09: Skip Weisman shares about Respect & Workplace Communication

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. And for this episode, we have Skip Weissman. Now, to give you a little background on Skip, Skip's a former professional baseball executive. who since 2002 has been working with small businesses with 6 to 60 employees to create championship leadership teams and company culture. So, thank you very much, Skip, for joining us.

Thank you for your interest in having me, Mike. Looking forward to the conversation.

Absolutely. So, let's dive right into it. How does respect play? So, you worked as an executive in baseball. Can you give people a little more background on what kind of an executive role you were in?

Yeah, it's interesting. Whenever people hear I spent time in professional baseball, they all think I was on the field as a ballplayer or Or managing or coaching or whatever. And what I tell people is my main job was to put butts in seats, keep the beer cold, and the bathrooms clean.

Alrighty, so you were on the facility— well, actually you're on attendance and facility side, it sounds like.

Yeah, I was basically the business manager, you know, for the team to again put butts in seats, sell tickets, sell sponsorships, sell advertising, and do all the crazy wacky promotions that people might experience when they go to the ballpark to make it a fun family All right.

So, let's dive right in. We're all about respect. How did respect play a role in that kind of— when you're in that role as an executive with Major League Baseball?

When I was a young leader, I made an awful lot of communication mistakes that caused a lot of disrespect in our work environment, caused negative workplace relationships that really caused me problems as an organizational leader. For, you know, building, you know, a team of employees that I needed to help get things done, right? And, and so what I realized was that I was creating my own problems with how I was communicating, coming across what other people thought was disrespectful to them. I didn't realize it because I was just doing my thing, communicating in my own way, right? And some of the feedback I got, some of the pushback I got Took a while for me to realize what was happening or not happening. And I realized in looking back that a lot of the way I was communicating was really causing a work environment that was not as steeped in respect as we probably needed to be.

So I think a lot of people can fall into that trap. So to help people understand, so they might realize, they might see the mirror in front of them, can you give some examples of where you look back and you go, hey, I was doing it This way, like a specific example of how you talk to someone? I don't know if that's what it was, but an example of that where you could have been more respectful.

Yeah, well, you know, especially from a leadership perspective, when I was leading my staffs— and we had small staffs, pretty much the same size that I work with now, anywhere from half a dozen people on up to maybe, I think, 12 or 15 was the size companies I worked with. But as a young organizational leader, I was sort of the boss. I liked being the boss. I liked being in charge, and I made a lot of unilateral decisions without really getting input and feedback from people as to whether how this affected them, what they thought, whether they thought it was a good idea or not. And, and that really rubbed people the wrong way because some of the key decisions I was making really impacted their jobs, their lives, or whatever. And, and so it really created some real angst and animosity among our staff. So to give you an example, we had a situation back in my early days where we were under the gun getting ready for our season. In minor league baseball, professional baseball where I was, what a lot of people don't understand is that we actually work during the offseason. We just don't show up on opening day and everything happens. A major part of our time is from October to March. Those 6 months in the offseason are really key. Because of some things that were going on in our community, we were not able to do a lot of our work in in the fall, and so we were under the gun. January 1st hit, we had 2 and a half months to get ready for our season, and we were under the gun. So I just made a decision that I was going to have the staff work basically from 8 to 6 instead of 9 to 5. Just expand the hours, make sure we were committed to getting things done. People didn't like that. I was expanding the required work hours because everybody was on salary. It wasn't an hourly wage thing, so we're making the same money for working extra hours.

So they're gaining 10 hours a week at least.

Yeah, and I basically dictated that. Well, that created a mutiny on my staff. My number 2 guy went over my head, tried to go to my boss to have that overturned. And although my boss supported me in the effort, it created some real issues with our relationship for the rest of the season.

Well, that's a great example. So do you find that you— how do you bring all the voices in respectfully and yet not have things out of control? You know, they always say, you know, too many leaders in the room. So, how do you find nowadays you learn that lesson? Hey, I don't want to be the dictator that's just running in there and saying, here's how it is. How do you find the right balance?

Well, I think what you have to do is you just have to be open to listening, right, and asking questions. And if you know something is going to impact somebody else in whatever way, At least get their input, allow them to express their opinion and be heard. And at the end of the day, obviously somebody has to make the end decision, right? But as long as somebody feels like they're heard, you've considered their opinion, you just haven't made a dictatorial, unilateral decision without getting input from people, I think most people will be okay with it. They may not agree with it. They may not like it. At least they will accept it and be more on board with it because at least they felt they were considered and their issues were considered. So I think what you just have to do is get input from everybody and take it under consideration, but then at the end of the day you have to make the decision. And I think if you do that and you're respectful of other people, show that you care about them, you're empathetic, and you do respect them as part of the team, and you respect their opinions, and you feed it back after that consideration, I think most people will be okay with it.

And do you find that it's better to seek all those opinions in a group setting, like a team discussion, like we're gonna have an open discussion on this, or do you find one-on-one is more powerful?

It depends on the dynamics and the relationships. I would primarily probably do it one-on-one initially. And what you can do one-on-one is then after you gain that data, per se, you bring people together and say, hey, this is what I've heard from everybody. Right, and you list those things out, you talk about them, say, this is what everybody's been saying, I really take it, I see your points here and there. And so everybody else can see what everybody else said, and then this is how I came to the decision, and this is why I've decided to go in this direction. So I would probably do it individually at first and then present it to the team in that way. It's probably the best way to go.

Yeah, I've— you learn over the years, and you don't know in your early years, same for me when I was a coach, is that when you put it out to the team, you're forgetting that not everybody has the same strength of self-esteem to share. So, what happens is you get the strong personalities really running the input, and there's people with brilliant ideas sitting behind them going, I'm not speaking up. But they're brilliant. And we think we heard everyone's voices. So, we think, I did my job. I said to everyone, what are you thinking? And only 2 spoke up. So, I did, you know, I took that.

Yeah.

That's the trap there, isn't it?

Yeah, and it's funny, when I've facilitated team sessions like you're talking about, my client is usually amazed at the end of the session. Boy, how'd you get everybody participating and sharing? Because usually I get 10% of the people, you know, control the meeting and everything. So, well, there's ways to do that. You know, what I do is I put people in groups, you know, put them in 2 or groups of 2 or 3 to discuss the issue. And people are a lot more forthcoming and comfortable in those small group discussions. And then if you do have people who are ordinarily outspoken and like to hear themselves talk or whatever, you can mitigate that by putting people in groups and letting the group share out so that it's not always the same people. There's ways to do that if you do it the right way and facilitate it.

Well, yeah, and a lot of people don't realize when they see a situation like that, typically what they do is they spread those people out. the outspoken, the strong. They— and let's say you have 10 groups, they put one in every group. And actually, the brilliant thing to do is stick them all together because only one can represent the group.

Yeah.

So, if you put all 5 of— let's say there's 5 of them and there's 10 groups, you put all 5 in one group, the other 9 groups have to come to the forward now with their own voices, with their own uniqueness. And that 5 is only represented by one. I assume that's what you're referring to, that technique.

Exactly right.

Yeah. So many people get that wrong in organizations, companies, and schools. They think, oh, I'll spread them out. Uh, that's your nightmare because then they once again are trying— if they have a personality that's trying to run the show, steamroll people, they have the ability to now.

Yeah. Yep, absolutely. They'll dominate if they— if given the chance.

Yeah. So how do you draw the voice out in that situation of the person who is more timid about speaking out? Because we want to respect them and we want to show that we do respect and value them and their contributions and their genius. They might not yet. That might be part of the reason they're quiet. I don't have anything to contribute, but they do if we ask them the right questions. How do you go about drawing that person out?

Yeah, again, I think it's about setting expectations. And a lot of— for a lot of those people, it's often preparation. So I think you can sort of grease the skids or whatever by helping them prepare a little bit in advance. Maybe give them some homework or prep work to come to the meeting with and set the expectation. I really want to hear from you. And so on the front end, do a little bit of homework. And probably, as you know, there's not enough of that. People just sort of show up at a meeting and expect people to participate. So I think if you go around to some of those people and really Express the fact that you want to hear from them. And I know it may take you a little more time to get your thoughts together, so I just want to give you some prep. This is what we'll be talking about, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on these, you know, 2 or 3 items. And come prepared to contribute in your group and then contribute to the bigger thing. So I think it may take a little more preparation for those people to feel comfortable with it.

If you're going one-to-one and you say, hey, I'd like you to take a look at this so they can contribute, Is there a risk that someone finds out? Well, let's see, do you need to do it with everyone? Like, do you need to give an assignment to everyone in that case? Because if you don't, it becomes clear some people are getting pinpointed.

Yeah, I think you have to be careful with that. I think it's about knowing your people, you know, and all. You know, most people that are— if they're that shy and that timid, they're probably not going to tell anybody that they've been tasked with that anyway. So the fact that it gets out may not happen. But yeah, I think there's always that concern. You want to be careful and make sure you're treating everybody equitably and all. But yeah, I think it's just something to be careful of and be aware of.

Skip, you specifically work on helping communication in those leadership teams and companies. What do you think are the 3 to 5 biggest mistakes you see? Because almost always it can somehow relate to respect when we look at these topics of communication. So, what do you see as the 3 to 5 most common errors that leaders or managers make? And then, by the way, you can include those who aren't leaders and managers, those who would be on the line.

Yeah. I've written a book called The 7 Deadliest Communication Sins and that just came out in April. And so, I outlined—

Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah, it's been a long time coming as most books are. And so, I identify the 7 but I've actually created a thing. that I identify as the 3 primary communication mistakes, and they really impact respect in a work environment. And the first one is a lack of specificity. And, you know, people really in a lot of organizations don't feel like they have enough information to do their job effectively. People are withholding information. There's a lack of transparency, just a lack of information. You know, sometimes, you know, I'm sure we've all had the situation where I've been in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time. Those Those type of things where we just have miscommunication. And a lot of the miscommunications are due to a lack of specificity. You know, I'm sure people listening to this have walked away from a conversation scratching their head saying, God, you know, Mike must think I'm a mind reader. And, and we allow that to happen. We don't push back. We don't ask for more information.

When you say that comment about Mike must think I'm a mind reader, are you referring to where people think, I don't understand what just went on there. He must think I understand, but I don't?

Exactly.

Okay.

And sometimes it's malicious. I'm withholding information because I want to throw you under the bus or make you look bad. Sometimes it's malicious. Most of the times it's not though. Most of the times it's just lazy communication habits. I assume you know this part of it that you need to know, but you don't. And because again, you had mentioned people's levels of self-esteem and self-confidence, depending on the dynamic of the relationship, I may not be comfortable pushing back or asking you for more information because that's now gonna make me look stupid. Mike thinks I know and I don't, but I'll figure it out on my own. And so we walk away without having the information we need to be successful.

Well, that's one, that's when you see in relationships, you talk to most couples and one or both of them can say, oh yeah, they just start talking in the middle of a conversation. Like we're in the middle of a conversation and it's taking me 2 minutes to figure out what they're referencing.

To get caught up.

To get caught up because they don't start with, here's what I'm referencing. They jump into where they are in their thought process. It can be very aggravating. When you're trying to understand and be there present for them.

Exactly, and that happens in the work environment as well. And some of it's good because we've worked together for so long, we just have this— we think we have this great rapport and we've done this together, so I just assume you know. And oftentimes we don't. We make those assumptions. And so that lack of specificity is probably number one. It really gets us into trouble. The second one is a lack of immediacy, urgency, and promptness. And that's a lot of words, but really what it means is we're just not following through in a timely manner. Right? Sometimes it's procrastination. Sometimes it's a difficult conversation. And since I may not feel comfortable with it, I will put it off. Right? I'll wait for the right time. And the right time never really comes. It never gets to the top of the priority. And so we're putting off these conversations that we need to have because they're difficult, they're challenging. May not have the relationship I need to have to have that conversation. I'm afraid of the response, all that stuff that goes into the mix. But if you think about what that does when we ultimately have to have the conversation because something has brought it to a level of immediacy or urgency or whatever, now I do have to address it. And now the person says, well, why didn't you tell me about this 2 weeks ago or 3 weeks ago?

Right.

And so that undermines respect between people because again, I think you're setting me up for failure or whatever it is. And so we have to— I think we need to be more diligent in our responsiveness. When I go into organizations and I ask them, okay, what are your biggest communication problems? One of the biggest things I hear all the time is responsiveness. People just don't respond anymore. And imagine what that does to a relationship, especially from a respect standpoint of I don't respond to you. You know, what message does that send? I don't care about you. I don't respect you. You're not important enough.

So we are seeing this more and more, especially in the 20s teenager generation where there's just no response.

Do you—

and I don't think it's a sign of disrespect, but it can definitely be read that way. It can definitely be understood that way. I think it's— I'm guessing here because I've seen it with you know, our, my own, within our own family. Uh, I think it's that that generation gets so much Instagram texts, so much that there's no way they're responding to everything. So then it becomes the norm to just, oh, there's another message. Versus we were raised in a time where if you got a message, it's important, you know?

Right.

So you're supposed to respond. Where they're like, it's one of 1,000 I got today. Why are you so uptight that I didn't respond to your message? I got 1,000 messages today. Do you think that's what's happening there?

I think it's a lot of it. And again, that sort of goes back to the reason why we have to add specificity to our communication to set the expectation. And so we may have to add a couple of words saying, you know, I need to know by 5 o'clock today, you know, and kind of push that response.

And letting them know that, hey, when I— I'm not going to text you unless I'm seeking a response. Right? That's that specificity. So if you get a text from me, I'm awaiting response. That means I'm looking for an answer to that. Otherwise, I'll wait till I see you, right? If you're a parent or somebody, or I'll email. But if I text you, I'm expecting a response.

And that's about specificity around expectations, right? We set the expectations for the relationship so I know what you expect from me in these certain situations. But again, we're not having those conversations oftentimes on the front end. We're just assuming I send a text, they know what it means. And when they don't, respond, that undermines the respect between the 2 people.

Yeah. The one's highly offended because you've— how dare you, right? That, that's what happens. And you get a— you literally get a battle over disrespect.

Exactly right. So then the 3rd one is a lack of directness and candor. Right. And we're not telling people, you know, what they need to hear. We're not saying what I need to say because again, the self-esteem and all that stuff, we're afraid of all the ramifications and the feedback or the pushback we're going to get or the response. And so we hold back and we're not as direct and candid as we need to be until it gets to such an egregious standpoint where I can't take it anymore and I'm just going to unload. And that's where the disrespect comes from there. And so when you put these 3 together— lack of specificity, lack of immediacy, urgency, and promptness, and the lack of directness and candor— that really creates a problem. And so we need to create relationships where we can be direct and candid with people. And, you know, we are responding more immediately or more promptly with somebody, and we're specific about it. And I— what happens is, what I've found in working with organizations, you— when you communicate that way, it creates a high-respect environment.

Right.

I know what's expected of me. We're specific around these things. If somebody sends me something, I respond in that time period of expectation that we've agreed on because of the specificity. And so over time, we build up clarity between people to what expectations are. We respond quicker. And, you know, if people are responding quickly to each other, what does that say about our relationship? We have respect between each other, right? I trust you. I respect you. And so, that's how you build higher levels of respect by being more specific, gaining clarity, creating a higher trust relationship, and just responding to people creates greater levels of respect.

And do you find that the fear here that holds these back from happening more often, that all 3 is taking place, is that fear of the last one? People's fear of being direct is what leads to 2 and 1 occurring, right? Because then, I don't want to hurt someone's feelings or I don't want to— So then I'm not going to say what I'm supposed to say. So therefore I'm not direct. Now we have a misunderstanding of expectations. So now we're getting back into 2 and 1, right? Isn't that— it all can happen from that one fear.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So you need a leader that can show, hey, you can say things to me that are critical and I will not flip out. Because if you see that from the leadership, then you can start to feel more trusting. But if you say something to the leader and they flip, you're like, I ain't saying that again. Every kid learns that as a child, right? I said that and my parent had this reaction. I'm not saying those things anymore. I don't care how they tell me to be honest. That didn't pay off.

Exactly. And we learned that, you know, from a very early age. And, and so we, we hold back. And, you know, if you take it to the, you know, to the, to the next level, really, you know, if you have a high-respect relationship with somebody, you can pretty much say anything to them as long as you do it in the right The right manner, right? Because I know that you're communicating with me for my best interest, and I trust that, and I respect you for that. The challenge is— and I just had a conversation with a prospective client this morning, you know, telling me, you know, what happens is we try to dive into these conversations, and maybe we do have a direct and candid conversation with somebody, but the relationship isn't there. We don't have the trust and the respect of them, and so we take it— they take it the wrong way.

Right.

I don't know that you have my best interests in mind. The way you're phrasing this and what you've done in the past to me or to others I've seen, you know, tells me you have your own agenda behind it. And so I don't trust you. But I have to have that conversation, so I do, and it goes bad. What I tell people is you really need to look at the relationship first before you try to dive into these conversations. You know, maybe you need to work on the relationship first, build trust and respect with them, and Before you try to dive into these really difficult conversations.

Yeah. So, there's a little patience needed there.

Yeah. But because we let it go for so long, I don't have time to do that now. Now, it's an urgency.

Right.

It's a fire. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Skip, you described early on in our interview that the errors you made and then you learned. What was that wake-up call for you? What was that defining moment where you realized, whoa, I can't be doing this anymore this way?

My wife said she wanted out of our marriage. And I realized I was making these mistakes in my personal life and my professional life. We weren't able to save the marriage, which at the end of the day was probably good for both of us. We needed to be separate. But the process of disillusioning, dissolving that relationship between the couples counseling, the individual counseling, and some other executive coaching that I got Just opened my eyes to how I was communicating and it was causing all my problems.

Well, that— I appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability there because a lot of people wouldn't go there. But I mean, those are the moments where we go, where have I gotten to where I am today? Right. And so I can, I can see where that would provoke, wow, how'd this happen to here? What's neat is you were able to catch it. Yeah.

And you know, the sad thing for me or good thing for me is if she didn't step up and say it, I probably never would have would have, and we would have been going through this dance for, you know, God knows how long after that. The interesting thing that brought that to a head is we actually worked together for the last team, baseball team I worked together. She was our business manager.

So she saw it on both fronts.

Yeah, we were working together for those couple of years, and that brought it to a head, I think, sooner than it would have otherwise. So, you know, you can look at it as a blessing, you know.

Right. No, right. There's, there's reasons The things happen, right? We learn from those lessons. So I think that's powerful that you're willing to share that. I absolutely appreciate that. We're getting towards the end here at the end of you. What does respect mean to you? Right? Because you've taken this journey now of where you were and then have it to have that very difficult moment in life to have that awakening, uh, to where you are today. So what does it mean to you when, when someone says respect?

To me, it means seeing the other person as a human being and not as an object. You know, I think so many of us look at the other person as some type of means to an end or an object. And, you know, if you're talking about dating, you know, and dating safe, you know, how do you view that, that partner that you're on a date with, right? Are they just an object to get something? Or is your colleague in the cubicle next to you just, you know, an obstacle, you know, for you to jump over to get to that next promotion or whatever? I think just seeing each person as a human being that has the same stresses, the same frustrations, the same angst that you have, and just being empathetic towards that and trying to find that common— that common ground. You know, just to close it out, the story from the very beginning where that guy went over my head, right? I could have very easily just you know, blown through him and didn't care about him, didn't respect him anymore. But I realized again, he was teaching me. He taught me a lesson. He was, he was a couple years younger than me, and it was a difficult season. But after the season, we were able to work it out, and we worked through some things. And 2 years later, he referred me to his boss because he went to work for another ballclub, the owner of the team, and he referred me in. He got me a higher-level job with his boss, with his owner. Uh, and, and so we were able to maintain that relationship. We're still friends on Facebook, you know, 25 years later. So.

That's awesome. Now, in addition to your book, which is Seven Deadliest Communication Sins, and we'll have the link to that on our show site and in our show notes, what's another book that's had massive impact on your life?

Interestingly, that individual I just told you about, when I was 26, 28 years old, I guess, gave me a book called The Road Less Traveled. And that was the first sort of self-help book, you know, that I ever read, and it was really impactful on my life. The first line— I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. M. Scott Peck is the author. He wrote another book called Further Along: The Road Less Traveled. But that book, The Road Less Traveled, is probably 50 years old. You know, the first line in that book changed my life, which is, life is difficult.

Right.

And once you understand that and you accept that life is difficult, It no longer becomes difficult because you're not resisting that, right?

And you're not feeling guilty over feeling bad.

Yeah, yeah. And you can accept and say, okay, life is supposed to be difficult. Let me figure out how to work through it, right? Because most of the challenges we find is we're resisting that type of stuff. I want it to be better or different, and so we fight it. It shouldn't be this way. No, if you expect it, that should be this way, you can work, you know, work through it. Now I'm all about positive, you know, mindset and everything, but I think just by understanding that life is supposed to be a challenge, let's figure out how to meet it as opposed to just fight it and resist it. I've loved that book for 40 or 50 years. I've probably read it half a dozen times. That would be the big one, The Road Less Traveled.

I want to thank you for joining us. That's awesome. You've been fantastic, Skip. So insightful, so much great information. For our listeners, I want them to know how to get a hold of you. That's yourchampionshipcompany.com is your website.

Yes.

And of course, you have the book, 7 Deadliest Communication Sins. So, thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Mike. It's been a pleasure.

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