Creative on Purpose Live - Wayne Applewhite

And please fasten your seatbelts, put your tray in the upright position. It says we're live. Check your pulse. I feel alive. Welcome everyone to Creative on Purpose Live. To learn more about Creative on Purpose, visit creativeonpurpose.com and get going with the difference only you can make.

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Let's see. If you're ready to start living your legacy, visit creativeonpurpose.com and join us in the Creative Difference Maker Challenge. Now remember, this broadcast is also an iTunes podcast. You can check it out, leave a 5-star review. 30 seconds of your generosity helps spread the goodness delivered by my guests. Let's get to today's show. Welcome to Creative on Purpose Live. These conversations are about flying higher and the difference only you can make. Endeavor better. It's time to be creative on purpose. Are you ready? Let's go. I'm your host, Scott Perry, author of Onward and Difference Maker Coach at Akimba Workshops and Creative on Purpose. Don't die with the difference only you can make. Still Inside. Visit creativeonpurpose.com to learn how to start living your legacy today. This season, we're drawing insight and inspiration from guests who are successfully embracing uncertainty, navigating adversity, and making things better, doing work that matters. Let's meet today's guest. Wayne, welcome to the broadcast. Please tell our viewers who you are, what you're up to these days, and where we can connect to learn more.

Scott, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate this, this opportunity. I'm Wayne Applewhite, and as I mentioned As a matter of fact, Jennifer Millius and myself, a friend and co-author, we have just written a book. It's just published on the 16th of this month. You know, it's a verb, right? And basically, I'm, I am an ex-military guy. I'm an ex-college professor. I'm an ex-a lot of things. And, and writing is what we do now. I also had a podcast. So I'm an ex-podcast host. And we, I gave all of that up to do, you know, it's a verb, right? You can reach me at mindsyncing.com. And I will leave it at that.

Fantastic. Well, we, we had, we had Jen on the show a little bit ago, maybe just at the beginning of the year, I believe. And just for the viewers that might not have caught that broadcast, can you tell us a little bit about what the book is for, who the book is for, and the transformation that's on offer through the book.

Yes. The book is, the book is based on leadership. And I taught leadership for 14, about 14, 15 years for Boston University at their Metropolitan campus. And we have put together a book. As a matter of fact, if someone would go to amazon.com and look at our, find our book, there is a review there by a gentleman by the name of Darryl, and he caps— he, in a nutshell, says exactly what this book is. But I'll tell you a little bit. It's about leadership. As I said, I taught leadership for 14 years, and I was tired of looking at all those textbooks that have all this stuff in there about on the fringes of leadership. We wrote a book that's very simple. It has simple concepts. It's got anecdotal stories, experiences that we've witnessed. Or experienced ourselves, and it makes leadership easy. It's for individuals who are just starting out in their leadership career, and it helps them to self— have self-efficacy in the leadership position. It also is for individuals who are in leadership positions now and find themselves struggling because they maybe didn't have that mentorship that a lot of people get as to how to be a good leader. And so this book will help them navigate that leadership journey, if you will. And it makes it easy and simple. It's a fast read. It's not a textbook. We love it. Yeah.

One of the things I love to do when people— so leadership is just, it's one of those terms we use it all the time. And I'm just always curious about, like, defining terms and kind of getting to first principles. So how are you defining leadership in the book? And And you mentioned the idea of, you know, being a good leader. So what, what is leadership? And how does— what differentiates a good leader from a bad leader?

OK. First question you said was, how do we define leadership? We have defined leadership. And actually, that's Chapter 30. We didn't start this book with the definition. We started this with the simple concepts and the essence the tenets of leadership, if you will. And we opted to put the definition in the back because, Scott, I'm sure you have, just like myself and everyone else and your listeners today, we have all looked up leadership at some point in time in the dictionary. And I don't care which one you go to, it says, ah, leadership, to lead. Well, what does that mean? And so we put that in here. And you know it's a verb, right? We're talking about lead, 'cause lead is the verb, not leadership itself, but lead is the verb. And so the definition is written, I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but the background of the book has all of these words. It's listen, think, respect, act, do, decide, defend, influence, motivate, punish, congratulate, promote. It's all of those things. So I will leave it to individuals to read the book to find out what we say leadership is, but it's all of that. And it's difficult. What separates a good leader from a bad leader? On my site, themindsyncing.com, I have a discussion on our Facebook group. I've asked those same questions to the readers. They have come back and said, hey, a good leader communicates, a good leader listens, a good leader surrounds themselves with smart people and does not surround themselves with yes people because you need to have someone to say no. One of my thoughts is that no one is smarter than everyone else in the room. I don't care who you are. If you have a diverse audience, Someone somewhere has a better perspective than what you might want to encapsulate this idea or this concept. And from there, the room can grow and we can make things better. What makes a bad leader? Micromanagement. Just simple, simple as that. Micromanagement. If somebody has to have their hands in everything, if someone thinks that, oh, you're not doing it correctly because that's not how I would do it. That's not necessarily a good leader, and that's not necessarily one that you would want to follow all the time, because that'd be very, it'd be very tiresome. Every time you turn around, this guy or this lady is second-guessing you. Oh, come on. No. I hope that answers your questions.

No, that's fantastic. So I just wanted to give a shout-out to our mutual friend. Jennifer Milius is in the room tuning in as we speak. Jennifer, I didn't tell, I didn't tell Wayne any of the nasty things that you told me about him. I'm just letting you know that, that up front. So Wayne, one of the things that I'm hearing in what you're saying is, well, let me back up a little bit. When I, I think that too often we have a mistaken idea of or vision of what leadership is because I feel like at least, especially here in the United States, we tend to reward people and elevate people who express or have a posture that's very confident and very certain. And usually they have a lot of confidence about things that they're not terribly good at, and they have a lot of certainty about things that cannot be empirically proven to be true. And what I'm hearing in some of your description about leadership is that Leaders actually are a little bit less certain and a little bit more curious and are a little bit less overconfident and embracing a little bit more consideration. And I think it's really hard. I know, as someone that has leadership roles within the Akiva workshops, for instance, and leading my own community and coaching program, I have to frequently remind myself of just what you were saying. Like, I need to welcome a diversity of perspectives into this conversation. I need to get other insights and other ideas other than the fantastic ideas that I, of course, am coming up with. And all the things that I know must be correct because they came from my fantastic brain, right? So what are the things, what are some of the, the, the things that we can practice that will help us be the kind of leader that you're talking about and you're writing about in your book?

Oh, great question. Thank you very much. And you're exactly right. What are some of those things? Some of those things is just simply listen. Because if the, if the individuals who are actually doing the job, if they continue to find errors, or they continue to find things that could make their, make the product better, and make it go out quicker, and make it be just robust that everyone would like, listen to what they're saying. Now, as you know, and I know, and as Jen knows, every idea that comes from the masses is not a good idea. But we have to look at every idea. And we've got to be able to be smart enough and have people who are smart enough to say, oh, this is a good idea, this is a bad idea. But I remember there was one, and I don't— it was a Harvard Business Review article that I read many years ago, and there was a production line problem in an automobile industry. And I'm not sure which one it was, but what happened was there was this front seat, it was a bench seat, and it didn't work with what the leadership was wanting it to do. One of the guys, one of the, the engineers said, Okay, I will take that and I will fix this because he knew what you were just talking about. He knew that people, other engineers or individuals on the assembly line, they could probably have an answer for this, but no one upstairs was willing to listen to them. What he did was he took this bench and he put it in the middle of the break area and said, and had a note on it and said, this is wrong and it's not working. 'Fix it.' And he left. And I think it was about a week later, if the article— if I remember the article correctly, about a week or 10 days later, he went back and looked and there was another sticky note on it said 'fixed.' And, and what they did is they— he brought it in, they put it in through its paces, and it absolutely was perfect, exactly what they wanted to do. And the upper elements said, "Oh, wow, this is great. How did you do that?" And he said, "I did that the way that I told you we should have done it. I took it to the floor and I asked the people who touch it every day, and they did this." And it was brilliant. I think that's the way that you empower individuals. You help them understand that they bring value to the table. And as Jen likes to say, I'm not sure if she's still here, as Jen likes to say, Leadership is actually going from the technical side to the people side. Because if you don't have the people behind it, it's not going to happen. Period.

Yeah, I love that. Well, and you— I love the answer that you gave around listening. And what I think we, as human beings in general, but leaders in particular, conflate listening with hearing.

Right?

And so, I mean, listening is actually seeing, hearing, understanding the perspective that is being delivered to you, or, you know, the situation or circumstances that are being relayed to you. Not, not just taking in the information and patiently waiting for your chance to give, to deliver your point of view or to give your advice. And so, The best listeners that I know almost never respond with advice or answers when they're in conversation. They always respond with better questions. And the other thing that I'm hearing in your response is the importance of the benefit of the doubt, like to extend it, like you were saying, or paraphrasing Jen. Leadership is not so much— it's not something that you do just because you have a position or authority. It's a decision to help others get from where they are to where they want to be. And it begins by giving yourself and the other people in the conversation the benefit of the doubt that we all have a perspective, a point of view based on experience and personal beliefs. And we have to start there before we can take them where we think they want to go or where they say that they want to go.

Absolutely. And I like what you just said. A lot of leaders don't realize this. And I'm not using leaders just in the CEO suite kind of thing, or the C-suite. I'm talking about leaders across the total spectrum of any company, any organization. What a lot of leaders young leaders particularly don't realize is that they have to earn the respect from their followers before the followers will really attach themselves and attempt to make this leader better. It's a two-way street. The leader must give respect and the followers must be respected. And the followers must give respect and the followers must be respected as well. Without that two-way street, it's going to be oil and vinegar all the time. But once, once a leader realizes that there is, it's an earned privilege to be called their leader, oh my goodness, it's a difference. It's like, like you go to a party, you'll know a bad leader from a good leader just listening to the conversations. Because if someone would go to an event, and let's say I have my spouse here, And I say, "Oh," and Scott, you're my boss, OK? I would love to be able to say to you, "Oh," and I'd say to my wife, "Hey, Inga, here's Scott. Let me introduce you. Scott's my boss." That's the sign of a good leader, because they want to really bring you in personally to meet my wife. A leader that I don't really care about, I'll walk up to you and go, "Oh, hey, Inga, this is my boss." Boss is my wife Inga, and then we'll go to the table and get a drink. But don't want to throw the name out there, don't want to do that. And it's very subtle things like that. There's always some kind of hint as to if you're liked or respected or not. And if they duck you for the whole event, you can pretty well bet that there's not a two-way street of respect there. But respect is the big key there. It has to be.

I think that's really, really well said and a really important point. My, one of my bosses, Seth Godin, distinguishes between leadership and management. And you, you were caught, you talked about bad leadership being people that are micromanagers. And the other thing that I'm hearing in what you're saying too is, you know, leadership is not just a two-way street between two individuals. It actually starts when you decide to lead yourself, to decide that I am on a journey to become a better version of who I am so that I can better serve those that I do my work and live my life with and for. I wanted to also just bring in, Melissa made a comment: My first supervisor told me they felt successful when the department ran better without her than with her. And it reminds me a little bit of one of the things that, as a head coach, I tell my coaching teams in the Kimbo workshops, which is the job of a coach is to coach themselves out of their job. And if you do that, you will always have a job.

I like to always say, I like to work myself out of a job no matter what. I always took— in the military and even in other aspects of corporate world, always took the hard jobs. I always volunteered for the hard jobs because I like to get it better, get it working, get it to hum like a well-oiled machine, and then I'm bored and I'm ready to go. Right. So I always try to work myself out of a job. And I liked what you said also about listening. A friend of mine, his name is Mick. And Mick told me, he says, Wayne, there are 7 words that one needs to listen to while you are in a conversation with someone else. And he says those 7 words are, am I listening or waiting to speak? And he said he would always press his finger or his fingers across his lip because he always wanted to jump in because he's analyzing what they're saying and he's trying to get ready, like you said, waiting for that pregnant pause so he can jump in and say what he wants to say. And he's missed everything else. And so when you learn, am I waiting, am I listening or waiting to speak? When you learn that, you slow down and think. And thinking is something that we as leaders and followers need to do as well. We need to add that into our schedule. We need to have 10, 15 minutes of thinking time. If you go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to a conference, you haven't had time to think; you've just had time to react. We need to think about not only what we're listening to; we need to think about what we're doing. Where are we going? How are we getting there?

Yeah, well, and you're pointing to another really important thing. So there's the integrity, integrity in leadership around being respectful, being an active listener and having, you know, the right motivations and intent in serving the people that you're leading. But then, well, I just lost my train of thought. But then there's doing it on purpose, with purpose, for a purpose, with and for the people that you're with. You know, it's, Again, leadership has to be done with intention if it's going to get anybody anywhere. I just was loving what you were saying there. That one of the things that I'm curious about is I have found that most of the people that come to this broadcast, and I know that I myself, you know, the work that I do has really come about because I had to solve a problem for myself first, or I had an itch that of my own that I had to scratch. Catch. So I'm just wondering, is there, is there a, where do you, where was the motivation for you in writing this book on leadership? And what was the problem of your own that you had to solve first? Or what was the mistake that you made that you had to rectify? Or what was the challenge that you were seeking to overcome for yourself that, that turned into this book that is helping people avoid some of those kind of mistakes and challenges?

Thank you, great question. You're full of great questions. This is really cool. Jen and I— Jen had a podcast for a little bit more than a year and a half. I had a podcast for a year and a half, um, and both podcasts were based on leadership. I listened to her podcast, I listened to other individuals' podcasts in the same group, and she listened to mine. I had invited her 4 times to my podcast. And we decided to— after, after that, we decided to write this book. As I said, I taught leadership for 14 years. Scott Perry, I got tired of looking at the news, reading the newspaper, watching the— all of these individuals who are legitimately in leadership positions time and again, not showing integrity, not showing respect, abusing power, doing all the sexual harassment and wanting to get away with it. And then I see them crying on TV, male or female, it didn't matter. They're crying on TV about, oh, I've let my family down, I've let my company down. No, they think that's a one-time pass and they can get by with that. And oddly enough, some of them did because they find themselves in better positions after that has come and unveiled. We wrote this book to say, no, that is not good behavior. We wrote this back to say, we have lost what integrity is, we have lost what honesty is, we have lost what all of these good things are. And we need to go back to the basics, back to the tenets of leadership, and, and, and build it from there and have that kind of momentum come back to the forefront. I enjoyed what you said about the leadership versus management. Because there are managers who are leaders, and there are leaders who do manage, but they are absolutely different. Again, I picked up many books for a leadership class, and it was Principles of Management. No, this is the wrong book. I want to throw it away. We need a leadership book. I was— I've looked at other groups, other curriculums, and I'm looking for that intro to leadership. I see intro to supervision, I see intro to management, I see intro to this, intro to leadership styles, but I don't see intro to leadership. It's like, it's like there's no starting point. Yes, there is. There's a starting point, and it's right here. And it goes back to honesty, it goes back to integrity. And yes, we say you have to discipline people, you have to punish people, you've got to fire people, you've got to hire people, but you've got to do it all above board, you've got to do it all with integrity, kindness, and deliberateness at heart. You've got to do those things. You've got to hold people accountable. You've got to be responsible for yourself and accountable to yourself. I like what you said about knowing yourself first. Our first chapter talks about valuing you. You have to know who you are first before you can do anything else. If I can't look in the mirror and be proud of who looks back at me, I shouldn't be in that job. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get off my soapbox now.

Oh no, that was fantastic. No, I love a good rant. I love a good rant. Um, That last point that you made, I think is just, I want to stick a pin in, amplify and highlight that because we, you know, Simon Sinek has made, made millions on this idea of starting with why. And I think purpose is really important and we should strive to cultivate and, and, and develop purpose in our lives. But it's not a destination. It's something that you cultivate by acting purposefully, by doing things on, with, and for a purpose, with and for the people that you're with, with intention and integrity. And that what you're saying about values is it really comes to where we need to start is starting with who. Who are you? Who, what are your values? What are your beliefs? What are your guiding principles? And who do you want to become? And they better be pretty well aligned from the get-go, because in order for you to become a better version of your current you, you have to start with knowing who you are and being on a journey that's going to involve a lot of courageous and honest conversations with yourself and with other people to get there. We're running out of time here, but I wrote a note to myself earlier that I really would love to get your perspective on. At Creative on Purpose, we talk a lot about what it means to be a difference maker. Our, our whole community, the coaching program is all about helping people not die with the difference only they can make still inside and flying higher. And the difference only they can make work done with and for others that makes things better. And one of our principles is that to become a better difference maker, you need to become a better decision maker. And I think that's really one of the things that's at the heart of leadership. Is leaders make decisions. That doesn't mean leaders always make perfect decisions or the absolute only right decision, because there's rarely just one right decision. So I'm just curious about your perspective on decision-making in terms of leadership.

You are— have you read our book? Because you are touching, you are touching many of the chapters that are in this book. We have a— I created a model in 1996. I created a model called the SIP3 model, S-I-P to the third power. And that's a different story for a different time. But you're exactly right. Decision-making is of the utmost importance. A lot of times leaders unknowingly or unintentionally hold an organization or a company hostage because they're waiting for a decision. Decisions have to be timely. They've got to be respectful of everyone else's time, of everyone else's input. There's, there's the book we all know, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, because it's all small stuff. I think that title is not necessarily correct because the small stuff gets you in trouble. And if you don't respect the small stuff, that can really come back and bite you if you don't watch it. Making decisions is just like that. If somebody is waiting on a decision, they can shut down their whole process of what they're doing because they're just telling me, I don't know what to do because we've asked the boss this question and we don't have an answer. So we're just spinning our wheels here waiting for a decision to come down. Decisions are huge, and decisions should be, one, as you said, as correct as you can. How do you get that? Through input, through information, through analysis, through looking and, and seeing what's out there, getting feedback to find out, all right, can we make it better, faster, smarter? Don't know the answer to that, but it's got to be a good decision. It has to be timely, it has to be doable. The decision can't be some— something that's off— oh yeah, we can do this, but we need another whole nother plant to do that. Well, no, that's not the— that's not going to help this group right now. We don't— we can't build a $15 million plant to answer this question. They're waiting for something way down here in the weeds for you to make the decision on so they can move forward, because their customer is looking for this product or this piece right now. They don't want it 7 years from now. They want it today. You got to make a decision. First, you have to decide, am I in the right business? Am I the right person to be here? And do I have the right team with me? If I don't, what do I need to do to get there? And that goes into my SIIP cube model. But it's— you've got to ask the what. And I'll give you a hint on the SIIP cube. The SI is for strategic intent. What is it that we want to do? Are we building a rocket ship? Are we building burgers or are we building a car? The first P, and I'll stop here. The first P is the why, is the purpose. Why do we want to do that? Is there a void in the marketplace that people want it and it's not there, or is it something else? But you got to figure out what that why is and then you go forward, as you said, on that journey to get that done. But you— But you gotta make those decisions. You gotta figure out what, why, when, and how much. And how much always gets us bogged down. But you know what? There's smart people out there. There are different ways to skin a cat. And if we just listen to them, make good decisions, make good judgments, give them the room to grow, they'll get there. One last thing on that. My son decided for me, and this is in the book, teaching him to ride a bike. I didn't want to let go of that hand of that seat because he would fall. And at one point in time, he said, "Dad, let go. I got this." As a leader, you got to let go sometimes because they got it and let them do it. And we're there.

Yeah, well, we could have a whole nother conversation around trust and leadership. So maybe we'll have to do that another time. Well, we're reaching the end of our time together, Wayne. The last question I ask all my guests is, you know, this is a show that's dedicated to helping difference makers like you fly a little higher in the difference only they can make. If you had one tip, piece of advice, one reflection to share that you haven't shared already, to impart, you know, just a little bit of wisdom to, you know, share some insight or inspiration for somebody else's journey in becoming a more effective, disciplined and thriving Difference Maker, what would that be?

Have joy in your persona. Keep kindness in your heart. And I don't care where that bar is, at work, at home, professional goals or personal goals. I don't care how high that bar is. Always strive to be better. To do better.

Love it.

Love it.

All right. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Wayne and I really appreciate you lending us some of your valuable time and attention. And we hope today's broadcast motivates you to lean into an endeavor that matters with greater curiosity and courage. You can learn more about Wayne Applewhite at mindsync.com. It's right down there below. And of course, it's always great to see you at creativeonpurpose.com. Now, take the insight and inspiration from this conversation and fly higher in the difference only you can make. Wayne Applewhite, thank you so much for your time and sharing so much wisdom and expertise with us today.

God, thank you. I'm very honored to be here, and Jim is as well. Thank you very much.