's. It's we, right?

You don't know. You're guessing.

We. We're guessing. Most of the time we're guessing. We're making assumptions based on. On perspective. And it's not that our assumption is wrong, sometimes it's really right. But how do we know?

April, I'm going to have more questions for you too. Steve's awesome. And.

I'm literally thinking of some of the people on my team and it's like.

Huh, I may have been wrong, but it still worked. Or I may have been right and I shouldn't have budged. I don't know. I'm learning every day myself.

We all are, Mario. We all are. And look, I'm not going to tell you that I do this perfect every time. I don't. But it's kind of like I refer back to my own teaching and everything. Like you said, your own book. It's like, I got to remember this stuff too, because sometimes it's not natural for us. We just want to get it done and move on. But that might be Short sighted at times where we can't teach long term the lesson we're trying to teach or uncover what we could have uncovered. It took us 20 seconds to uncover it.

Okay, so I have to ask because you said three, four, five good things and I can't wait to go to our own show Notes because you're like.

What have you tried so far? How, how well has it worked? You'd have like four or five questions in there which were phenomenal. Are those in your newest book?

They are. It's, it's called, it's called the Baker's Dozen.

Oh, there's more than four or five.

There's 13. There's 13.

Oh, I love that.

And they're not meant to be used perfectly. They're not meant to be used all the always, all the time. That's not what they're meant. It's. But the process behind the 13 questions, starting from what's working? Right. So the common question is what's not working? And all we do is heighten the negative emotion of the person when we're having dialogue and we catch them off guard when we say, hey, in this situation, what is working? And they got to think about it for a second and think of the positive, which sometimes minimizes the negative and gets the cobwebs out of our head for them to think more clearly about the negative. What's not working? Hey, Mario, why do you think that's not working? What do you feel is missing? What have you done? You know, what's the obstacle in the way? What have you done to overcome it? What was your result with that? Why do you think that was the result? Right. It's, it's taking the what do you think? And breaking it down into these, into a process that's taking you from positive to solutioning, where you're developing the solution and I'm just guiding you through the questions. That's it. Now, does it work 100% of the time? No, not meant to. But does it give you a structure to help your kids, your co worker, your spouse, your significant other to solve the problem for themselves instead of solving it for them? What go. What works longer? What's more important?

You know, one of the questions I came up with years ago, and it's mainly on the client side or when we're doing publishing audits and stuff, have you considered like, oh, you have a new website, you have a new book, you have a new podcast. Oh, what do you think of the COVID art? What do you think of this? What do you have you can, oh, I like this. You know, more, you know, the whole ABCD would have you considered. Because it's like, maybe you just haven't considered it. I don't want to say, well, you know, a lot of people, B looks better than A. Oh, why'd you come up with C? It's like, thanks, where's yours at? That's my thought on that. But it's like, literally I'm hearing a lot of that. Like, have you considered this? Because we're all different. And even when you were saying some of those, I'm like, well, we already got the new software and we already did a training on the new software. And it's like, maybe it's not a software thing, or maybe it is. So just knowing when to lean into stuff and when to take a step back and go, okay, I love that. What's working? What's not working?

Something you just kind of referenced is think about our perspectives. You and I can look at the exact same thing and have a completely different perspective on that exact same problem, Correct?

Absolutely.

Why?

Because we're different.

We have different life experiences. We have. You're much smarter than I am, so you're definitely going to solve problems a lot faster. Right? But. So we can't expect everybody to think about things exactly the way we think about things. By asking questions, we start to understand the, the other person's perspective on things. And sometimes by doing that, guess what happens? We learn something and actually start to change our own perspective because we didn't know all the info that they. Because they have a different view. Not necessarily more, but a different view. How powerful is that?

It's very powerful. Please tell me you have a checklist or some test that you give to everyone so you can get a good baseline other than like disc or Briggs, Myers or Myers. What those?

Well, I, I do value all of those. Like all the behavioral assessments I think are awesome, but I think you got to go further than that. But I do love those as another data point coming in. But what I look for is not just how they're naturally wired. I also look for of those competencies we look for, for organizations. So here's what, here's the mistake we make. I want somebody with these five competencies, just make them up, right? But what I didn't. What I don't know is if those true, if those five competencies, using real data, real statistics, they actually indicate or predict success in my company. What if, though, out of those five, two of them are negative predictors of success? So I keep hiring people based off of a competency that we think because it's on the job description in our mind, you got to have it to be successful, when in fact the data tells me that they're not successful. You, you gotta look at all that stuff. We get it wrong.

So, yeah, it's like resumes, oh, they look great on paper and then it's like, well, what do they do in like the field?

So sometimes it doesn't match up. Sometimes it does.

I, I've been in the search business and then the leadership side for 32 years. 30. Long time. Right. I prefer not to have a resume of a candidate.

Why?

Tell me more. This is fantastic. And they still have to ask you about meetings and a few other things.

So, so, so let's, let's think about it, right? If, if I have a resume, it's, it's going to direct my conversation a little bit. If I don't have a resume, I get to ask anything. And I want to truly understand the person and I want to see how they go without that resume in front of me. And I want to talk about results more than responsible for this, this, this, this, and this. I want to just have a conversation with somebody and not use that as a crutch. Candidates use it as a crutch. Leaders use it as a crutch. Have a fricking dialogue. I could care less about a resume that somebody paid somebody else 500 to make it look really good and stretch it so far using chat, GPT or some other thing that. It's bs. Anyways, stop with the insanity already.

That's my tirade.

That is awesome. I, I'm, I'm in agreement. I'm in agreement. Like, it's, it's cool to see what people do, but at the end of the day, it's like, it may be complete rubbish or it might be.

I want to see how you perform. I remember the analogy of like, let's grab lunch or let's grab dinner and just see how they treat the wait staff.

Like huge, huge.

How do you treat other people? Okay, so you're perfect over here. But what do you do when you have to work with a team? That's another thing. Like, you're great on your own, but you might not play friendly or whatever, get along with people.

Those, you know, that was obviously in the day before all this remote video stuff that we have today, which is a little harder to do, but there.

Was, doesn't play well with others.

Right. There was sound, even science behind some of those things because it would suggest that if you don't treat somebody in that environment well, you're probably not going to treat others well. Now is it a hundred percent? No. But is it indicative? Is it a. Is it a red flag that you need to really kind of dig in on? Yes, but it gave you enough information to dig in on it. Resume doesn't do that. Who, who purposely makes their resume look like crap? Mario?

No one.

It's a sales tool. It's what it is. Treat it like a sales tool.

What's your take on meetings?

Which meetings?

Company meetings. Let's have a discussion powwow. Like should you be having them? Should you not? And if so, how often?

That depends on the purpose. If you have no purpose for your meeting, stop having meetings. If there is a defined purpose. And it can be a few different things. So let's kind of nail this out. If it's to make a decision, have the meeting. But be very clear, this is what we're making the decision on. I need your input. We don't leave here until we make the decision or decide we need additional information. Because sometimes that's the case. Fine. There are times where there needs to be an informational meeting. We have a new benefits package coming out. We need to roll that out. That's okay. But if you find yourself having a meeting just because it's on the calendar and you're just going to do the same thing over and over and nobody's looking forward to it, why are you having that meeting? What's the purpose? To piss everybody off.

So most of the weekly check ins aren't required.

It depends on the purpose of it. Is the weekly check in. To actually check in with people based on they were struggling and there's a plan in place to help support them to be successful. And part of that plan was the follow up on a weekly basis to see where you can help. Because you're making decisions during those weekly meetings. Yes, there's. There is a rationale for that. Monthly one on ones or every 45 days if they're used for the right reasons so that people are not surprised about how they're performing. So that you're using them to actually dig deeper in the relationship and understand what drives them. There's a purpose behind it. Action is being taken. Have the meeting. If you're doing one of these one on ones where it's like, hey Mario, how you doing? What do you need? You don't need anything. Okay, great. Talk to you next month. Don't have the stupid meeting text or email. Huh? But it. Yeah, but part of the problem with leaders is they don't know how to have a one on one. So nobody looks forward to a one on one.

And would you agree that a lot of the typical meetings are people really aren't open and honest about stuff? Like, what do you think about this? Oh, yeah. Good, good, good. And everyone just agrees to appease the leader or boss.

There's no. Because there's zero relationship there.

Like why, why would you be open and honest with somebody that you really don't have trust, you haven't built any trust with because they haven't spent any time to build a relationship with you. There's no reason to. You're opening yourself up to potential negative anything. Right? I mean, you got to be careful with that. So I'd be cautious. I mean, I, I just tend to say anything to anybody. But. And I think you do too. But, but you know, if you're in the position where, you know, all of a sudden the CEO is coming in and CEO, he or she wants to spend some time with you, are you going to, are you going to just blurt out everything that you think is negative or are you going to say, oh, it's all great first time around. You're going to say it's all great because there's no relationship there. Most people, Most people.

Relationships matter in leadership. People will not put their trust in you if you don't try to develop a relationship with them in your personal life, in your business life, with your kids. I don't care who it is. It takes effort. And it's not 50. 50. That's crap. It's a hundred. A hundred. You've heard that before.

I like that I haven't heard it enough. And often it's 100.

100. Because sometimes I'm not given 100. My wife tells me that all the time. Sometimes she's not giving it a hundred. We have to fill in the gap for the other person. But just think when both are giving it a hundred. Think about that.

It's pretty much unstoppable, isn't it?

It is.

Wow.

Nothing you can't do in the corporate world and in your personal lives with your kids. Look, it's. I don't have it perfect. I, I am not preaching to the choir here. I am not saying that I got it all figured out. I, I know what should be done. I do it sometimes. But it's. It's hard to do it all the time, Mario. It is hard.

Okay. Now we're going to go to this because you brought it up when it is hard and you can't do it all the time because you're human and not a machine.

How do you get back to it and what do you do when you're, when you're having an off day or an off moment or just, you know, how do you still be the leader when you feel like you can't?

So two things will happen. One, I'm going to admit it to my team. I'm struggling today, guys, I need your help because I'm not in the right mind space today and I know you're going to feel it and others are going to feel it. Can you help pick me up on this one? Can you help with the rest of the team? Because I'm struggling today and usually I'll get the question around, hey, where are you struggling? Is there anything we can do? Is there anything we can do? For most of my team I've got that relationship with which is good.

Okay.

But, but sometimes I've got to, I've got to evaluate what I did after the fact. Right? I mean you, we, we tend, we tend to know our shortcomings because at some point in our lives somebody mentioned it to us. We don't become self aware until we've been told about that item. And, and I have a sense now because I was told previously how I can come across that time. So this energy that I have, sometimes I can use it for bad. Right? So as the day goes on, Mario, I will evaluate how I'm acting and I will evap. I will kind of pay attention to the experience and I will go back to the people during the day that I probably didn't react to the right way. And I will apologize because that's what a good leader does. It's not a weakness to apologize. It's a strength to admit that I screwed up. I didn't respond the way I should have to you and I'm sorry for it. You didn't deserve that. That's what builds respect between a leader and a team member. Because we all know we're not perfect.

Personal or professional.

Why do so many people have a problem struggle with apologizing just. Or admitting and apologizing.

Ego.

It's a hard thing to do. Look, and I'm not, I am not casting judgment on anybody for the majority. I'm 53 years old, Mario. For till I was 40 years old, I felt that admitting failure was a weakness. That was my ego talking till the time I was 40. From the time since I was 40 till now. I still have a tendency to be concerned about it. But I forced myself and it's become a lot easier that the ego's got to go away. People are people. People care about you when you admit that you're not perfect. And they will reciprocate. So. But it's, it's an ego thing. I think in most people who struggle with it, it's an ego thing which often comes across as a lack of confidence. But that's even an ego thing, in my opinion. I'm not a PhD. I'm not a psychologist.

I know we could go like 20 minutes deeper on just there.

I'm going to flip it back to the other side of the ego. Do you think that's where micromanagement comes from? Or control. Control freak or lack of SOPs or what? What's the cause for micromanagement? You touched on it early. You mentioned it earlier.

Yeah, I, I do think that. So I think there's various things that, that hit that some people are wired in a. In a natural way that they feel that the strength they bring is to be in control, that they influence people and circumstances and they don't know how to control it. So it comes across a bit of. It's a partial ego. But they're naturally wired and predisposed to that. That's part of it. Sometimes because they're not clear on what they expect from their team, they micromanage the activities that their team has to do because they don't know anything else. And so I think there's a number of different reasons that micromanagement comes in. And sometimes it's just their way of getting back at somebody. I only say that because I experienced it on Friday with a, with a leader that I'm doing a little coaching for. And literally he didn't even realize it. That he was micromanaging a member of his team because that team member pissed him off.

Really?

Yeah. Now, is it common? I don't think so. But it was obvious in that particular situation.

I wasn't even thinking of that scenario.

Yeah, that was his way of getting back at him.

Didn't even feel like a passive aggressive thing.

Yeah, it was subconscious. In his particular case, he wasn't. I believe he was not even thinking about it at that time.

Wow.

Yeah.

Crazy the way our minds work. We're all different.

It's reminding me of this meme that says my. My co workers told my boss I'm intimidating. So I stared at him till he Walked away.

I've seen something like that on Facebook a couple of times.

Oh, geez. I would. Thank you for sharing that. I wasn't even thinking about that. Rome. But when you said ego, and I go. He mentioned Microman. So. Because it's not narcissistic.

It's like, could that play in at times? I don't know. Maybe. I think it probably could, but. But I do.

I think the one that makes the most sense is when you say, new process, new this, and it's like, what are we doing? No clue. Yeah. Okay.

Wow.

You have so much. I know. We could go for. Like, I wouldn't even mind. You're fantastic. But.

So what I'm hearing a lot of is, guy don't drive. And when we get your new book, you got the Baker's dozen in there. I for sure want that. Because I was like, I gotta make sure we get these four or five. And you're like, no, there's even more. But don't use them verbatim all the time. They're just a framework and a guideline to ask the other stuff.

Yeah, anything that's in the book, which is based off of the journey and the principles that I've had over the last 13 years.

They're my experience, distilled in a way that I want people to take and apply it to their own lives in a way that makes sense to them. None of it is meant to be used. It's not like this is the only way to lead. There are principles that can be applied, I believe, to good leadership. But I think we've got to be careful about saying the only way to lead is in this box. I just don't think that's true because people are so different.

Okay.

I would have to agree. There's a whole variety of people. And would you. Is it safe to say, or would you say this is partially even, partially right, that knowing how to identify the person and yourself? Because if you're saying they don't all fit into a box, and the leader is like, we need to fit in this box. This is how we run things. Cool. But make sure you have the right people that like military. I love the military, but they're. They have ways of doing things, and it's like, you're not. It's not like a normal job position where it's like, oh, well, I don't want to do it that way. Oh, maybe we need to get this person additional training. It's like, no, this is the way to do it. And it's to save lives and, you know, order and everything. But would you say it's equally important to know yourself as much as the candidates? So that way it's the right culture fit.

Yeah, there's. There's a. A triangle that I use. It's kind of what I call the leadership triangle. And on the bottom of the triangle, it's the self awareness of the leader. It's getting to know your people. Before you can grow your people, all three of those have to happen. But if you don't have self awareness of who you are, it's going to be very difficult to connect with any of your people. And we, if we avoid that, it's going to cause us a lot of problems. The problem with self awareness, and I mentioned earlier, Mario, we don't become self aware on accident. We come, we become self aware when somebody says something to us and then we explore it. We become self aware when we go ask for feedback from people to understand how other people perceive us. That takes guts.

To ask for true feedback. That's a sign of a great leader.

Do you think most people are afraid of that? There's the fear of like, you're going to uncover me.

I was afraid of it for 40 years.

Okay.

I do think that's a fear of many leaders. Most. I don't know Benny for sure.

If I were to say the Johari's window. Are you familiar?

I'm not.

It's like what others see about. How. Oh, how others see you. What others see about you. The blind spot and what you don't see about you.

Yes. Now I know what you're talking about. Okay, that's critical. Critical, my friend.

Yeah. This is interesting. I wish we had more time. I got to ask you about the wheel or whatever. We got yellow and black here. Yellow or black?

Black.

Ooh, I like it.

All right. And when you were talking about, you know, why don't like the resume? Because you can ask whatever you want.

Same thing for the wheel or whatever. I was originally going to put like questions on it, but yeah. Didn't get that far. It just worked itself out. And I haven't changed in like four or five years. Um, so your question, as you could see because you got the black square for 500. Alex.

What is something you'd love to do that you haven't yet and that maybe you haven't even told anyone?

Something I'd love to do. I haven't yet and I haven't told anybody.

So surfing is something that I have never tried to do and I have watched it for years and years and years. And one day before I die, I will hit a big wave somewhere off the coast of California. And I hope I don't kill myself when I do it, but I will do it before I die.

That's awesome.

Yes. Have I surfed? There was a wave one time in.

The lake, but I mean.

I've watched it many times. I've had some cool experiences near the surfers, but I've never, you know, I've jumped out of an airplane, I've done the skydiving, but I've never done surfing.

Okay, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing it. Of course we are going to thank the sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author. Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody. I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation.

To work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back for the imperfect action round. Steve, are you ready to take imperfect action action?

Sure.

So the first question I have for you is what is the fastest path to the profits?

Get your people Moving in the same direction by actually giving a crap of what matters to them.

But don't expect it to be 100% agreed. Okay, cool. I did learn. See quick study number two. What is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Manipulating their people into trying to do what they want them to do. Actually take a step back and start influencing them, not manipulating them. The difference between influence and manipulation is intent. Mario.

I love that. Number three, what is the best way to maximize lifetime value?

Provide the greatest value they can find anywhere will create life. A greater lifetime value in that customer for you.

Very good. Being a publisher, I gotta ask about books. What are some great books you'd recommend that have helped you?

Well, everybody reads Good to Great by Collins. I mean you can't go anywhere without that. But I'm also a big fan of Become a Person of Influence by John Maxwell. I think if you haven't read that as a leader, you need to read it.

Excellent. Great recommendations. Where would you like people to learn more?

Go to steveloez.com or check out qualigence.com Q U A L I G E N C E.com Excellent.

I'll make sure those are on the show. Notes on eainterviews.com Steve, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for sharing all you have.

Glad to be here. Thanks for the invite Mario.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book. In eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly@eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.