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

Most leaders now know the problem:

They’re not actually reading their teams.

But awareness alone doesn’t fix anything.

In Part 2, Rich and Maikel move past the blind spot—and get into what actually separates leaders who guess from leaders who truly see.

Because the truth is, leaders don’t fail to read their teams by accident.
They fail for very specific, predictable reasons:

They don’t know their people.
They think they know them—but don’t.
They avoid the hard conversations.
They rely on data instead of dialogue.
Or worse… they’re afraid of what they might uncover.

And that’s where leadership either levels up—or breaks down.

In this second part of the series, Rich and Maikel unpack the real barriers that keep leaders disconnected from their teams—and more importantly, the practical, no-excuses actions you can take immediately to fix it. 

This isn’t theory.
 This is what you can start doing Monday morning:

How to build real insight into your people in minutes—not months.
 How to create conversations that unlock truth instead of surface-level updates.
 How to develop the core leadership “superpowers” that drive trust, retention, and performance.
 And how to eliminate the costly leadership blind spots before they turn into turnover, disengagement, and culture breakdown.

Because when you truly learn to read your team:

Engagement rises.
Trust deepens.
Performance multiplies.
And leadership stops feeling like guesswork.

Miss this—and you’ll keep leading in the dark.

Master it—and you become the kind of leader people don’t leave.

Join Rich and Maikel for Part 2 of this powerful series on Mainline Executive Coaching ACT—where leadership gets real, practical, and immediately actionable.

Leaders, Lead Well!

Thank you to all of our listeners in over 140 countries and 1,500 cities worldwide, we greatly appreciate your support! We truly hope that what we bring to our listeners will improve your ability as leaders.

Mainline Executive Coaching ACT has been recognized by FeedSpot as one of the top Executive Coaching Podcast in the world based on thousands of podcasts on the web and ranked by traffic, social media, followers & freshness.

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John Mattone Global:                                                                                                          https://johnmattone.com/

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

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:09

All right, jump on board. Mainline executive coaching. ACT. We're back. We've been away for about a minute or so, but we're happy to be back. We're delighted to have you join us today. We're going to be doing part two of what we did about uh about a month ago. So if you can't read your team, you're not leading it. And we're going to talk about what are the things that you can do about it. We laid out some of the things that are going to be a problem for you. But this is it, because this is about leadership and it is about cultural transformation, ACT. So, Rich, let's pick this up. Let's do a quick review on what we talked about in terms of why leaders don't do this. Why don't they get this? Why is it what's the problem with them not being able to read their teams?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

You know, this is uh something that uh I've been anxious to get back on this, uh Michael. And, you know, it's been an interesting spring. I think we've been both bombarded with uh some things that have kind of taken us away. But coming back to this, there are so many issues here that we talked about before. Why why leaders don't get their teams? You know, they don't know them. They don't know them at all. Um, they think they know them, but they don't. You know, they might have worked with someone for so long and and think they know that person and and then realize that uh later on that this person might be just burning out, right? We never knew that, never got in touch with them. Yeah, they don't care to know them. You know, some of these other issues. I you know, they're they're just come here to work. I really don't want to know them. Um they kind of know them, so they say. They might have even read someone's personality test results. Yeah, I know them that way. Yeah, that's that's always a good one. Uh and they know some and not others. I mean, there's just there's several areas here that uh I that really stack up over time why leaders think they know their team, but in reality they they don't. They haven't taken the time to dig deeper to to get you know one-on-one with them. And I think that's some of those things that we're gonna be discussing today is how to fix that.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yep, absolutely. You know, leaders want loyalty, you know, they want that support from their employees, their teams, and so on and so forth, but it doesn't always strike them that that they have to first give in order to get.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

All right. Sometimes, you know, they hope that they will just go along. They hope that just uh just accept what they say and they just go along for the for the ride. And that's a real bad place to be in. It really, really is a bad place to be. And the other thing that's really strange, it's really but it's probably more prevalent than uh we might think, is they actually fear their team. They're afraid of maybe not the whole team, but there's certain people on the team that they just are afraid of.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

I think we see that quite often. They're afraid of the knowledge or skills that that person has that might surpass their own. And in reality, that's exactly what you want. You want someone with uh a different skills and different abilities that maybe you don't have or aren't quite as adept at as someone else. And that is that's a very common fear. They're they're smarter than me, they know more than me, so therefore they're gonna get my job or they're gonna outshine me in the workforce.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Sometimes team members have powerful personalities on there. Yes, they're just powerful people, they're just powerful presence. And uh, if you're afraid of those people and you don't know how to step in and work with them and uh get into conversations to have them work with uh the team more synergistically, they can take over the team. Yeah, oh absolutely, yeah. Whether it's uh just by the sheer power of their personality or they're just bullies. They're just bullies.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, and we just yeah, they just let that go and it's gonna happen, right? We don't confront or fix conflict, or you know, and here's an interesting thing, Michael. As you were saying that, a thought came to my mind. No matter who these people are, everybody want has a story. Everybody wants to tell a story, everybody wants to get, you know, recognition. And if you just take time to get to know somebody, and I'm not I'm not saying you have to be their best friend, but if you get to know what makes them tick, and many, many times that feeling or that those attempts to take over will go away if you just have those conversations.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yeah, the recognition. Yeah, absolutely. That's uh that's a big part of that. The recognition begins that whole thing of respect. Yeah, and that respect is one of those things that just gets caught and people's cry. They they just won't let it go. They can't let it go. But once you swing it around, you may find yourself working with people who instead of adversarial are actually advocates.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Let's take a look at if you good people out there, leadership positions, emerging leaders, um, team leaders, if you don't learn these kind of things that we're going to be teaching you here today, uh, this is what you can expect. You probably already have some of these in place already. These things are already going on. We've got five points here. And saying, hey, see if are is this what's happening now? If not, it may escalate to these different areas, different levels of disengagement. So let's start out with the first one. Epidemic, quiet quitting. What about this one, Rich?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

This is something we've been hearing about for a while. And what it really entails is people just doing their minimum. And the interesting thing about this is many of these people, if not all of them, started in a place where they were excited to be at work. They had they were motivated, they wanted to get things done. And this is one of the things we talk about a lot with with culture. You have to measure both culture and engagement, because those engaged employees, while they may be engaged now and doing a good job, eventually they just do their job, come and do the bare minimum, go home because why not? Or why should I do something more? This is something that is really we're seeing a lot of this. And matter of fact, trends are even showing that this is a growing issue in organizations globally.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

What we've looked at those kinds of results uh when we've done uh cultural assessments, surveys, and there is a period in a in an employees' time with an organization that this starts showing up a little bit more. It seems like it's around year three, four, and five, it may start appearing early on. They're pretty excited about it. But then it seems to get really a lot stronger, more solidified in the five to ten year kind of period of time that somebody's been working there. Why do you think that's so?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

You know, uh, you know, we've talked a lot about this, and it's very interesting with the assessments we do. Like you said, one to two years, really rate things pretty positively. They're excited to be there. You know, they're they've got this new job, you know, they're they're part of a big name organization, whatever that might be. And then after after a while, four, five, six, seven years, right there in the middle, you know, between there and ten, that's where you start to see the decline. Where you really start to see people starting to voice their issues or their anger, or even the other hand, the good thing about this, they start to tell us what we can do to fix the culture. And then it gets to that 10-year mark, is the which is very interesting. 10 and more, where you see people who just they've been there for a long time, they feel that they're gonna be lifers at this company, they're they want to retire there, whatever, be there long term, and so they just kind of status quo. This is how it is. Why why say anything? It's not gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, man, is that ever the truth?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

And it's it's it's not that they're satisfied, it's that they've given up.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah, it's more about protecting the job at that point. Right. So there's a level of real disengagement about that whole that whole thing. Another one, high turnover, plus the hidden costs. Oh man. That's what it's gonna cost you. How about this one? This is a great one. I know that you've talked about this many times.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

This is a huge issue, and it's one the organizations do not realize what the cost to uh the bottom line is, what the cost to the organization is, and it's not just money. You know, we we look at what the average cost here in the United States, and I know from talking to some global HR people, it's very similar. About 33 percent, 32 to 33 percent of their annual wage is what it costs to replace an employee. You start adding that up, and it gets pretty substantial. But even more than that, Michael, even more than that, the hidden costs are the are the loss of company knowledge, the loss of the knowledge to do things within that organization, the loss of um, you know, tribal knowledge, even. You know, we talk a lot about tribal knowledge in in companies. That goes away. It goes out the door. And now, and and many times those people who are are angry or are leaving, they're not willing to share. I don't care what your problem is anymore, I'm leaving. You you didn't listen to me, so now it's your on your head. That's one of the biggest hidden costs. The loss of knowledge, loss of talent, loss of skills.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

That's actually a huge one. Uh, I worked for a company, it was it's actually Franklin uh Quest, Franklin Covey. I was in the sales department, and I was there for a period of time, and um people that had been there for a while before I came there had some real knowledge about selling the different products that we had, and uh, they brought a lot of sales skills to what they did. They're really sharp people. After a while, they may get a little disgruntled, a little bit unhappy. And they leave a certain amount of that intellectual property, might say, this intellectual or institutional knowledge with them. And after several iterations of this over a period of years, you've got some of it. And then somebody will be who has been there for a while, will say, Let's do it this way, let's approach it this way. This is the way you handle this kind of this kind of uh customer or this kind of prospect. And it's like out of out of nowhere. You go, where did you get this? I've never heard this before at all. This is you never talked about in training. And they'll say, Well, I remember so and so, he used this, or she used this technique, and all of a sudden it's brought back this knowledge that was just lost. And it was almost accidental that that it just was dropped out of there. So, yeah, powerful people have come before you and sat in the seats that you have. They knew a lot, and they were able to do a lot, get a lot done, and they made their great contributions. And then when they left, over time it just kind of erodes away, and you just don't notice it anymore. But then somebody might bring it back, and all of a sudden, bam, we got a whole new way to sell this stuff. We got a whole new way to do prospecting. Absolutely and uh and that and that loss costs money, it costs the team, it costs the company, but it also has an effect, a deleterious effect on the team itself because they just didn't know. But once they get that knowledge back, it really does revive them. It's it's a very interesting phenomenon to see stuff suddenly come back again. So it's no big, it's no small thing, it's a big deal. How about this one? Blind spots turn into crises. You're not engaging, you're not listening, you're not paying attention, blind, and you don't even know it. That's what blind spot is, you don't even know it. And all of a sudden you find yourself, you're surrounded by fire. What about this one?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

This is an interesting one because this could this could take several different faces, if you will. One that I can think of is putting the wrong people on the wrong teams, just stacking a team for whatever reason because you don't know them. You don't know the people. And suddenly you've got something that it really is important for this team to accomplish. And then when it comes time to work as a team, you've got the wrong people there. You've got the wrong motivation. They might be good buddies, they might be good golf buddies on that team. Who knows what how you've stacked your teams. But if you don't have the right people in the right seats for the right reasons, with the right skills and talents, that's a huge blind spot. And if you don't know your teams, that's that is an absolute critical danger to the success of an organization. And that's one thing that people don't realize. It's, oh, let's put a team together. You know, Michael, one of the things we we find, and you and I have talked about this culture is the biggest buzzword out there, right? We got a great culture. Our culture is perfect. You know, we have no problems with our culture. The second big buzzword in any company is teams, teamwork. Oh, yeah, we got some great teams. But then you go and ask some of these teams, tell us about some of your wins. And it's crickets. It's because they haven't done it right. They just they've just put teams together because that's what we do, that's what we're supposed to do, right? There's nothing more this is something we could go on and on about for a long time because we're both pretty passionate about the teamwork.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, there's nothing more surprising than an explosion you never saw coming. Oh, yeah. It's shocking. You know, where did that come from? I how did I not see that? Well, that's what we're talking about here. How about this one? Cultural rot. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

You know, this goes back to what you just talked about, Michael. And you tie that into, you know, suddenly we have people leaving. And people wonder why why is why is Bob leaving? Why is Sue leaving? You know, why did they leave? They were they were the heart and soul of what we did. We really looked up to what they did, and now they're gone, and we don't have anybody else to look up to. So again, that fear starts to spread. Why did they leave? Or you start to get rid of the wrong people. Or and what I mean by that, the right ones, you're getting rid of the best people in in some situations, because you haven't got to learn anything about them. And now you're just letting people go, or in whatever reason, and now you're getting rid of the good talent, and everybody else is seeing that. Oh, I guess I'm gonna be next. Here that that's the one thing about companies, Michael. Um, you have a culture whether you know it or not. What kind of culture is it? Is it rotting? Is it falling apart, or is it is it lively? Is it growing? You know, there's a couple things you need to be doing. And again, when your best people start to leave, that's a that's an issue. That's a huge issue.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah, it is. And the thing about that, sometimes it is um it's just ego. People get into the ease, uh, ego power play fights that are really deleterious to everybody, and they just don't know how to solve them. And so the person with the most power wins, but in the long run, you may be losing some of the best people that you had just because somebody had a bigger ego and decided they had to have it their way, and the other person actually who had the talent, but also probably the maturity, said, I'm not playing here anymore. This is just being stupid. Yeah, I'm out. Yeah, that's cultural rot. That's cultural rot.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

And you know what else happens, Michael? When these things start to happen, you know who sees this? Your customers. When you start losing faces in a company that your customers are used to working with, and suddenly they're gone, and that person or that position may be you know like a revolving door, a new face, new face, new face. Your customers are gonna lose faith in you, they're gonna lose trust in you, especially if those and and that yeah, because the people that we worked with who know who've known us forever are gone. Yeah, and so why why should we stay? Because we we can't work with you anymore, nobody even knows who we are.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, they don't know us, they don't know what we our needs are, they don't understand our history, and we want it this way rather than that way. That's exactly right. And it becomes this revolving door, and it's it if it's better if they almost come in and they're saying, Well, who is it this month I'm gonna be dealing with? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

And yeah, absolutely, and that's one thing. Customer retention is absolutely in many ways tied to employee retention. And if you don't have customer retention, that continuing revenue that you've been counting on starts to dwindle and goes. Then what's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah, people. It's people we're dealing with, people dealing with people. We want the best people. That's what we really want for the best culture. How about this last one here? Number five here, personal leadership ceiling. This is a this is a great one.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

And I love what it says here that you've put down. Um, you plateau because you can't scale what you don't understand. I have a perfect story for that, Michael. I'm going on right now. Um, my wife has worked for uh a very large local um hospital medical group, uh, health group here where we live for 30 plus years. The person who was the manager of the clinic she works for just retired. And so, uh and she she retired, she was in her 60s, retired, had been with the organization for almost 40 years, knew it well, knew how that functioned, knew uh how knew the people, very well oiled machine. So instead of bringing someone else up through the clinic to to manage with the people she'd actually trained, they brought someone in brand new that started as a receptionist and now as a clinic manager in just a very short time with no degree. Now, this goes back to that great individual contributor, very good at their job, whatever that is they did, and suddenly because they're really good at their job, now we're gonna promote them into something as as critical as this. And it is absolutely falling apart. Wow, they're really struggling with some things, and uh I think this goes to show, you know, as part of that Peter principle, right? You talked about, you talk about a lot, uh the plateau, right? There's that ceiling. You can't go beyond your what your skills and talents are. You you tap out, then it becomes stress and do what I say.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yes, and that and that has two uh paths, you might say. There's a path of skills, and then there's the other path of dealing with people, yeah, knowing how to work with people. And you need both, actually. You need both because you're skillful at something, it doesn't mean you're gonna be great working with people, and if you're great at working with people, but you don't have the skills to back it up, either way, you end in a cul-de-sac and you're stuck, yeah, and you don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

You know, and that's not fair for anybody, it's not fair for even that person they've promoted into that position. You might be completely sidetracking their entire career by doing that.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, good observation. Yeah, so let's move on now. If you pay attention to what we're talking about here, what are the outcomes that you can start getting because you understand your team, and it's almost like you master mind reading your team. So let's go with these. Let's take a look at it. Engagement skyrockets. How about that?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

There's a good one here. There's some startling statistics associated with this one. And uh this is from Gallup, and it it shows that teams. To have leaders who know them as a person, know them as a person, have three to four times higher discretionary effort. They just work. They go out of their way. What can we do to make this company better?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

What is let's define it for our listeners there? Discretionary effort. That's that's not a term that you hear too often. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

It's not. And it really comes down to are your people just going through the motions? Come and they do their job, they you know, punch a time clock, and they fix their widgets and you know do whatever they do, tap out their memos, and and then they go home. Versus what can I do to maybe help mentor this person? What can I do? Um you know, or I've got an idea to how to fix this process. This is my idea. Let's see if we can put that into work. That's that discretionary effort. The additional effort that's being given by these people when they're not really being asked for. It's just what they want to do because they love where they are. They want to see the company succeed versus I just need a paycheck until I get something better.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

That word that you used, effort, that extra effort that they put into it, and it's out of choice, not because you told me to do it, right? Yeah, it's the lowest level of leadership. Do it because you said so. But they're doing it at their own volition. They want to do it, they're motivated to do it, and they have a sense of connection and purpose to the organization and the people that work there. That's a great employee to have. That's a great place to be with your employees.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

You know what that makes him not just high performers at that point. Turns them into high potentials. Yeah, they change, yeah, they switch, and that's exactly what you want in the company. You need them both, but you want, you know, you need those people that are not only those high performers, but have that visionary approach.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah, and want to learn, want to grow, want to become better. Excellent. How about this one? This is interesting. Retention becomes effortless.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah. Have you ever heard of companies, Michael, that you know, people want to work at, but then you hear the saying that the only way there ever gets an opening in the company is if someone retires or they die. That's it. That's the only way you can get in here because no one ever wants to leave the company. Yeah. There's not a lot of those out there, but they exist. They do exist. And that's what we're talking about is it has become such a phenomenal place to be, to work, to spend your career, to spend all that time during the week that you they don't leave. They don't leave. And it ties into that first one engagement skyrockets.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

My son-in-law, he just left a company. In fact, they they let him go and then they want to hire him back. They're a company that just did not care about their people. They didn't let them know almost week to week how much time they're gonna be working. They're there's this uh manufacturing company, get it's a manufacturer, so they bring in high-skilled people. He's a welder, but they never knew how many hours a week they were going to get. And sometimes they cut it short on and on and on. He's just been hired by a different organization. Interestingly, both organizations have been in business for decades. I mean, literally decades. They've been around for a long time, 40, 50 years. So these are you know, well-established businesses. This new company he's gone to, it's just he says it's just completely different. It's just completely different atmosphere. There's no this no micromanaging, there's no finger pointing, there's no blaming management, isn't coming down and hammering on you. It's just a different atmosphere. It's so much better. It is night and day. This guy now, where before, like getting up at 4:30 in the morning to get himself to work, you know, and having these long hours, welding is a hard business, it's a heavy business, doing that kind of stuff. But man, he's so happy. He's more than willing. He's more than willing to work overtime now. He enjoys this job so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah. And you know what? That's an interesting thing you say right there. And just not about welders, but there are certain jobs out there that the interest in him is dying in many ways.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Welding, uh, you know, some of this uh more you know, blue-collar type stuff, HVAC, HVAC, HVAC, those those sort of things. The people yeah, plumbers are the not a lot of people are going into anymore. But they're absolutely 100% critical elements to your business. You cannot replace those with AI. You cannot replace them with a computer. You cannot. That knowledge comes from the person. And when it, you know, people start mistreating the people, but what happens to those skills? Again, that goes all of this. Things go out the window.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Yeah. Key players no longer there, they can't pass along key information, techniques, and skills. It's very true. So let's take a look at this next one here. Innovation, this ties right into what you're just saying. Innovation explodes.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

I love that. And this is something we've we've talked about in the past, that psychological safety element. When suddenly you start getting the quiet voices start speaking up, start bringing ideas to the table because that psychological safety now starts turning into real ideas, as it says here. Turns into success, turns into you know, that continuous improvement model we talk about. Where, you know, and that's the thing about it is you've got to know where your skills and talents are in the company across the board, from day one. From day and that matter, that brings up that that uh chapter in Daniel Coyle's book, The Culture Code. You know, we're we won't get into that, but I'll tell you what, anybody listening out there needs to read that book. Great book.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

It is, it's an outstanding book. A lot of insights, a lot of great anecdotes come out of the real world. Let's take this next one. This is a very interesting one. Uh, I want to share you, you know, this gal I'm gonna be talking about. I won't mention her name on the air. Um, you become the leader everyone wants to work for. This particular gal that I'm I'm thinking of worked in a marketing business, um, very conscientious, worked very, very hard, uh, very, very dedicated, felt a great deal of frustration. Leadership just wasn't listening to her, wasn't paying attention to her. And yet, on the other side of that, people throughout the company were coming in to her and saying, How do you lead your team so well? Your team is the best team that we've got here. What is it that you do? How do you make that difference? I mean, they wanted to know they weren't getting it from the top, but they were seeing it happen with her and her team. Yeah. Now, she got to a point. What happened? She left. Left. Everything we're talking about. Top talent leaves. She went to another organization, getting paid even more, not as high a position, but they recognize something about her. They're paying her even more. Now she's in the process of establishing herself. And it was interesting. This is one of the things you want to understand, leaders. When you go to a new organization, they don't know your background. They've never had any experiences with you. So you have to start all over again proving yourself in the sense of, here's what I can do, and then reaching out and saying, How can I help you? There's those two things that go on. You know, you're not going to go in there and force yourself. You got to go in and do your work, do it well, show that you know what you're doing. And then you don't force yourself on other people, but you then start asking, How can I help you? Where can I be a benefit for you? What could is that, what is it that I can do that make your job easier? She just does that naturally. Just does it naturally. And so at first she thought she'd go a little bit faster. She was a little frustrated about that, a little bit of you know, some personal doubts that she had, but all of a sudden now she'd just taken off. Yep. And she'd got her first bonus. Now, this is interesting. First bonus that she got, she didn't hit her numbers, which she was like, oh, I'm a little off on my numbers here. But their response was this you're helping us in so many other areas to make our company profitable. It's worth you to pay worth it to us to pay you this extra bonus here. Talent, when it's really exercised and is recognized, soars. It makes the difference. So, leaders, when you're when we're talking about this stuff, it's worth the extra effort to do these things, to do these things that we're encouraging you to do, to learn them, to become really good at them. Because you want to be one of those leaders that everybody wants to work for. What what insights do you have?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

You know, I I think that the moral of the story here is if you don't want your competitor to start kicking your butt using the talent that you lost, skills and you know, maybe hang on to it a little better, maybe recognize where those skills and talents are and keep them there. Do whatever you can to keep that in-house. Because if you don't, trust me, someone else is gonna want that.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Yeah, I love that. Hard world, hard lesson.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

All right, let's take on number five here. I like this one. Personal fulfillment. How about that one?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. And this is have you you heard the the old adage, uh, it's uh it's lonely at the top. It doesn't have to be. Granted, there's decisions that leaders have to make that they have to make on their own in many, many cases. But it quits feeling like you're the bad guy. Have you ever this is a question for for people out there. Have you ever walked into a room as a leader? And you know there's a lot of talk going on, or it's you know happy environment, and you walk in and things go quiet. It just goes quiet and people are looking at you. And I gotta tell you, you know, people say, oh, that's a sign of respect. You know, they really respect me. Well, okay. Maybe, but not likely. It's more in a lot of ways, they don't know you, they don't know how to react around you, they don't know how to work with you, or they fear you. Ask yourself that, you know, and so if you're lonely and you feel drained, start tapping into the people around you. Get to know them, get their ideas, get their help, get their feedback, get their, you know, whatever they can offer you to help get this. Because I guarantee you, somewhere in your organization, you have the answer already.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

That is the truth, and that's been proven time and time and time again. Consultants go out, they get the problems for the management, upper leadership, and then they go out and talk to the people on the floor. The people always have the answers. Oh, it's a weird thing. It's a weird thing. Let's talk about this. What do you do about it, leaders? We got five points here we want to cover with you. What can you actually do about it? Now you're aware of the consequences if you don't do anything, the benefits if you do do something. Let's start here. One page human map. This is what this particular exercise is titled 15 minutes per person. Um what about this one, this one-page human map? This you've done these kind of things yourself?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yes, yes, I have. Um and and it's interesting because not only by doing this, if you ask people, uh, you know, sit down and and take it and give an inventory of yourself. Tell us who you are. Not only do people start to recognize things in themselves by doing that, and you know, and it's something that you you taught me long time ago, Michael, just write. Let it go. Don't don't overthink it. Write these things down, and then as as a leader, you know, ask them to share these things. What what energizes you? What's your drains at work? Um, you know, what are some of the things that you wish your leaders knew about you?

SPEAKER_00 36:06

How do you like to get feedback? Yeah. How do you like to get feedback? Exactly. What's a way that uh says all says something meaningful to you and how you like to be encouraged or recognized?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Here's an interesting thing around this too, Michael. And this is something we talk a lot about is this annual review nonsense. So many times if someone learns something in an annual review they didn't know before, well, sh shame on you, quite frankly. That's not uh a review is just that. We should review everything we talked about the previous year. Getting to know somebody, sitting down with them one-on-one, asking questions, getting feedback throughout the year, and seeing how they progress through the year. That's what an uh that annual review should be. Just a summary of everything in the previous year. But that goes back to this exercise, this 15 minutes per person. Sit down, tell me, tell us something about yourselves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Once you get that information, right? And you found out about this person, that person, and so on and so forth. It's one thing for them to kind of disclose that. And they'll and they'll disclose that depending on the level of safety they they feel that it's okay for me to share this and it won't be used against me. Again, those things that we've talked about in the past. The way you reinforce that is when you come around to them again and you're talking to them, and you've kind of identified this kind of person, who this kind of person is. Like, oh, hey, you're you're my you're one of our great problem solvers. You're the guy that can figure this thing out. You're you're the gal that can really connect up with people. You're my people person kind of person. Yeah, you're my you're my visionary. I can hear you. You you're one of you're one of our great team players. I know that you're really into the team. Uh thank you so much. You recognize once they've given that to you, you give it back to them. So now it begins this process of reinforcement. It becomes a process of uh of re repress re and I can't say it now. Um it begins a cycle, reciprocity. That's the word. This begins this reciprocity of this give and take, give and take, give and take. That's called a relationship because you see their strengths and recognize the strengths, and you actually say it out loud. One of the things that we notice as coaches is this is that almost always, and I'm talking 80, 80, 90, sometimes 90 first, 95% of the time, people do not always recognize their strengths. They may know that they do something great or they do something well, but they oftentimes don't know how to call it or name it. This is that thing that I do. They don't know how to say it because somebody's ever said it to them. They don't know how to say it. And if they don't know how to say it, they don't know how to denote it or identify it, they can't then specifically work on it to improve it. Because they just don't know if they're just kind of floundering out there doing whatever they do with that kind of stuff. But once you can denote it as a leader, say this is something that's really good. You know, I love it when you come to our meetings because you bring so much enthusiasm. I love it when you come to our meetings because you're the one person that is always looking at how other people are doing, how people are connecting. You're that person that looks out for other people, or you're the person that says, you know, it's time to get into gear, let's get work done. And you recognize it and you feed that back to them. It's such a feeling that they get inside of themselves. And then they in turn see that you see them, you understand them. They then in turn have a greater connection to you. This is one of the most powerful things that you do. And as you do that, he they talk about do this like every three to four, uh, three or four per week, but maybe you do it like once a month. You go out there and you talk to your folks, not like this thing that Rich is talking about once a year, but you do it on a regular basis. Yeah. It's it's almost the more unexpected that you do it, the more that it will be remembered, the more kind of find a way to stick inside of them. So this one-page idea about you know, one page human map is a powerful one. How about this one? It's not too dissimilar. Skip copy level to walks.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yep. And this really is, it gets down to go grab lunch with someone a couple levels down in your department, right? Don't make it an agenda. Don't make it uh uh and send a note out to them, you know, I'm gonna schedule this on such and such a date with this, such and such a person. That if you've never done that before, it's gonna scare the heck out of some some people.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

It's gonna scare the heck out of you.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, well, you too. It's like, you know, what's this person gonna do to me if I get them outside, you know, uh the building? But here's the thing, and I'm gonna even go a little bit further. Grab a department. If it's you know, a small department or a small team that you haven't done maybe this with, and go grab some pizza with them. Go out to lunch, take them someplace, sit down and just have a conversation. And it doesn't even have to be about work, it's about you know, you can tell me, you know, what's going on here, or you know, tell me about who you are. That one simple question getting to know somebody. You know, we we do this quite a bit, Michael, you know, opening up these conversations, especially like we talked about in job interviews and things like that. What is what is something you really want to know about me? It's not about work, it's not about the interview questions, it's about turning things into a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yeah, and that's really what that means.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Skip that, skip that, you know, do these coffee walks, whatever you want to call them. Yeah, but it's it's about it's about opening the door to conversation.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, I and I said misread that skip levels, forget about the level that you're working at, who you are, where they are. Just go do a coffee walk. Now, here's the thing that's about it warning do not make the conversation about you. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there are a couple of things that some leaders can fall into really, really, really well. Uh, and it's a bad thing. Do not play the game of uh one upsmanship. Oh, you went to Florida. Okay, that's really nice. Well, I went to uh Cayman Islands for a whole month. Yeah. Oh, I you went to uh Disney World. That's nice. Well, I took a tour of Europe last summer. You know, don't don't play ice. Yeah, don't try to move that. Yeah, yeah. You know, don't don't do it. And even if you can do it in the reverse, yeah, I broke my my uh my foot the other uh last uh last month. I'm still getting over it. Yeah, I saw you hobbling around. But did you know that I went on a skiing thing and I broke my femur, like in three places? I was in operation for 16 hours, and all again, now you're talking about how your your awful is better than their awful. So it's this competitive, whatever it is, my better is than your is better than your better, or my awful is better worse than your awful. It's real easy to go there because being a leader, you can be competitive like that kind of stuff. Don't do that. In fact, one of the best ways that you can make sure that you're not talking about yourself is let them talk 80% of the time. Yeah, there you go. You talk maybe 10 or 20% of the time. And show genuine interest.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Show genuine interest. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Yes, and let them talk. That's the best way you can say. Just let them talk. Don't critique, don't judge, don't compare. Just let them talk. Just do that. That's a hard thing. That's a hard thing. We know that's hard. How about this one? I left the the the this is it takes guts. It takes so much guts. I love it. I just love it. You know, go and take the temperature of the room, go into a meeting. Just go into a meeting. And we'll go ahead. You take away this is a great exercise. Go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

This is this is a you know, I'm I'm laughing like you are because this is something you can't just do. That, you know, taking the temperature of the room, reading the room, you know, that round robin, walk into a team meeting and just say, Hey, how clear is our direction? How supported do you feel? What can we do to help you improve? And then listen. Then listen. And if there are problems in your culture now or you've Already got issues. This is gonna be a tough one to get to for a while. But if you don't start doing it, you'll never get there. Yeah. Build that trust. You gotta build trust. Respect. Yeah. It has to be there.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Some leaders do that, and then when somebody makes a contribution, they don't say anything. Bad, bad move. You gotta thank them. I appreciate that. That's a great insight. I appreciate you taking the time to speak up. I know that wasn't easy for you to say. Compliment them, compliment, compliment, encourage, encourage, encourage, encourage them. You gotta do that. If you do if you just if you just let it sit there, then it's not gonna go anywhere. Now the other thing is this you and I, as we've done these these trainings, particularly either in person or we've done them, you know, over Zoom. You always know when somebody has something to say, their body starts to move. Yes, it can be a big move, it could be a little move, it could be just a shift. Maybe look up, they may do it, they may do something. But once the body starts moving, you know they have something to say.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah, or they come off mute if you're in a uh a virtual room, everybody's on mute, you'll suddenly see someone come off mute, and you know there's something, there's something there and they want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Exactly. Open the door for them. They may be a little hesitant to speak up, but you just noticed there's a change. Hey, Bob, I just I got a feeling you got something to say. Yeah, what's on your mind? And sometimes now, this is the interesting thing, because it takes a little bit of guts to do that because you're not exactly sure what they're gonna do. But here's what inevitably happens. Oh, well, I wasn't thinking about anything particular, but now that you asked me, now it actually bubbles up to their conscious brain. Yeah, this is what I was thinking about as you talked about that, or this is what came to my mind. Their body was thinking on them, their body was tattletailing on them because the body was going, I got something to say, but it hadn't reached the conscious level that. But you watching them and seeing what's going on, read the body, the body will tell you, and then the mouth will speak. Yep, absolutely. Great, great point. Masterful stuff that you can learn to do here. How about this one? Face-to-face, one-on-one scripts. This is this is good too. This again takes guts, but it's great.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yep, and this comes back to that starting every tough conversation with I want your unfiltered feedback. Give it to me. And sit there and take it. Sit there and listen. And don't come back with some other, you know, because it, you know, some other comment or whatever, or try to justify what they, you know, no, well, that's that's not true because, you know, whatever. Listen to it and acknowledge what they have to say because in many cases, this is an opportunity for people to really tell you how they feel, and you're gonna get some good information about the company, about their position, about other issues going on, and it's not a tattletale session, that's not what you want it to be. But just tell me what what do you think about this?

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Yeah, and this calls for some mastery as well. Watch the yes but or the no but response. Yeah. Watch the well, you don't understand, or here's what you're missing. Just you just just kind of vomited that up. Yeah. Now look at the dynamics of the conversation. You invited them to tell you unfiltered exactly what they think. Yeah, you opened that door. Now, so you that's the ground rule. You set the ground rule here. Now, if you have something to say, keep the ground rule, which would start out with an invitation. The ground rule is if you have something to say, may I share some insights that you may not know about? You ask permission, you gave them permission to tell you. Now, if you want to get permission from them, reciprocal, then ask permission. May I give you some additional insight to understand that without animosity, without judgment, just here's the facts, here's what happened, so that you have the sense of safety that you maintain. That's a big deal, actually. Yeah, so when you set the ground rule of asking permission or giving permission, stick with the rule, don't break the rule and just start dumping on somebody. That's the worst way. That's well, I should say it, that's the best way to burn bridges. You go, gosh, I'll never do that again. That was horrible. I've had six of these meetings, they all turn out like hell. That's a bad idea.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Yep. Don't go in there. He's gonna ask you to give him your feedback.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Well, who's who is the one person that was in every one of those meetings? Yeah, what's the common denominator? Yeah, exactly. How about this one? Anonymous letter, blind spot. How about this one? Blind spot surveys.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Yeah. Um here's the thing about this. In order to do these, you really have to have a lot of trust in your organization. If there's no trust in your organization, do not do this. If you really want to find out what's going on with your your company, have a third party do an anonymous culture survey or an engagement survey. This is one of the things I I think is a great idea. But if you do it yourself and there's already trust issues in the company, you're never going to hear what you need to hear. You might hear what you want to hear, but that's not what you need to hear. You need to hear the truth. You can't fix something if you don't know it's wrong. This is such a great thing, leader blind spot surveys. And we do we provide those, Michael, with with to our culture surveys.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

And we can help you do this. And you know, first we want to do something like that with the senior leadership team. Are you ready to even hear this? The information. And if you do, what are you going to do about it? Can you do anything about it? Are you prepared to? Are you capable? Do you have the skills and talents to do it? But again, uh this is fantastic. Uh, you know, that anonymous leader blind spot survey, and anonymous has to be the key word. Because if you send, if you have HR send this out in a company email, fill this survey out. How many think people do you think they're going to do it if you've got already a toxic environment? Bad idea. Good idea to have a third party do it.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

We know we also know this, that when you do those kind of self-written, self-authored kind of surveys, even when they tell you the truth, you're not gonna believe it. Right. Yeah. Oh, nobody in our organization would say that.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yeah. Oh, and yeah, they wouldn't say that. They're probably not even working for us.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

It's fake. I can't believe that anybody in our organization. That's probably just I don't know who who did that. Who just let that in there?

SPEAKER_01 52:51

I I think it's a fair point to say that what we're joking about actually happened. It did, it actually happened, and the company lost millions of dollars over time.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah, they did. They did millions. Fortunately, they were able to come back, but yeah, there's a period of time that they lost huge amounts of dough, yeah, and huge amounts of people that just got fed up. Yep. So, Rich, in order to become this kind of leader, to do these kinds of things, to avoid the bad things and really benefit the great stuff that we've talked about here, implementing these new actions, these new procedures, these new practices, really. Here's the thing about it. Just a quick note on this. Why does culture uh cultural transformations fail? It's no, it's no mystery. It really is no mystery. You get the right information, you get the right input, you may even put together a great plan to implement this, you get some outside help so that you got some objectivity. People who are experts in this business to assist you get everything right and get one thing wrong, and it all blows up on you. And this is the thing. Yes, don't change your habits. Right, right. It's the behavioral habits that must change. So if you just go back and do the same old thing, habits that you've been doing this whole time here, then nothing is going to change after all the work, after all the expenses of all the all the meetings that you have. You now must change your habits. So let's take a look at the habits that you as leaders must change in order for it in order in order for your team to grow, to learn, to become better, they too then must create new habits. The first one here, the new habits you must create and cultivate is active curiosity.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

Oh, absolutely. Keep asking, tell me more. Tell me more about that. What else can you tell me about that? Instead of first time jumping into solutions or cutting them off. Yeah. Tell me more. I want to hear more about that. I want to hear more about you. I want to hear more about your idea. I want to hear more about your success.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Interestingly, uh, with the you may not be able to do this with every employee, but but this is something to keep in mind. It takes anywhere to about five to seven queries like that to where you really get to the truth. Yeah. Five to seven. It's like peeling an onion. It's like the question, well, why would you want to do that? Well, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to do that? Not from a judgmental way, it's just saying getting to be more and more curious. Or tell me more about that, or what else? Or is there anything else? Because people tend to have these layers of what truth. Now, that's one of the things, layers of truth. What am I saying in telling you? The other thing that goes on there is lots of times they are not aware of what it is they really recognize at a deeper level. So by asking them again and going again again, they start getting to those deeper levels of human beings, uh, where really our genius resides where we see true things. We see things as they actually are. So be patient and keep asking a question. So active curiosity is a huge thing. You turn on your active curiosity as a leader, you will ignite your family. Not excuse your family. Well, you may ignite your family as well, but you will ignite your team, your organization. Yep. It's very true. How about this one? Empathetic listening.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

This is this is an amazing concept. And it really is something as effective coaches understand this. We talked about that. Hear the emotion behind the words, ignore the problem and listen to the emotion. That's where that real empathy comes from. And empathy is not just uh uh listening, empathy is an action word. You have to be able to effectively help these people. You're an empathetic leader, that doesn't mean you're just listening. It means you're helping them gonna get out of an issue. It might be something you're all experiencing the time. But the point is, is if you're practicing that empathetic listening and you're that empathetic leader, you know you've got to move to higher ground and you've got to take them with you. You can't stay. But you have to listen. What are they experiencing? The frustration, you know, the emotion. What's going on there? Uh and and listen to what they're telling you.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

I love that. Let them experience the frustration, don't take it away from them. That doesn't even let them kind of work that frustration through. You know, on the other side of frustration is clarity. Yes. So give them the chance to work that through and then share that clarity with you. Good good points there. Thank you. How about this one? I like this one as well, pattern recognition.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah, uh this is something that you have to have some other things in place before you understand pattern recognition, you know, spotting microbehaviors. Shift, you know, uh uh just a slight tone shift in somebody in a meeting. Response times start to slack off. Um, and this even goes to other things. You know, you start seeing overtime creep up for whatever reason. There's all sorts of pattern recognition you've got to understand, but you've got to put some of these other things in place before you can start to recognize these patterns. You've got to get to know people. You got to get to know your teams, understand what they're doing, the process, everything around that.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Yeah, and notice the words that they're using. Yes. Notice the words that repeat. Notice phrases that repeat. Notice how maybe one person says it this way, another person says it the other way, and being able to ask, you said it this way, you said it this way. Is that the same thing, or is there something different there? You're looking for the pattern and how they frame those things up. That listening skill of being able to put those pieces together so that you can see and recognize the pattern. Good good points there. How about this one? This is a tough one, too, for some folks. Vulnerability modeling.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

Wow. This is um this is one of those things that we really focus on in on coaches. You you know, understanding vulner how essential vulnerability is to growth. It doesn't mean you're you're burying your soul, and you know, people are gonna laugh at you. That's not the point. Sharing your own challenges, people knowing your own challenges versus you know, this other thing we talked about earlier about leadership being lonely. Well, it's lonely if you don't share these challenges and have people who can help you solve them. That's vulnerability. That that's getting rid of that imposter syndrome, the overconfidence effect.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

Yeah, one of the things that we have our people do is called an ILDP, an individual leadership development plan. And it gives an individual an opportunity to take a look at a lot of data, a lot of feedback, and in that process see what's great they knew about, what's great they didn't recognize, areas that have that have some gaps that they knew about, areas of gaps that they had no clue about at all. And to be able to open yourself up like that is on one hand, it's kind of scary, but on the other hand, it's invigorating. See, here's the thing to understand. You can decide. We have this brain called this, you know, this prefrontal lobe executive center that we have. We get to decide if something's going to be scary or exciting. Yeah, yeah. And it literally is a point where you go, I can go either way because the adrenaline's going and my knees are shaking, and there's a little bit of sweating here. Oh, the stomach's got a little bit of butterflies. All those are the same um indicators, manifestations, bodily manifestations for both fear and excitement. Now, which do you want it to be? Do you want it to be scary and awful and doom, or do you want it to be exciting and adventurous, adventuresome and wonderful? And so when you open yourself up like that, that is going to be either you now deciding to play at a lower level or you taking on a whole new venture for yourself: transformation, leadership growth, and transformation. The vulnerability model is just it can be one of those just cliche hackney things, but the reality of it, it is the it is the turning point for many leaders in becoming their very, very best.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Yeah, absolutely. Great point. Great point. It really is.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Let's go to the last one here. Bias interruption, one that plagues all of us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:53

What's what's that term around uh if you assume makes an ass out of you and me type thing? Is that what the saying is around assume? But here's the thing. Don't assume, don't assume someone's like you. Don't assume they are just you know, like everything you like. Don't assume because you know, you've put something in place that it's gonna work for everybody. You know, there's a thing called consensus with teamwork, but at the same token, you've got to be able to ask yourself, am I assuming too much about this person, or do I really know them?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

And even if you really do know them, there may be more to discover. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

Hopefully they're not an axe murderer or something like that. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully not.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

They're not going around killing people with Reno. Nope, nope.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:53

All right, yeah. Here's one of the things, Michael, I want to point out real quick. These five things we just talked about are things you have to work on. Just like your muscles, just like going to a gym. These are things that don't just happen overnight. You have to work on these things. You have to work on these five elements we just talked about. For you people out here who are love to go to the gym, love to work out, love to run, love to whatever that might be, improving your health, you have to improve your leadership ability too, if you're a leader. These things must be worked on. Over and over and over and over.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

Yeah, it's really a lifetime ambition, isn't it? Yes, it is. It really ties into your core purpose statement.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:42

Nothing else we'll help you with.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

You know that something John Mattone just said. The most dangerous CEOs he ever worked with are the ones that felt like they didn't have anything else to lose. Like they knew it all. Most dangerous. The ones that were not are the ones that were so ambitious that they show up day after day after day, just like they did the first day on the job.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

Wow. Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's a great insight that John has. Thank you. All right. Shout outs.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Shout outs. Well, Michael, I I'll let you do that. You pointed something out. Um, and uh you you gotta remember we've been absent for a few weeks. Yeah, we have but in our absence, we have seen our downloads absolutely grow. And how many more cities, uh, people in different cities have joined us that we haven't seen before?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:48

I tell you, just in this last podcast that we had the part one of this one that we just finished up here, the part two that we just did. Uh, we have had 13, as I can count, uh, new cities that have joined us. Let me just give you a few of these. Um, Helsinki. Wow, yeah. Marlton, New Jersey, Galt, California. Another one was City of Westminster, City of Westminster. Another one was Cobar, Eastern Province. Another one was um Corleave, Capital Region, another one was Bayshore, New York. This is uh this is just a few out of 13 new cities that just joined us from our last podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

So you know, and that brings a grand total. Look in the grand total here, and I love looking at these numbers. It's very humbling. It's very um, you know, I I don't have the words to express this, very appreciative, because I don't think we'd ever figured this four years ago that we'd be we have this many people listening to us, but now that brings it to a grand total of 1,590 cities in 144 countries. Do we now have people listening to us and downloading a podcast? And we see some of these every single day. Many of these would you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

Yeah, we are we are nothing but grateful and honored that you would take the time to tune into what it is that we have on our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

Absolutely, and thank you so much for the bottom of our hearts. This is is fantastic. Even when we're absent for a couple of weeks, you keep us going.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

That's right. Do you know how many countries there are in the world?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

It's just more than like 150. I I think it's not that many.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

It's about 190.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Okay, whatever that might be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Yeah, and excuse me, countries, territories, it's around 190. We've got about three quarters of the world in terms of countries tuning into us. Yeah. That's that's staggering. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you all.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Before we close, Michael, I would just like to, if I could take just a brief moment. I want, I want based on what we're just saying. Um About a week and a half ago, I was busy with a certification class, certifying a group of coaches to be master certified John and Tone Global Coaches. And it's fun to do this because you get people from all over the world that are fantastic, either you know, coaches or have had extensive executive experience in many different companies. One particular individual in this class was in Beirut at the time. And right during the middle of our training session is when they were attacked by Israel. No. Yeah, and it was it was I I don't know that I have the words to express this because you heard the explosions. One of the missiles hit within a half a kilometer of where he was in his home and killed 30 people in an apartment complex. Now, here's the thing. I'm not talking about politics right now. I'm not talking about how you feel about any of the situation that's going on in the world. The one thing that is constantly impressed upon my mind, even by the people who listen to us and the countries are out there, all of these things are critical elements to all of us. Leadership, taking care of people, learning how to coach and direct people. And then in the same class, there was another individual from Saudi Arabia who had family in Beirut. And here's the thing: they stayed in the class. They stayed there. You know, I asked if if they needed to take some time, they're like, no, we'll be okay. And even with the things going on around them, they were focused on how can I be a better leader? How can I help others be better leaders? The point is, we're all people. Everybody has fears. Everybody, and it's not everybody. If you if you're politically looking at this from a political standpoint, you're I think in many ways we're missing the boat because it's just when we look at it from a people perspective, we start to see that everybody has fears, everybody has wants, everybody has desires to improve themselves. And that was one of the, you know, a very unique situation for me. That you know, and then just later that week, I was able to give a keynote in Lahore, Pakistan, to the Lahore Chamber of Commerce. Big shout out to you folks out there in Lahore, Pakistan. It is an opportunity. If you reach out and talk to people, let them tell you your story, listen to what's going on, and for just a minute, get rid of your political aspirations or your political feelings or whatever else, and just look at them as people. You're gonna be greatly blessed for it, I promise you.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

That's well said, Rich. Thank you. It's a message we all need to hear at this time.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:35

Yeah, we do right now. And it was very, especially during this time, it was very somber, very sobering instance for me. Because, you know, I've I've got my own pre, you know, determined, you know, feelings about different things that when you really break it down, it you it just throws those out the window.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

Yeah. Alrighty. Well, Rich, if people want to get a hold of us, what do they do?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

Well, they get a hold of you at michaelbailey.com. Uh, they can get a hold, and that's M-A-I-K-E-L Bailey.com. Rich Barron Executive Coaching, or you can get a hold of us through the John and Tone Global website, where um, you know, we house our podcast. It's it's also housed on Bud Sprout. You can um reach out to us. Our our information is also on the Bud Sprout website. You can get a hold of us there. LinkedIn, there's no there's no shortage no ways to get a hold of us. And uh, we want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

All right. Good job. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:45

So until next time, I guess the the point is take care of each other, right? And that's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

There you go. There you go. All right, all the best. And leaders lead well.