Speak Up Culture?...Tell me more!

Hello, this is Sai. Welcome. I'm welcoming everyone to the Reality-Based Leadership Podcast. That is now our go-forward name for what used to be the No Ego Podcast and the Carvery, my podcast and Alex Dorr's podcast. And we have come together. We're going to make it simple, folks, to get reality-based. And, uh, you're going to see both of us, and every once in a while, on a rare occasion, we're going to bring a guest in. They're going to be Highly curated because a lot of our conversations, Alex and I like to cover topics that our followers are asking, and this is one of those locations. So I am bringing today Stephen Shedletsky on, and we call him Shed for obvious reasons other than none of us can pronounce his last name. We're not very culturally adept, but we call him Shed because we love him. And Shed is going to talk to us about creating a speech. up culture. And I'm really excited about this because a lot of you are talking about what leaders need to do and our responsibility to create safe environments. You know, my response is it's shared accountability. And what I love about Shed is he covers the bases. But what you need to know about Shed is that he has amazing pedigree, graduated from college, all that, was one of the first team members working with Simon Sinek and was with Simon for quite a while and really developed that that global program and that brand that is Simic or Simon Sinek. And then what's cool is he went on to do really cool things and now has his own book and he's speaking and thought-leading and researching. So that's a long intro, Shed. I'm so glad you're here. And Alex Dorr, People Evolution, is also here. So I want to bring everybody in. Hi, Shed. Hi, Alex.

Hello. Yeah, it's a delight to be here. It's— I always have that awkward moment when I'm at events and the organizer's coming up and I'm like, I know they're gonna ask me, how do you pronounce your last name? And my response is always, I have no idea, just call me Shed. So feel free to call me Shed. A true delight to be here with, with both of you. Thank you for having

me. I love it. So when people query you, it's like, it's like Shed, let's ski. So, hey Shed, let's go skiing. That's how I remember it in my little, my little brain. So good to have you on, Shed. Alex, good to see you again. It seems, uh, Like, we don't get to see each other often, but lately we've seen each other quite a bit because we did a writing extravaganza. Shed, Alex has an incredible new book coming out that we just did some of that final workshopping. And how you feeling about being a writer, Alex?

Oh my gosh, I'm feeling good. It was so— it was great to see Sai, but then she actually was really focused on keeping me on the book as I wanted to go do fun things. And so I actually had to write for 4 days. So that was excruciating, actually. But we made progress. It's going good. And Glad we're getting together again.

Perfect. And role reversal, because usually I'm like, Alex, we don't have to do a podcast, we could go play. What's the name of your book going to be before we turn our attention to Shed?

Well, so it was going to be How We Could, and we're focusing on our reality-based leadership tools, really bringing those to the forefront. But I see as we write it that the title could be Pending. So that happens. I think I still like that, but we'll see.

A lot of people don't realize that You don't come up with a title and an outline and write a book. Shed, how did your book get named?

So I first— the first thing I started calling my book, and when I pitched it to my publisher, Page Two, I called it, you know, the good old convention everyone says, listen up. And what I noticed is great leaders listen down. And so at first I started calling it Listen Down. What I didn't like about it was down is negative in nature. As well, though, I do think great leaders do listen down within their organizations. It is hierarchical and authoritative and sort of patriarchal, and that's not what I wanted to get across. So I actually had a conversation with Sue Barlow, who worked with Jim Collins on Good to Great, and Speak Up Culture, or Speak Up was in the subtitle. And she's like, just call it Speak Up Culture. And I went— I love that. Thanks for speaking up. So yeah, so we called it Speak Up Culture, and I'm very happy that we did.

I love it. And what I think we're all realizing is we've grown up under language, and language is so important. And we're really transitioning, I mean, from getting more keen to better understand preferred pronouns to, you know, just having our language match our intentions. And I think a lot of us have to have a lot of grace in there for all of us to find our way. And so I want to hear about speak-up culture. And eventually, maybe we can get to the role that grace plays in letting people speak up as messily as they need to, to get the idea out. And then with a lot of grace, loving them into maybe wordsmithing language that serves all.

Yes. And I mean, one of the fun conversations and juicy conversations I've been having around speak-up culture is cancel culture as well. And there are folks, after repeated attempts and offenses, deserve to— I don't know if we want to go so far as saying canceled, but certainly be put on the perch that they're on.

Consequenced.

Consequenced. Very good.

Publicly shunned, at least for a moment.

Yeah. And with a willingness to— for them to change their behaviors and improve and grow and reconcile. But there's a difference between making one error once, it being soundbit, and then boom, you should be wiped off the map. I think that's extreme. And I think we need to have some room for growth, for acceptance, for understanding. So yeah, I mean, I call speak-up culture a culture, not an instruction. You can't force or tell people to speak up. We must create an environment. Either within our organizations or society where people feel that it is both safe and worth it to speak up. And speaking up isn't sucking up. That's called hogging air. And speaking up isn't a hall pass to be a jerk. We still— there's this sweet spot in the middle where it's with emotional intelligence and situational awareness and tact and decency and respect. And if there's anything outside of it, We must look at the intent. Is the intent to serve? Fine. Then we coach on behavior and impact. If the intent is not to serve or the intent is to be seen as, then there's coaching on, are you speaking up to serve or are you speaking up to be seen?

So much juiciness in there because a lot of people say, I'm not going to speak up. I spoke up in 1968 and no one listened. And that's just ego stuff. Or people are like, with cancel culture, I'm not gonna express myself 'cause I'll get canceled. I'm like, people usually don't get canceled the first time they say something outrageous. They get schooled or they get developed or— They get judged. Yeah, they get some feedback. But I also think that people who want to speak up, and we'll get to that, but they have some responsibility to do that to the best of their ability, tending to the community. And inviting conversation rather than killing conversation. But I know, Alex, you probably have some questions. Should we ask, like, just what even is speak-up culture? Like, should we start there? Where do you want to start, Al?

I was going to add, I think it's in the definition. Shed, you can jump in. But I liked this part. I was just looking at the book. It's like speaking up. You said ideas. This made me laugh. Even if they're half-baked. I think it goes with cancel culture. You said concerns, even if they're unpopular and/or personal. Disagreements, especially with senior leaders, which cracked me up. And then mistakes, believing it will lead to improvements, not punishment. So, I know you have a definition in there, but I thought that was an interesting clarification on that space of speaking up, but sometimes it's going to be messy in there. So—

Yeah, it's not just, I hate this and it's not my preference. It's like there are some real guidelines there.

Yes. Yeah. So, when I first started writing the book, I fully thought that I was rebranding psychological safety. I'm a big fan. I love the feeling. But even Amy Edmondson, who very much put psychological safety on the map, I mean, it's been a term that's been around since 1960, but she herself admits not the best term. The funny inside baseball story on the term is she wrote a paper earlier in her career. One of the reviewers picked it up and said, oh, you're talking about psychological safety. To which she went, if it gets me published, sure, let's just roll with it. And it's, it's not the best term. It kind of puts an academic lab coat on a very human, real experience. It's hard to understand. You know, as, as Edmondson defines it, it's an environment in which people feel safe taking interpersonal risk. Wonderful. But as I dig in—

It's not just one person's responsibility.

Oh my God. Yes, absolutely. It takes at least 2 people to be in a relationship unless it's just a relationship with yourself. Which is a good relationship to work on as well. But absolutely, as I delved into my own experience of what I call a speak-up culture and research and interviews and cases on it, I realized that good old Zig Ziglar, people don't buy drills, they buy holes. I thought that psychological safety was the only drill to get a speak-up culture as a whole. And so I marketed the hole. That's what we want. But as I dug into it, it's 2 levers. It's, is it safe? Absolutely. And is it worth it? Because sometimes it can be safe, but it's not worth it either due to bureaucracy, systemic issues that are too hard to tackle, or a change in habit that's too hard to overcome or surmount. It might feel safe, but it doesn't lead to any material or meaningful change. And how many times do you go back to a well that's dry before you're like, I'm just gonna stop. So, so yes, it's this phenomenon of, yes, a speak-up culture is an environment, as you said, Alex, where people feel that it is safe and worth it to speak up with ideas, even if they are half-baked, with feedback to help one another grow, concerns, disagreements, especially to senior leaders, and even admit mistake, believing it will lead to improvement, not being repeatedly ignored. And worse, not being punished.

Love it. Love the definition and love what it encompasses. Because a lot of the times we can overcompensate on everybody feels safe. But when risks start— stop having impact, even though it feels safe, there's no way we want to move forward. I remember in college we did an experiment where we had kids shooting free throws. And the, um, they were all engaged in the game. And then we hid whether or not— they couldn't see whether the ball went in or not. And they just— we just asked them to keep shooting, and they quit within minutes. They're like, this is no fun. I can't see that what I did, which tried to make a free throw, worked. Um, so I think that is so important. So how do you create it? Oh, go ahead.

Well, we're Well, we're still tangible species. We still need to see the fruits of our labor. You know, it's like running a marathon without mile markers. You might give up at what you think is mile 14, but it's mile 25.2, you know? Yeah. And to your point, so, A, I think seeing the impact of our efforts is important for momentum or either dissonance, like we're actually not going in the right direction and we need to make a change. That's important too. And I think, Sa, you really distinguished nicely that a speak-up culture and psychological safety is not a culture of nice or comfort. It's a culture of kind. And it's a culture of candor, leaning into Kim Scott's work. It's actually a culture where we can have the hardest of conversations to dip in and transcend out the other end in a better place.

So, how do we get people good at this? Like, what do you recommend? I know that I love the definition of it and I know Every leader, not every leader, many leaders want to create that environment, do their part. It's not 100% their part, right? But where do they even start? Or how do you begin to teach people about this?

I have no idea. No, I'm kidding.

That'll be book number 2.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. This is more than just an idea in this book. I think we've put some good practical tools on how to actually do it. And I really like, Sai, how you distinguish between not every leader wishes to create a speak-up culture. And I've shared with you both that I distinguish between capital L Leader and lowercase l leader. So, I view leadership as a behavior, not a position. It's a disposition, not a position. So, you could have the formal role of leadership, but that doesn't mean that boom, you're your leader, you have to behave into how a leader behaves. And I don't know all of the behaviors of leadership, but I have a good idea of a few: courage, humility, empathy, compassion, authenticity, which doesn't mean— need that as a leader, you need to be warm or charismatic or rizz, as the kids say. Yeah. Some of my best leaders that I've had in my career are consistently cold and grumpy, but I never had a doubt in my mind that they had my back. And my best interests at heart and in mind, right? Service orientation. I kind of have the belief that the fact that we have the term servant leadership means that our modern definition of the word leadership is broken because leaders serve, right? With boundaries, with self-care, with self-respect. But leaders serve people in a cause bigger than themselves. And leaders are decisive and accountable. When things go well, they give credit. When things don't go well, they take disproportionate responsibility. That's like a good start and soup and mix of what it means to be a good leader. Now, the question is, how do then leaders behave in a way that does make it safe and worth it for folks to speak up with ideas, feedback, concerns, disagreements, mistakes? And I call it a virtuous cycle of encourage and reward. Okay. So, encourage means I value your voice, right? If you're capital L leader but don't behave as a leader, You're either a driver or a boss hole, right? But we also all know folks who don't have a formal title of leadership but behave as a leader, lowercase l leadership, right? And those folks who behave as leaders encourage. I value your voice. What do you see? What do you think? On a scale of 0 to 10, how clear is my presentation? If you all say 10, I think you're lying. Give me the 3 or the 6 or the 7. I want to improve. One of my favorite stories of encourage comes from aviation safety. A well-known pilot, Ben Berman, very senior, great safety track record. Every single flight he takes, he says to his flight crew, because if you're flying for a big commercial airliner, the likelihood you fly with the same flight crew more than once is not high. And so, he says to his crew, I've never flown a perfect flight and today is no exception. I need to know what you see. That just sets the condition. Speak, speak, speak, speak, share. Now, the other piece of the cycle, and equally if not more important, is reward. So, it's like, all right, I'm buying what you're selling. I'll step into the speak-up ring. I'll open up the strings. The spotlight's on me. My heart's beating. It is never without fear. or risk to speak up. That is why I harp against the term fearless leader. Like, really? That's our standard? If you truly come across a leader who is fearless, run far, far away. Far away. Fear is biological and important. If someone doesn't feel fear, they're dangerous, right? I'm harping against that term fearless leader. It's leaders who feel the fear, use it as data, and then pursue accordingly and strive to create less fear amongst their folks. but not eradicate fear. That's inhumane. That's not possible.

Yeah.

But that second piece is reward. Now, reward doesn't mean extrinsic bonus, pay raise, promotion, statue made in one's honor out in front of corporate headquarters. Reward means more so intrinsic. Thank you. Wow, that must have taken courage to share. I really appreciate the research and work that you did in presenting This point of view. We didn't implement your idea, but here's why. Ooh, that really hurts to hear, but I think you're onto something. Can you give me 5 minutes so I can scream into a pillow in my office and then I can have this conversation? These are all forms of closing the loop and completing on that speak up, encourage, and reward cycle. So, it's those 2. And there's other tactics that we can talk about and what does good feedback look like rather than just one-liners. But at a sort of semi-high level, those are the 2 pillars of how to create it: encourage and reward.

I love that. And so, I think all of us that are big or little L's, we're influencers, we're on a team. I think it's actually some competencies and skill sets that I would call part of new leadership, modern leadership. Because I think that the assumed close, this won't be perfect and you have to have some type of concern, which we also in our RBL tools assume and want feedback. There's just no place for the ego to put that crap. It's like we want the clean stuff. Hmm. But I think a lot of us are underskilled in how to reward in a conversation, up to and including, I need a timeout. I'm a little triggered. I really want to be here for what you're saying. And what we try and teach a lot of is, let's validate your experience. You seem very concerned about this rollout. I won't necessarily validate yet the sense you're making of this experience, which it's obvious that leaders don't care, or it's obvious that this was just slammed in by IT. And so how do we hold that space to say, you've put a lot on the table, I want to unpack this, and let's do this in a way that's not personal and is really conscientious of the risk you took. And, um, and how we could shape this into ultimate impact and continuous improvement. And I think so many people are underskilled that we get triggered and just abandon one another at the very time we need to, as Gottman in marriage counseling would say, turn towards one another. I really think this is 2024 skill set. Um, I love it. Listeners can see why we brought you on because you're absolutely brilliant and I love your take on stuff. Thank you.

Thank you.

But, uh, yeah, it's like, this, this is good. This is good.

I was gonna add—

I was gonna add— go ahead, Shed. I was gonna—

I'll, I'll hold my point. Yeah.

Well, I like the story you said about the, uh, the, the, the pilot there that would always just do a check-in and, and say, you know, what's one thing you saw? And just that, that you're— that, that's saying that everyone's perfect and they could stand some improvement. It's like that continuous learning, just seeking more, curious, and One of the things that, um, Sy had taught us, but another workshop, I, I've— it finally gave me a breakthrough on being more open to that. Not that you're fearless, but you'll welcome any feedback. Um, and I think some of it's in Byron Katie's work, but you'll get a piece of feedback. Like, like once I was told, um, possibly by my wife, that like I wasn't a very good listener. And as you get that feedback— Sorry, what was that?

I wasn't listening. No.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, you weren't listening. So your first thing, your ego is going to find all the ways that's not true and just be like, no, I'm a good listener. No, I was— it was a perfect flight. Or no, I did this Well, you're wrong on that. Yeah. But as a leader, if you just notice the trigger, it might happen, you know, initially that'll be human condition, but take a step back and just, when you get time, say, what are 3 ways that could be true? And you try it on like a new pair of shoes or a glove to see if it fits. It doesn't mean you always just turn it on yourself. It might not fit if someone just missed it, but you at least take a look at it. And then from there, it usually reveals what you could have done differently. So then you're never scared to ask for that feedback. So that's kind of fearless, not in the way you're saying. Mm-hmm. So then you're at least open. So if someone does give you feedback you didn't expect, you get triggered, and then that reinforces they'll never give you feedback again. So I really like that. What are 3 ways that feedback could be true if one of them catches you off guard, especially if someone hits on a strength you thought you had? Like, I thought forever I was a pretty good listener, and then I'm being told by someone I'm not. It's like, you just hit my best strength that I had in the StrengthsFinder. And you're saying I stink at it? So that I just, I don't know if that helps at all, but I love that for leaders to be able to hold that openness with that question, that reflection question.

Well, and it turns out context matters. So you might be a great listener with a client, but you come home after a long day and it's like, you know, I'd like to, you know, resume to my butt groove on the couch. Thanks very much. I don't have energy to listen right now. As one of my mentors in my career said, it's one of my favorite lines ever. And she's the former CEO on Simon's team. She says that if it triggers you, it's probably true. And we say probably to be nice.

Yes.

Right? So that trigger is like, that's part of my identity. That's important to me. And it hurts because there's got to be some sort of element of truth in what's being said. And yeah, and you know, there, there are certain things in life that we— that are far less valuable when we claim them and far more valuable when others describe of us. Like, I could tell you all day long, I'm such a good parent. Let me tell you what great, great of a listener I am. I'm really present for other people. I make people feel heard. I'm a great leader. Like, run away from me, right? All of those things. Leader, present, listener, heard, parent. All those things are far more valuable when others describe of you when viewing your behavior.

Love that. Love that analogy. And one of the things I think when we talk about toggling up and transcending ego, if you can respond to any feedback with, I can find that. It may not have to describe my identity, but are there days I'm a really crappy parent? Absolutely.

Or moments.

Yeah. And I give the example where it's like, if somebody gives you feedback, work harder to find out how it is true than how it isn't true. And get out of the binary, am I or aren't I, instead of like, where's the big and? And somebody, you know, when I was doing an example of this, somebody said, you know, I'll give you feedback like, you're a liar. And I'm like, I can find that. Somebody else confronted me one time that I had some judgment against somebody who had a felony, and they said, Sy, you're probably a felony, you just are uncharged. And I'm like— and I found out I was both. I really thought, how can I find that I'm a liar and a felon? Well, on my driver's license it said I weighed 150 pounds. And when you present at a federal organization, your security And if you give any misinformation, it can be a felony. So when you check in in a high-security place, and every day I weighed 200 pounds and said I was 150, I'm like, and once you can do that and just be like, let's open this up, we aren't judge and jury yet, it opens up a space where we now all can speak up a lot more compassionately, with curiosity, with managing the energy away from why we can't or how we're screwed to how we could. Like, it really changes the energy. What you're talking about in creating a speak-up culture— and I know you take the realm of culture— I really put it as managing the energy on a regular basis towards, um, you know, all these things: holding space, turning towards one another, compassion, curiosity. Which, by the way, we're now finding in internal family systems therapy are like all the things that bring us to high self.

Yeah, well, it's, and it's a very Buddhist approach, which we need more of. It is not right or wrong. It is. And so, you know, as I look at one wish for 2024 and beyond is we live in a world that is far more, creates a facade of far more right, wrong, left, right sides. And we need a lot more A lot more space for gray.

Yeah. A lot more— Transcending polarism or polarity. Transcending polarity is my definition for 2024 leadership.

Yep. Which, which, and we, we live in an increasingly divisive society and world. We live in an increasingly divisive algorithmic world where literally the algorithms are often feeding folks different versions of the truth. And so, we need leaders in our organizations, in our families, in our communities, and in society to transcend. And how can 2 things be true at the same time?

And I agree with that. Whether you're a big L or little l, hopefully everybody's L or I influencer. You said before we came on, like 51% is leadership and 49% is like individual accountability. It's not 99% leadership. It's at least 51% because we have more responsibility. We have more power. Yeah. Formally. But I think that's so important. And I think one of the things individual contributors can show up is with curiosity and compassion, because it's really hard to have a discussion with somebody who's really set on misunderstanding you to prove their own victimization or to prove their own point. Toggle down, as we would say. Other techniques. What's one tool you love as far as how to open up conversation?

So, I have so many things going on right now, which is great.

Well, you take the lead. Do what you want to do. I could talk to you for 7 hours.

How much time do you have? My kids will be home in about 90 minutes. So, we've got some time. So, a few things. One, I recently heard an organization shift away from the term individual contributor to individual leader, leader of teams, leader of leader. And I really like that because—

That's cool.

You know, because I think sometimes we can say individual contributor and we can devalue the fact that they're still leading their lives, their career, leading in relationships with others, lowercase L leadership through behavior. So, I really like that. Another thing, you know, I've built it as a habit, especially when I co-facilitate. You know, if I co-facilitate with someone and we're virtual, the first thing that I would do is we would, you know, end the meeting and either stick on or I'd phone them. And I would ask 2 questions every single time. What went well? What can go better next time? And just every single time, what went well? What could go better next time? Right? And it got to the point where I kept doing it so often that oftentimes my co-facilitator Even though I was the more senior facilitator, would call me and start to ask me what went well, what can go better next time, which I'm like, yes, which is like, it's working. And yeah, I mean, to your point, we said before we hit the record button, which prompted us to hit the record button, I wrote this book for leaders, but again, capital L or lowercase l leader. And so the question is, who's responsible? For the creation of a speak-up culture, the answer is yes, we all are. And if you are in a formal role of leadership, it's at least 51% on the formal leader. At least. It ain't 99 because that's a codependent relationship. Mm-hmm. But it's at least 51, which just signifies that more of the responsibility are on the folks who have more influence in that culture, whether by authority, title, or behavior, or who picked you, or whatever it might be. So yeah, those are a few more things to add into our pool of meaning here.

Love it.

So I got a question. It's got me really curious as we're going in this conversation. And I think you hinted at it right before this, but I went on a different direction. But you were bringing up that, you know, like we want everyone to speak up. What we struggle with often without trying to, you know, ignite the ego in a session is these— this framing of we want your input but focused on how we could, or we want your input, we want you to speak up, but has the decision already been made? So a lot of people that are really mad about a change in our sessions or trainings, they're speaking up a lot about why we shouldn't have to or why we should have been consulted. But in that situation, that, that current thing is we got to move it forward. We're in risk mitigation mode. So a lot of the tools we would use there from an RBL perspective The example I can think of is negative brainstorming. I'm like, I want to hear your concerns, but those aren't why we need to stop what we're doing. You're— unless it's illegal, immoral, unethical, that is definitely speak up. But it's you're trying to stop this action and being the loudest in the meeting and stopping everyone from talking because you're speaking up about why we can't. But that same concern, we just need you to get into how we could. And so we call that moving to expertise, not opinion. Shed, what are your thoughts on this? I know it's some new language, but we battle that all the time where people do want to speak up, but a lot of times it's your biggest resistor or they're out of their like role for the situation. Do you have any comments on that side? Does that— you have anything to add to that either?

Absolutely, because I'm big if you have a flag to throw on the field, throw the flag.

Yeah, for sure,

throw the flag. I will stop immediately. You tell me this marginalizes a certain community I have an unconscious bias towards, throw the That we missed in

47 meetings as we planned it out. Speak up. Stop the action.

Yeah.

But you don't like it? Like, I don't know that that's a plague. So yeah, Shed, how do you help our leaders? Like, they want to speak up culture, but there are some folks that, you know, like you said, really use the format without responsibility. So with privilege comes responsibility.

Yes. So I agree with everything with one caveat, which is when are we beginning to toe the line into toxic positivity? Which is we only talk about the future and we only talk about good things. Sometimes we need to grieve. Sometimes we need to use emotions as data to take from Susan David with emotional agility. So I love that. And it's responsible for an individual to say, hey, I'm derailed over here. I don't know if I'm the only one. So if I am the only one, Yeah. That's on me and that's my work. And I'm committed to doing that work and asking for the help that I need. And I'm just gonna zip it and might, I might even leave the room cuz I'm actually just gonna keep throwing us into a toxic spiral. Um, but if for, for the odd chance I'm, uh, maybe one of many people who are grieving the fact that 10% of our employee base was laid off last week,

Hmm.

can we have that conversation? So I agree with everything except for that one caveat of The emotions we resist and push down persist. And it's still the responsibility of leaders not to be therapists, but to know when to call in therapists and counselors and professional help, but to create this space where all emotions are human emotions and all of them should be welcome at work. And if we go, you're allowed to have all emotions at work except no grief, please, that's going to get in the way and it's going to rear its ugly head.

See, and I think you pointed out something that I can have an unconscious blindside to being a therapist, because that's one of the ways I see our work get weaponized, is, um, to not allow the feelings. But what you did actually is what we would teach people early on in group therapy to do. Timeout. I'm feeling like derailed. I am struggling. I'm angry. Instead of timeout, does anyone see that leaders are screwing us over? And does anyone see that, you know, um, it— how this is going to end with like horrible takeover? It's not the, um, conspiracy theory. Yeah. It is saying, I am struggling. I want to be vulnerable here. I, um, I understand we have to do this as a business, but those were colleagues of mine. That was my spouse. Yeah. That got laid off. Coming back to work, some of you don't know, I had twins with some disabilities over COVID, and coming back to work is disastrous for my family, but I can't risk losing my job. Like, and so what I love about what you role modeled was the ownership. Like, let's talk about from me, and I'm vulnerable, I want to ask for help. Like, how, how can I make sense of this? Or what support can I get from this group?

Yeah. But if, but if 3 months ago there was a decision made 4 levels above yours or 2 levels above yours or 17 levels above yours around a return to office mandate and you're still complaining, you have choice and you have work. And, and is it within your sphere of control or influence? No. Then, you know, the, the 3 of us are often up in front of a room or, or on a stage. I will never ever say to someone, you should quit your job because I have no idea what's going on in their life. But if it's a scenario where you're still lamenting over something that's months ago, that's your work to do and to figure something out. Ask for help, get help. But that's one where it's now your personal responsibility to go, this isn't working for me. I need to find a change and make it happen.

And I think creating a speak-up culture is one, teaching people some of the skills that come along with Sorting through their own stuff, emotional regulation, refining and processing a message so that when you do bring it up, it reflects your experience, but it doesn't trash other people's. It doesn't microaggress. It doesn't—

Yeah. You don't yuck other people's yum, as I like to say.

I love that. That's the new— you've got kids because you're into all the sayings. I think what's also important in creating a safe culture is like, if this does become a different equation for you and you need to go, I will help you. Like, I think part of creating a safe culture too, I think we all need to realize that, you know, I'm older, but it's like all morning I've been on different calls with people I've worked with and not worked with and worked with and not worked with and worked with. And, and they went with other vendors or they went like, it's all okay, and life is long, and relationships are key. And so I think, you know, if somebody— we say a lot, if you can stay in joy, stay. Um, otherwise, like, let's help you leave in peace. But it's not going to be abandon you. Like, I really want to help you leave in peace. Like, if not— if working virtually is important to you, you're in luck. I know tons of people, and you've been a great employee. Yeah. So let me help you with that. I think Part of that safety we can create for people too is not taking things so personal. Like, you know, you're leaving me. No, you're not. You just have to decide what's good for you and your, you know, circle.

Yeah, totally. I mean, and it's a real test of leaders and organizations, which is how do you exit folks? You know? And, you know, if it's truly— like, I've seen this with a few clients. There's You know, we're all— we're coming off of this COVID rebound right now where, you know, COVID hit, everyone started working from home unless you had a frontline job, you know, and now we're not post-COVID, in my humble opinion. We're just with COVID We're with COVID But I'm seeing some folks of like, you know, I decided to move away from the city for my kids and family and for cost of living. But now, I'm seeing everyone go back into the office or both my husband and I or my spouse and I are both working from our— I love the company. I love the job. But it's the context that's just no longer working for me. Then, if indeed they were a good employee, if they weren't a good employee and you kept them along for that long, that's on you, leader. Where's the feedback? And where's the level of tolerance? But yeah, then it's a win-win-win. It's a win to be like, we love you. It's not working. Let's help you. We'll set you— we'll do everything that we can to set you up in what could be great for you next to whatever degree that we can. And you still breed loyalty all over the place. Yeah.

And the world is small. And, you know, I'm amazed by all the different companies I work with. I run into people again and again and again. And I run into people who have helped people go who have done great things in the world. It's a great legacy.

Yeah, there's a recent study and paper that came out that really disparaged psychological safety. And it said, too much psychological safety is bad. And they spoke about comfort and they spoke about creativity. And it was just when you miss define things, any study you write, you know, it's like you read the first 3 lines of the executive summary and you're like, well, I don't agree with the first 3 lines, so I should just stop reading. But one of the examples they, they cited was how could you feel psychologically safe after being in a conversation with a boss who provides you with critical feedback or even lays you off? And it's like, excuse me, that's the standard Of leadership. The standard of leadership is to say, team member, I care about you so much. There are some behaviors and things that, from my experience, are getting in the way of your progress. I want to provide you with feedback so you can grow. That's the standard. So, you know, I think the standard of leadership should be that you can— it is important for you to both have hard conversations and have those end with people going, Thank you. We just did this with one of our vendors today. We gave them tough feedback and they said, thank you. Most clients don't do that. Like, we really appreciate you taking the time. Good. Winning.

Well, and I think that's what gets us again so polarized as leaders is like, it's like we want people to like us or, you know, it's almost like a couple that has an argument on the way to the airport makes the leaving easier. Like, you know, there's another thing kind of going on. It's not cancel culture, but it's like mass abandonment. You know, in HR, we believe that even if we have to change your employment status with our company, we can maintain your dignity. Yeah. And we can understand that this is, you know, part of the human condition right now, and that changes over the lifespan, and people change, and we all make bad decisions. I'm a firm believer right now in leaders, L, big or small, Can't take anybody where they themselves haven't gone. So if I can't forgive myself for a mistake, I can't forgive you. If I can't have self-compassion, I can't— you know, if I can't love myself and know that I have some things I need to make amends to people for, we can't then lead that way out in the world. So there's such a big emphasis, I think, on Healing your own trauma and working your own program in order to be able to do this.

There's a quote from Frederic Laloux who wrote the book Reinventing Organizations, which is, the consciousness of an organization will never surpass the consciousness of its leaders.

Wow.

Which I love. Yeah, I love that. The other you made me think of is, you know, oftentimes we use the analogy of it's like a family. at this business, or it's like a family here, this organization. And unless it's legitimately a family business, it shouldn't be, you know.

Talk more about that because I'm with a client right now and they're like, we're Minnesota nice. We're like, we're like family here. And I'm like, it seems like a dysfunctional family.

Yes, because, you know, it's harder to lay off a child. You know, you can do it, but it's really hard to do. And so, So, there's a couple tensions here. One tension is I think a great organization is a great team or a great community. The way I would define a team is a group of people who work together toward accomplishing common goals. Community is a group of people who agree to grow together. That's what I think the standard should be. However, when talking about what effective leadership looks like, I think there's no better analogy, or at least skill set, as it means to what it means to be a really good parent. Which means, you know, what does it mean to be a really good parent? Love and limits. You know, you don't wrap your child in bubble wrap. You let them scrape their knee. You let them have some social tension. You know, it's, it's, and it's, it's, it's bullet holes above the waterline, not below the waterline, which is a David David Marquet idea. So while leadership isn't parenting, being an effective parent in helping someone grow and reach their potential, or I don't believe that we wake up or we're born with a bucket that says potential and then we reach it and we stop. It's infinite potential. Yeah. But that's the work of leadership. And one of the chapter epigraphs from Bob Chapman, in which he says everything he learned about parenting is leadership and everything he learned about leadership is wrong.

Oh, it's wrong. It's so interesting because I use that analogy and I always say, not that our teammates are children, but Love and Logic is my favorite parenting book. And the number one thing we hear when people learn our philosophy is they're like, this works at home as well as Because it really is just love and limits and love and logic and not buffering people from the natural consequences of their work, but supporting people while they experience their natural consequences. And I think it's so important. And these are just really life skills that I think that we've gotten away from a little bit. And so I just really think as we look forward how we can help people is just this self-awareness and insight and better, you know, we started it with EQ. We've hinted at it and we've tried to be so clean about it to not bring it to work. Like the ego is so great in saying, well, that's personal and this is professional development.

Yeah.

We gotta quit separating those. We gotta quit saying things like, well, you know, new teammates today should come with some of these skills their parents failed. It's like, we just gotta stop with all of that, begin from where we are, and build good relationships and know that our role is a lot of love and support, loving people up, and then calling people up and giving them, um, you know, realistic views, at least from our point. And then I like to say, but don't take my word for it. Go out and explore this with other people who experienced you at that same meeting and ask for some feedforward rather than feedback, as Marshall, you know, talks about. Um, So you had me keeping things conversational, not confrontational. Go ahead, Al.

You had me thinking about— it's a random back to what you guys were talking about with the fam. We're a family business and why this might be different. And also, um, yeah, so you said the Minnesota example, and Sai and I are both from Iowa in the States here, Shed, and it's— they're known to be really nice. And I remember you did a run, so I think you were in California, Iowa, you touched in Canada, then you were in London. And he— all 4 of those sessions, someone goes Cy, this would be good stuff, reality-based leadership and speaking up and using these tools, but have you heard of like California nice? And then the next one was Iowa nice and then Canada nice. And you're like, wait, are you guys talking about passive aggressiveness? Or, you know, it was like kind of funny, the joke you said. And I, it was so true to me because I've heard that in about every state I've been in if they don't want to use the tools or like lead. Um, so it just had me laughing. I thought I'd add that if that's helpful, but it kind of goes with what Shed says. It's like you love people up, But you still got to call people up to greatness, even if it's a family business. There's, I mean, it's going to get rough if you never have a call to greatness when like, you know, like business is involved. So I think if it's a new, it's an extra constraint in there, it's a dynamic, but it's definitely all this stuff applies.

I like to say in our cultures, we get the behavior we reward and we get the behavior that we tolerate.

I saw that in the book. I love that.

I tried writing it 7.

And I think it tolerates good, but I also think there's also the behavior we enable. Yeah. Because a lot of people are like, I'm intolerant of this and I'm not rewarding this. I'm like, you're enabling it.

That's good. Yeah. I think I tried to write that sentence, Alex, like 7 times in the book and we got it down to 3 or 4. The other thing. So one of the things that I hear from folks is, you know, trust takes time to build. And I'm like, it doesn't need to, you know. It

doesn't need to.

And there's, I mean, one thing that walks in the room before we do is our reputation. Right. I mean, and Sai, this was my, my, my experience of you. I knew of your work and I knew of so many people who knew you, who spoke so highly of you. And so we bumped into each other and I felt I already knew you. Right. That's called—

Seriously, we met and we went deep into conversation in a very loud environment. And I'm like, we're besties.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, so that's one. And like, ever get a random LinkedIn connection and you're like, oh, we have 37 mutual friends and you, what do you do? You click on the mutual friends. And you're like, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk. No thanks. X, right? Or I love these people. I share values with these people. Click, right? And that's someone that you've already built trust with because, because of reputation. There was I, and then there's other trust building activities and experiences that we can do to create a speed of trust, as Covey says. And then I wanted to share a quick little experience I had recently because it was so good. I was introduced to someone where the person that introduced us, we both love. So we immediately hit it off. This person has a lot of experience in media. I tried to pitch something. I sent something to them and he wrote back to me and he said, Shed, let's pretend we've been best friends for 15 years, was the opening line of his email. And he said, with that pretense, Here's the feedback that I would give you. And I was like, oh my God, what a gift! Like he could have ghosted me. He could have said it's okay. But he's like, let's pretend we're we're we're besties and we've known each other for forever. I'm gonna give you feedback based on that level of relationship, which I was like, thank you. It was a breath of fresh air. It was brilliant, and it like quickly. got us into depth because I knew it was coming from a place of love, care, and service. It wasn't to knock me down. It was to build me up.

And what's cool about that is I've even had companies that taught me, and I've taught others, start an email out with, in the spirit of continuous improvement, or one of the company values, in the spirit of a call to greatness. And when we used to do ropes courses, everybody would have a caliper as kind of one of their takeaways. And people would come in to have a hard conversation and they would put the caliper on the desk, and that just said everything. Like, I am here in peace and I'm nervous to have this conversation. Yeah. You know, I appreciate that. I also think we're animals. And if you're— if you've done your inner work, if you— for me, that's meditated and done some intentionality and walk into a room. Animals read energy. The cat knows which lap to crawl up on, and it's not mine when I walk into a room. And I think too, managing our own just way we move into the world and also gives people that entry. And also, they just need to see us handle something once where we are open and honest. We're like, oh my gosh, you've given me a lot to think about. Can we take this outside this meeting? I really need to understand more about that. When they see that kind of unflappable openness, that spreads far and wide.

Yeah, totally. Which is also, there's a ripple of encourage and reward. Because let's say, Alex, I report into you. I go into your office and have, or Zoom room or whatever it is, and have a hard conversation and it goes well. Guess what? That spreads. That spreads really quickly. And similarly, if it doesn't go well. And a speak-up culture doesn't mean, you know, that anyone can just knock on your door, pick up the phone, or say, I have feedback, you're going to listen now. It's, I have something hard that I want to discuss. Is now a good time?

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's, I think oftentimes we behave as if we're automatic transmissions, but really we're, we're manual. It's not just park, drive, and reverse. It's when you're driving, there's 5 gears. So, we can flex our approach and check in and ensure that now's a good time for the conversation. And I love, Sai, what you mentioned with talismans. Language matters. Shared language matters. Symbols matter. So, my favorite formula for feedback is FBI, right? Feeling, behavior, impact.

Okay, give us an example.

So, and it works both for positive feedback as well as constructive, because I, you know, I like to say one-liners are fine for jokes, not really so good for feedback. So I could say, you know, great job. Hey, you two, great job today. And you're like, okay, don't know what we did to deserve that or how we could ever repeat it or if he's being sincere. Or I could go, FBI, I feel so bought in and engaged by the research you put into this conversation, by your presence and excitement and us building upon each other. And the impact is whatever you want to do, most likely I'm 2 thumbs up. Let's keep going. Right. That's way better than great job today. You know, similarly, and I'm making this up, I could say you're, you're lazy, triggered, done. Or I could say, I feel really let down. And if I'm honest, frustrated when you showed up late to 3 client meetings last week. And the impact is I'm not sure we can trust you with what's on your plate right now. Like, what's going on? How are you? You know? And I think for capital L leaders, you must realize that your feedback is not fact, though it should be based upon factual events. It's opinion. And the purpose of feedback is to start dialogue. The purpose of feedback is to create growth. And so, that's why I love at the end of that constructive FBI is open-ended question.

Yeah.

Because I don't think— I do not think that the vast majority of us wake up in the morning and go, I'm going to let down my boss and colleagues today, right? Very few people say that and mean it. So, I think when we show up, I'll take from Dr. Becky Kennedy. This most generous interpretation is how can we say, what's going on for you? What do you need? This isn't like you. It begins dialogue to be, oh, I have too much on my plate. I'm doing too much execution work and I'm a strategic thinker or vice versa. I'm caring for a sick pet or parent or family member, whatever it might be.

And I love that. And I am so bought into FBI, our feedback frame. It's like we just come from the same schools. It's like, In, in my first book, it was all about like, um, here's what I appreciate about you so that I remind that you're bigger than the one event I'm talking to you about. Like, yes, um, I come in peace. And then here's what's not working yet. Or, you know, it's like there's hope. And then the third one's like, help me understand like what's up. And I would add one to your FBI. Here's what's possible. Because I really want to say, like, all this is figureoutable if you're willing. Yeah. And you can share with me, because here's what's possible. We maybe can get you out of some execution to free up time for strategy, or, you know, here's what's possible. And, and I think after tough discussions, what we forget about is we leave people in the moment maybe feeling closure, but afterwards they get very vulnerable again.

Yeah.

And, and it's hard to remember.

It's that hangover.

It's that hangover. And so I really think about proximity. Like, if we've had an intimate discussion, I have to be so intentional to turn back towards you 3 times.

Yeah.

So, because any absence— like, if Alex and I have, you know, um, um, and we've gone through some tough conversations in the last couple years, not about each other as much as about some things we're trying to do. And I myself, Psy Awakening, writes books on this, was just like, forget it, I'm out. I'm like moving to Argentina. I don't need anybody. That's my trauma response, like fierce independence. And, uh, I just get a text where it's like, you need to jump back on the phone with me, or, um, you know, we want to talk to you tonight. And it just called my ego out. But we have to, um, um, we have to show up in people's lives. Just tell them, I haven't abandoned you and I'm not out, and I hope you aren't either. I think that's so important.

I think there are some really good practices we can have with feedback and precursors and things that we can only say if we truly mean it. But things like, I don't feel I'm right. This is my opinion. I want to hear yours as well. I want to hear your experience.

Don't take my word for it. Try it out for yourself.

Yes. As well, this is not the only time that we, we can speak on this. Let's revisit, you know, circling back. How are you feeling about our conversation from last week? Anything more you want to— that's happened since then? You know, door is always open in this conversation. And I'm going to keep reminding you and opening that door. Because to just say my door is always open is passive leadership. You got to go open it and say, come on in, folks. Right?

Exactly. It's just like when somebody passes, you go, call me if you need anything, to the grieving family. No, show up with mashed potatoes and toilet paper because they're going to feed a bunch of people. There's a lot of people in their house going to the bathroom. And I think that's so important too. Even as we give feedback, that we create space to stay together. So I might say, I've given you something that maybe wasn't on your radar. So I don't expect anything right now. I would love you to spend some time with it. And then let's get back together. And then my question when we get back together is, what sense have you made of what I've shared? And have them start that. Like, any insight, any course correction, anything you want to add that may help my understanding of what's going on, anything you didn't feel comfortable sharing.

Yeah. And it could be venom and anger to start. And that's okay.

It's part of the process. It's part of the process. I can be here for your experience. I may not ultimately validate your experience because I don't want to leave you making sense of your world in a way that's going to continue to hurt you. If, if I can, if I can help. Yeah.

This is, I'm curious for both of your views on this because sometimes what I've shared when giving feedback with folks, especially I'm thinking of someone on my team and someone who I see that they're behaving in a way that's getting in their way of growing. And sometimes I've even used this term of like, here's what I'm afraid of. Like, what I'm afraid of is if we continue behaving this way, we're gonna hit a ceiling and you're not gonna grow into the role that you can really have here. What I think is possible is, so I'm curious what you feel around that, what I'm afraid of question or that, that statement.

So I, I like that actually. Um, it reminds me of, I think one thing we say at RVL is like, let's play that out. So maybe it's in there, but so if we played this out like and have them see if they could walk out the steps that that's like. Yeah.

How does this end? Like you, you keep acting the exact same way.

Let's just play that out. And sometimes they'll, because like I was bringing this up, should I, I had a note here I was gonna bring up. I, about like speak up. And this is going to sound not correct, but again, messy idea, so we'll work through it. What are we podcasting for? But it's like, I feel like leaders speak up at times for the truth though. And I'm not trying to get into that, talk about truth, but like the reality. Because so many of our tools— there's one I'm thinking called, we do thinking inside the box, where people will say, you know, here's our goal, safe environment, but you don't understand, it's not possible today because we're down 2 people, we don't have the equipment we need, we've you know, had these 3 changes, this happened in that room. So they wanna use like that situation as why we can't. And so as a leader, you draw up the situation so we can get everybody looking at the same reality and like pointing, speaking up for the truth, which is reality. I'm not speaking the truth, I'm drawing it for us all to see. Now I want your ideas to speak up on how we could, given this unpreferred reality.

Yeah.

So I see like, in the same situation where you're like, let's play that out. You're trying to reveal the truth for them without you saying it, where I'm afraid this will happen, so I'm telling you what I see is going to happen. What are your thoughts on that, Shed? Does that make sense? I've tried to combine 2 tools there, but I see that as being a, a way that might be able to bypass that ego, still get to where you're going, express that fear you do have, but they're able to discover it.

Yeah, I mean, the truth of most truths is they're perception and not in fact true, so

Yeah.

But, but I, I think there's something around, hey, we're gonna make a decision or we're gonna have a conversation, and it's important for us to lay out the assumptions and the context and ensure that we're seeing things in the same way. And, and if we're not, we, we gotta stop and unpack and, and get to a place where we don't have to necessarily, uh, uh, agree on everything, But we have to agree on an interpretation of something.

I think there's 2 different truths you're talking about. One is if I'm giving you feedback, that's totally my opinion of you, and that experience is through my filters and my biases and all of that. What you're talking about at times, Alex, is saying headcount's frozen, and people are like, you never let us do anything. I'm like, oh no, you're getting me and reality so confused. I just happen to be representing it right now. And so I think there's 2 types of truths. One, we're representing our constraints, And we can challenge those, and they may be assumptions. And the other is, is other than that. I like the, here's what I'm afraid of, because as an HR person, I've had to talk to people about, you know, you get to agency, you get to act how you want to act and do what you want to do. It's not without consequence. And what I'm telling you is in this context, in this environment, that could become a career staller or stopper. Yeah. So what are your career goals? Because I've had to talk with a lot of physicians. who they're like, you know, I'm just gonna be me. I'm like, totally, you can do that. And let's talk about, you know, being you given this environment. And, you know, what's your career goal? And it's like, okay, so if your career goal is to become chief of the medical staff and you continue on this trajectory, what are the odds of that happening? And is there anything you're open to changing in your approach to meet your own goal? So it removes it from me. Saying you gotta change. Mm-hmm. To getting it back to like, what's your goal? Well, I wanna be employed here long-term. Awesome. What's your approach been? Well, I refuse to do any training. And like, so what are the odds of you not growing, getting you lifelong employment? And, and a lot of times it's, it's people seeing it, um, that way. But I like the, I'm afraid, but I come from a counseling where it's like, you can do this and you're on probation. And here's what I'm afraid of. Your probation officer is going to have low tolerance for, you know, riding this right to the limit. They prefer you stay a mile away from a bar. You're saying that, you know, you can hang outside the bar. Um, you know, how high risk is that decision and how, how tolerant are you of that risk? And I think what we need to remember in any feedback is putting the agency back on the person. They get free choice. They get to do whatever they need to do. I'm here at times just to not protect them from the consequence. Like in my family, one time with my kids were in junior high and they started talking back to me a lot. And it was talking back like, take the garbage out, please. And it was like, well, in 5 minutes, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, it's time to take the garbage out. I would charge them like a buck. So one time, One of my sons had a girlfriend over, a new girlfriend who was in junior high, and I said something that was embarrassing to him. And he came in and he put a $20 on the table and he goes, I want to prepay for this conversation.

That's amazing.

And what was so cool about that is like he's still about— he had the consequence and it wasn't really talking back. I would have listened to him, I hope. But to him, he's like, I will abide with the consequences and I'm going to tell you. And I think a lot of times people want to speak up with no risk. I can't make it that safe for you. Yeah. Or speak up with no consequence. But as adults, I want people to have agency. Like I've had people who they're like, you encouraged me to speak up and now I'm seen as the only one that gives feedback to the big boss. And I'm like, so that's our reality. What can I do to sponsor you? Differently so that you're not left alone speaking up to a big boss that didn't show that they are very responsive.

Yes. Well, this is another fun thing, which is courage travels in company.

Awesome.

So if you're someone that you're the only one speaking up, well, get some allies.

I love that.

And how can you ensure that, you know, I just heard this. I I gave a talk last week and someone came up to me after and said, you know, I run an employee resource group on DEI and I report up the findings from that group to the senior executive and nothing happens. And I'm like, bring some folks with you so that you're not the only voice. Like, show them that it's not just you. Bring some folks along because courage travels in company. So I think that's one. And the other thing that came to mind around You know, speak up isn't immunity, and there's a there's a cost of being authentic. You know, authentic is saying and doing what what you actually believe, and if your beliefs are at at odds with others, or if your beliefs are at the detriment of knocking others down, there is a repercussion for that. So this is where you know for anyone to say. You know, move your bias aside. It's like, well, no, like, it's not possible to have no judgment or no bias. The work is in realizing and building awareness to your judgment or bias, and then examining it and going, oh, does my bias here actually correlate with my values? Or is there dissonance here? And if there's dissonance, then that's time for me to grow. Yeah. Or broaden my perspective or take something on because there's a gap between my bias and who I think I want to be.

Perfect. I also think, like, in a speak-up culture, there's things we can do for one another. Like, sometimes somebody comes to you, Devett, when it would be more beneficial if they spoke up, like, in the right environment. And I think that's the time that we can lend credibility to other people's reputations. So, like, You know, Chet, if you came to me and you're like, Alex did it again, I can land credibly and say, you know what, let me stop you there. I just wanna give a commercial for Alex. I know at times he seems reactive, but every time I've gone to him and said, time out, let's begin a conversation, he has stepped up. And I'm really glad to sponsor you in that. Thank you. So that, you know, speaking up culture also gets out of these drama triangles where people don't have to be the villain or the victim or the, the fixer. And I think it's so important in how we serve our friendships and our colleagues to say, you know, I hear that you're frustrated and I believe in the possibility and hopefulness that this could become a great conversation. How can I help with that? Can I sponsor that?

Yeah. And there, and there can be space for a little bit of venting, but then it, but then it needs to shift into, into coaching. And how can, how can you say, you know, if there was one thing you would want to say to Alex, what would it be? And it's like, one sec, I'm just going to write this down. Great. Will you say it? And how can I help you?

I love that. I love that.

We talk a lot about like impact it or let it go. So I love that's kind of your version of it. It's really cool. It's like, let's write that down. Commitment.

Will you say it? But I can't get through this without mentioning Michael's book, you know, like The Coaching Habit and The Advice Monster and The Advice Trap. And because that, that's just classic. Yeah. Would correlate with his stuff.

But I find it so often when I'm speaking with friends or with colleagues or in a coaching conversation, and I'm just like, dream with me a little bit. Like you're having the conversation with the person. What's the thing you would want to say to them? And then they say the perfect thing. And I'm like, you should lead with that. That's the thing you should say.

It takes me a minute. Yeah.

And I, and I write it down for them because they're often speaking from that limbic brain where they can't repeat it. So I'll write it down.

Exactly.

Here's what you said. You're like, wow, that's good. I'm like, yeah, I know you said it. You know, now how can we help you make this conversation happen? Of which, so I do your words, I can sponsor it or I can mediate it or we can get a mediator or something because I make up a story that it's going to go really well as long as you actually believe that.

I love it. I love it. Well, I would love this conversation to continue. I think that by now listeners are like, Holy crap. Now we know why we interrupted our normal programming to bring Shed on. We need to start wrapping up. Like, what else do you want people to know? And the name of the book, like, everybody needs to read this book, needs to do book clubs on this book. I have so many clients where I am like, I know this is what they want and they have a culture that's a little too quiet and they want to know how to get this done. So I know you come in and speak and work with people. But if they need to query the book on their favorite book reseller, what is the official title?

Yes, official title is Speak Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up. And I was very passionate about that word truly because listening can be weaponized. It's listening with compassion and empathy. So, that's the book. More at speakupculture.com is more about the book. And Shed Inspires is my is our company website as well.

Fantastic.

Yeah. And the last thing that I haven't said yet, I mean, there's 2 things. One is, as a leader, capital L or lowercase l, your whisper is a shout and your tiptoes are stomps. Everyone is listening. Everyone is watching. And the other is, you know, I fully admit, Sai and Alex, that I wrote a philosophy book disguised as a business book. Like, this is the change that I wish to see in the world. And so, if there's one line from the book that I would consider getting tattooed to my body, it is, when the human in me sees the human in you, we make progress. And we just, we need to see the humanity in one another if we want to make progress in our world, at work, and beyond.

I love that. And I love that you point out that your book is a philosophy book described as business book. 'Cause a lot of people ask me, what other business books do I read? And my answer usually is, I read poetry and philosophy, but they help me in business. Yes. I feel like I've never thought of that that way. I feel like the work we do is philosophy disguised as business. We need to get rid of the separation. What the world needs now, the only thing that allows for us to do some of the things we're doing to one another is that we've dehumanized each other. You know, some people like it feels like their dogs are more human to them than than their neighbors. And you know, and dogs are great, and they probably are higher than humans. I've heard from some dog owners. Yeah. But I just I love the the mission you're on, and Shed, we need to do more of this. We also we noticed that we represent Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. I think we should figure out some ways to gather in some of those. Spaces because, uh, um, it was instant trust and now I know why. And I, I'm keen to do more together, but listeners go after Shed's work. Alex, what do you want to say? We're just getting used to this 3 things. So I think we were pretty clumsy with it, but, um,

we'll find our groove. Uh, I, uh, I just loved, I loved that last quote. I think as I was going through the book, Shed, I thought you grabbed some really powerful quotes and obviously your, your own stuff you added. It was really a a joy. So, um, thanks for all your help with helping me find my book publisher. Um, we didn't mention that, but Shed's not like just out there trying to push a book here. He's really a connector and just, just a great guy. So I appreciate that. Just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you so much. I'll, I'll say one, one last thing that just came up, which is,

yes,

if, if you examine your, your confrontations and the majority of them are happening on social media and in comments, Maybe there's an opportunity for you to, to work on some real life in-person confrontation skills and to, to find ways to, uh, get off social because the way for us to move forward is not necessarily at loud rallies, not necessarily trolling people in the comments, but having real human conversations where we can disagree but still find commonalities in our values.

And get that feedback of someone's face falling because of how I presented something, or seeing a human in front of me being taken aback or, or hurt or injured by my approach. I think it's so important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you both. This is such a treat. I look forward to more. Yes to more. And, uh, Alex, I'm so looking forward to your book. Keep— good luck on all the work ahead. I

know it's a lot.

Amazing. Thanks all.

Thank you. Everybody be well.

Yes, take care.