#13: Business Readiness, Not Change Management

Hi, I'm Sy Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where we teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and your world place. Good afternoon and welcome to our 3rd and final book club call. I really appreciate many of you joining us for all 3 calls. I hope they've been really useful. And we will be recording this, and that way you can have access to it again. If you're listening, you can share it with people that you care about. And for those of us that aren't able to make it because they're off either wrapping up details so they can enjoy a weekend, or they're off already enjoying their weekend, weekend, they'll be able to get access to it. So today, the topic I wanted to make sure and be available to cover is for the chapters, the last 3 chapters in the book, 7, 8, and 9. And the chapters are all about how to move from change management to a more modern leadership philosophy called business readiness, and also on my thoughts about buy-in. And so I've got some things I want to share with you about that, but I really want to hear and understand your questions and devote as much time as possible to those questions. As we are waiting for some folks to join us, I want to say thank you to so many of you. I watch you taking our memes and sharing them. I see you tagging other people, really spreading the word about No Ego, really getting out there and helping people see that there's a different way to lead and that there can really be a different workplace that we can create a different experience. So— So looking forward to your questions. Appreciate all the work you're doing. You're part of this revolution, and I really appreciate it. But let's get to helping you because you helped me so much with these things. I found it really important as I'm myth-busting and challenging people's thinking and really disrupting what we're teaching out there in leadership to set the record straight and, and really call us up to greatness around how we handle change management. I remember when I first was even learning about the concept of change management, it was in the '80s. And, you know, big folks out there were Kotter and some of these other really geniuses. And they were trying to reach workers and leaders when things were just really hitting with technology and some, some major large-scale changes. And because we haven't faced anything, or we hadn't faced anything like that in the past, they really said, organizations, you need to go first. And let's be really prescriptive. And let's really set our people up for success. Let's start with us doing some of the heavy lifting. And that wasn't wrong at the time. It was a great prescription in the '80s, in the '90s. We're in the year 2017. We're working with people who have grown up with technology, who have grown up with a very different pace of change. And for us to use old methods of change management philosophy really ends up leading us to coddle the people and really grow entitlement and actually kill the business cases of our change. The reason we buy new software, the reason we acquire companies, the reason we make moves in the market is because we believe there's opportunity that we can capitalize on. And when we do the math around that, we just trust that leaders will deliver up ready, willing and able people to deliver on what's required in the organization. So we think our math is correct in what the business cases are telling us, we'll be able to capitalize on with this change. But time and time and time again, we're chronically disappointed at the fact that our leaders aren't delivering up this ready, willing and able group of people that can just pick up the change and implement. And the more we struggle, the more we try and figure out what else leaders can do to get their people on board. And that's where the problem begins is because Typical change management is so focused on what do we need to do as leaders to make sure that change is least disruptive to our people, to our employees. But that's not our call. Our call really for leaders is to make the change least disruptive to our business, to our customers, to our patients. How can we just be in an ever-evolving cycle of improvement that's just part of our daily jobs? And as I started to learn about change management, it really shocked me at how the heavy lifting was really left to the role of the leaders. And when I would hear from change management philosophy, I would go through the courses in my own job, I would hear people say, so leaders, your list, all the things you need to do to get your people through change. And then they would give me a list of everything I would do for my people. I would need to define what the net change was and really focus on communication tactics and make sure I, you know, got everybody prepared. Right. and that I got them all trained up and that they understood the why and that they were comfortable and they felt super supported. And we had superusers and we had, you know, basically everything we could think of to make change so easy that all people need to do is just step up and get onto something new. And it really struck me, as I saw what they were teaching us to do as leaders, it struck me that we had very little for the employees to do. So I asked, I'm like, so what's the employee's role in this? They're like, well, if you do change really well, their role is really to just step And adapt. And I'm thinking, so leaders are doing all the heavy lifting, and employees' only role is to critique it or react to it or judge it or get in drama around it or tell us, you know, how it's going for them. And this just was so akin to how we handled engagement theory, how we handled coaching and all these things where if only we could create perfect circumstances, then people could give us the gift of our work. And I found that so much of change management really was about coddling the people, scenting their growth and protecting them from reality. And so a lot of people ask me, Sy, how do I get somebody to do X, whatever X is? And what I usually tell them is that you can't really get people to do something, right? That's their choice. But you can stop enabling them so that they make better decisions. And when you buffer them from reality, you lead them to make really poor decisions. So a lot of times when people are faced with change, they're Approaching changes if it's optional, or if, you know, they get to weigh in on whether we should go in that direction or not. And it really struck me that most of how we're doing change management is, A, really old school; secondly, not sustainable; and thirdly, really leaves employees in a passive role. And whenever somebody's left passive or dependent, it will breed contempt. And it will breed victim thinking, and it really fuels the ego. And so when I think about emotional waste, especially during change. The ego really hates change because change might mean that I don't feel competent or that my incompetence is exposed. So if I haven't stayed ready for what's next, I have to resist change. It's my only option. Otherwise, I'll be exposed as unready, and the ego really works against that. So how do you keep from getting exposed? You critique and resist change. So Resistance of change is really the work of the ego. And we've really done a lot to protect people. We've said your ability to deal with change really is about your personality style, or, you know, just about kind of your preferences. And folks, it's not. It is a core competency, and a core competency that we need to get people to be very fluent in. And we've been working on this core competency since the '80s. And there just isn't a lot of core competencies we give people 30 years to get good at. Right. And so I really came out and basically, you know, said it's attachment and ego that's the source of our suffering in change. And how can we help people get fluent but unattached? How can we stop enabling people and protecting them from their reality or trying to pretend like we can bend reality or slow change down for folks? How can we focus more on where people need to grow next so they're in a constant state of preparedness For change. And with that, then the last chapter comes buy-in. So I want to talk about that on the call today, but I also want to get to your questions. So I have a really good one. So Holly's asking, she says, I have a colleague that's super drama-involved, but he's also super engaged. He's the first to show up and the last to leave, the first to volunteer for every kind of crap assignment that comes down the pike. He has found and solved some issues at work before the rest of people even knew about it. And he's a tireless advocate for his customers. So if I understand your philosophy correctly, high-drama employees are undesirable employees. Can you help me understand how he can be so engaged and yet so high in drama? It seems like according to your philosophies, these traits are mutually exclusive in a person. Now, actually, they don't need to be mutually exclusive. So a lot of people have been able to get by with being really great at what they do, and then considering that drama is just a cost of having them around the table. And it's not about disengaging to be low drama. It's finding ways to engage where you leave the drama out of it, because engaging at a— in a high-value way without the drama quotient actually is going to be profitable, valuable engagement. So there's, there's different ways to engage, ways to engage that are helpful or hurtful. There's ways to engage where I can help, but without the extra expense. It's all about— Like this particular person, To understand that there's an even bigger way they could add value, that we love their engagement, and we need their engagement without the drama. And a lot of people confuse the two. They'll say, Sai, I'm really passionate. I'll say, that's awesome, but passion shouldn't hurt. So a lot of times we've excused our own behavior as, you know, I'm just really in it to win it. I'm just a tireless advocate of the customers. Right. You know, yes, if you overplay any strength, it's going to start taking value away. And that's why in the book on page 120, I revisited the value equation that I wrote about in my second book, Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace, that your value isn't just your performance, and it's more than that. Your value at work is your performance. Are you delivering on what the organization needs? Not what you like, not what you prefer, not what you think is great, but truly, are you consistently delivering what the organization needs? Secondly, are you staying relevant for the future? Are you growing and evolving in a way that will ensure that you're performing far into the future? Are you ready for what's next? And that's really what we're talking about here. But the third factor is not just that you're delivering and you're ready for what's next, So this great employee, this great colleague, is definitely— sounds like he's or she's delivering. Sounds like they're ahead of the game on a lot of things. But the last part of the Value Equation is at what cost? In addition to your salary and benefits, what's the total cost of you? What's your freakout factor? What's your drama quotient? What is— what's the total cost of you? And this is important because If we do the math, let's take performance on a scale of 1 to 5. A 1, you're not performing your own performance plan. A 3, you're consistently delivering what the organization needs— 80% of us. A 5, you are a curvebreaker. You are coming in early, staying late. But it's not just about the hours put in, because a lot of us can do a lot in a small amount of time, but you are making a difference at work. So if I were, without knowing this colleague, rating them, I would say this person's a 3, 4, or 5. I mean, they are performing Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and call them a 4. They're, they are definitely contributing more than most people around them. Then you look at their readiness for what's next. On a scale of 1 to 5, a 1 is like allergic to training, is not keeping up with the times, and soon that will impact their performance. Because as we go forward, they won't have evolved with us and they'll become irrelevant. A 3 is somebody who's keeping up with the times. They're tech-savvy, they're aware of their industry, of the trends, they're self-educating, They're working hard to evolve as a person, both personally and professionally. They are understanding things like their own unconscious biases. They're working to be a better citizen, global citizen, a better contributor, not just at work, but in the workplace. These are folks that are evolving. Now a 5 is somebody who truly is inventing the future, just genius mindsets, really carving out where we're all going to go next. 20 years from now. So again, about 80% of us, I hope, are about 3s. Even if we give this person the benefit of the doubt and make them a 4, OK, they're, they're leading us far into the future. So far, their math is 4+ 4; they're an 8. Now most people, when it comes to employee value, says, let's stop the math there. This guy's amazing. He's an 8. Love it! But we don't know his or her value until— We know the total cost of them. What's their drama quotient? Now, this is on a scale of 1 to 5, but the scale's inverted. A 1, low maintenance, low drama. A 3, typical employee who believes that we have a God-given right to have a fit now and then, which, by the way, it's because they don't understand the cost of that to themselves and to others. And a 5, who's just basically kind of a drama mess. Unfit for human consumption. Now, drama doesn't have to be loud. It's ego behaviors: bitching, moaning, and whining; tattling, gossiping; second-guessing the direction of the business; resisting change; editorializing on where the business needs to go; and, and basically arguing with reality. This is sick and wrong, and this should not be happening. And they might save the day, but it's through diving catches, and it's through stepping on the feet of others. And However that looks. Now let's say that this person, so far they're an 8, is even just typical in drama is a 3. The way the formula works is 8 minus 3 might equal 5, but we know there's a multiplier for drama in the value of things. Here's the formula to put up. That multiplier of 3 came about because when we studied the effect of emotional waste in the workplace and drama, we found that your drama subtracts 3 to 1 what you contribute to the organization. So even if you're a fabulous contributor, this high drama piece can take away almost everything you give significantly. So for instance, maybe this person's a rock star, but they don't transfer and share knowledge. So pretty soon they're not a rock star, they're somebody that can emotionally blackmail us and who is the bottleneck for everything because they held on to their own knowledge too tightly. So let's say even if this person's a 3, 3 times 3 becomes 9. They're a -1. From what you described to me, this person's a 4 or a 5. Let's say that they're a 4, that becomes a 12, they're a -3. If they're a 5, okay, that becomes 15, they're a -7. They're not coming out even. Now, in this equation, our goal is 0. It's the no ego number where we give and what we take is very equal. We can go home at the end of the day equal. We don't feel like the company took advantage of us. I don't feel like I gave too much of myself to the company. But I feel like I gave a lot, and they paid me exactly what I asked for. And I have energy left over for my family. I've met— I've delivered what they needed. I've stayed ready for the future. I've done this in kind of a low-drama way. So that's the value equation I just wanted to share with you for thinking. Now, are these mutually exclusive? No, you can have people who are highly engaged, but the way they engage is really expensive. I have people in my life who are highly engaged; they're just not all that helpful when their engagement is critique and I know better, and it's righteousness or judgmentalism or trying to control or not being a team player or just exhausting people around them. So the beauty in this is that this great team, or this great contributor, could improve their value if they understood the work of their ego, and they could learn to bypass their own ego, they'd still deliver great value, but do it in a far less dramatic way, which, by the way, would increase their own happiness, their own morale, and, and really conserve a ton of energy that they're using in drama and put it into even greater results. And so it becomes this huge win-win. So while I'm not saying that they're mutually exclusive, or I would just immediately fire the person, I would first work to Stop enabling the person by when they go, you know, I'm sorry, I got so out of hand about that. But ultimately, we solved it. So we're good, right? I would say we're not good. Yep, I love that we made the diving catch, and we saved it at the end of the day. But I want to talk about how we can make less of this rely on you being the hero, and more of this a process by which the team can launch products so that we don't have to have some of these diving catches? Like, how can we move through this less dramatically? Because drama is waste. And waste in the workplace needs to be upcycled and invested in productivity and happiness. So don't fire the person. But you definitely can help move them through getting less dramatic by stopping the enabling, using things in the book like feedback short, assignments for self-reflection long. Using the Value Equation on 120 to just have them maybe gain some insight into how they could increase their value. Eventually, though, I will tell you, because I can rent and buy off the internet, basically, almost any technical function, I would value somebody who's low drama and able to work well on teams over somebody who's an expert that comes at a very high cost. And so I want to make sure I answer this for you. Are these high-drama employees undesirable employees? I would say if they can't move into a no-ego place, then yes, I hate to break it to you, they are undesirable employees. I believe that the new smart, the new value, is the low drama. It's the no ego. No ego is the new smart. It's the new emotional intelligence. It is a new competitive advantage, because everything we do is through teams and matrix environments on a global platform. Right. With things moving very quickly, with lots of ambiguity, and we just don't have extra resources to go into drama. So the most crucial thing I can do or say to help them stay in the game and continue to be motivated, you can't motivate another. People choose to be motivated. What you can do is help them gain some awareness about themselves by showing them the value equation, by asking them to self-reflect, by asking them for ideas on how they can have the same level of engagement, but with less consequence to others or less negative impact. Ask them insight they have about themselves and what their plan would be to move through the world with less drama. All of those assignments for self-reflection that we talked about in the book would be good. Rissa asks, you talk about working with the willing, wondering if you see working with change agents who can help with the messaging and positivity from peers in the same way, or would you say we don't need change agents I don't like change agents either. Hoping you say ditch them too. You know, I actually hope that we can ditch change agents because they're like tutors that we come in, that we try and put them in charge then of lifting other people up. So it was impossible for the leaders, so we just throw more people at it. I think we need to approach this with a whole different philosophy. Now, there is a use for people who you normally would put in the role of change agents, and that's in activating the silent majority. So let me talk about these 2 things. Typically, with change management. We put whole teams together to try and move others or motivate others or bargain and beg and lift other people up and convince them that this is where we need to go. And, and I would just stop that and first understand these myths that we're really playing into when it comes to change. A lot of people think change is hard. Folks, it's not hard. It's only hard for the unready. And we keep people unready because we coddle them and we let them skip upgrades and we don't challenge them on the daily, in their daily life, to stay aware and to stay challenged and to give us the gift of their advocacy and to be actively involved in where we need to go and to really be willing and open and using their energy to stop focusing on why something won't work or why we shouldn't have to and focus in Instead on how we could. So all this energy on the daily needs to be recommissioned and upcycled. If you're doing that from a drama perspective, you'll have people more ready for what's happening next. So change isn't hard except for the unready. I've studied this. If we are going to move into an open environment, we actually gave people a survey and we tested their readiness. How tech-savvy they were, how technologically fluent they were on intraoffice communication platforms, on a lot of other means, their open-mindedness, their accountability levels, their beliefs about quickly aligning to the organization readiness. Then we went through with the change where people moved into open environments. And then we asked them to rate the difficulty of the change, because if change was hard, it would be equally hard for everybody. Change is what's hard. And we would think the variable is change, but the variable is me. What we found out is there was a very direct correlation to the readiness of people and how difficult they found the change to be. Those that were more ready, especially technically savvy, didn't see the change as that difficult. So this is a huge lesson that we believe change is hard, therefore we make change agents to coddle people and deal with change because it's so hard. We need extra people around to support folks. It's not that hard. Change agents really are a workaround for not keeping our people ready on the daily, for not facilitating and ensuring that people are ready for what's next. We also have this belief that there's too much change and people are change-fatigued. And the reality in that is that because we let people skip all these upgrades on the daily, instead of having daily ways that we improve our job, and we work to always stay relevant and keep things current. And we're always working to improve and find ways to do things better, faster, quicker. And we take the energy away from no into yes. And we focus on, what are we trying to commit or create? And how can we align to that? And how can we really keep moving in that direction? We have this idea that change is hard. And it's because we let people skip all these upgrades. We think there's too much change or people are battle-fatigued. And it's because we haven't skipped all these upgrades, and then we bundle it in a big catch-up session. And yeah, that's really hard. If you don't do your dishes on a daily, you're gonna have a crappy weekend as you clean your whole kitchen out. And we're doing this binge purge, unhealthy, unsustainable, crazy-making approach to change instead of having part of your daily agenda. Seeing where do we need to rectify? Where do we need to align? Where do we need to move next? How do we stay evergreen? How do we go and move on the fly? How do we practice what we need? You know, like I talked to one of my sessions about practicing on the yoga mat what you need in leadership before you need it. So practicing surrendering to a pose on the yoga mat helps me then when I need to surrender to some reality at work to be able to do that quickly and conserve my energy and move on and put it elsewhere. elsewhere. So business readiness is really about the pyramid that I put in the book, and it involves shared responsibility. I have a responsibility as a leader, and you have a responsibility as an employee. And I don't need to supplement you because change isn't hard for the unready. I don't need change agents. I don't need whole groups of folks that come in to kind of coddle you through this. I don't need to put change into big packages for you to swallow. I need to build readiness as a core competency and expectation in the way you approach the world. The ego sees change as a major disruptor. And the more you let people attach and get into ego, the more disruptive change will be. If people are bypassing their ego and they're really skilled in working out of that part of their brain, that's kind of the I don't know mind. It's instead of I know and here's how it should be and here's the way we should do it and the only way to and we can't abandon what we've done in the past and it's too risky to do something new. If I need my world set up perfectly around me for me to succeed, I am overdependent upon my reality. And my circumstances aren't the reasons that I can't succeed. They're the reality in which I must succeed. The variable of success is my growth and my skill set. I can handle any new reality if I'm ready for what's next. If I'm growing the skills I need to be able to operate freely in the new reality, it makes me pretty immune to all the things that the ego would panic about. Yeah. So what we need to do as leaders, besides change initiatives and change agents, is we need to really work what I call the business readiness pyramid. On the daily, we need to have conversations that are driving awareness. I want people to know where the industry is going. I want them self-evolving. I want them studying what the trends are. I want them pitching ideas. I want them on the daily thinking about and conversing about what our goals are and what we've learned and how we can adapt and get there even quicker. Now, most of the time, when you look at leader conversations, we're feeding the people. I want you to generate people feeding themselves and feeding each other. I want you to really generate crowdsourcing, the building of large networks, being a student of life and a student of one's industry. I want people waking up. I want you to help people Wake up to what's now and what's next, and really pushing them on a daily basis to stay current and stay awake and to evolve. And through that joint awareness, it's about fostering conversations; it's about putting all of your people into teaching modes and sharing modes and student modes. Now change management works on awareness, but it works on me spoon-feeding you awareness, trying to justify why we had to change. Sorry that I had to wake you up like this with cold water, but I've let you sleep too long. And change management puts all the focus of awareness on the leaders, and it really ends there, instead of saying, now that you're aware and you know better, we've got to do better. What's your plan? So when it comes to awareness, it is a shared responsibility. It is a process of having people learn to keep themselves awake. And I think that this is, is so important that you're making sure that what you're doing in your meetings and your interactions with people are talking about innovation and where we're going and the future. You'll know that your team is really aware that when you bring a change to them, they go, oh, given the trends in the industry, I saw that coming. And it makes total sense that we would go in that direction. If people aren't aware, they have difficulty aligning with the organization and saying yes because they're still in denial about where the trends are going. If people are keeping up with the times, then the changes announced maybe in your strategy should actually be soothing to people. Oh my gosh, my organization is actually on target, is actually like doing things to perpetuate our success and to survive. What amazes me is when, that people are more scared about what their organizations aren't changing to move forward, rather than what they are changing. Because if you were highly aware, you would be nervous that your organization wasn't changing, and you would be driving change. You'd be saying, why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we implementing? And so those people that get woken up by change a lot, and it's an abrupt wake-up, it's that we've got to quit enabling them to just do a bench change and then go back to sleep, and then do a bench change and then go back to sleep. They're always ticked at the person who wakes them up, and they're always victim-minded about the fact that they can't finish their nap. And that just is not the employee base we want. Now, once people are aware, they need to understand that the first step that they take into creating something is co-creation, and it's willingness. I'm aware and I'm in. Buy-in's a verb. You've heard this in the book, and you've heard it from me a million times. So after I work to really foster awareness, and by the way, I like to test awareness and, you know, put people on the spot in meetings, like, what do you know? And what I love about my team is they're so aware that I don't have to hate the millennials. I listen to the millennials. When the millennials bring me an idea, it, they're the ones getting me aware A year ago, they said, "Hey, Sai, have you seen this guy named Gary Vee? He's giving everything for free on the internet. We don't need a sales team; we need a social media platform." And at the same time, my son brought me a hoverboard, and he had just purchased this for with his own money. And so I'll never forget the night I'm watching Gary Vee. I'm drinking a glass of wine. I'm learning to ride a hoverboard because. Because the millennials and the younger folks are discovering first, and we need to watch them and where they're going. And when they brought that up to me in awareness, they're so aware that they're driving, which is the top of the pyramid, they're driving me to say, Cy, don't hire a salesperson, go into the social media business and really make it happen. And with their advice, we have completely changed the face of our business, which is why you're getting so much cool Cool, free stuff. But secondly, in this pyramid, you've got to call the question, are you in it or not? Because I can only work with the willing. And you really have to form the rest of your team accordingly. We use change management and change agents to overfocus on the resistors, who are not— we're spending so much energy on the resistors. They're not the ones that are going to contribute or drive this thing. We're bargaining with them. We're working around them. We're providing special coaching and, and cajoling so they'll get on board. Right. Waste of energy. I don't need to buy you in. You buy yourself in. Buy-in is a verb. And for you to be on our team, a core requirement is that you work hard to get yourself bought into where we're going. And once you're bought in, I need you to stop being quiet about it. I need you to be willing to advocate so that in the meeting after the meeting, You hear a resistor talking, that you're not just ignoring that, that you're not just staying silent. In a meeting where 100 of us love the idea and 3 of us are horrified and we're dominating the meeting with resistance, I need that majority to step up and say, we don't think like this and we don't want to spend our time catering to this. If somebody's on the intranet, and I actually use this in the book, There was a group on the intranet, and they were just blasting what the organization was deciding to do. And so many people came to me and their leaders, and they're like, we hate what they're saying on the intranet. How do we deal with their resistance? And I said, don't fight them, but get out of the silence, activate the silent majority. And we started to just focus our change agents not on overcoming resistance, but really bringing like-minded people together and really amplifying their voices so that people understood that their resistant opinion wasn't the majority. And so instead of over-rotating for the minority, we activated the silent majority. And in my second book, people said, you know, how do you do this? And it's basically that whatever group you feed is going to be the group that survives. And so I started to almost publicly shun some of the resisters. Now, I'm not talking about shutting down good dialogue. That's what the ego does when it's ticked about being shunned, is it's like, so you don't want any dialogue and there can be no resistance? I want your diversity and your ideas to identify the risks and to mitigate them so we can move forward. But that's using your expertise to make it work, not your opinion to stop the action. So once I get people advocating, now they're ready for active participation because they're aware and they're willing. Now, many times in change efforts, we have all these people actively participating. They aren't willing, they aren't on board, and they aren't aware of why we need to do this, otherwise they wouldn't be arguing with us. And we're trying to have them plan the change, and it corrupts all of our data and it dooms our change initiative because we've got the fox in the chicken coop, basically. And so what I like to do is make sure that those people that we maybe are sending out as change advocates to change the minds of others. Save them the trouble. We're asking them to swim upstream with cement blocks around their neck. Instead, gather them together as the, you know, the majority, the advocates, and have only them involved in the planning, because then your data is not going to be corrupted. When I started to do change only in pilot teams, and my one requirement was simply willingness— what was their willingness level— I worked with less expertise on the team and got more more done when I was focused on willingness. And most of you take functional experts and put them on the team regardless of their willingness, so that they are basically using their energy to can the change. And, and that's why eventually you get up to this point of drivers. But most people want to drive change without a license. They want to drive with their preference, not a potential to the business. So the only way you get a license to drive is you're high in awareness, you're incredibly willing, you're very much an advocate, and you're actively giving us the gift of your work to make this thing work with an attitude towards how we can, not why we can't. And then pretty soon, I don't need change initiatives. I need to just consistently work my people into a state of readiness. And how do I do that? I make sure on the daily we talk about awareness. I ask them, what's their level of willingness a lot. We talk about how they could advocate next. We talk about their active participation, and I get out of the way and let them drive. The no-ego place when it comes to change is when you have a bunch of qualified drivers who are really driving this thing from wherever they are in the organization. But they're driving with a license; they're driving aligned around where we are going, and they understand why we're going there, and they stopped hating us for it. it a long time ago. The ego loves preference, and no ego is all about potential. So you really need people that can forego their own preference, their comfort zone, how they think the world should work, and absolutely being able to get to their end state 100 different ways and work towards the potential of the business, what we can create together. Limited is all about preference. People focus on why we can't and why we shouldn't have to. Potential, they focus on what do we want to create? And how can we get there? And it goes back to innovation. So I hope that little rant was helpful. You got me all fired up there, Risa. Yes, change agents. Stop doing that to your best people. I'm all in, and I'm a motivator. And now you give me the impossible task of going and performance managing somebody you haven't, that you've kept on the team, who's not willing, that I have to go, like, babysit. No, move along from that. Linda says, I appreciate the part of your book related to grief. You spoke about the grief of change in the workplace, and I understand and agree with you. I have a question related to the grief over loss of a loved one. Typically, there's 3-day funeral leave. Of course, grief over personal loss will most likely take more than 3 days. When the employee comes back to work, it may be a challenge to have readiness to do the work. Here's the cool thing about— there's a lot of cool things about what you're bringing Yeah. When people talk to me about editing their story and not grieving change, and they often, if they're in a place of ego, go, so we should all just be robots? I'm like, no, I just want to eliminate the negative emotion from your life that comes from you believing what you think that your ego's providing, that comes from that narrative. There are some things that are very visceral for us when, you know, we lose a loved one, or we lose a pet, or we lose our homes in a hurricane, or those types of things. And even though formally some organizations, you know, outline this thing that will give you 3 days off, what I would do as a leader when somebody is grieving is I would ask them how we could best move forward to get their work done and accommodate their grief. Instead of it being either/or. And I don't have a problem doing that because I have all high accountables in my group. Now, if you have low accountables in your group, right, it's really difficult. And let me frame it this way: low and high accountables grieve a bit different. They both have a lot of sadness, but low accountables say pretty much the world needs to stop for me for a year or two. And I can't really be counted on. I just don't know when this is going to come, and it's just, you know, it's really a big deal. High-accountables are, given the fact that I'm grieving, how can I set up some systems in place so I'm not forgetful? Let me give you an example. I had at the same time on my staff, a few years back, 2 people that were going through a divorce. And one person, I was in the process of getting— transitioning them out of the organization. They were not high in accountability. We had learned that in the first couple months of their employment, and I was working on either them getting more accountable or them leaving the organization. The second one was really high accountable. And here's what I noticed in a single day. The first person came into me and said, I just need to let you know, I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I'm basically going through a divorce. So I just wanted to let you know this because I just don't know how much you can count on me in the next You know, months or so. I just, I, I'm really upset about it. I cry a lot. I feel, you know, like I'm probably not gonna be doing my best work, and I just hope you'll understand. I was kind of taken aback by that. And so the higher kindle came in and she said, as you know, we've decided, I just want to tell you it's final, I'm gonna go through with this divorce. And she said, and so I wanted you to know this because a couple of things I'm worried about is I tend to be kind of forgetful. I have a lot on my mind. And so I just want to give you permission to I want you to err on the side of emailing me anything you're worried about getting done, because I want to make sure it doesn't fall off my radar screen. Now, hopefully you hear the difference in these accountability levels. And so one is, I'm going through this situation, and I want to work together to make sure that I can find ways to still accomplish my work, knowing that I've got a lot changing in my life. The other one is, I hope you lower the standards you have for my work, because I have a lot changing in my life. When we lose somebody, it's our time in life to learn how we can continue with normal daily practices and grieve, rather than how we forego those to grieve. And I know there are moments, and hopefully you have a great relationship that you can allow for people the many ways that they're going to grieve throughout the next year and, you know, and thereafter. When we had somebody pass, one of my employees lost their mom. I was with a client and they called me and they said that their mom was on hospice. And I said, go. And I called our chief of staff and I said, make sure that they've got groceries in the refrigerator. Make sure that we book all of his travel. We'll pay for everything. Let's put them in a hotel. Let's do whatever we need to support that entire clan as they move through saying goodbye to their Mom, like, let's think about what are they going to need and how we can make it help. And I was just quickly calling the shots of circling the wagons to support our employee. And the employer said, oh my gosh, Sy, you have very generous grief benefits. Because I said, you know, just tell me when you're coming back. You know, you let me know when you've dealt with what you need to deal with. Our team will jump in, we'll cover what you need. We don't have a 3-day bereavement policy. We don't even have a handbook, right? And it was interesting, because they said, you have such good benefits. And I said, you know, I don't see them as benefits, I see them as rewards. And with high accountables, it's really easy to do because this would be the guy who is in the hospital parking lot. Like, I can just see him in the parking garage reaching his computer out to get internet connection to make sure he finished a project while he was trying to, like, work this through. It was easy to reward him because he just operated in the world in a high accountable way. And high accountables will respond to adaptation without taking advantage to it. But we don't provide benefits on the hope of rewards. We need to have high accountables who deliver a ton of results, and then it's easy to reward and benefit them. And so I hope that answers your question. When people come back, I believe in self-referral. I ask them, you're gonna still need to meet the standards of your work as you go through a pretty challenging time. What can I do? What can you do to ensure that that you have space for grief, and that you have a lot of accountability towards your work. And I think through that self-reflection, you can ask people to come back with their plan and how they can take good care of themselves, any requests they have that you can see if they can reasonably be accommodated, and then move forward. I don't want people to think that reality-based leadership is about tough love. It's not about not caring about your people. Reality's tough. Leadership is love. But we've gotten love really corrupted. It's not enabling, and it's not trying to buy people's love, and it's not a dishonest relationship based on motive. It is helping people grow and get skilled at this level so they're ready for the next level. And the more you can skill somebody up, as it comes their way in growth and development, and the more you can help them understand how their ego interferes with their relationship with reality and with their own growth, the more that they can evolve at the natural pace the world has set for them. And then they're absolutely ready for what's next. And with that, I wanted to share a story from my own personal life about accepting growth as it comes. When my little— when my boys were littler, we had a kid who lived across the alley and his name was Cole. And Cole would come to my place, and I was just reminded of him the other day, but he would come to my place and I would absolutely see him as an interruption of my peace and quiet at home. When he would come over, he'd ring the doorbell and he'd go, Mrs. Wakeman, can I play with the boys? And I would go, oh God, Cole, dang. It was so hard for me to say yes to this kid because From the time he hit the playroom, all heck broke loose. It was like toys were broken, kids were crying, like it just disrupted the peace of the moment. And so I'd be having coffee on a Saturday morning and Cole would come in and I just knew it would be drama and chaos. And so one day I was on the phone with my friend, I answered the door and I said, oh, Cole, I go, you can come in and play, but here are the rules and you need to take your shoes off and wipe your nose. And if I hear one sound out of your mouth that I didn't hear when you went up the stairs. One sound out of the group, if there's any ruckus that breaks out, you need to be hightailing it out this door. And I was very firm and not very kind to him. And the person on the phone started laughing and she said, you know, she goes, who was that, like the IRS? I said, no, that's Cole, this little kid. And she said, I find that so funny because you're so accepting of all these people in your life. What is he? Why does he really bristle you? And I said, oh, he's just This little kid, he just drives me nuts. And she said, well, what is his lesson for you? Why is he in your life? And she said, maybe he's here to practice patience. Maybe you need to learn patience. And she got me back on track. I'm like, everything happens for a reason. I'm gonna learn patience with Cole. So I started to work with Cole. When he'd come over, I would say, Cole, I would love for you to have fun at my house. It's a really fun house. What could we do differently? What ideas do you have? We came up with a plan that I would go up with him to the playroom. He wouldn't just run in and grab something, he would wait a little bit, make a better entrance. We did a little coaching. And eventually Cole became a really important part of my life. And to do a long story short, over the next year, I really worked with Cole as my practice in patience. My dad had a stroke, which was the sad part, and I went home to really be with him and to help out. And as I was trying to be that awesome daughter, I wanted to be my best with him. My sisters were kind of telling me about how I could And they were like, well, you could mow the lawn or pick up prescriptions, or you could buy groceries. It was like, not be with my dad? I said, I came home to be with Dad. I want to support him. And the first thing out of their mouth is, but we don't want you with Dad, Sy, because you're not patient. We know that he would frustrate you almost immediately. This is not the assignment for you. And I was able to say, that was before Cole and I worked on it. My accepting a little kid at my door who irritated me as an opportunity to grow patience as a virtue gave me that quality that I needed long before I needed it for the big stuff. And that's what I'm talking about with a lot of these things on how we can use people's life situations not to be a reason to coddle them or stop the world for them, but to help them in a place beyond ego, learn from that moment what they can then use as resilience and, and talent for the next moment of their life. And I know in one year my I lost my mom, my brother died of a heart attack, he was only 36 years old, my husband dove in a pool and broke his neck, my father ended up in emergency surgery with quadruple bypass, and it was the best business year I've ever had. It was the year I wrote Reality-Based Leadership. Grief is tough, but it doesn't have to dictate you. You can be open to it and respond to it as it comes your way. But enough on that topic. Michelle says, I was told I was being cute when trying to focus on facts in the conference. How would you address that? I would take my ego out of that and go, thank you, I find myself adorable sometimes, and I would really like to get back to really trying to understand what the facts are. Well, isn't that cute? You know, actually, it's not how I wanted to come across, but thank you for the compliment. And what I would really like to focus on is if we can figure out what the facts are, the simple instructions of what would make sense to do next to really have impact would be revealed. What I find is, in the moment, when people say things or do things to me that I'm not yet understanding, a simple thank you, and here's what I would like to focus on next, goes a long ways. Now, a lot of times people will use their ego to try and disarm me. And one way that I bypass the ego is just thank people for whatever they bring my way. The other day, I had a woman at a coffee shop tell me over and over again where the straws were. And she's like, if you want a straw, they're right there. And I'm like, hey, thanks. And a couple minutes later, she's like, you can grab a straw right there. I go, that is so good to know. Thank you. What she was mistakenly believing is I had ordered an iced latte, and I was actually waiting for my hot latte, so didn't really need the straws. But I bet it was 4 or 5 times that she insisted that the straws are right over there. And instead of me getting really flapped about it, I was just like, hey, thanks. You know, it's good information to know in the future. And part of this whole no ego process, I wrote the book to talk a lot about how to change leaderships. What I want you continually working on is how to bypass your own ego. And one way to do that— I'll leave you with this— is that a great response to most things that happen in your life is, good to know. And what I would like us to focus our energy on next is this. And you're constantly just managing the energy away from why we can't, how we could, to a distraction of you're trying to be really Cute when you say that, to, I'm still gonna focus on the facts. If I redirect somebody about 3 times, they usually drop whatever it is that they're putting out there. If I react to it, get flustered, blush, abandon what I was trying to do, that teaches them that that really worked. And so I would hope that you can move beyond that. Great questions, folks. I know we kind of went around the map on this. I hope it was helpful. Check out the No Eagle podcast. And make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of those places so that we can absolutely make sure that we're keeping you well fed. You can always write your questions info@siwakeman.com. I'm always looking for what to put on my podcast and what to do in future video content. Also, as you're out there using this stuff, let me know how it goes. Share on social media. Let's keep things going. And if you want to start a book club with your friends or your coworkers, make sure and use that No Ego Study Guide that we provided to facilitate discussions. If you really get into it, you want to go back to Reality-Based Leadership and Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace, we've got book club study guides for those as well. Really appreciate you guys sticking with it and having such fascinating questions. This is not something you can learn in a day. It's really something you need to work through in layers and layers. But I know that it works. You really can live a really peaceful life at work, achieve great results. Things become more effortless. It's a pretty groovy place to be. Let us know how we can help and keep ditching the drama. Thank you for being part of the book club. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining the episode today. 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