Why Safe Teams Fail—and How to Lead for Real Innovation | Stephanie Chung | 665

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Stephanie Chung. She is the author of How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You, and she'll give you a couple of their highlights from her bio here. She's a bestselling author. She's a force of strategic innovation. A beacon of change and a titan in the world of business growth. She's a pioneering woman of color in the aviation sector. She's an author and a lot of other interesting things. So welcome aboard today, Stephanie.

Well, thank you for having me, Peter. I'm very excited for our conversation.

Me too. So give me the short version of, you know, stellar career in aviation. To thought leader? Because it sounds like somebody, you know, made a hard right turn or left turn or whatever. I don't, I don't, how did we get here?

Yeah. Yeah. So great question, by the way. Absolutely spent most of my career in aviation. I've been in aviation for about 40 years. And, and so what started happening is I started to get a lot of inquiry to speak on things that were aviation, you know, not aviation related from other industries. And that's really how the snowball effect started off. And, you know, at the end of the day, aviation's such a big industry and it pretty much affects everyone, but we're a very unique industry because we have zero tolerance for mistakes, right? And so we, we have a very unique type of industry. And, and what I have found is other industries really can glean a lot from our industry because we, everything is such high stakes and, and the differentiator is really the customer experience. So.

Got it. So how does it get from that to authorship and your take? 'Cause you and I had a, a couple of great calls about leading people who are not like you, 'cause it's such a well-framed thought as opposed to, you know, DEI's gotten politicized and all this other craziness. But tell me, how did you get to this as, as a, as a platform?

Absolutely. So when I came from private aviation, there was very few people, like, like literally, honestly, as I was coming through the ranks, there was really no one that looked like me, uh, that I came across, uh, often. And so from a perspective of when I looked at all the different books that were out there and it was time for me to, you know, write a book, I felt like the books, honestly, Peter, needed to go deeper and wider because the books that I saw out there were really geared more towards men and specifically white men trying to share with them, here's how you lead women or people of color. And though that's good, right? But I felt like, well, this needs to go much deeper and wider because here I was a leader in an industry that, that, you know, not a lot of people looked like me, thought like me, had my same type of background, and I was leading teams that of people who were not like me. And so therefore it's like, well, where's my book? Like, I want a book. I want that book, right? And, uh, and there really wasn't one. And so I decided to create one because with everything going on, and you and I have talked about this, we've got 6 generations at work. So all the intergenerational stuff I think is, uh, really having, uh, leaders pull their hair out. Right? Yeah.

So, so stay there. So, so that's one, not like me. I'm age and there are people above, below me, sideways, whatever, from different generations. That's one sort of perspective.

That's right. And then you have— yeah, it touches everything. Then you have women, right? So women are now the majority of the country's population. So we see things differently. We think differently. We communicate differently. So that is a different dimension. Then you have people in the LGBTQ+ community, or you have people with different abilities, um, you know, physical abilities, or you have neurodiversity and you have all the ethnic demographics, right? So I just felt like we needed to go much broader and much deeper. And then this is not a DEI book, it's a leadership book because all of us in leadership are leading people who are not like us. And so how do you do it? And my experience is I've always led people who were not like me. And so here's the tools that I use to be able to be successful and still have a team that thrives. And so I wrote a book to help other leaders, to hopefully give them some tools and, and kind of, uh, lift the burden, if you will, of trying to figure it out on your own.

Part of the gauntlet that you throw down actually is it forces people to think like, wait a minute, if I'm sitting here on a team, everybody looks like me or acts like me or thinks like me or whatever, whatever, that's probably not good. 'Cause not all of my clients look like me and not all of the market looks like, like, and not all of the talent looks like me. So I think to, it's, it's, it's sort of a nice way of saying, Hey, look around the room. If it's, as my British friends would say, you know, pale male and stale, or people of one, you know, we all graduated MIT and are very technical, whatever it is, it's not a traditional definition piece. It's probably not good for the optimization of the team, for the business outcome, for the goals, for the way we serve clients and the, and, and the way we grow. Right. And that's really the issue, right?

Yeah. That's the issue. Because if you have people who, now here's what's really interesting. I'll take it even one step further. There are times that you, because if people just put it into a, let's just use diversity or gender, right? Those usually people think of it as a male, female, or a race type of thing. And if you do that, you're minimizing the impact because you could have, I could actually hire someone who does look like me and we still have a completely different thought process, right? Because we have, you know, we have different experiences, different backgrounds, et cetera. And so what I never want people to do is to feel, Peter, that, oh, okay, well, it's gotta be just a race thing. No, no, no. You can easily, as a leader, fall into a trap of your whole team may visually look different, but they're very much like you, right? And that's just as dangerous because now you have a team that's functioning too safe. And that's not— safe teams don't innovate, right? Safe teams barely perform, you know?

Wait, equity roosterverse could be the, like me, we're all risk-averse and take the safe play and all that, and that means somebody else is gonna out-innovate you and out-compete with you. So I want to sort of segue pivot now into, okay, so that's the platform. Who are you serving and what does that look like? Right? Yeah. Now it's the next thing is to not necessarily find a market for you, what you've got, but figure out how to serve the market that you'd like to serve. So what are the markets that you're serving? Because I'm assuming it's not strictly aviation.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. And so now, you know, going back to your original question, how did I go from one to, you know, from an executive to a thought leader? It really was because other industries were asking for me to speak. So now to your point, this isn't just an aviation issue. This is an everybody issue, right? We're, we're all in this together. And so, so when you think about the client that I serve, it's really leaders. I mean, my passion is to truly help leaders. I, I always consider myself to be, you You know, you're ally in leadership. How do we help?

Wait a minute. How are you defining, because let me just pause there for a moment because I think there's this, I have a definition, a vision in my head of when you say leader, but then, you know, when you actually look at the literature that's out there in leadership on one end of the continuum, it says, well, everybody's a leader. You lead yourself. And I kind of say, mm, nah, that, right? And then on the other side, it's obviously C-suite. You're responsible for a budget. You have people reporting to you, whatever. So I just wanna make sure we're, because that term has gotten so amorphous when it really shouldn't be. How are you defining it? Which is—

Yeah, absolutely. So when I think of leadership, I think if you actually are leading people, right? Like there is somebody that you're responsible for. Now, I don't disagree that, you know, sometimes you can be a leader and not be leading people. So you've got a lot of influence and whatnot. But for the sake of this conversation, I'm really looking at those who are overseeing people and responsible for, for them and whatnot. The other thing that's worth mentioning is, and you know this 'cause you and I have talked about this a couple times, but ALLI is an acronym. So, and, and it goes further, you know, I don't think DEI, I think ROI, right? So ALLI stands for Ask, Listen, Learn, You Take Action. And that's really what I'm trying to convey in this book is that with all the different dynamics happening in the workforce, that people who were responsible for overseeing teams, they're going to have to truly understand all the different dynamics. 'Cause we all talk about having a team that doesn't look alike, think alike, you know, communicate alike. But what we don't talk about, Peter, is how hard that is to actually lead, which means your average leader has to level up because it's easy to lead people who think exactly like you. It's very, very challenging to lead people who don't think like you, right? Don't see the world the way that you see it, et cetera.

If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. Forward slash podcast. So square that against, you know, if we were to look at some of the greatest bodies of work, the greatest thought leadership and leadership in the last, pick a number, 20 years, 50 years, whatever.

How old do you think I am, Peter?

No, well, you work with back in history, right?

We, we, this is true. Okay. Right.

But if we were to look at some of those things, it really talks about here's the attributes of a good leader. Be a good communicator, set expectations, assign people tasks that are aligned with their strength. Look, they're universal. I don't actually recall in there it says asterisk, but everybody's different in a little bit of a way and all that. Now there's social styles and some other stuff. So I think part of what you're adding to the lexicon is this lens to look through because even just something as setting expectations. With people that are not like me, that can be different, right? I'm, I'm East Coast New York. Like, it would be offensive if, if I was down south, bless their little hearts, and didn't spend 9 minutes asking about their family, their sweet tea, their weekend, and grandma's biscuit recipe, right? Like, right? You've been there, done that, right?

Like, 100%. Audience can't see I'm cracking up. Yeah, 100%. Right.

I totally agree. Now somebody else might, you know, that appreciates a director of lunchtime. I'd say, thank God you didn't waste my time with all that Monday morning, how was your weekend? Uh, you know, whatever. It's like, okay, here's what I need from you. Here's what I expected. And here's what I expected by. Thanks, boss. Yes. Right. So is that kind of where you're going?

Well, yes and no. Right. So even further, because to, that's, that's one form, right? So you're talking about communication and I completely agree with you, especially as a person coming from the Northeast.

Oh yeah.

I do 100% agree with you. That, you know, sometimes we can just be super direct and maybe that's not always a good thing, but that's how we, that's how we, that's how we survive the Northeast, right? But, um, but with that said, there's communication style, but then there's so many other styles as well, right? And other things. So really what I'm challenging leaders to really think about is the, not just the obvious, because that's what we hear a lot of noise on the obvious, like race, gender, sexual orientation. Those are the obvious, right? But then there go, it does go a little bit deeper and just how do you think about things differently? How do you communicate? And so what I really want leaders to just realize is with, and, and you know what, by, by the way, Peter, we are really dealing with this now with the intergenerational stuff, right? The reason why leaders are just like, holy cow, is because you may have someone that looks exactly like you, has the same schooling as you, but maybe they're a different age. And so maybe now their work ethic isn't like you, or the how they see work may be different than how you see it. So it is just really, uh, my goal is to just have leaders to realize like, listen, it's not you, you're right, or you're bad, or you failed, or you're stuck, or none of that stuff. It is all of us are in this same place together. And we all have to realize like, okay, there is nobody just like me. And so I've got to figure out how to communicate and, and get the best out of these folks, right? Though I may not understand, but if I come in with a head and heart issue of truly trying to understand, right? And that's why you gotta ask, listen, learn, and then take action. Then half the battle's over. But listen, you and I are probably the same age, Peter, and we kind of grew up in leadership, which was, I don't need you to understand. I just need you to do what I said. Right? Yeah.

That's the stuff at the door. So two things, quick public service announcement. Mm-hmm. You are from the South. You might wanna listen to this episode at like 0.75 speed between the two of us. Just saying.

Just saying.

Um, there goes the fan mail. And then the second is, so what does it, so I love the idea is tell, let's, let's dive into the business. So yeah. Who's actually paying you to do what? What does that look like? What does an engagement look like?

Sure. So most of my, you know, for me, my real number one revenue source is speaking. So I'm a keynote speaker and that's where I spend a majority of my time. However, as you know, some of the things that have happened because of the book, and I'm super grateful for this. Is that now all of a sudden people are going, well, hold on, Nick, you should— this book needs to be a movement because again, we're all dealing with it, right? It's, uh, just in very interesting right now to be a leader. And so that now we are in that process to go, okay, now let's look at what would this look like from a corporate perspective? And what is it that, you know, we can add value? There's a lot of trainings out there, but to your point, Peter Winick, where we believe that our niche is very unique. Is to really say that we're not talking about, I'm not talking DEI. This is not a DEI book at all. It is an ROI book. The best teams that think differently, communicate differently, like all the research is out there. None of us have to talk about how diverse teams and diverse, you know, defined a lot of different ways, are just simply better, right? They just outperform traditional teams. But what we don't talk about is, but that's hard sometimes to actually lead. And so how do you do that? And that's where really where I'm focused is there's no, good or bad, which I think, yeah, I think that, um, I think that's been a little bit of a challenge out there is people feel guilty or feel like all the pressure's on them. And I'm, I'm not that person. I like, we all have to figure this out.

So my experience is that, you know, keynoting's great. Obviously you're good. You've got the energy, you've got the, you're good at it. You could, you light up a room, all that sort of stuff. However, on the other side of that, it does very little to change behaviors that drive business outcomes. And that's, that's not a ding on you. That's just, hey, you're flying me in from Mars to land in your company for 45 minutes, do a thing, get some applause, and then I'm outta there, right?

Yeah.

So for sure. What it does is it stimulates interest. Mm-hmm. It stimulates intrigue. It says, tell me more. But then ultimately, if we, the organizations and the thought leader, don't provide people with something, the tools, a roadmap, something. Then they might nod and go, yeah, that speaker, that's really interesting. And I agree with what she said, but now I'm back in the a— what do I do first? What do I do at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday? And give me the answer to that. So to me, yeah, I think there's opportunity from an organizational perspective to say, how do we get the organization to embrace this? Models, methods, language definitions, those are important, right?

Yeah. 100%.

I was thinking about and getting ready for today. Even just the framing of, it's one thing for someone to say to me, Peter, you're blunt and direct and that's, you're annoying. Like, that's like, what is wrong with you? Versus, hey, your style is not like mine. Like, okay, now we neutralize I'm a jerk and you're not, or vice versa. Hey, it's all different styles. I come from this, or I'm of this generation, and when you do X, I receive that as Y. Is that your intent? Or something like that.

Like, right.

Really valuable. 'Cause then what we want is to have. Hundreds of those conversations to be happening almost on a daily basis in the organization. But that's a product roadmap piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And, you know, and, and I love everything that you just said. And even, you know, what I would say also in addition to that, right, is, and you've heard me say this before, so much of this is a head and heart issue. Yeah. Because there's the techniques, right, of do this, do that. We don't communicate the same. You're, you know, you're straightforward. Maybe I'm, uh, from the South since you picked on them. And so now how do we, how do we get on the same page, right? That's one thing. But the other thing that I'm actually wanting to do with the, through the Ally Leadership Model is really to go even deeper because I want people to realize it is truly a head, do this, do this, this, and a heart, right? And that's the piece that's a little bit trickier because if you start with the heart issue of like, listen, I don't know anything about your back. I don't know. I, let's say I've never been to the Northeast, right? For an example. I don't know what, what I don't know. And so if I don't know and I just think Peter's a jerk, using your words, then that, that's gonna, no matter what steps you tell me to do, it still doesn't change the fact that I think Peter's a jerk, right? But if I look at it and go, wait a minute, Peter's not trying to be overly aggressive or sort of, that's just kind of where he came from and et cetera, et cetera. Now all of a sudden I realize like, okay, well wait, now it's It just changes my mindset. So now everything else that you're gonna tell me or train me on, I can now receive it because I'm no longer looking at, oh, well, Peter's this. I'm just kind of like, oh, okay, wait, that's just how it functions in the Northeast, assuming I've ever been there, right? So it really is a head and heart issue. And here's, here's why this is important is when people come from, if they come from that perspective, a lot of times what happens is a lot of leaders, especially again, you and I around the same age. Some leaders are just so nervous to make a mistake because unfortunately, if they've made a hiccup or made a mistake, people just socially slaughter them out there. And so therefore they are like scared straight, but just don't say anything in fear of saying the wrong thing. What I want people to realize is just assume on the front end, you're going to say the wrong thing. So apologize in advance.

It's not if, it's when. It's when. And even it could be, you know, how many times this week did I do that? Like you do a self-reflection and an audit. 'Cause it's not like the one time you said the one horrible thing and the—

That's right.

You know, um, uh, the, you know, the story that stands out, it's, it's almost the reverse of a microaggression. What are some nuanced things that you did that you could have done better as a leader? This has been, um, Very cool. Very awesome. I appreciate it.

I always love seeing you, Peter. It's always a good time. Good stuff.

I appreciate the story and, and the candor and, uh, the energy. Thank you so much, Stephanie.

Thank you for having me. Bye-bye now.

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