If You Can’t Read Your Team, You’re Not Leading It - Part One

Most leaders think they know their teams.

They don’t.

And that blind spot is costing them more than they realize.

Leaders aren’t reading their teams—they’re guessing. Projecting. Avoiding. Hiding behind data instead of having real conversations. Some don’t know their people at all. Others think they do—and are completely wrong. Quite frankly, this is not just a soft skill!

And what you don’t see in your team will eventually hurt you.

Quiet quitting.
Hidden resistance.
Talent walking out the door.
Decisions made in the dark.

Join Rich and Maikel as we shoot straight at the real reasons leaders fail to read their teams—and how to fix it before it becomes a leadership liability- in this first part of a two-part series on Mainline Executive Coaching ACT.

#Leadership #ExecutiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #Culture #Trust #EmployeeEngagement #JohnMattoneGlobal

Leaders, Lead Well!

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Rich Baron:
rbaron@richbaronexecutivecoaching.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-baron/
https://www.richbaronexecutivecoaching.com/

Maikel Bailey:
mbailey@intelligentleadershipec.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maikelbailey/
https://maikelbailey.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Well, here we are. We've been away for a minute. We've been doing some good stuff. And so we'll come back to give you some even better stuff. Welcome to mainline executive coaching ACT. ACT, as you know, stands for and cultural transformation. As well as leaders, you gotta act. And we're gonna be talking exactly about a very specific area of necessity for leaders to learn how to act effectively. I'm on the podcast today. I've got Rich Barron, my partner. I'm Michael Bailey. We're ready to go. We're hoping that you are ready to roll. Today we're gonna be talking about leaders being able to read their teams and what a mismatch that can be when you take a look at what's really going on. So, Rich, let's open up with this whole thing of leaders being able to read their teams accurately. And maybe it's not happened so much as we might like to believe.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

You know, this is for I gotta go back to something first here, Michael. The way you started today. Well, here we are. We're back. Mom, dad, we're home type thing. So, and we have, we've been away for a few minutes, and uh, you know, just uh getting some other things done, but it's it's good to be back talking about this. But this is this is really a critical topic. Yeah, and especially when you go, you think about annual reviews, you think about team success, you think about cultural success, you think about uh leaders in general. And you know, for the most part, and this goes back to global statistics, Michael, you know, that 75 percent we talk about constantly, that many leaders, uh and in this case, I would say the vast majority of leaders don't know how to read their teams. They they they just don't. Either they don't know them, they think they know them, but they don't, uh they don't care to know them, they kind of know them, um, they they make assumptions, or they simply use them as a tool versus getting to know your teams, which is critical to the success of that team, right? If you don't know your team, you don't know the people you're working with, you don't know their skills, you don't know their talents, you don't know anything about them, and assume they're gonna get something done for you, or they're gonna jump through through the the hoops for you, it's you know, it's uh a misassumption, simply.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

It really is. And when you take a look at what we'll be going through here today, you'll begin to better understand why the world statistics on leadership for decades have come up with the same problems again and again and again. Number one, lack of support, number two, is lack of respect, and that somehow the leaders have got a different set of rules that they live by than the rest of the company. And so you'll we're gonna take a look at the nitty-gritty of this. Why is this so? What's going on, particularly from the point of the view of you know, that connection between the leader and the employees, or the leader of the crew, or how you want to wanna want to spell that out. So let's take these one at a time. The big one here is uh, well, they really don't know them at all.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

They they don't. Uh, you know, I I like, you know, they they think they know them, right? But now you've got a team, you got what, seven, eight, nine people who knows what what the team number is, or even a bigger team. And the leaders treat them all like interchangeable parts.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Maybe not even original equipment. You know, they're not the original equipment. You know, we'll just go down to the, you know, wherever and we'll plug somebody else in from this department because this per guy left the company or whatever, and we'll just plug someone else in there. Put another warm body in that seat. Um and it's interesting when it talks about they might know what their job titles are. Which in we both know in many ways, titles do not mean successful people. They don't. It's it's a it's a fallacy in many ways. Um and they might know the the key performance indicators around the department. But that's not the person. The person is the person, the individual driving those skills and talents. And if you don't know them, you you can't treat them like an interchangeable part. It simply doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

That is such a keen insight. Because if they are treated as these interchangeable parts, and you're saying, well, I'm gonna just put you from this team over here to that team, and the team leader is looking at what their supervisor or director did, and they know this individual because they associate with the different teams, the team members, and so on. And they're looking at the situation and saying, This is not a good fit at all for us. This person isn't very ambitious about getting the job done. They're not very diligent about getting the job done. You've given us a mission or a project to complete. Now you've actually hampered us instead of giving us a better set of wheels to drive the vehicle there, you've actually given us a flat tire. You're giving us uh now a vehicle that we don't have a second gear or some problem, you've actually inhibited or got in the way of what it is that we're doing here and what you want us to do. How are we supposed to deal with that? How what are we supposed to do with that? And interestingly enough, oftentimes that supervisor or director is not even aware of that. And if they're really not aware of that, or if they're indifferent to that, they don't care. So now you've compounded the problem of getting your team to win when you're actually hobbling them. Man, what do you want?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah, absolutely. And here's another thing I want to add to this, Michael, because this is something you and I not only do we know something about, but we've been entrenched in this. And that's the hiring process. You cannot simply, and this I guess this message goes out to UHR folks, or you um whoever out there is looking or trying to get new people in the organization. You cannot simply hire to hire. You cannot simply rely on ATS systems to give you a resume that might fit that position. You cannot do that. It doesn't work. It's like trying to put a big puzzle together with a thousand pieces and just randomly start trying to force a puzzle piece into the puzzle, and it doesn't work. It might look like it works, you might force it in there somehow. But if you're just looking at this as meat on the floor, not really taking a good look at the person, having a conversation with them, finding out who they are, where are their real skills and talents versus panic hiring. And we've seen this panic hiring too. We've got people that left, we have positions that had to be filled, we're just gonna throw in, you know, the first warm body that comes here. And it it doesn't work that way. It's about talent, always has been about talent, always will be about talent in the hiring process or anything else. And I think, you know, when they say we don't care or you know, they don't know them at all, you uh putting a team together, I think, is it has to be intentional in many ways, more than just getting to know them.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

I would say, along with being intentional in the hiring process, it's also a level of HR or whoever else is involved in the hiring process, of being aware of who that leader is, that now it's gonna have someone new on their team. How does that leader actually work in terms of training, supporting, integrating? How well is that leader able to do that? Some leaders are gonna be, frankly, gonna be better at it, they're just more natural at it. Some gonna have kind of struggle with it, some may not even again, you know, they don't even really care about that. So, in the hiring process, the idea of the fit is not just you know, how are they gonna fit, but how is that leader gonna help that person integrate into the team? Absolutely. And if the leader isn't showing up to help in that process for whatever reason, you're hiring a failure. Not that the person's a failure, it's the hire is the failure.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

The higher the failure, yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

So this idea of you know, you got to get you gotta you really got to get to know not just the people you're working with, you got to get to know your leaders here, you gotta get to know how they work. Yeah, which leads to the second one. Here is this is kind of an arrogant position, but it's an easy one for organizations to fall into as they think they know, know them, but they don't.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

No. How many times, and that's an interesting thought. You know, you if you've worked with someone for several years, and in in today's world, you know, a lot of that hybrid type work, and you may not really get to know them as well as you think you do, even though you may have worked with them for two or three years. That person could be burning out, disengaged, or you know, faking it in some ways. You know, I hate to say that, but you know, fake it till you make it type thing. Do you really know them? Have you taken the time to get to know them?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

A lot of employees are very good at putting on their happy face.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Oh, absolutely. And and why wouldn't they? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Well, of course. I mean, you want to keep some sort of amicable relationship going on with your with your leader or your supervisor or whoever it may be, so it may be easier and safer. Now, this is interesting. You know, we talk about safe places in jobs in organizations. Well, here's the irony of that. The safest place you may have in an organization, as far as you're concerned, is a place where you can hide, where you really don't let on what's going on. You really don't open up. There's not a sense of real safety, a real sense of openness, a real sense of connection going on here. So you can tell them all the things that they want to hear, present that happy face on a daily basis, and and at the same time, they say to yourself, they have no idea who I am. They have no idea what I'm about. They have no idea what's really going on in my life. And when when you take a look at that, just think of it this way: suppose you're in a ship and you were sailing somewhere, and you thought you had an accurate map in terms of the depth of the ocean and the things that are there and all that kind of stuff, but you really didn't. The likelihood of something going wrong with you sailing around in that part of the sea or a harbor, let's say, because you're not really aware of what's there, there's a chance that things aren't gonna pop up that you weren't ready for, and you're gonna find yourself in a bit of a shipwreck. So the the the the idea here is what we're attempting to communicate, is leaders, it probably two things. And we'll we'll get more into this a little bit later on, and probably next time as well, is it takes more effort to get to know your team and your team members than you imagine. That's the first thing you want to get. It takes more effort. And the second thing you want to get is it takes more skills than you're probably aware of. So the effort and the skills that you need to build to get to know your team members and then build those team members and build your team is something that you really must face if you want to be a competent, authentic leader. If you don't want to do those things, you may want to consider, you know, maybe I'm the person that needs to step aside. This gets us into the next one, which is interesting. And we've talked about this a fair amount. The fact is, they really don't care. They don't really care to get to know the people that are working for them. What about that one? That's a tough one, really.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Just get the job done, right? Just do what I say. Um, everything else feels like a distraction, right? Getting to know them feels like a distraction. It's a waste of my time. This fits perfect into that 75% we talked about of leaders that are fading, or even beyond that number, quite frankly. But how many of these people that you know were great technical operators, great individual contributors that were suddenly pushed into a leadership role where now people matter more than the technical issues matter or uh a combination thereof. You gotta know both, right? You gotta know the technical things and you gotta know the process, but now you don't have the people skills, or these people don't have the people skills, they don't have the leadership skills, and so they rely on going back to the one thing that they can fall back on, just do what I say, just get it done.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Just get the job done, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, I agreed. And it's probably break out into a couple of different ways of looking at there are those people that um they're looking at you in terms of if if you want to connect with them or have some sort of relationship, something going on there, that their really position is you don't get it. This isn't about you, this is about me. There are those kind of people that just don't care to know. There's also interestingly enough, and you're kind of referring to this second type of individual, they are the high performers.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, the high performers. Great high performers, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Absolutely. They're great at what they do, they're they're excellent, they can even be in some ways, the ironically, the organization can look at them as if this individual, even though they're very toxic and obnoxious, is really what kind of makes the whole thing work. Yeah, which is a real kind of strange irony about that the one that's destroying it is the one that's making it work, right? So there you go. And so as you take a look at that, you know, they don't they really don't care to know them. You must really take a look and say, in fact, I was talking to somebody about this very thing, that this their organization is operating out of this one individual who is great at what they do and keeps being elevated. It's the Peter principle in play here. But the higher that individual goes, the more and more things don't work for the teams, the more they dislike the guy, the way the more they want to get rid of him. So again, you leaders, it's not just about you being able to, you know, read your team. It's also about how they're reading the rest of the organization's team, the leaders rather, are reading their teams. So again, right some work to do, probably.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And here's the that work to do, I think goes back to the root cause, right? We've promoted these high performers. When organizations do that, and and how many of them out there, the statistics are staggering. You know, we love statistics right on this show, the startling statistics. But when you promote somebody into a position like that, you have created a chain of events you're not even aware of yet, but they're gonna unfold. You have done not only that person a disservice by promoting them without training, you've done the people that they're gonna be leading a disservice by promoting this individual who doesn't know how to work with people, and you've just done the organization a disservice. And if you're an HR, yourself included, because how long is that gonna really last before you've got problems on your hand and you've got to replace this person, or now you've got to go back and try to train them after the fact. And in the meantime, how many people have left? How many people have left? You are doing yeah, it's not and it's it goes back to what you said, Michael, it takes effort. It takes effort.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Let's take a look at another one here where they think they're putting in some effort, but maybe not the full effort. There's there's something about the full effort, yeah. You know, all the way in. And this is this group of they kind of they kind of know them. And so they kind of know them on a superficial level, they may know some better than others, but they don't really know the whole team. Let's let's open that one up.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

That's that's an interesting one. That surface level awareness. They seem like a nice guy. I'm a pretty good judge of character, right? I'm a great judge of people, I'm a good judge of character. Just trust me, you know, they're gonna work out fine. Uh and here's the other thing that both of us I know have a very professional disdain for the use of personality tests to promote somebody, especially when they're done internally. And you might be being read by someone who has no training about the results. But yeah, yeah, this is their personality tests are you know they're a great chap to work with. You know, they're gonna be it, they're gonna be, you know, the next best thing on the team. And now you're missing all everything else. You're missing deeper motivations, you're missing uh deeper opportunities to really tap into this this person, or you're simply gonna be putting a bad apple in the barrel.

unknown 20:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

We've heard about, we've talked to people about that, yeah, and what has to happen after that.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, and that can be very difficult. That can be a very difficult situation. Again, if they're one of those people that seem to be a key player and they're really kind of the the bad apple. So kind of knowing them is not gonna cut it. There's another one that this kind of bleeds into, which is really interesting, um, and that is they know some and not so much others, which leads into a an atmosphere or a culture of favoritism.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, yeah, the the favorite players. Yeah. Yeah, the favorite, you know, I've got uh the best player on my team. Um strong rapport with people who are similar to you. Might be loud, might be quiet, might be overbearing. Uh I I don't know. I guess we could probably throw a lot of different words at that. But having uh, you know, being having this favorite players on your team, and in many ways it's because you know, they might be your best buddy from the other company you brought over. Or someone that you know you've maybe hit it off with at a company gathering. I don't know. What you know, I'm just throwing some things out there. But that does not make them the best people for that team. Nor does it make the rest of the team feel comfortable simply because they see maybe favorites being played or great better projects being handed out to different people, or there are others just being left kind of to listen.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah. And again, it it is it's a strange thing because what those kind of favoritisms actually do is they look like, well, they just have their favorite pet or this or that, but they're really at a deeper psychological level. They're they're surrounding themselves with people to make them look good. Oh, absolutely, yeah. And to protect them, oftentimes to protect them so that they have some interference that's being run there. Again, all this is very counter to a culture where uh the team is working at a high level of connection and motivation and aspiration and productivity. All this works against it, and for the leader to start reading what's going wrong and what to do about it is key to their performance as a leader, and that's the interesting thing. We talk about in our business what's your core purpose? Yes. And oftentimes people really don't know how to articulate or um or that they have a core purpose. And if they don't get that piece, we talked about you know, getting the pieces right, if they don't have that piece in Place, it's going to be real easy for their compass not to be working in the way that it ought to be working, because they just don't have that piece or that skill in place that they can hold themselves accountable. And so it's easy to kind of wander off and go off and do other things that are not so much in alignment with the organization or the purpose of the organization, but just along their own agenda. So when we're talking about these things, they may seem like they're just kind of minor things, but in the truth, they can be huge things. Again, it's that whole thing, you're sailing from one port to another port, and all you have to be off is by two or three degrees, and you could miss that other port by hundreds or thousands of miles. Oh, absolutely. It's not a big thing. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Small increments matter. Small conversations matter. Small conversations.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

They do matter a lot. That's and that's one of the things we're going to suggest here. Yeah. They matter, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So when we're going by, we don't really know what's going on, but we think we do, or we hope we do, or we hope it's going to work out, or we're pretty sure that it's going to work out based upon whatever biases we have. We move into hope. And when we move into hope, it's kind of like, well, they hope that they know these people and things will just go along well. Yeah. Throwing the dice.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

It's like saying, I hope I get a pony for my birthday. How often does that happen? Never. Especially in our age.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, it doesn't happen in our age anymore.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Not likely. No, no. But that's that's a good point. I I hope things work out, you know. And here's here's the thing. Uh when they say I hope, and that's not really the next point. They hope they know them and what they're just gonna go along with what they say. Because gosh dang it, I have an awesome vision. You know, I've got a really good vision of where we're gonna we need to go and where we're gonna take that team. And and besides, I'm a pretty snappy dresser and I look pretty good, and everything else, my vision is is right up there. So they're gonna follow me no matter what. My charisma is gonna carry me through. Always has, always will. So why shouldn't it work now? Yeah. I mean, I I think that I there's a problem there. I think there's a lot of leaders out there who think that because I'm here.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

I agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I have the title because and you know, I'm a pretty snappy guy. I'm um I'm well known, I'm well liked. Um and so there's the it they think it's all based on who they are. There's no pulse check. There's no team pulse check. It's all based on, you know. So I I hope they're gonna follow me, but why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they?

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Why wouldn't they?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Why wouldn't they? Yeah. And when they don't, then you there's none of that that we've talked about, break it and learn how to fix it stuff that has happened. When they don't like you, when they you they don't follow everything you say, you have nothing to back that up with. Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And you know, Rich, that's a very scary place to be, actually, for a leader. Yeah, it is. Which gets us to number seven here. The leaders, they fear the people, they fear their employees, they fear their team, they fear their team members. What a tough, tough place that is.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

We we've talked about this a lot, Michael, the imposter syndrome, overconfidence effect. And fear. Fear that these people are gonna take my position. That if they're better than me and I allow them to be better than me, then they're gonna take my position and I won't have a job anymore. Deep conversations, deep understanding of who your team is, deep um being vulnerable, all of these things are the signs of a good leader. You want people better than you at different things in your corner. You don't want to be the propeller head. Even though you think that you are, you don't want to be that. You that imposter syndrome. Or, you know, and and it could be even with something that it says that potential past toxic team experiences. You had a bad experience from another team leader who was failing in these areas, and you were part of that team.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

You know, to be honest, uh if you're in a leadership position and you really aspire to be a great leader, there are some things you're going to have to embrace, as Rich has been indicating here, is number one, you don't know everything, and you don't have the skills to do everything. And uh the fact that you must get comfortable with with ambiguities, you must get comfortable with things that don't go together easily or smoothly. And at the moment, you don't necessarily have to know how to fix it. However, you do know have to know how do we move it from here. How do we go forward to get this thing figured out? How do we brainstorm, how do we get our best people involved in it? How do we now start coordinating to get past this impediment that we're now facing? Because, as you've said many times, if you don't learn how to break it, you don't know how to fix it. And sure enough, there are going to be events that happen that break it. So to have that kind of confidence and belief in yourself and those that you work with, we can figure this out, we can break it, we can reinvent it, we can we can fix it even better than ever. Yeah, that's not something that you just carry around and hum to yourself in a little kind of a tune. No, that comes out of the experience of working, not only the problems, but working with the individuals on your team.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yeah. You know, I can I can tell you this. Being in you know, in in past business experiences and things, there will be issues that come up in a company, issues that come up within teams, issues that come up chaos, quite frankly, that is going to test every part of you. It's gonna test your home life, it's gonna test the your your career, it's gonna test the organization, it's gonna stress a lot of things. But here's the thing: that only is gonna happen if you're not ready for it. If you're afraid to talk to your people, if you're afraid to tap into the skills and talents they have or know them ahead of time, if you have not had these conversations and surrounding yourself with people who can very knowledgeable in different areas, those fears are going to become real. Those fears are gonna become real stress, those fears are gonna become real deal breakers, real chaos. All these things that you're talking about, we're talking about Michael today, and uh is so critical to not only you as your well-being as an individual, your career, the success of the organization, all comes down to simple, simple things. And it's it really is you know, the that fear is is a big one. But fearing the people on your team is nothing compared to the real fear of serious chaos in an organization. Potential of closing the doors, laying people off, you losing your job, those are real fears.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Great comments, great insights. Let's talk about the final two here. And I think as I look at these final two here, they are a couple of the biggest impediments that stand in the way of a leader or an organization really being able to connect with and read with or read read their employees. And number eight is over-relying on data instead of dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

This is I I think every day this is becoming a bigger issue, every single day. As AI improves, as technology improves, we is we're there's way too much over-reliance on making decisions based on just simply on what it's telling you. The simple fact of the matter is decisions are human. They'll never be anything other than human. Dialogue is human. Conversations are human. If you're having these conversations with your computer, you know, that's something you need to step back and take a real look at. They can here's the good thing about AI and stuff, phenomenal, because it can help inform your decisions, right? All this data can give you, you can you've got data now at your fingertips uh faster than any other time I can remember in my life. Seconds. You get the you can get answers or data or whatever. But they can only they should only inform your decisions. Decisions are human. You should be able to critically think about the data that you're giving, been given. Pass that out to your team and use human conversation, human dialogue, human intuition, human experience to inform that decision or to make that decision. Yeah. That's really how it should be. And if you're doing it, if you're allowing these dashboards and all these other things to just make the decision for you, you see the data, and that's the data, I'm gonna make my decision based on that, versus real critical thinking. How is that gonna impact everybody I lead?

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Yeah, it reminds me of an anecdote that happened fairly recently. And I don't remember, and I should probably, even if I did remember um the company, I shouldn't probably say it. But anyway, they relied on an AI analysis. And the AI analysis said that there is uh there was a team that interacted with their customers and that that AI could do it better. And the result was that they let go of something like 10,000 of their employees. So this is a large firm, it was an international firm, and they let those people go with all their uh institutional knowledge, experience, all that stuff you can't just gather together, you know, and go on a picnic the next day. This is stuff that's accumulated through years and years. Uh, and plus the relationship synergy that goes on with that. They let them go and very quickly found out AI could not do the job. Oh. It was a huge fail for them. So I think you're right. You know, use it to do the research, to gather the data, to give us perspective about what's going on, then get into those discussions with other people who are right there on the front line that have the actual experience. That's the stuff that I think that creates the great things in terms of nice intersection and nice interplay between AI and human beings.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

You know, I I maybe people look at us, Michael, and say, Well, they're old school. You know, they're not they're not on board, they're not on board with what AI can do now. But here's the thing call me old school if you want, but you look back through decades and centuries of innovation. The things that were created, uh, you know, that have made us who we are, the world who it is. And I I'm I'm going back and even simple things like we talk about steam locomotives. You know, we talked about steam locomotives at the first our thing. That was human innovation, human engineering, human knowledge, human throughput, human uh human being the key word. Great that AI can uh can really create these things, but if you think about it, it is not gonna make our world. You go back and change, look at what has already been done and created by humans up to this point. Do you honestly think that AI is gonna replace all that? That intuition, that knowledge, that drive that hunger for success, that empathy? It is it's simply not. So I I think I look at this maybe, and that's you know, me according to Rich Barron, and it might be people out that go, man, that Rich Barron's a nutcase if he thinks that's the you know, AI is not gonna help. I didn't say that. AI is a phenomenal tool, it's amazing. The things that are getting out of it, we uh all of us use it every single day. I think the point is that we're talking now, Michael, is do not allow that to change the human element.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Very well said, Rich. Thank you. Let's hit this last one cultural and generational blind spots. This is one I think that it's really easy to have a blind spot about these blind spots. Oh, yeah. Not even recognize that they are blind spots, just thinking they're well, that's just what it is. But you were talking about, you know, we're old school and not even realizing there's a context out of which that operates. And so cultural and generational blind spots. Let's let's take a few minutes on that. Then we're going to talk about here's some of the skills that you know, leaders, you've you've just got to get serious about and develop. So, what about cultural and generational blind spots?

SPEAKER_01 38:23

This is a very interesting thing, you know, cultural and generational. And even we could add a lot of different things into that. But that's an assumption that everybody processes feedback. They all have the same ambitions, they all have the same work-life balance needs without truly understanding the generational needs or how things have changed or what's changing them. Um and culture, I uh you know culture is an interesting thing, Michael, around the world. It really is. How we view uh the hierarchy of an organization, how we respect our leaders, how we get to a certain point in our careers, uh, and even how that feedback is received or generated in many ways. Culture can be a big piece in that, but it's the failure to have those little conversations. Make the effort to learn who the people are, cross those generational blinds uh lines, get to know your team. Just because we call them, you know, if we we attach a label to people, Gen Z or millennials or boomers or Gen X, and we just think that's their you know who they are.

unknown 40:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

You have missed 99% of what's out there.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

I am in complete agreement with that. And I think I'll throw something out here. I think this breakdown of culture in our organizations in terms of just generational blind spots, culture blind spots, and so on and so forth, I think it is a reflection of our society in general. I think that breakdown with generational is a breakdown of families. At one time you might have, and there's some cultures even today, have uh they may have two, three, even sometimes four generations living in a household. And so there is this connection, you know, up and down. And uh the great grandmother can understand what the great grandchild is doing and what's going on, and everybody in the middle, there's this, there is the conversations that are happening, and they're happening easily and they're happening naturally. If you've never had that kind of generational uh uh experience, then when you go and see somebody who's much younger than you or somebody who's older than you, you don't have any reference points. You don't know how to talk to them, you're not even sure who they are. If you're not even sure who they are, then they're unknown. And so then it's like, oh, the fear of the unknown. Maybe you can't even trust them. Can I ever get to know them? All that kind of stuff starts happening. And I think the other thing is the cultural uh breakdown. I remember when I was a kid um living in a neighborhood where there were just different kinds of families living on the same block. There was different cultures that we had, you know. Uh I remember uh it was a fairly in some ways kind of a Protestant neighborhood. But I remember the Catholic lady who lived next to who lived across the street. You know, she she was always yelling at her kids. Her kids must have been the biggest brats in the world. You could always hear her all over the neighborhood yelling. But if you went over and talked to her, she's a very nice person. Kids are just driving her nuts, you know? And then there's another woman off the street who was the Italian person, and she was just this little old Italian lady. And there's just all these different kinds of people in the neighborhood that you could go and talk to, and the guy who was the POW, World War II, and stuff like that, and you know how he was dealing with it. Just just just interesting people, you know, and it wasn't like, well, you're this and I'm that, and there's there wasn't any of that, you know, we can't relate. It was all relatable, and you learned it in the community. You learned it in the neighborhood, you learned that tolerance, you learned that acceptance. And when neighborhoods break down like that, and then they're more like, well, there's you're you're you're this kind and you're that kind, and I'm this kind. That breakdown of just communal, community living day to day, that translates into the problems in organizations. It really does, because you carry with you what you have learned into the workplace. Oh, it's the inner core, yeah. Community. So that's something that we need to take a look at in terms of it's not just about the culture at work. It's a people problem. It's a people challenge. It's an individual. Let's not blame it on the organization, let's not blame it on this, you know, this boss or that boss. It's about how you have learned to work with other people, be able to navigate with them, find way common areas of agreement, common areas that we can support each other. That's that one-on-one ability. And leaders, that's what we're asking you to do is that greater effort, that one-on-one, greater skills, skills that have been lost that maybe you didn't learn growing up in your family or in your community. Those are the very things, though, that hold any organization together. Without those kinds of skills, without those kinds of commitments, it's never gonna happen. So let's take a look at five suggestions here about the kinds of things that you're gonna need. We need to wrap this up. It's been going on a little bit here. Let's go to active curiosity. How does active curiosity on the big picture help us now to begin this way of breaking out of the limited ways that we think and see and read as a leader? Tell me more about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Get to know people in your organization. If you're curious about someone, ask them questions. Let them tell them about yourself, let them tell you who they are.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Excellent. How about this next one? Absolutely. It goes right along with it, empathetic listening.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

You know, uh, I I gotta tell you, Michael, this is a big one. And uh uh one that people miss. People truly miss this. And we talk about, and this is something we've talked about recently. When there's emotion involved and you're trying to solve a problem, figure out what that emotion is. Ask them what the emotion is about. Hear the emotion behind their words. And then try to help them out of that spot. Empathy is an action word. Empathy is not just feeling bad for somebody. Empathy is a way to get people out of those things, especially if your leader of kids you're in the same boat as them. If your team's in a bad place, you're in a bad place. You've got to get them out of there.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

That's excellent.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Yeah, empathetic listening. I I can't, you know, empathy is is so big that I think so and so many people miss it.

unknown 45:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

And I think a lot of people think they get it. That's a that's the interesting thing.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

That's that's the thing. I think so. Uh and but it's a big one.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Drilling down a little bit deeper on this whole thing of uh of of um empathetic listening, also in uh curiosity, active curiosity, is pattern recognition. It's when you're really noticing these micro behaviors, and we've been trained a lot on that, and the the the tones, the shift in the voice and the how they're speaking, uh, you know, the energy kinds of shifts. What about learning to recognize patterns as a as a reader of your team?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Now I I can tell you, Michael, uh getting to know you, I know you're an absolute genius and expert in this area. Spotting patterns, the way people talk, the way people react, the way people move. You know, I know that you're that's a gift you've got, by the way. You know, you've I I've learned that very good. But here's another thing. I'm gonna tell you something. Yeah, if you're a leader and you walk out on a production floor, or if you walk into a team meeting, or if you walk into a cafeteria, whatever that place might be, break room, and there's a lot of active chatter going on, or you know, people are very, you know, animated and talking. If you walk in the room and it goes quiet, you need to ask yourself why. There's either a couple things, either one, it's it's out of respect for who you are, or you can tell yourself that's it. They just respect me, that's all it is, or you're just not part of the group. You haven't put in the effort.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Very good. That's a great question, it's a great observation.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Yeah, and and I'll tell you what, try that next time. If you wasn't when you walk in, if the room changes, you need to ask yourself why.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yeah, and and and it at least to this fourth one here, which is you know, uh if you're starting to feel like the great gr the grief, why are they the chattering stopped? What what is that stuff happening? It's easy to start armoring up, you know, putting on the protection. And the actual thing to do is is the counter of that is opening up, becoming more vulnerable, yeah, and modeling vulnerability. Transparency. Yeah. How would how would a leader do that? How would and this is so counter to what leaders think they're supposed to do? Um how would a leader start doing that?

SPEAKER_01 48:41

That's interesting because that just doesn't happen. I don't think you just walk into a uh a team meeting and and you know bear your soul. I I don't know that that happens or if that would be comfortable for anybody if you did that. I think it starts with those small conversations. Initial efforts, trying to get to know somebody. I don't, I don't and that's when you can eventually start sharing your own challenges. Or you can share challenges through telling stories. Being a st uh a storyteller, using examples, that's a great way to show vulnerability, but it it all it it it starts back getting to know your team. How far can you take this?

SPEAKER_00 49:33

If you are perceived as somebody who's never failed as a leader, which is a lie. Yeah. How in the world can anybody who works with you actually relate to you who is somewhere between superhuman and God if you actually project and promote this notion I've never failed, I've really never made a mistake. How in the world do you do that? That's that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And so if you have the ability And in fact, John, I think maybe you either John posted it or you posted it recently, it's it's it's really the failures that give us the opportunities to really do the maximum amount of growth, the recovery, the resiliency, the the whole thing of that, and and and to not fear that, but to embrace it instead. I mean, whatever anybody tells us a story about, well, I had this hard time, and what we're always looking for is the happy ending, right? We want that happy ending. We want to feel like it's all gonna work out. But you know, sometimes the happy ending is not there. It's just it didn't work out. It just flat out did not work out. And there were some tough things that I had to learn from that. But it's the tough things that have got me here, and so maybe that's kind of a happy ending. But sometimes just owning the ashes is the best thing you can do. Yeah, and that takes vulnerability, that takes a lot of courage. Because if you can do that, then other people can believe, well, if you were able to rebound, so was so so can I.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

So can I. But think about this. Would you not rather find out about your failures before you know you know you're right in the ball game? When when time is critical, and then find out when time's critical that wow, you know, what I should have worked on beforehand doesn't work now.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Failure is not a bad thing, it's a very good thing. It's a learning tool.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Yeah, and how can you do that, leaders, starting with yourself? The last one we're gonna get into number five is bias interruption. Uh, what about bias interruption? This is this is an interesting one.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

This guy's just like me. They like the same, the same sports teams, they like the same, you know. And here's another interesting thing, Michael. Of have you ever started assume somebody is is like you, and so you started telling them things about yourself that completely offended them under an assumption. Uh that happens. You know, it not everybody's like us. Everybody's different. Everybody has their own story. And maybe your story isn't the same as theirs. But there could be there could be some great similarities in there. That's where you find that out. Those conversations, yeah. Yep, they're yeah, they're just like me. I think they wore a they wore a baseball cap that looks just like the team that I like, so they gotta be just like me.

unknown 52:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

You know what's interesting about that observation is that John Batone Global is an international organization. Yeah. It's international, and we are working with all kinds of countries and cultures all over the place. Yeah. And interestingly, these people that we're working with and coaching and the organizations that they work for, there is this ability to bring people of different cultures and beliefs together. Yeah. And how do you do that? It's not just important for the coaches to be able to do that, it's also important for the coaches to model that, but it's also important for the people in the organizations that we're working with and the leaders to gain that kind of perspective. Yeah. And not to be so myopic to be able to open it up, to be able to see that bigger picture of these other people, other organizations, other businesses. So yeah, start small.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

Start small. Can I give you a real quick story of where I goofed up here on this very thing? Just uh a week ago, a week ago, and it was right after this conflict in Iran, United States, and Israel that started. And I needed to get some stuff done for my home, so I've been getting some bids, okay. And these two young uh guys came over and were going through this thing and very smart, was pointing out a lot of uh great things. They both had a very interesting accent, okay. I was curious where they were from. I really was. And so I asked them, I said, Where are you where are you guys from originally? You know, just making small talk. And they turned it around on me and they said, Where do you think we're from? And I I'm like, I I I don't know. I uh you know, I'm just curious. I don't want to offend anybody, you know, and I I was like, I was it put me in a bad spot, quite frankly. And then uh after through a conversation, found out they were both from Israel and had family uh uh in Israel and stuff, and this has nothing to do with with picking sides, you know, but it was an interesting conversation that I put myself, I asked the wrong question, pretty much. Where are you from? Right up front, you know, because I'm a gregarious guy, I want to talk, I want to get to know people. But they turned it around on me, and it was right out, um literally, it was like a couple days after this Iran conflict started. And it I'll tell you what, it put me in an uncomfortable place. But through that uncomfortable question, I got to know these guys pretty well. We talked for about an hour after, you know, you know, their thoughts on different things, and you know, and it was very interesting. Then you get to know people, but maybe you gotta learn how to break the ice first. So we all we all fell, right? We all make, but it put me in a it was a tough, it was a tough position the way I asked the question, but it ended up very, I got to know some people, and quite frankly, they're gonna be doing the workforce, you know.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Well, so you know, one time that question would not have been offensive, it would have been purely curious.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Well, and that was my concern. What if I were to say, because I they were obviously had an accent from you know in the Middle East somewhere. Yeah, I couldn't pick out from where. And so when they said, guess where we're from, I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say? So, but it turned out good.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Good for you, yeah. What's you gotta do? Leaders, yeah, follow Rich's example, go in deep and figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

Go in go in deep, jump in, yeah, with both feet and pinch your nose on the way in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

All right, so all right, how do they get a hold of us, Rich?

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Well, michaelbailey.com, M-A-I-K-E-L Bailey.com, Rich Baird Executive Coaching.com, LinkedIn, you can find us on John Mattone Global's website. And uh there are no shortages on how to get a hold of us. And here's the interesting thing, Michael. After talking to some people who are now in the John Matone Global program, going through certified as coaches, we have found out, they found out about this through our podcast. We've had a couple of them, and so reach out to us. You know, it'd be nice to get to know you first, but a little bit, but we're glad you're listening. We really are. And speaking of listening, Michael, what's our stats saying?

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Oh, this is yeah, this is pretty amazing here in terms of uh we are we are an amazing amount of listeners at this point in time. Um it is uh let's take a look specifically at what we're talking about here. Um again, we owe so much to you folks. Countries, territories. We now have 144 listeners in these in that listeners, but there are 144 countries or territories that are now listening to us. And there are 1,500-117 cities that are listening to us.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Wow, yeah, and we see new ones all the time, which tells us that you know taking care of each other and these leadership principles and and cultural principles mean something to people, not just organizations or countries or wherever. We're all on essentially we're all in the same boat together, regardless of where we're at.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Yeah, that's true. And and and we're I think that shows that we're all looking for answers.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

We're all looking for answers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

And we want to know what the answers are. It's a common human thing, leadership, working together, teams, and so on and so forth. We're all looking for those things to feel that we belong, that we're part of something, that we can make our contribution, that we can work together in amiable, amical, and yet very productive ways, that we can make a difference no matter where we are, no matter where we where it is that we are. So, yeah. So got a couple of call-outs. Shout-outs.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

We do, and I had one here, and I have lost it. Let me find it again, real quick. You've got a shout-out. Let me be looking for this one.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

I think it is uh Chusca, New Mexico, no, Minnesota, Minnesota, yeah. Chasca, Minnesota. Nice, yeah. I know there's a lot of stuff going up there in Minnesota right now. We wish you all the best. We wish you all the good luck and goodwill and that we can muster up and send out to you folks out there in that great city of Minnesota, the great state of Minnesota, and that great city of Chaska.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Absolutely. Newtown Abbey, Antrim and Newtown Abbey, and we that's near Belfast, Ireland. Welcome, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Absolutely. Yesterday was St. Patty's Day for us, and we had my wife make corned beef. Oh man, it was great with all the potatoes and cabbage and carrots and all that great stuff. Great time to celebrate, just great time to celebrate, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Okay, well, and and until then, gosh, thank you so much, everybody. Can't thank you enough. Uh, we we were absent for two or three weeks, didn't post up anything until uh today, and during that time we saw some immense growth, even though we weren't putting in new episodes for for a few weeks. And I I gotta tell you, that's that's heartwarming. It really is.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Yes, it is. Indeed, it is. So we thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:06

What do you say, Michael?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:07

Yep, all the best to you, and leaders lead well.