#24: Changing Your Interactions Overnight

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. Welcome, listeners. I am confident you're going to enjoy today's episode. I have Marc LaBosque on with us today, and he's the author of Being Human. And this is one of those cool stories of the world we live in today. So as you know, I'm out there and we're working hard on social media throughout the world to really bring together like-minded people and start this revolution or continue this revolution in the workplace. And Marc reached out to me and my staff, actually, he reached out, my staff picked it up, and absolutely loved his work. So I wanted to bring him to you today. And we are going to talk about his discoveries and recommendations on being human. So Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, so thanks for having me. And yeah, it certainly is a revolution.

I'm very excited because— and you're joining us, is it from Melbourne? Or where are you in the world?

Yeah, look, I'm in Melbourne, or just about an hour out of Melbourne. Yeah, it's Bottom end of Australia, very south.

Very south. I've been in Melbourne, love it. Was, uh, spent some time on the beach there. I've got good friends there. I got to work in Aubrey-Wodonga on the Murray River, um, for quite a stint. So I know a few of the, the back places too in Australia. But, uh, well, thank you. It's a little bit early for you, but I'm glad you could accommodate us. Um, so how did you even get in the realm of, um, thinking about leadership, working with leaders? What's your backstory?

Great question. So my backstory is, if I go right back 25 years in the corporate space, and I'd say I had 2 careers as a leader, one as a fairly horrible leader who was really all about self-service and ambition and climbing the ladder very, very quickly.

I love your honesty. It's like the before and after. So you have one chapter of evil Evil Mark.

Yeah, absolutely. Look, I call him Bad Mark and Bad Mark used to do everything he could to look good. And then I think about 8 years ago, I just had this moment where I took on a new sales team and I asked myself the question of what if I treated my people more like humans and less like robots? I wonder what would happen. And I guess that has been what has created what I'm doing today, which is helping leaders to understand that, you know, along the lines of what you do, becoming really self-aware about what they're bringing to the table that's either helping them and helping others or hindering them or hindering others. So I've been through, I guess, a bit of a metamorphosis from being a very, very horrible manager to what I'd consider to be quite a human one.

Love it, love it. You know, and, and I talk about how as a leader you can burn off your ego, move beyond ego, operate from an authentic place. And, and too many times people think that this goes to enabling people or going soft on people or letting them by with things, not holding them accountable. And what I liked about your stuff is like you really talk about the possibility of being human and also calling people to greatness, having high expectations and really a loving demeanor on driving people to that level of success. So tell me more about what Goodmark learned. What were some of your breakthroughs and some of the key things you are out preaching and teaching to help leaders get not just happiness but success in the workplace?

Yeah, certainly. So the very first thing in the experiment was, I guess, holding up a mirror to myself, Sai, and having a really good look into that and understanding the things that I was doing that were helpful and the things that weren't. And then really having the same conversations with my people. People want to know why they're relevant and how they contribute, but they also need to know what are the things they're doing that maybe are serving themselves and not serving others. So for instance, you know, there's a lot of manipulation in organizations. I've watched quite a few of your videos and you talk about manipulation. and the way people perhaps don't turn up with good intent. So one of my big discoveries was just changing my idea that most people turn up with good intention to work, to do good work. And my role, I think, as the leader was helping them to understand what it was that they were bringing that was working well and what wasn't working well. To use some of your words, where their ego was getting in the way. And then having some really honest conversations about You know, the whole idea that if you're going to be a good human and do good work, well, you better have a good look in the mirror to start with.

I love that. And as you know, and many of my listeners know, just the power of self-reflection. When we are in ego, it is so easy to justify our own behavior because we didn't have enough staff or other people acted poorly or our expectations were too much or whatever the blame is. And a lot of times we don't look in the mirror, we look to everything outside of ourselves as the reason. But it's almost a moment of breakthrough, a moment of breakthrough and freedom when you actually look in the mirror and say, what if some of this had to do with me? On the one hand, you know, I was hoping it was all about me. And on the other hand, I was sad it was all about me. But the freedom I found when it was all about me is how easy it was then to completely change interactions with people and results and my own happiness level almost overnight.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, I found something very, very similar to that. And I guess there's this tension between— when I look at the old system, I talk in my book about we get promoted based upon our technical competence. So we are always trying to get technically better. But what we are missing is that, I guess, that reflection piece, that human piece. the self-awareness that is really required to become accountable. And I reckon that was the tipping point for me. It was like, no, Mark, hold the mirror on yourself for longer than about 5 seconds and work out the things that you're doing that are really working well and aren't working well. And then have a really honest conversation with your people about that. And I think that was the breakthrough. The people started to become Comfortably uncomfortable, I call it, Sai. So their ability to sit with discomfort, to look at themselves, which ultimately I think resulted in greater accountability. And then what we saw in the end was their business results were 200% over target.

Which is incredible because a lot of people overvalue technical skills and justify it with, well, we've got to hit business targets, and it really leads us to do bad math.

Yes.

Because your technical skills are one portion, one piece of the pie. But when I talk about the value somebody brings to the table, it's their performance, their technical skills, but that can be drowned out by the noise of their drama, their emotional expensiveness. And I loved what you said about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's something I preach a lot where this is our human condition. And when we can get conversational about it, when we know we can't probably resolve this. We aren't all going to be totally enlightened and, you know, Buddha or, you know, some other great leaders. We— this probably is our condition for a while. And how can we just get comfortable with that continual self-examination and course correction and knowing that probably daily we'll screw this stuff up? But it's not that we'll be perfect. It's that we're willing to really continue to look at it and make progress You know, not being perfect. So, as people started to look at this and you started to see the business results, were there some people that just couldn't look at it? I get asked this a lot. Are there some people who just can't make the jump with the rest of you, the self-reflection and vulnerability and all the things we're talking about?

Yeah, look, I recall one person in particular who just, you know, they were so— they've learned behavior so much around results, technical competence, and process that You know, in the end, we had a conversation. I have another thing which I call— hope you don't mind me saying this— the stiff shit book. And it was like I had a conversation with this person and said, look, in the end, if you're not coming along with us, you're the exception now and not the rule, and you're going to have to find something else to do. So I think as a manager or a leader, there are times when you've got to set people free.

Absolutely.

And, you know, I think we pander a lot to This whole idea that everyone needs to be happy. And this is about being human. And it's not about corporate kumbaya, as I call it. We can't all sit around hugging every day. And if someone then starts to look like the outrider or not part of it because of their behavior, not so much their technical proficiency, well, I think you need to move them on.

I would absolutely agree. And I find one of the ways we've kind of over-rotated on engagement is this thing where we want to create an environment where we can engage everybody. And what I tell people is engagement's a choice. But many times we're feeding the minority, we're feeding the resistors, we're feeding the negative. When we just take our energy and start feeding the high accountables, the positive, first thing we find out is the same behavior won't please a high accountable and a low accountable at the same time. Yeah. And the second thing we find out is that You know, some of those people that can't make the shift, I love it that they, they become the exception, not the rule. And we do have to have that conversation that frees them up to either stay in joy or leave in peace, that there's no middle ground. You can't stay in hate or stay in and buck the system.

I agree. And look, I think one of the other issues in this too is that we get so transfixed on this score. called the engagement score. And every time a new engagement survey comes out, what HR tends to do is focus on the red. So they look at the negative and they go, oh, we need to fix that. And I'm like, well, let's focus on the green. Yeah. And let's incrementally increase the green because that's where the great work's happening. That's where the good humans are. That's where behavior, accountability, and self-awareness are all starting to morph together. But again, the human condition is to look for bad. I think we've got to change this and we've got to say that behavior drives the score. The score is not driven by managers behaving in a way to try and bring everyone on board.

I agree. And it's a no-win game because, like I said, a manager cannot please a high accountable and a low accountable at the same time. And high accountables are the ones that self-reflect and then change behavior. I'll never forget one of my first years as a manager, we had a typical engagement survey and I blew the charts off, or my team did. It wasn't me blew the charts off. Like 85% of them were top box engaged and there was like 15% that were like hostilely disengaged. Like there was nobody in the middle. Yep. And I was feeling pretty good about You know, how often do you get 85%, like full throttle engaged? I was feeling good. And HR came to me and they said, oh my gosh, you have 15% of your people hate working here. What's your plan to get them on board? And I actually said to them, I go, oh my gosh, don't touch them. My plan's working. They hate it so much. They are, they are probably resigning soon. Yeah. And I'm thrilled about this because they're the right people resigning. And this same group, when I had to fire somebody, It was one of my first times I had to let somebody go, and they just were not willing to come along with us. And I was going in and I felt bad because I knew it was going to impact their lives. I tried the self-talk of I'm setting them free. And one of my high performers said, Sai, why don't you approach it this way? My high accountables, they said, you're not firing that person. You're representing us. The high accountables. We have voted that guy off the island. That was when Survivor just started. And it really struck me that when I was then having honest conversation with people who weren't showing that type of behavior, I wasn't coming down on them. I was representing the people who showed up and, and self-reflected and, and not only were technically competent, but minded their behavior. And it was, it was really a freeing way to do that. Yeah.

It's really interesting you say that because I think one of the great— I think HR, leave it to the side here, is that the high accountables get sick and tired of watching managers try and bring the low accountables or the sort of reckless ones on board and I guess walking past poor performance. And I think it's the job of the manager or the leader Not to walk past poor performance or poor behavior, but address it and then get in a situation where the high cannibals feel like they're being supported in the business. And I think too often we spend a lot of time on trying to get the unhappy ones happy. And I think we just— one way to make them happy is sometimes move them on.

I couldn't agree more. In fact, when we teach, we teach that the average manager spends 80 hours extra a year on one person in full-blown resistance And imagine if you spent that extra time, 80 hours extra on somebody in full-blown willingness, how you could grow the good and quit feeding the bad. And so I could not agree more. But a lot of times we fire people but never tell them. We enable them, like we try and beg them and, and, you know, do anything we can to get them on board. I couldn't agree more for— leaders on how to spend time with the willing. You know, we interviewed high accountables when I was first doing my work in accountability. I went to people who tested according to our metrics high in accountability. And we asked them, you know, how could we reward you in the workplace? Like, is— we were looking for a trend if it was individual or if it was accountability-based on what is rewarding. And we gave them even a list to start their thinking. And it wasn't more money. It wasn't, you know, flex time. It wasn't any of those things. They didn't want to work less hard. They didn't even want to be paid more. The one thing they wanted was differentiation. They wanted us all to quit pretending that everyone was contributing to the same value. And they wanted us to make the call and call good, good and bad, bad and stand behind that call. Like, they wanted differentiation. I'll never forget that because that's free. That is free.

Yeah, look, I think This space of calling good good and bad bad comes back to the simple things about being human. Again, there's something around honesty and integrity in there. There's something about a sense of belonging. I speak a lot about belonging in my book. And you want to either belong to that approach or that mindset of behavior, or you don't. And it is absolutely incumbent on the manager of that group. at the time when it happens is to call bad bad and don't let people get away with it because that becomes the norm.

It does. And, you know, I think it was in the military here in the States, someone taught me if you walk by something substandard and don't say anything, you just set a new standard. I want to hear more about this book because I want people to get excited and to go out and add your book to their libraries. and the Being Human book. Tell me more about what you cover in your book and what some of your top tips are. I like it. You've mentioned belonging. You've mentioned authenticity and honesty. But what's the basic premise? And if you could give us the lowdown on the book, what is there?

Okay. So the book is really, it's a story of the 2-year experiment that I ran when I was good manager Mark and the things that happened in that And it sort of goes right back to the basics of being human is that we've become so transfixed on doing and the technical things that we've lost our— I guess what it is to be human, that is being. So walking in every day and asking yourself this question, how do I choose to be today in this organization rather than what's on my to-do list? Because I can get those things done. and still choose to be a pretty horrible human being. So there's this whole— I guess I'm questioning people about looking at the way they walk through the door every day, checking themselves and saying, am I being human or am I just doing things every day? So that's sort of the premise behind it. In behind that, for managers, there's a really cool 7 steps. Again, these were things that I put together over those 2 years that helped drive our results through the roof. Like year 1, 239% ahead of target. Year 2, on a triple target, we were 198% ahead. And it came down to these 7 steps. And it was things like creating a safe environment where people could be honest with each other. We did a lot of work around purpose. So what I talked about there was 2 simple questions, Sai. Why are you relevant? And how do you contribute? We had a good look at coaching for performance and coaching for behavior. So there's some good ideas in there around that. And I think the other one that's great for the readers of the book is there's a survey in there of 6 different types of managers. And the feedback I'm getting is it's really giving people a chance to understand that at any one time, they might need to flip from one management style to another or leadership style. But there's one in there I call subhuman. And no one should ever be that. And that's being a really horrible human being who is focused more on themselves than others. So very, very simple tips. What I say to people when they're reading through it is just self-reflect as you go and think about the times that you've done the things in there that bad Mark used to do. And then think about the times you're doing things that good Mark. And then ask yourself the question, which is the better version? So I think that hopefully that gives people a bit of an idea of the book. It's very practical. It's got practical tips, not much theory in there. I'm not a theorist. I'm a practical guy because I think that's the way work works best.

That's where you and I really marry our philosophies up is I want people to know what they can implement today and tomorrow and trust that it's theory and evidence-based, but that you've brought it down. The reason I love your work is you really bring to life additional ways we can self-reflect. And self-reflection is really the foundation of accountability. And I love the questions of self-reflection. You know, how am I relevant? And what do I contribute? Because it really cuts through, you know, the theoretical on why I should be valued or why I should be respected. It's like, you know, what value do I really— bring to the table, and really focused on the behavior. And we call that the drama quotient or the emotional expense. Like, just how is the way in which I'm approaching things, you know, drowning out or amplifying my results and my contributions? So absolutely love it. If we want to know more about you, and most of my listeners are really big into social media, I know at Reality Based Leadership, we try and feed them a ton. How can they, in addition to the book, how can they become a fan?

Yeah. Okay. So there's a couple of things. I have a Facebook. If they're on Facebook, I have a Facebook group called The Human Manager and in brackets, People Before Profit. So there's a, I think there's a couple of thousand members on there. And basically I just share my thoughts on a daily basis, different things I'm doing. The other one is just to go on my website, which is just www.marketingandleadership.com. Lebusque.com, L-E-B-U-S-Q-U-E. And yeah, look, I think they're the two. I'm just about to produce a few short, sharp videos and animations around the story of Frankie the robot who was in my book. So they'll be coming out early next year and again, they'll feature on my website and that. And also the other one, I guess, is just LinkedIn. Just look me up on LinkedIn. And would love to get some cut-through in the States because what's really coming to mind for me now is this is a global revolution. Human beings have got past this whole idea of the system, the hierarchy, and they want to belong. They want to feel like they're connected. I think the old system is, is not helping with that.

I think it's so true. And, you know, what I teach is there's like this toggle switch between your low self and ego and your high self, which is where we really connect. And it's our job as individuals to toggle back and forth. But it's also leaders can help so much with that toggle. But people do ask me when I talk to them about taking the drama out of things, they confuse it with taking the feelings out of stuff. And they're like, well, so we all should just be robots. thoughts. And it's actually the opposite. But a lot of our, our feelings come from the stories we create, or the disappointments we have because we had motive, or we're trying to control things, or we're trying to force things. So the, the emotions that come with ego are very different than the emotions that come with belonging, and connection, and authenticity, and success. And so it's just this ability to toggle back and forth. And I would agree, it's a global revolution. I was just in Egypt, talking to a bunch of people doing startups in a pretty tricky time in their country. And it's just people are sick of the drama. They're sick of the ego. They're sick of the behavior we get into, you know, especially in the States right now, when, when it is only about profits. And it's like, you know what, there's got to be an easier way to do work, a kinder, softer, better way. And for you people in front of profits, the counterintuitive thing is, is that when we are helping our people get to higher levels of consciousness, the profits are actually mind-blowing. They're beyond what we could probably— because the universe rewards this type of beyond-ego connection. So I'm a fan, a new fan. And so I look forward to hearing more from you, Mark. I'm so glad you joined us. Thank you. on the podcast. And what last tips, or what would you like to leave listeners with? What's some of your best advice?

Well, the last tip would be around this whole concept of doing and being. So I'd say when you get into the office, when you get back in the new year and back into the office, start to create a to-be list as well as a to-do list and start to think more about how you choose to turn up. Are you going to be authentic? Are you going to be present with your people? Are you going to be to be compassionate? Are you going to be tough when you need to be? Rather than, am I going to sign up some business? Am I going to fix an operational problem? I want to challenge people to start to put being before doing. So that's the tip I'd leave your listeners with.

Absolutely love it. And for those of you that have heard me talk, you know I have a module called Be It, Do It, Have It. And it's how to move from the having and the doing, hoping to become something and really switching that around. And Mark, you just inspired me for my next podcast. Rather than having a guest, I'm going to go through that model with folks as a tag-on to our podcast and just really build on your recommendations that get really focused on how you want to be and then focus on, given that, what are some things you need to get done in order to create what you're hoping to create. But I think it's great framework. So I appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Sai. Could I also just finish by saying, just the fact that when I wrote to you and to your team, how quickly you came back to me, that tells me that I am working now and getting to know people who are very human. So I just want to say thank you very much for that.

Oh, you are welcome. And I'll pass that on to my team. One thing we hope never changes— in fact, we don't hope it, we're intentional about it— is, um, that, uh, we want to connect with people worldwide, and we are pretty quick to say yes and to share our space. And the world's abundant. Yes. And we hope to, uh, make sure and, and, um, give a voice to folks, pass the microphone over, and let's hear as many voices as possible who are out there promoting us being great human beings and doing great work together. So, um, with that, I will sign off. Thanks a lot, Marc.

Thank you. Have a great break.

Thank you so much for joining the episode today. If you're loving this podcast, just make sure that you check me out on Facebook and Instagram and especially YouTube.