Over-functioning or Helping Too Much with Reality-Based Leadership?

Welcome everyone to the Reality-Based Leadership Podcast, new podcast. Those of you that have enjoyed No Ego and The Carvery, good news, we brought those together. So I'm Cy Wakeman and I am joined by Alex Dorr. And, uh, I'm the founder of Reality-Based Leadership and Alex is the Vice President of People Evolution. And we do not talk about development, we talk about evolution. And I love your title. Welcome, Alex. Good to see you.

Yeah, good to see you. This is, this has been fun, the first few that we've done. So if you've missed those, go back. We've had a good time, but we're going to keep that momentum going. Thanks for having me.

And it's fun. Our format here is a lot less formal. And in the past, we've given you like lots of content and training. What we want to give you now is like just some discussion, as those of you who are starting to implement, and it's filling in the blanks. As you're starting to implement some of our tools in Reality-Based Leadership or some of our philosophies, you might have some questions like, So now that I'm in here, like, what's this versus that? So we try and bring up some of the topics that we hear kind of in the meeting after the meeting, the one that it's okay to attend. It's usually after we give a keynote or a training where people have questions or have— want some further information. So that's really what we're trying to bring to you. So each time we have a bit of a different topic, and I have come up with the last couple, Alex, like— What, what is a topic you want to talk about today? What are we, what are we going to present to our listeners?

I had, I had one we haven't talked about much. And I just love to hear your thoughts on it. And it's an experience I had this probably like 5 years ago now. But it's a natural thing that could come up, I guess, entry level with our stuff. And this person came up and said, I know one of your core philosophies is this idea of stop judging, start helping. And it's kind of a non-negotiable at RBL. Anyone at any level, if we're noticing some judgment of a client, colleague, situation, we just all recognize the human condition, call a timeout, and we're like, if we weren't judging, what could we do to help? So that's one of the initial ideas. Many of you, you know, love those stories and know the model well. And, but they said, I've been doing that for like the last couple of months. And what I've realized is everyone just gives me their stuff. Like I just have a pile on my desk, like a mile high, and I get involved in everything.

Like you can do my whole job. What could you do to help me?

Yeah, but I don't have time to do my job. And I do actually remember this. I see some of myself in it. I loved that, like, stop judging, start helping. I was asking, how can I help often? I remember my early days into the philosophy side as you kind of introduced me to it. And that's what can happen. There's like this first phase where it's about saying yes and getting more involved and getting your name out there and kind of leaning into it. And then there's some other steps that happen when that helping becomes kind of hurting. And either you're taking other people's work or you're getting overwhelmed and now resentful of those. Yeah. So I thought we'd talk about like, how can RBL without some continued work and reflection turn into— maybe you can get to be a little bit of an over-functioner or an enabler maybe of another. And what's that next step? Or what's to watch for in the shadow of the action and the leaning in of RBL? Does that set an upside? That's kind of where I wanted to go.

I love that topic. And the work of the ego is you take a mandate and take it to the extremes and then, you know, almost prove like, Why you're still the victim. Now I did this and I'm still the victim. And I coach a lot of people that love RBL, even myself. When I look back at my path as a high accountable, I probably paid some price in my own well-being by— I used to say like, my name is yes, and, you know, I'm in, like, let's go. And that was my way to get out of meeting everything with no, here's why not.

I'm too busy, we don't have time. Yeah.

Yeah. That got me to the first place to go like, yes, let's play that out. Like, I'm willing. Um, and so when I would talk about saying yes, it was more like to keep myself in a mindset of willingness. But as I started to coach people, Alex, I'm glad you brought this up. My high achievers that love RBL, I have to go, and now that you're into saying yes, let's add the next step, which is boundaries, which is saying, yes, I'm in, but now let's talk about the how. Because what we don't realize without boundaries is that we don't veto power. So I'm like, hey, how can I help, Alex? And you're like, well, you could write this paper that's due for our client. And I, with boundaries, have to say, you know, thank you for the idea, and that's not something I'm willing to do, or I don't think that is something that's gonna be helpful long-term for your development and helping You do that. So what else do you have? And let's talk about other things. Just because you say, how can I help, doesn't mean you take whatever mandate's given to you. And so I think we have to separate those out. I'm saying yes and agreeing to do all the work— completely different. Saying yes is a bold RBL move, but agreeing to do all the work is a victim move. It puts you right back in ego.

Yeah, I, I, I couldn't agree more because, uh, you know, that yes and separating out the how is, is where you can stay with someone and say, you know, and that I think decide how far you want to go. I know the example you just gave, just playing with it, is like, I'm in now. While I can't write this for you, I can send you my standard template, and I know you got to customize it.

Maybe that takes you one day, right?

That's exactly what you probably did. I've Develop that over 10 years, it usually gets you 80% there. And then, you know, you pick your— pick and choose there. So, you're still, you know, helping. You don't even have to do that, but it just maybe moves the needle forward. But it's really intentional on that because I often think about as well, you know, if you've been through our accountability model, the first step's like that buy-in, and then comes your resilience, like do whatever it takes. I think the same thing happens. People hear that, and what we're trying to work through is that initial lack of willingness many of us have because we're already feeling too busy. And then you're just the resilient one that does it all yourself, fights through, cancels appointments to get it done, works over hours. And again, that's kind of the same stance. So, yeah, it couldn't be more important.

And you feel like a victim there. And what it is is just the most underskilled response. So resiliency can get weaponized to ourselves. We define resiliency as the people with the largest positive network, who asks for help most often, the crowdsourcers. And so what I see when people kind of weaponize our work, they're like, well, I asked how I could help, and, and then I'm being resilient and I'm doing everything. And I'm like, that's really underskilled resiliency. Most of the time we get fiercely independent. It's like a trauma response. I have to do everything, and I become the martyr, and I burned out. And it's like, well, like, what's your skill set on coaching and developing others? And what's your skill set on collaboration and asking asking for help and defining projects and using project management methodology. And usually when we find people who are over-functioning, they're covering up for a place that they're underskilled. And I found this in my own life. Like, I would, you know, work really hard and try and be the perfect mom and over-function in my relationships and over-function everywhere because I was super underskilled on boundaries and asking for what I need, understanding my own limitations. I was underskilled on estimating the impact of my behavior on others. Like, so if you're overwhelmed, you gotta look at, are you underskilled, using a less-than-modern approach, or, you know, less than willing? And so getting willing is important because it gets us out of saying no so quickly. But then joining each other into saying, you know, I'm in, I love this goal. Now let's talk about what would make sense given our priorities, given, you know, whether it's the thinking inside the box. And I remember when I was— had kids at home, a lot of you know I raised 4 sons. At the time I had 4 stepsons, and so I had 8 sons. There was a lot going on in my household, speaking of over-functioning, but One of my sons had gotten injured in football, like in junior high, and he was moping around and he was just like, you know, his whole life was over. Totally out of proportion reaction. Like, you probably wouldn't play pros. I'm like, honey, you wouldn't have played pros before the injury. That would have been unlikely. But I gave him kind of a pep talk and I'm like, this is the perfect opportunity to get more well-rounded and diversify and discover like the theater and discover, you know, like Music, or what else is out there that isn't just sports? Well, like every good teenager, when the time came that he wanted something, he used my words against me. So he came to me one night. I'd just gotten home from a huge, like, five-city tour in five days. I'd just gotten home. We lived way out of town, so you had to really be coordinated to run kids in and out of town. And I just got home, and I got my comfy clothes on, and I poured a glass of wine, and I'm like. I am home. And my son came up to me and he's like, you remember when you told me to diversify? I'm like, yep, that was a great pep talk. And he's like, I want to go to the theater tonight to see my friend, um, Thad play in— or be in this play. And my whole philosophy was diversify. And I found no coming out of my mouth. I'm like, no, that's not going to happen. And I'm like, talk about lack of alignment. What I wanted for My son was to diversify. He brings up a time he wants to diversify, and my first reaction is no. I just got home. I'm not running you back in. I'm not getting dressed again. I already had a couple sips of this wine, so obviously I'm not going to drive. No. And then I'm like, wait a minute. He's the only kid standing between my husband and I having a night with no kids, all eight kids out of the house. Like. What am I saying?

You almost sabotaged it.

So I had to back up. I'm like, change the answer. I love that idea. I love that you want to diversify. Let's talk about how you could get there. Because I'm not— I have a boundary. I'm not going to drive into town and I'm not going to stay in town and pick you up and come back out. What ideas do you have? And he came up with ideas. He's like, you could, um, you know, um, pay for an Uber. And I'm like, nope, my budget. I don't need Uber money. I'm not going to pay for an Uber for you. What else do you have? And he came up with a couple ideas. I had to veto. He's like, Mom, you could just take me. Just stay in your pajamas and take me. It's no big deal. I'm like, nope, that doesn't work for me. So this is where I said yes, but now let's negotiate. He even tried to guilt me. He's like, well, Thad's mom is a nice mom and she would take him because she cares about him. And I didn't take it personally. I go, oh my gosh, that's a great idea. Why don't you call her? She sounds fantastic and she probably is going tonight anyway. And he called her, got a ride into town, came back with her. And it's such a simple example of how so many times we say no to something that actually is a good idea just because we're overcommitted already.

Mm-hmm.

And instead of saying yes as a leader and then being a thought partner about how can we and who could you involve in that and where Where would it fit in priorities? And, you know, how can I support that is very different. So a lot of times when we teach RBL, you want it to be like the answer. So I say yes, and then, then I'm just a passive victim. It's like, no, you use it and then you actively get in the mess with people and have good conversation about how we could. And it's ideation and brainstorming and improv and innovation. And so whenever you feel tempted to take RBL principles and lock down on, you know, ego math, this means that, and back up, loosen your ego's grip on your view of the world and play with this stuff a little bit. You'll find where you're underskilled and where you can get better at these things.

That, uh, that story sits with me. I haven't heard you tell that one forever. And it's bringing back a lot of lessons just as I'm thinking through it. And one of the times I thought you shared that once, you're like, oh, You know, Thad's mom sounds super codependent. That's perfect. And not that you want to throw your boundaries onto someone else, but then that person's lesson is probably boundaries, unless she's joyfully taking kids around until the middle of the night. Um, and so I love that.

I said that. I'm like, well, Thad's mom sounds codependent. She'll probably take you, and I need milk. I'll have to pick some up on the way home. Like, she has no boundaries, so I will take advantage of that.

It's such a good lesson though. And you know, it just got me thinking of another thing that with this over-functioning, or it, uh, a lot of our, our, our stuff is that question that I've loved, we've shared the last few years, is that what would great look like? Or given this unpreferred reality, um, that, you know, this is not ideal, don't love that we're in this situation, what would great look like? And what's the first step to get there? And people get that one going and they're just solving problems in the moment. They're very much embracing the unpreferred reality and they take action and they're, they're They're tending to the need there. But then I've added recently that you might be doing that a lot, but it feels like you're always running, you're always firefighting. Taking a step back to say, given this unpreferred reality, what would great look like midterm? So, the short term is where our stuff really gets you busy, busy problem solving, but then it can get into over-functioning. Midterm is when you step back and say, wait a minute, let me contemplate instead of self-reflect. Contemplate's a little deeper. Take a little longer to say, is this a pattern? Is it like, am I surprised every single Friday that we're late on this deadline? You know, is it a pattern that's been coming up? Because a lot of people are like, well, this always happens to our team. And I remember, Sai, you used to coach us on this. You're like, so how many inquiries have we had that want resiliency training? And it's like, well, just 2. There's been 2 in the last 6 months, or this has happened twice in 14 years, and it was like one crazy court case. So midterm helps you see like, Is this a pattern? And if it is, now you have insight. And then you can say, what would great look like long-term? And that's more of taking a step back and seeing what partners you might need to get involved to do a process improvement initiative or figure out what that barrier is that's causing a big manual workaround or all of the stress. And so I don't know—

I love that you brought that up, Alex, because a lot of times we can take a tool and if we don't look at it, you know, Mid and longer term, we can misuse it too. So, like you know, if if I see something going down with a patient, I may not even have the expertise to do anything about it. But I can call the timeout. I can be like, "Wait, timeout!" And in the in the immediacy, like what can I do to help? I'm operating probably in an unsustainable way. I'm like, "I'll sit with this patient one on one until you get somebody." And like, well, it's not going to be. like sustainable that a vice president sitting with, you know, a patient that we didn't get enough observation for, like— But in the moment, we will— I will go outside my job to keep that patient safe. Midterm, right, we have to look at the data, as you said. And then longer term, we have to look at like, how do we keep people out of the need for, you know, mental health observation? Like, how do we plug them into services? And so Just notice when you get really locked into something, like is it this or is it that? Instead of for now, what would be the best thing that would help? And that probably isn't sustainable. So let's look at midterm and let's look at long-term. And you can even just hear the softening of, you know, we have all these patients, we've got vice presidents sitting with people doing observation and, you know,

across the

system. I have to do that. It's like, well, it's probably, I'm probably not the best person. I'm understanding. Because I haven't practiced for years, but probably not the best person. I'm a willing person in the moment to get through this piece, and then we can back up and say midterm, long-term, how do we do something different? I have found some folks that get into our stuff and they want to boil it down to soundbites and use it on other people. Oh yeah. And it's a way of just trying to control the world, and it starts with judgment. You're not doing what I want, let me control you. And what RBL really is about is using our principles to soften your stance It sounds like people are like, it's tough love. I'm like, it's love. Reality is tough. This isn't about hard stances. This is about softening your heart and opening your mind and seeing reality as it really is. Reality is the hard stance. That's the hard stance. Yeah. But together we can do great things in this current reality, and we can set ourselves up for a different reality in the future.

That's so well said. Like, our— the hard stance is reality. And then my job is to stand beside you kind of looking at that as a thought partner for us to navigate that. So that's the soft support I point to. Because a lot of people confuse their leaders with the reality, like the changing software. They're like, IT, why are you making us do this? I'm like, no, the vendor's updating, Microsoft needs us to move forward. It's like, or we are out of our grandfathered-in contract, we You know, so it's, it's, I'm just pointing to the news. I'm here with you and reality's—

I'm on your team.

Yeah.

Pointing to the news. A lot of people confuse leaders and reality because they're like, leaders are making us do this. No, the competition already did this. Like, I think that is so, so important and that we really pay attention that we aren't doubling down and really into the, I know, and here's why. And You know, if reality is tough, never meet a situation with the same energy it brought to you. If reality is tough or somebody comes in hot, greet that with neutral energy. Because a lot of times if reality is tough, people want to argue and greet it with tough energy. You know, they're gonna fight reality. And I'm like, well, that's a fight you're gonna lose only 100% of the time. Meet tough reality with soft things like curiosity. inquiry, you know, gathering together, holding the center. And that's why a lot of the competencies you and I are starting to talk about in our next piece of work are these soft competencies of a leader, which is translating or integrating or holding the center. Yeah. So I, yeah, I love that we are coming on and just giving more conversation around this, how to live this philosophy. Because the ego is so good at taking something and morphing it into another ego version of it. It's like a, a huge virus. Like it can take and, you know, here's the next version of the virus.

It's maybe, I don't know if you got into Pokémon, but it's like there's 3 levels, whatever the Charizard, it like kind of gets a little bit more advanced as you, as you get into this. So it just, it just evolves.

No, my only contribution to Pokémon was finding the silver one that fell between the van seats. That we can't wear. You know, what were the old Game Boys that you guys are game—

Oh yeah, it falls out of the game.

Yeah, finding those little cartridges that fell out of the thing in the—

That sounds like a big contribution if you dug that up, because—

I dug those out many times for the boys. Awesome. Well, I think it's a good conversation for us to be definitely thinking about. And there's a difference of being willing and willing to help. Doesn't mean that helping always ends in over-functioning. And in fact, if it does, you've probably missed the point and you're underskilled in some area, whether it's coaching or conflict resolution or just having good conversation and ending exhausting conversations and beginning new ones. So follow and subscribe.

Is it fair to say, is it fair to say, in your like, you know, 20-plus years doing this, if RBL is feeling like as you're using the tools and philosophies, it's getting, you know, harder, unless maybe you're just in some bigger situations. But if it feels like it's not getting more effortless, it's probably a sign that it's, um, that, that you're underskilled in something. It's probably that, that next evolution for you coming where you're functioning. There's a new layer to it.

Big wisdom. When you're exhausted and it's not effortless, it doesn't need to— it's intentional. But it's not exhausting. When it starts to get exhausting, it's time to go back to the basics and go through like the next round of evolution. Fantastic, fantastic. Hope you're loving our new format. Alex and I just getting together and hanging for a little bit. Subscribe if you're not already subscribed to Reality-Based Leadership. If you're not getting our newsletter, go to realitybasedleadership.com/newsletter, sign up. That's really our new way to communicate to you. We've doubled down on our newsletter, LinkedIn. We're not as doubled down right now And some of the social media out there. We don't want to be lost in that conversation. And we also don't— the ego is out to play right now. We don't want to have a lot of noise around some of the things that we say and do because they're really invitations. And so we think a better way to continue our conversation is through this podcast. Rate it, share it, subscribe. Yeah. And make sure you and all your teams are on the newsletter. It's fire content coming out every 2 weeks. From Alex and I. And it really is the best way, the easiest way, instead of hoping you catch us on Instagram, to get our work. And you can just put a folder and keep all of our newsletters, and then you're gonna have a huge library at the end of the year of great things to use with your teams. So, Alex, it's always good to see you.

Yes, amazing. We'll see you next time.

Awesome.