Patrick:            Hey everybody, Pat V. here, and you’re listening to the Rise Above Your Best podcast, where I’m not only obsessed with identifying and understanding the habits, strategies, techniques, secrets that have made other people successful, but also in uncovering and identifying the research that demonstrates that great success is available to anyone. And it all starts when we believe in the power of rising above our best.

Patrick:            This is a really special episode for me. A lot of the work that I’ve done over the years has obviously been in leadership and team development, and recently I had put together a workshop series called Lead Like No Other. And the reason it’s like no other, or that I’ve phrased it that way, is because there’s so much more to leadership than just skills and techniques and strategies and understanding how to delegate.

Patrick:            One of the foundational components to it is finding out how to be comfortable with yourself, and be happy with who you are. And that’s why this episode, the title of it really is about living life on the EDGE, and how to successfully live life on the EDGE, and we’re gonna talk about four behaviors that really is foundational for a lot of the work that I do in terms of leadership that help leaders, or aspiring leaders, to feel good about who they are.

Patrick:            Because if you don’t feel good about who you are as an individual, if you’re not content or happy with yourself, then it’s gonna be very difficult for you to be there for somebody else, whether it’s a loved one or somebody in the office or somebody in the community, it doesn’t matter.

Patrick:            So these four behaviors that I’ll speak to I think are foundationally four of the most important things that you can do to live a great life, and when you do that, especially if I’m developing as a leader, these will provide the things that I need to be a better leader, again, at home, in the community, or at work. So let’s get going.

Patrick:            As I thought about putting this podcast together and the acronym for the model that I’m gonna talk about around EDGE, I thought, “You know what, when we think of living on the edge there’s some excitement to that, that we’re right there.” And to me, this model really is just that, it’s how do we maximize everything we can out of life? These four behaviors that I’m gonna talk to I think do that.

Patrick:            Now, even though the acronym is EDGE, I’m gonna talk to you about expectancy, and discipline, and gratitude, and empathy, which spells EDGE, the order of these that I’m gonna speak to you in is a little different. Because we’re gonna start out with gratitude.

Patrick:            Gratitude is so important for living, I think, a fulfilled life. I’ll start off with one of the quotes that I’d come across that I think speaks to this. This was by a woman, Melody Beattie, she said, “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” And I think that is so true in terms of gratitude.

Patrick:            And I think we have to practice it every day, and that’s part of the model that I put together and part of what certainly I live myself, and I know it’s made a huge difference that every morning I will write down three things that I’m grateful for, to start the day out. They might be just getting up, was, “I have another day today.” It could be, “I’m grateful for my family,” or, “for the opportunities to help other people.”

Patrick:            One of them is usually more simple though. Could be, “I’m thankful for a great cup of coffee this morning,” or, “for a sunrise”. Whatever that might be. So it’s not always I’ve gotta completely outdo myself every time I’m thinking grateful every morning.

Patrick:            But there’s a lot of research behind the benefit that gratitude provides us in terms of wellbeing. And if we think about it, it’s very difficult to be grateful and sad at the same time. It’s just hard to do, it’s almost like they’re binary, that either one or the other has to be taking place at one time, they both can’t happen at the same time.

Patrick:            And I think it’s really important to think about gratitude as focusing on the challenges that we face within our lives too, not just the good stuff, but the challenges. That when we can look at those things that have created struggle and think, “I’m grateful for that happening,” that it gives us the power over those things that we can look and say, “Yeah, this was terrible, this sucked, but there’s something that’s gonna come out of this that I’m grateful for, that I’m gonna grow somehow because of this.” And if you listened to the episode that I did, Your Past is Your Power, that’s really where I speak more in depth about that. But it’s so important.

Patrick:            Along those lines of gratitude, if you’ve ever seen the musical Dear Evan Hansen, I chuckle when I think of it because it starts out, one of the lines is, “Today’s gonna be a great day, and here’s why.” And as corny and hokey as that sounds, that’s often the way our brains operate, is that we give ourselves that “why”. “Why is this gonna be a good day for us?” That we start to position ourselves as to why things are gonna work out for us.

Patrick:            Too often what do we do? We take the opposite approach, and we look at the negative of why things aren’t gonna work out for us. The importance here is to go from that place of gratitude, we’re saying, “This is why things will work out for me today.” From a scientific standpoint, what starts to happen is we can activate what’s called the confirmation bias. The confirmation bias basically says that, whatever we put out there, we find evidence to back up why we’re right.

Patrick:            So if I’m gonna take that approach and leverage that research, then why not make it work in my favor? “Why will things work out for me today?” And when I can do that, when I can have that focus, generally only good things are gonna come of that.

Patrick:            I’ll end our gratitude piece with a quote from Dennis Wheatley. He said, “Happiness can’t be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” I think that’s so true. When we can really be in that space, it’s not about what we own, the title we have, it’s about living. And gratitude certainly is how we start this out.

Patrick:            So when we move on from gratitude, the next one is expectancy. This is a practice every morning as well. I expect to get where I’m going. That’s sort of the, not the glass is half full, that my glass is full. And it dovetails off of the gratitude piece.

Patrick:            Oftentimes when we’re dealing with expectancy, though, we get in our own heads. We start to talk ourselves out of it. One of the quotes that I think of often comes from a woman, Mary Morrissey, she said, “Feed your faith and your fears will starve.” And I think about that often, this idea of what is faith, and that when we feed our faith, our belief in ourselves or something else or someone else, a higher power, that our fears really will starve when we do that.

Patrick:            And when we go back to thinking about gratitude, we can think in this space of, “Why will I be successful?” We start to, again, activate the confirmation bias piece here, that it’s thinking of all the reasons why we’re gonna be successful and not why we can’t.

Patrick:            This is not a pollyana approach, or like it’s roses all the time, I don’t believe that. I can recognize that there are challenges, and I can have crappy days. But I know in the end that things are gonna work out. That’s just the way it is.

Patrick:            There’s a model that I use in coaching, and it’s called GAIL. It really deals with four ways that really we try and protect ourselves, or our brain tries to protect us, and the first is gremlins. It’s this space of we say we’re gonna do something, but then that voice gets in our head of saying, “What are you, crazy? You can’t do that. Don’t even try.”

Patrick:            The next one is around assumptions, it says, “Well, if this was the way it was last time, this is the way it’s gonna be this time. I wasn’t able to pull it off last time, and chances are I’m not gonna be able to pull it off this time.” So we talk ourselves out of it.

Patrick:            The next is around interpretations, that it says, “I see it a certain way, and that’s the only way it is. It can’t be a different way than it is.” And the last one is around limiting beliefs, and it says, “I’m too short, I’m too tall, I don’t have enough education, I don’t have enough money, I don’t have enough time,” whatever it might be, that we put that roadblock in front of ourselves.

Patrick:            And in coaching we often talk about resources and resourcefulness, and really limiting beliefs is about resources. We’re always gonna lack something, whatever that might be, but what we always have equal opportunity to is resourcefulness. And when we think of those two things, we start off with gratitude, what am I grateful for every day, we move on to expectancy, I expect that I’m gonna get where I wanna go, that oftentimes revolves around making sure that we set good goals.

Patrick:            Before we transition into our next behavior around discipline, I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain, who said, “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” That is so true, that if I look back to when I started my own business now, if I knew everything that was involved and really how naïve I was in some regards, I don’t know that I would have done it. But having that ignorance, but also the expectation, the confidence that I was gonna succeed, it really did provide success.

Patrick:            Which leads us into the next behavior that we talk about, and that is around discipline. If anybody had any questions about thinking, “Gratitude, expectancy, where’s the beef” so to speak, here’s where it comes in. The discipline component of this is to set up, “How am I gonna get there? What do I want, and how am I gonna get there?”

Patrick:            Episode one we talked about set goals. Specific, emotional, and timebound, an easy way to set goals and really set their trajectory. There’s a quote that I love by a gentleman, Dwight Newell Hillis, and he said, “A person must take their choice between ease and wealth. Either is available, but not both.”

Patrick:            And I believe that in my own life, certainly, is that I’ve had those opportunities to choose ease and to choose wealth. It really has seemed to be more binary, that I get one or the other. If I get ease, I don’t get a lot of the good stuff that goes along with it. And if I want wealth, it’s not gonna be with ease. There’s gonna be work, and that’s okay.

Patrick:            So the discipline comes down to, “What are my goals? What do I want? Are they specific? Are they emotional?” Meaning, what’s the “why”? “How strongly do I want this? Are they timebound? Am I gonna have this done by a certain amount of time?” It’s looking at being grateful for what I have, but also expecting that I’m gonna get there. I can’t just put it out there, “It’s gonna work out, I’m just gonna keep hoping for it,” without doing what needs to be done. I’ve gotta put the work in.

Patrick:            And when I do that, it also helps to keep me focused when things aren’t going well, that I’m like, “Okay, I know why I’m doing this. I know what the end result is gonna be, and I know how I need to get there.” So gratitude and expectancy is certainly needed to put me in that place, but discipline is what’s gonna pull me through and allow me to really get where I need to go. And it’s not always gonna be easy, I know that.

Patrick:            Another quote when I think in this area, and it’s on the signature of a lot of my emails that goes out, is by Galatians, and the quote says, “Do not grow weary by doing good, for in good season we will reap if we don’t give up.” And that’s the hardest part, if we don’t give up. And when we’re thinking about this from the standpoint of living on the EDGE, I’ve talked about three behaviors that really do make a difference.

Patrick:            One is I’m grateful for what I have. In the morning I’m grateful for it, when I go to bed I’m grateful for what happened during the day. But I have also trained myself to expect that things are gonna work out. That faith, I’ve activated that faith. And then I’ve employed discipline in terms of making sure that I’m doing what I need to do on my end to make that happen. When we think about that from a standpoint of being in a place of wellbeing, you can see where that can create that space for us, especially as leaders.

Patrick:            But there’s one last component to this, and this is around the other E. That’s empathy. If you look at a lot of the research out there in regards to wellbeing and happiness, you’ll often hear it suggested that having a purpose is one of the most important things somebody can have in terms of creating wellbeing or happiness in their lives. It really is about feeling as though there’s something more than just yourself that you’re involved with, that you’re making a purpose.

Patrick:            Dan Pink talks about it in his book Drive, purpose is one of the three motivators that he’s found in the research that he looked at, this idea of, “What am I doing? Who am I serving beside myself if I really wanna be happy?” Again, the research would suggest that those that are able to do that, that they find a way to have purpose for other people, they’re happier.

Patrick:            The term that I’ve used here around that is about empathy. One of the first quotes that I think about when I think of empathy and to me this idea of being for others, is by a quote by Napoleon Hill, who said, “Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.”

Patrick:            Again, I can use what I’ve got to get a bigger house, better car, better vacation, all about myself, and I think oftentimes when people aren’t happy with who they are that’s what they try and live through first. “What can I feed myself that will take away from the other stuff that’s lacking? Is it a new suit, or a bigger trip?” Whatever it might be, we realize that that doesn’t last long.

Patrick:            From a research or a scientific standpoint, we call that hedonic adaptation, which really means that after a certain period of time the luster wears off. The car is just a car, the suit’s just another suit, the house is just a house again. Because what we really needed to feed is not that, because we’re doing it for ourselves, not for other people.

Patrick:            Gary Vaynerchuk will talk oftentimes about the 51% rule, and I would agree with that, this idea of trying to provide 51% of the value in any relationship that I go into. And when we do that, it really does activate that piece of being for others that our sense of purpose, when it’s for others as opposed to ourselves, puts us in a place of wellbeing and happiness.

Patrick:            The last quote that I’ll speak to in this area is by Samantha Power. She said, “All advocacy is, at its core, an exercise in empathy.” Again, when we can live from a place that we’re thinking of other people and what our actions have on them, and how we can impact them, and we’re able to say, “Yes, we’re doing that positively,” it creates a sense of positive wellbeing in us and happiness.

Patrick:            And from a leadership perspective, that is such a critical component of being there for others. Inspiring others by our actions to wanna follow wherever we go. And again, whether that’s at home or in the community or in your organization.

Patrick:            So we recap here, again, living life on the EDGE can really be the most powerful place to live it. When we’re practicing those things, when we expect to get where we wanna go, when we apply the discipline needed to get there, when we’re grateful for what we have and where we are in the moment, and when we’re able to exercise and demonstrate empathy for others in a way that says, “I’m more interested in making a difference for other people than I am about what’s in it for me.”

Patrick:            I hope you’ve found this podcast helpful. As I read each one of these things, I know in my own life and in those people that I work with that I’ve seen them exercise these, it can create such a difference in terms of who you are and how you live your life. I hope you were able to take something away from this that helps you to rise above your best, if you know somebody that could benefit from this as well, that you forward it on to them, and if you hadn’t already, please subscribe to this podcast.

Patrick:            Leave me a rating. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that when that happens because I know that the message is continuing to get out there. And I hope you’ll continue to listen to me as I bring on more guests and more research and more strategies to helping not only you but those around you to rise above their best. Till the next episode. Take care.

Thanks For Listening!

 

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

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Patrick:            I’m here again with Larry Barker, the president and CEO of Machias Savings Bank. Again, Larry, it’s probably been a couple of months, I think, since I first spoke with you about trying to get this set up. I had seen over the last year or so just a couple of the accolades, I should say, that your organization has won nationally. My background being in leadership development and employee engagement, I thought here’s somebody in my own back yard that obviously his organization is really doing things the right way.

Patrick:            I wanted to bring you on board and really sort of explore what that looks like in regards to Machias Savings Bank and why you think your organization is where it’s at today in that regard. So again, thanks for being here.

Larry:               Yeah, fantastic. It’s fantastic. We appreciate the opportunity, Patrick.

Patrick:            I’ll let you take the lead here, in terms of gloating about your employees and the success you’ve had so far.

Larry:               Well, I’ll just start off by telling you just a little bit about Machias Savings Bank. We’re a $1.4 billion in assets. We have 269 employees, 16 locations across Maine spanning from Caribou to Portland. We’re a mutual savings bank, and so creating shareholder wealth is not a priority for us. That’s not part of the equation. Our purpose as a company, Patrick, is to make a difference in our communities. Everything we do falls under that umbrella. We have an amazing culture that revolves around employee experience, customer experience, and ultimately community impact.

Patrick:            How old is the bank?

Larry:               150 years in 2019. Started in 1869. Our original charter was signed by Joshua Chamberlain.

Patrick:            That is incredible. You had mentioned, I had, just for the audience, I had sent out a list of questions earlier in the week regarding some of the topics that we might talk about. Larry got back to me to say he didn’t think it was really going to be appropriate, because the questions were all revolving around himself. I quickly got back to him to say that that’s exactly now … If he wasn’t willing to do it for that reason, which was probably more the reason I wanted to have him on was his sense of humility and sharing the success of the organization with the employees within the organization. Larry, you mentioned to be in terms of what some of your values are as an organization. I wonder if you could maybe mention those again.

Larry:               One of our culture standards, and we’ve memorialized our culture standards, those are those key things that we think have made a successful committee is one of those is attitude. The first sentence of defining that standard is that Machias Savings Bank employees are friendly, genuine, flexible, driven, hard-working, and humble. It’s one of our culture standards, and it’s really important to us as an organization.

Patrick:            Now I’m looking, some of the awards that you’ve won, obviously this is you’re in the top five companies to work for in the state of Maine. Once again, how does that process take place?

Larry:               Yeah, so look, if I had to pick, say, the top two reasons that Machias Savings Bank is in that league, I would say the opportunity that our employees have to make a difference in our communities, which directly relates back to our purpose, first of all, and secondly, our family first philosophy. Again, I mentioned earlier our purpose and our passion as it pertains to the impact, this is something that our employees embrace and get excited about. We encourage all employees to be active volunteering in the community with the causes they’re personally passionate about.

Larry:               In fact, Patrick, we don’t just encourage them to do that. We pay every employee in the bank up to 20 hours a year to volunteer with the community. We match employee contributions to their favorite cause up to $100 every year, every employee. Beyond that, we have a dollars for doers program where we match every 40 hours volunteered with a $200 donation.

Larry:               The second piece, and we really put our money where our mouth is when it comes to making a difference in our communities, but we also have a family first philosophy. What we mean by that is if your child has a Little League game this afternoon, not only do we want you to be there, we’re going to be disappointed if you’re not there. Again, in fact, we’re going to pay you to be there, in addition to regular vacation time, we’ve added 16 hours of family flex time for every employee, so you can go to that game, that musical recital, or whatever it is, and even get paid while you’re there.

Patrick:            That is incredible. I will tell you the reason why is that I will often, when I’m going in with some organizations is what’s the mission or the vision? You always hear somewhere along the lines that our employees are our most important asset, yet often times when I deal with the employees, most of them would laugh when they read that, because there’s not congruence. It’s not the walk and the talk that you’re talking about right now where this idea, we put our money where our mouth is, that you’re really able to do that through those things like matching and paying employees to volunteer, and the idea of family first, again, I think is one of those that often times doesn’t get a lot of real traction, but when you’re saying that you’re disappointed if they don’t make it there, then …

Larry:               Well, and let me tell you, so if I was going to pick the third thing, and maybe the most important, Patrick, I would say that it’s listening. Many things that we do on this front, and I think listening is the most important, you’ve probably heard the Steve Jobs quote around hiring really great people, not so he could tell them what to do, but rather so they could tell him what to do. We practiced this philosophy, and I can attest to the fact that it works really well if you act on what you hear. Now if you don’t, then I think you’re better of not asking the question, because you’re doing more damage.

Larry:               We participated in the Best Places Program, which is an annual employee survey. We don’t do that for the banner or the accolades. We participate so we can keep a really close eye on what’s important to our employees. I would like to share, one of the questions on that survey, Patrick, is I’m proud to work for this company. I’m proud to share with you that for the last two years in a row, 100% of our employees have answered yes to that question.

Larry:               Now this year, we did have one out of 269 that answered no. So we broke our two year running record, but we still feel pretty darn good about those results. Six months later we do another internal engagement survey. This is our own survey, because we don’t want a whole year to go by without knowing what’s important to our employees. We identified the top two or three areas of concerns and opportunities for improvement based on those surveys, and we put plans together to improve those areas.

Patrick:            In my experience in this regard too, and you hit the nail right on the head when you say if you’re not going to do something about it, you’re better off not to do anything at all, because all it does is it continues to build cynicism where people say, “Why are we doing this? Nothing happens with the information anyway.”

Larry:               Exactly. Beyond that, every employee has a monthly what we call fireside chat with their manager. This is expected. We have town hall meetings across the different regions of the bank every year. We call these family gatherings, because we consider every employee to be a member of the Machias Savings Bank Family. We ask questions like what’s working, what isn’t. What’s your biggest frustration? What’s getting in the way of you providing an exceptional customer experience?

Larry:               We have a culture champion program where upwards of a dozen employees are nominated by their peers every year as Machias Savings Bank culture champions. We host an off-site retreat with this group. We have a lot of fun, but we also do some work. The work piece, again, is around listening and discovering what we can do better to make sure we’re doing the best we can to enhance and promote this great culture that I told you about.

Patrick:            It’s interesting there because, again, my experience in this area is to say that most people understand if they’re going to bring forward recommendations, not every recommendation can be implemented. Often times it’s that people just want to know that they were heard, that something was done, that it just didn’t go into a black hole and nothing happened. I’m curious, how do you work with your teams or whatever just to keep that or to close that loop on recommendations and things like that?

Larry:               Well, like I say, we take it very seriously. We can’t wait to get our hands on those surveys, and we try to identify the biggest issues. Look, our family first philosophy, a few years ago, we added eight hours of family flex time, because in those surveys, our employees emphasized how valuable that family first philosophy is to them. The comments just kept getting more and stronger, so the next year we added eight more hours.

Larry:               Look, our employees said our vision care isn’t very good. We fixed it. For two or three years, the past two or three years, our employees have said we need more training. This year we’re making a significant investment. We’re creating a training department. You have to act on that input. If you don’t, you’re wasting your time and doing damage.

Patrick:            Yeah, I completely agree. One of the other rewards or recognitions that you’ve won was the American Banker Magazine, one of top 10 banks to work for in the nation for 2018, eighth overall. How did you end up with that recognition?

Larry:               It’s the same process. It’s the Best Places Survey that gets submitted to the American Banker Magazine. It is that same survey. Now they have several other questions. They want to know what kind of programs that you have around employee engagement and satisfaction, and so it’s a very similar process. Then they take those results and compare them against other banks across the nation. They nominate the top 70 make the cut. To be in the top 10 is something that, again, we get very excited about, take great pride in.

Patrick:            If I remember, was there maybe one other in New England?

Larry:               In the top 70, I believe. I don’t think there’s any in the top 10.

Patrick:            Yeah. Okay. I think I only remember seeing one that may be in just the top 70 or so. It was really very impressive.

Larry:               Yeah, you might be right.

Patrick:            Then the last one that I think was really what piqued this or prompted me to finally make the call to you was the last award that you won a recognition was around being a psychologically healthy workplace, which I never really heard of before, in terms of even being able to be recognized for that. How did that one come about?

Larry:               I believe it was our branch manger in southern Maine that was aware of that program. She submitted, nominated our bank as somebody that should be considered as a leading example in that program. Shortly thereafter, this is a national program. We didn’t realize the significance of it, what an honor it was to be chosen really until after we had been chosen. We’re actually surprised to see that that award picked up significantly more PR and recognition than the best places. It was a pleasant surprise.

Patrick:            Yeah, as I said, I know for me certainly being in this arena, it’s one that I had not seen before and certainly I think really it has such an impactful, just the wording of it I think really speaks to the commitment of Machias Savings Bank to be able to be recognized for this is really, really impressive. From a standpoint of management development and working, giving skills to them to be able to do this, what type of programs do you do for employees?

Larry:               We [inaudible 00:12:18] significantly. We have a lot of different framings. We have some great folks that do that for a living. TJ Holloway, for example, at a bank or has been in and provided some incredible training for us. We have a gentleman out of Florida that’s been in this year. We have a leadership institute, we have a manager’s retreat. Look, we provide executive coaches to a lot of management level folks that want to lean in and have that level of employee growth and development. I personally have an executive coach. Look, my philosophy is Tom Brady and the Patriots have, what, eight or 10, maybe a dozen coaches? Why shouldn’t I have one?

Larry:               I really enjoy that process. We’ve made that available to every member of the senior team. I believe every member of the senior team has taken advantage of opportunity to have an executive coach. Many of our managers have done the same thing. We don’t think we’ve got it all figured out, and we don’t think we’ve arrived. That’s, again, part of our culture. We’re constantly pushing the envelope. We’re always looking over our shoulder. We’re always trying to figure out what we need to be doing to keep this thing rolling.

Patrick:            I’m going to change gears here for a minute, because again, organizationally from a standpoint of walking the talk, often times you can have organizations where they want to implement certain trainings or workshops at a mid level or ground level area. The question always comes up if this is so important, why isn’t senior management involved in this? Why aren’t they at the top levels involved in this? Everything that I hear you talking about is to say that no, there’s really congruence here, that you’re walking the talk, in terms of this filters all the way down within the organization. From that standpoint, maybe you can speak a little bit about how you started at Machias Savings Bank and how that has evolved, in terms of you progressing to where you are now?

Larry:               Sure. I like to say my career at the bank began in the blueberry fields of Washington County. I grew up raking blueberries. In the summers of ’90 and ’91, I raked blueberries for the president of Machias Savings Bank, Ed Hennessey. In August of ’91, Ed approached me on the field and suggested that I should come see him if I ever wanted a job at the bank. At the time, I had no interest in banking. I wanted to be a state trooper, but I was in a serious relationship and figured I’d better get a job.

Larry:               A couple weeks later, I took him up on that offer, and I began working at the bank in October of ’91. It’s been a great ride. It hasn’t disappointed at all. A lot of great people, and incredible culture. This culture, look, make no mistake, Ed Hennessey is the founder of the culture at Machias Savings Bank. I’ve been president for seven years now, and really my job is to make sure we don’t go backwards to enhance and promote the, like I say, the incredible culture that’s been around for 30 years.

Patrick:            What are you most proud about?

Larry:               I think, Patrick, I would say the 269 employees we have across the state, we’ve got an amazing group. I think that’s one of the … When you think of how have employee engagement levels impacted the bank from a financial performance and growth standpoint, that’s a difficult one to quantify, but I think common sense would lead us to believe that very happy employees contributes to happy customers. Happy customers equals success with both financial performance and growth.

Larry:               I think being the best bank to work for in Maine in a large employer group is certainly adding to our ability to attract and retain really great employees. Look, I can say with confidence we have the best employees in the state. We’re attracting more exceptional, top-quality employees by the day. This investment, this culture of investing employee engagement and satisfaction has consistently led to strong growth and strong financial performance. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think if you did the math, you would see over the past couple decades that our return on assets has consistently had us in the top third, when compared to the other banks in Maine.

Larry:               For the first six months of this year, I don’t have September for the peers, but we’re in the top three out of the 20 mutual banks in Maine. We’re in the top six when compared to all Maine banks. It’s 26 total. Absolutely has a huge impact on the success of the company.

Patrick:            Which is amazing at times when you hear of companies that they don’t invest in this, because there’s a financial benefit that organizations receive from employees that are happy. I think you would agree, and certainly this is first is that I really think there is an obligation that you have, in terms of people that work for you. There’s a huge responsibility, especially if people report to you, that you have such a responsibility to them, because your behaviors and how you treat them and what you do for them impacts them when they go home, but it’s not just-

Larry:               Absolutely.

Patrick:            If I’m mistreating somebody in the office, that goes home. Maybe it impacts the relationship they have with their spouse or with their kids or in so many other areas.

Larry:               It’s such an important part of the equation. What you just said reminds me of the conversation between a couple of executives. One says, “What if we invest in our employees and then they leave?” Of course, the other says, “What if we don’t invest in our employees and they stay?”

Patrick:            Yeah, and it’s-

Larry:               It’s a no-brainer, in my opinion.

Patrick:            It’s so true. I remember even 10 years ago when people were talking about, “Well, the economy was so difficult at that point. Well, people aren’t leaving companies.” My response to that was always the same is that the same number of people are leaving companies. It’s just that in really difficult times, they just quit and stay, which, for the organization, is far more costly, because they’re just underground. They’re just not leaving yet, but they will, as soon as they have an opportunity.

Larry:               Yeah.

Patrick:            In regards to daily routines for yourself, any rituals that you have, in terms of how you start your day out or how you end your day?

Larry:               I do. I have a few, because again, I’m a big believer in personal growth and development. Look, I’m up at 5:00 AM every day. I practice winning the first hour. Now I didn’t make that up. I borrowed it. For me, to win the first hour means no cell phone, no email. If you get out of bed and pick up that cell phone and start reading email right out of the gate … Look, I’ve done it before. I did it for years, but you’re reacting. I don’t believe any executive could be most effective for their organization if they’re constantly reacting. I believe you have to have time for clear, uninterrupted thinking.

Larry:               My first 20, 30 minutes of the day, I’m drinking my coffee and meditating. Next 10 to 15 minutes I’m reading inspirational stuff that’s personal to me, taking inventory of what’s going well, the promises I’ve made to myself, for example. Look, another ritual I try to practice every day on the drive home, and again, haven’t always done this. I used to practice the opposite for many years, but on the drive home, three wins. Take inventory of three wins. What did I have for three wins today? Look, I find this to be a great practice, as opposed to what I used to do, which is what did I screw up today? The three wins is much more beneficial in taking inventory of what’s going well.

Larry:               The last thing I’ll mention is that consistent with what I said earlier, I try to schedule at least two half days a month off the grid, if you will, deliberately taking and scheduling time for clear, uninterrupted thinking. I find this time to be my most effective, some of my best work at this time off the grid. I find it very refreshing, energizing, and [inaudible 00:20:24]. I encourage every member of my senior team to do the same thing.

Patrick:            Some of the things you just mentioned are certainly things that I fully believe in and try to follow myself. One of the things that you spoke to, I think we often are one or the other. We’re either a thermostat or a thermometer, in terms of what happens around that. By that I mean that just like a thermometer, all it can do is react to the environment that it’s in. If its too hot, it goes up. If it’s colder, it goes down.

Larry:               Love it.

Patrick:            Where really when we’re actively involved, we’re more like the thermostat. We have the ability if the room’s too cold, we turn it up. If it’s too hot, we turn it down. It’s in our control. When we can focus on not being acted upon, we’re responding versus reacting. I love that, what you said about that. The second is I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or heard of a gentleman named Shawn Achor. He actually was a Harvard researcher, and he did what was called the 21-day challenge. They really only did five exercises. There were five things that they asked people to do over 21 days. One was in the morning write three things they were grateful for. The next was do something for somebody else, just once, go out of your way to do something for somebody else. The next was to, at the end of the day, write down a couple sentences on what went well for the day. As you talk about your three wins, I was thinking of that.

Patrick:            The other two things that they did was exercise only had to be 10 minutes a day, just 10 minutes a day of some type of exercise, so going out for a walk at lunch, whatever that might be, and the last one was around just finding at least two minutes of quiet time, some type of quiet time to meditate. That’s it. Five things [crosstalk 00:22:13].

Larry:               Yeah. Look, if you asked me what I would do differently if I could go back and do it over again, I would … For years, I was in the Army, so 6:00 AM exercise has not been a priority for me, but I’m glad you brought it up, because that is part of my morning routine. Look, I’ll say more recently, so I’m going on three months in a row of a one-mile walk and 10 minutes of dumbbells every morning. I am here to tell you it’s a game changer. My levels of energy, I’m at the point now where I look forward to it every morning. That’s part of my goals with my executive coach is to really make the investment into my personal health and wellbeing. I strongly, strongly recommend that.

Patrick:            Yeah. The research is so strong in this area of the psychological wellbeing that it provides us when we do that, just simple things that you speak to. I’ll give you just a cheat sheet on that that I use. I call those five things power. The acronym of power, and I will challenge people have a power day. Praise is the three things you’re grateful for, that’s the gratitude, the O is others doing something for somebody else, the W is writing at the end of the day, the E is exercise, and the R is relaxation or meditation. When you could think about it in terms of power, those are the five things. It really does. It creates such a difference for people.

Larry:               I love the gratefulness practice. That’s on the list of things that I do every morning under the reading inspirational stuff is affirmations and asking myself a few questions, like what am I grateful for? Taking inventory of what’s going well, it’s powerful.

Patrick:            It really is, because how can you be in a bad place when you’re thinking about the things that you’re grateful for? It’s like an on/off switch. It’s one or the other. They can’t work at the same time.

Larry:               Exactly.

Patrick:            They can’t work at the same time.

Larry:               Well said.

Patrick:            As you continue on your journey with Machias Savings Bank, what would you want your legacy to be?

Larry:               We want to have an impact on our communities that’s a game-changer. It’s not just lip service for us. We want to make a significant difference. That’s something that we’re really focused on, we’re going to continue moving the needle on. We would like to be so impactful in that area that other companies across the state, other companies across the nation take their game to the next level as a result. Look, everybody benefits. Everybody wins.

Patrick:            Without question. Right. I fully agree with that. Again, you’re living it, and the research backs up that you’re where you are because of the behaviors that your organization has demonstrated at each level. As we close out here, I always like to ask is there … You’ve mentioned several along the way, but I’ll be curious if there’s one in particular that is sort of a go-to for you, but a particular quote or saying that you sort of follow.

Larry:               There is a quote that I’ve followed over the years that is really great. It’s a bit long, but I’ll go through it really quickly. This is Teddy Roosevelt. He said, “It’s not the critic who counts, not the person who points out how the strong man or woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again, but because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, spends him or herself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Patrick:            I’m guessing you’ve read that before.

Larry:               I have read it a few times. I love it. I love it. Look, I love to be in the trenches with my team fighting the fight. Look, in winning and succeeding as a team is one of the best parts of the job.

Patrick:            Yeah. To me, you’ve got to be in the game to win the game and not be afraid.

Larry:               Yeah, absolutely. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Patrick:            Yeah, easier to do when you’re around people that support you though, which certainly sounds like that’s what you have there.

Larry:               Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Patrick:            Well, Larry, thank you again for this. This really, I so look forward to having this. As we wrap this thing up, I’m glad I pushed forward on this, because it’s been everything I expected it would be from you. So thank you for that.

Larry:               I appreciate your persistence, Patrick, and thank you for your interest in Machias Savings Bank. Appreciate it.

Patrick:            Great. Look forward to talking to you in the future. Thanks.

Larry:               All right. Absolutely. Take care. Thank you.

 

Machias Savings Bank

Thanks For Listening!

 

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

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Patrick:            I’m here again with Larry Barker, the president and CEO of Machias Savings Bank. Again, Larry, it’s probably been a couple of months, I think, since I first spoke with you about trying to get this set up. I had seen over the last year or so just a couple of the accolades, I should say, that your organization has won nationally. My background being in leadership development and employee engagement, I thought here’s somebody in my own back yard that obviously his organization is really doing things the right way.

Patrick:            I wanted to bring you on board and really sort of explore what that looks like in regards to Machias Savings Bank and why you think your organization is where it’s at today in that regard. So again, thanks for being here.

Larry:               Yeah, fantastic. It’s fantastic. We appreciate the opportunity, Patrick.

Patrick:            I’ll let you take the lead here, in terms of gloating about your employees and the success you’ve had so far.

Larry:               Well, I’ll just start off by telling you just a little bit about Machias Savings Bank. We’re a $1.4 billion in assets. We have 269 employees, 16 locations across Maine spanning from Caribou to Portland. We’re a mutual savings bank, and so creating shareholder wealth is not a priority for us. That’s not part of the equation. Our purpose as a company, Patrick, is to make a difference in our communities. Everything we do falls under that umbrella. We have an amazing culture that revolves around employee experience, customer experience, and ultimately community impact.

Patrick:            How old is the bank?

Larry:               150 years in 2019. Started in 1869. Our original charter was signed by Joshua Chamberlain.

Patrick:            That is incredible. You had mentioned, I had, just for the audience, I had sent out a list of questions earlier in the week regarding some of the topics that we might talk about. Larry got back to me to say he didn’t think it was really going to be appropriate, because the questions were all revolving around himself. I quickly got back to him to say that that’s exactly now … If he wasn’t willing to do it for that reason, which was probably more the reason I wanted to have him on was his sense of humility and sharing the success of the organization with the employees within the organization. Larry, you mentioned to be in terms of what some of your values are as an organization. I wonder if you could maybe mention those again.

Larry:               One of our culture standards, and we’ve memorialized our culture standards, those are those key things that we think have made a successful committee is one of those is attitude. The first sentence of defining that standard is that Machias Savings Bank employees are friendly, genuine, flexible, driven, hard-working, and humble. It’s one of our culture standards, and it’s really important to us as an organization.

Patrick:            Now I’m looking, some of the awards that you’ve won, obviously this is you’re in the top five companies to work for in the state of Maine. Once again, how does that process take place?

Larry:               Yeah, so look, if I had to pick, say, the top two reasons that Machias Savings Bank is in that league, I would say the opportunity that our employees have to make a difference in our communities, which directly relates back to our purpose, first of all, and secondly, our family first philosophy. Again, I mentioned earlier our purpose and our passion as it pertains to the impact, this is something that our employees embrace and get excited about. We encourage all employees to be active volunteering in the community with the causes they’re personally passionate about.

Larry:               In fact, Patrick, we don’t just encourage them to do that. We pay every employee in the bank up to 20 hours a year to volunteer with the community. We match employee contributions to their favorite cause up to $100 every year, every employee. Beyond that, we have a dollars for doers program where we match every 40 hours volunteered with a $200 donation.

Larry:               The second piece, and we really put our money where our mouth is when it comes to making a difference in our communities, but we also have a family first philosophy. What we mean by that is if your child has a Little League game this afternoon, not only do we want you to be there, we’re going to be disappointed if you’re not there. Again, in fact, we’re going to pay you to be there, in addition to regular vacation time, we’ve added 16 hours of family flex time for every employee, so you can go to that game, that musical recital, or whatever it is, and even get paid while you’re there.

Patrick:            That is incredible. I will tell you the reason why is that I will often, when I’m going in with some organizations is what’s the mission or the vision? You always hear somewhere along the lines that our employees are our most important asset, yet often times when I deal with the employees, most of them would laugh when they read that, because there’s not congruence. It’s not the walk and the talk that you’re talking about right now where this idea, we put our money where our mouth is, that you’re really able to do that through those things like matching and paying employees to volunteer, and the idea of family first, again, I think is one of those that often times doesn’t get a lot of real traction, but when you’re saying that you’re disappointed if they don’t make it there, then …

Larry:               Well, and let me tell you, so if I was going to pick the third thing, and maybe the most important, Patrick, I would say that it’s listening. Many things that we do on this front, and I think listening is the most important, you’ve probably heard the Steve Jobs quote around hiring really great people, not so he could tell them what to do, but rather so they could tell him what to do. We practiced this philosophy, and I can attest to the fact that it works really well if you act on what you hear. Now if you don’t, then I think you’re better of not asking the question, because you’re doing more damage.

Larry:               We participated in the Best Places Program, which is an annual employee survey. We don’t do that for the banner or the accolades. We participate so we can keep a really close eye on what’s important to our employees. I would like to share, one of the questions on that survey, Patrick, is I’m proud to work for this company. I’m proud to share with you that for the last two years in a row, 100% of our employees have answered yes to that question.

Larry:               Now this year, we did have one out of 269 that answered no. So we broke our two year running record, but we still feel pretty darn good about those results. Six months later we do another internal engagement survey. This is our own survey, because we don’t want a whole year to go by without knowing what’s important to our employees. We identified the top two or three areas of concerns and opportunities for improvement based on those surveys, and we put plans together to improve those areas.

Patrick:            In my experience in this regard too, and you hit the nail right on the head when you say if you’re not going to do something about it, you’re better off not to do anything at all, because all it does is it continues to build cynicism where people say, “Why are we doing this? Nothing happens with the information anyway.”

Larry:               Exactly. Beyond that, every employee has a monthly what we call fireside chat with their manager. This is expected. We have town hall meetings across the different regions of the bank every year. We call these family gatherings, because we consider every employee to be a member of the Machias Savings Bank Family. We ask questions like what’s working, what isn’t. What’s your biggest frustration? What’s getting in the way of you providing an exceptional customer experience?

Larry:               We have a culture champion program where upwards of a dozen employees are nominated by their peers every year as Machias Savings Bank culture champions. We host an off-site retreat with this group. We have a lot of fun, but we also do some work. The work piece, again, is around listening and discovering what we can do better to make sure we’re doing the best we can to enhance and promote this great culture that I told you about.

Patrick:            It’s interesting there because, again, my experience in this area is to say that most people understand if they’re going to bring forward recommendations, not every recommendation can be implemented. Often times it’s that people just want to know that they were heard, that something was done, that it just didn’t go into a black hole and nothing happened. I’m curious, how do you work with your teams or whatever just to keep that or to close that loop on recommendations and things like that?

Larry:               Well, like I say, we take it very seriously. We can’t wait to get our hands on those surveys, and we try to identify the biggest issues. Look, our family first philosophy, a few years ago, we added eight hours of family flex time, because in those surveys, our employees emphasized how valuable that family first philosophy is to them. The comments just kept getting more and stronger, so the next year we added eight more hours.

Larry:               Look, our employees said our vision care isn’t very good. We fixed it. For two or three years, the past two or three years, our employees have said we need more training. This year we’re making a significant investment. We’re creating a training department. You have to act on that input. If you don’t, you’re wasting your time and doing damage.

Patrick:            Yeah, I completely agree. One of the other rewards or recognitions that you’ve won was the American Banker Magazine, one of top 10 banks to work for in the nation for 2018, eighth overall. How did you end up with that recognition?

Larry:               It’s the same process. It’s the Best Places Survey that gets submitted to the American Banker Magazine. It is that same survey. Now they have several other questions. They want to know what kind of programs that you have around employee engagement and satisfaction, and so it’s a very similar process. Then they take those results and compare them against other banks across the nation. They nominate the top 70 make the cut. To be in the top 10 is something that, again, we get very excited about, take great pride in.

Patrick:            If I remember, was there maybe one other in New England?

Larry:               In the top 70, I believe. I don’t think there’s any in the top 10.

Patrick:            Yeah. Okay. I think I only remember seeing one that may be in just the top 70 or so. It was really very impressive.

Larry:               Yeah, you might be right.

Patrick:            Then the last one that I think was really what piqued this or prompted me to finally make the call to you was the last award that you won a recognition was around being a psychologically healthy workplace, which I never really heard of before, in terms of even being able to be recognized for that. How did that one come about?

Larry:               I believe it was our branch manger in southern Maine that was aware of that program. She submitted, nominated our bank as somebody that should be considered as a leading example in that program. Shortly thereafter, this is a national program. We didn’t realize the significance of it, what an honor it was to be chosen really until after we had been chosen. We’re actually surprised to see that that award picked up significantly more PR and recognition than the best places. It was a pleasant surprise.

Patrick:            Yeah, as I said, I know for me certainly being in this arena, it’s one that I had not seen before and certainly I think really it has such an impactful, just the wording of it I think really speaks to the commitment of Machias Savings Bank to be able to be recognized for this is really, really impressive. From a standpoint of management development and working, giving skills to them to be able to do this, what type of programs do you do for employees?

Larry:               We [inaudible 00:12:18] significantly. We have a lot of different framings. We have some great folks that do that for a living. TJ Holloway, for example, at a bank or has been in and provided some incredible training for us. We have a gentleman out of Florida that’s been in this year. We have a leadership institute, we have a manager’s retreat. Look, we provide executive coaches to a lot of management level folks that want to lean in and have that level of employee growth and development. I personally have an executive coach. Look, my philosophy is Tom Brady and the Patriots have, what, eight or 10, maybe a dozen coaches? Why shouldn’t I have one?

Larry:               I really enjoy that process. We’ve made that available to every member of the senior team. I believe every member of the senior team has taken advantage of opportunity to have an executive coach. Many of our managers have done the same thing. We don’t think we’ve got it all figured out, and we don’t think we’ve arrived. That’s, again, part of our culture. We’re constantly pushing the envelope. We’re always looking over our shoulder. We’re always trying to figure out what we need to be doing to keep this thing rolling.

Patrick:            I’m going to change gears here for a minute, because again, organizationally from a standpoint of walking the talk, often times you can have organizations where they want to implement certain trainings or workshops at a mid level or ground level area. The question always comes up if this is so important, why isn’t senior management involved in this? Why aren’t they at the top levels involved in this? Everything that I hear you talking about is to say that no, there’s really congruence here, that you’re walking the talk, in terms of this filters all the way down within the organization. From that standpoint, maybe you can speak a little bit about how you started at Machias Savings Bank and how that has evolved, in terms of you progressing to where you are now?

Larry:               Sure. I like to say my career at the bank began in the blueberry fields of Washington County. I grew up raking blueberries. In the summers of ’90 and ’91, I raked blueberries for the president of Machias Savings Bank, Ed Hennessey. In August of ’91, Ed approached me on the field and suggested that I should come see him if I ever wanted a job at the bank. At the time, I had no interest in banking. I wanted to be a state trooper, but I was in a serious relationship and figured I’d better get a job.

Larry:               A couple weeks later, I took him up on that offer, and I began working at the bank in October of ’91. It’s been a great ride. It hasn’t disappointed at all. A lot of great people, and incredible culture. This culture, look, make no mistake, Ed Hennessey is the founder of the culture at Machias Savings Bank. I’ve been president for seven years now, and really my job is to make sure we don’t go backwards to enhance and promote the, like I say, the incredible culture that’s been around for 30 years.

Patrick:            What are you most proud about?

Larry:               I think, Patrick, I would say the 269 employees we have across the state, we’ve got an amazing group. I think that’s one of the … When you think of how have employee engagement levels impacted the bank from a financial performance and growth standpoint, that’s a difficult one to quantify, but I think common sense would lead us to believe that very happy employees contributes to happy customers. Happy customers equals success with both financial performance and growth.

Larry:               I think being the best bank to work for in Maine in a large employer group is certainly adding to our ability to attract and retain really great employees. Look, I can say with confidence we have the best employees in the state. We’re attracting more exceptional, top-quality employees by the day. This investment, this culture of investing employee engagement and satisfaction has consistently led to strong growth and strong financial performance. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I think if you did the math, you would see over the past couple decades that our return on assets has consistently had us in the top third, when compared to the other banks in Maine.

Larry:               For the first six months of this year, I don’t have September for the peers, but we’re in the top three out of the 20 mutual banks in Maine. We’re in the top six when compared to all Maine banks. It’s 26 total. Absolutely has a huge impact on the success of the company.

Patrick:            Which is amazing at times when you hear of companies that they don’t invest in this, because there’s a financial benefit that organizations receive from employees that are happy. I think you would agree, and certainly this is first is that I really think there is an obligation that you have, in terms of people that work for you. There’s a huge responsibility, especially if people report to you, that you have such a responsibility to them, because your behaviors and how you treat them and what you do for them impacts them when they go home, but it’s not just-

Larry:               Absolutely.

Patrick:            If I’m mistreating somebody in the office, that goes home. Maybe it impacts the relationship they have with their spouse or with their kids or in so many other areas.

Larry:               It’s such an important part of the equation. What you just said reminds me of the conversation between a couple of executives. One says, “What if we invest in our employees and then they leave?” Of course, the other says, “What if we don’t invest in our employees and they stay?”

Patrick:            Yeah, and it’s-

Larry:               It’s a no-brainer, in my opinion.

Patrick:            It’s so true. I remember even 10 years ago when people were talking about, “Well, the economy was so difficult at that point. Well, people aren’t leaving companies.” My response to that was always the same is that the same number of people are leaving companies. It’s just that in really difficult times, they just quit and stay, which, for the organization, is far more costly, because they’re just underground. They’re just not leaving yet, but they will, as soon as they have an opportunity.

Larry:               Yeah.

Patrick:            In regards to daily routines for yourself, any rituals that you have, in terms of how you start your day out or how you end your day?

Larry:               I do. I have a few, because again, I’m a big believer in personal growth and development. Look, I’m up at 5:00 AM every day. I practice winning the first hour. Now I didn’t make that up. I borrowed it. For me, to win the first hour means no cell phone, no email. If you get out of bed and pick up that cell phone and start reading email right out of the gate … Look, I’ve done it before. I did it for years, but you’re reacting. I don’t believe any executive could be most effective for their organization if they’re constantly reacting. I believe you have to have time for clear, uninterrupted thinking.

Larry:               My first 20, 30 minutes of the day, I’m drinking my coffee and meditating. Next 10 to 15 minutes I’m reading inspirational stuff that’s personal to me, taking inventory of what’s going well, the promises I’ve made to myself, for example. Look, another ritual I try to practice every day on the drive home, and again, haven’t always done this. I used to practice the opposite for many years, but on the drive home, three wins. Take inventory of three wins. What did I have for three wins today? Look, I find this to be a great practice, as opposed to what I used to do, which is what did I screw up today? The three wins is much more beneficial in taking inventory of what’s going well.

Larry:               The last thing I’ll mention is that consistent with what I said earlier, I try to schedule at least two half days a month off the grid, if you will, deliberately taking and scheduling time for clear, uninterrupted thinking. I find this time to be my most effective, some of my best work at this time off the grid. I find it very refreshing, energizing, and [inaudible 00:20:24]. I encourage every member of my senior team to do the same thing.

Patrick:            Some of the things you just mentioned are certainly things that I fully believe in and try to follow myself. One of the things that you spoke to, I think we often are one or the other. We’re either a thermostat or a thermometer, in terms of what happens around that. By that I mean that just like a thermometer, all it can do is react to the environment that it’s in. If its too hot, it goes up. If it’s colder, it goes down.

Larry:               Love it.

Patrick:            Where really when we’re actively involved, we’re more like the thermostat. We have the ability if the room’s too cold, we turn it up. If it’s too hot, we turn it down. It’s in our control. When we can focus on not being acted upon, we’re responding versus reacting. I love that, what you said about that. The second is I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or heard of a gentleman named Shawn Achor. He actually was a Harvard researcher, and he did what was called the 21-day challenge. They really only did five exercises. There were five things that they asked people to do over 21 days. One was in the morning write three things they were grateful for. The next was do something for somebody else, just once, go out of your way to do something for somebody else. The next was to, at the end of the day, write down a couple sentences on what went well for the day. As you talk about your three wins, I was thinking of that.

Patrick:            The other two things that they did was exercise only had to be 10 minutes a day, just 10 minutes a day of some type of exercise, so going out for a walk at lunch, whatever that might be, and the last one was around just finding at least two minutes of quiet time, some type of quiet time to meditate. That’s it. Five things [crosstalk 00:22:13].

Larry:               Yeah. Look, if you asked me what I would do differently if I could go back and do it over again, I would … For years, I was in the Army, so 6:00 AM exercise has not been a priority for me, but I’m glad you brought it up, because that is part of my morning routine. Look, I’ll say more recently, so I’m going on three months in a row of a one-mile walk and 10 minutes of dumbbells every morning. I am here to tell you it’s a game changer. My levels of energy, I’m at the point now where I look forward to it every morning. That’s part of my goals with my executive coach is to really make the investment into my personal health and wellbeing. I strongly, strongly recommend that.

Patrick:            Yeah. The research is so strong in this area of the psychological wellbeing that it provides us when we do that, just simple things that you speak to. I’ll give you just a cheat sheet on that that I use. I call those five things power. The acronym of power, and I will challenge people have a power day. Praise is the three things you’re grateful for, that’s the gratitude, the O is others doing something for somebody else, the W is writing at the end of the day, the E is exercise, and the R is relaxation or meditation. When you could think about it in terms of power, those are the five things. It really does. It creates such a difference for people.

Larry:               I love the gratefulness practice. That’s on the list of things that I do every morning under the reading inspirational stuff is affirmations and asking myself a few questions, like what am I grateful for? Taking inventory of what’s going well, it’s powerful.

Patrick:            It really is, because how can you be in a bad place when you’re thinking about the things that you’re grateful for? It’s like an on/off switch. It’s one or the other. They can’t work at the same time.

Larry:               Exactly.

Patrick:            They can’t work at the same time.

Larry:               Well said.

Patrick:            As you continue on your journey with Machias Savings Bank, what would you want your legacy to be?

Larry:               We want to have an impact on our communities that’s a game-changer. It’s not just lip service for us. We want to make a significant difference. That’s something that we’re really focused on, we’re going to continue moving the needle on. We would like to be so impactful in that area that other companies across the state, other companies across the nation take their game to the next level as a result. Look, everybody benefits. Everybody wins.

Patrick:            Without question. Right. I fully agree with that. Again, you’re living it, and the research backs up that you’re where you are because of the behaviors that your organization has demonstrated at each level. As we close out here, I always like to ask is there … You’ve mentioned several along the way, but I’ll be curious if there’s one in particular that is sort of a go-to for you, but a particular quote or saying that you sort of follow.

Larry:               There is a quote that I’ve followed over the years that is really great. It’s a bit long, but I’ll go through it really quickly. This is Teddy Roosevelt. He said, “It’s not the critic who counts, not the person who points out how the strong man or woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again, but because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions, spends him or herself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those timid and cold souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Patrick:            I’m guessing you’ve read that before.

Larry:               I have read it a few times. I love it. I love it. Look, I love to be in the trenches with my team fighting the fight. Look, in winning and succeeding as a team is one of the best parts of the job.

Patrick:            Yeah. To me, you’ve got to be in the game to win the game and not be afraid.

Larry:               Yeah, absolutely. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

Patrick:            Yeah, easier to do when you’re around people that support you though, which certainly sounds like that’s what you have there.

Larry:               Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Patrick:            Well, Larry, thank you again for this. This really, I so look forward to having this. As we wrap this thing up, I’m glad I pushed forward on this, because it’s been everything I expected it would be from you. So thank you for that.

Larry:               I appreciate your persistence, Patrick, and thank you for your interest in Machias Savings Bank. Appreciate it.

Patrick:            Great. Look forward to talking to you in the future. Thanks.

Larry:               All right. Absolutely. Take care. Thank you.

 

Machias Savings Bank

Thanks For Listening!

 

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

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• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest

 

To help out the show:

• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
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Patrick:            Hey everybody, I’m Pat V. Welcome back to another episode of The Rise Above Your Best podcast, where you’re probably tired of me saying, but not only obsessed with interviewing and understanding the habits that have made other people successful, but also in uncovering and presenting the research that demonstrate that great success is available to all of us, and it all starts when we believe in the power of rising above our best.

Patrick:            The past few episodes have all been around developing emotional intelligence, and that really is the foundation for a lot of the work that I do, whether it’s around teams, or individuals, or leadership, personal development, career development. It really is foundational for all of the different components of what I do. We’ve talked already about awareness of self, how to develop that, how to become more aware of others, how to effectively express our own emotions, and how to manage our own emotions. That idea that we talked about, about being a thermostat versus a thermometer.

Patrick:            These last two episodes, I’m going to combine them. One is going to be around managing emotions of others, really being able to help others in that space. Then the last is around emotional self control, and this is this ability of being able to develop a long fuse when we’re around issues that might be stressful and why is that important, and how do we do it? So why don’t we get into it?

Patrick:            When we talk about emotional management of others, there’s really three things that you can think about in terms of what it does. The first is people that are highly skilled in this area are able to create environments that really make people feel more optimistic and positive about the workplace that they’re in. They’re also able to communicate and interact in ways that motivate and engage others at work. Then lastly, they’re really very adept at being able to help others see things from different perspectives.

Patrick:            Now again, for each of these modules or episodes in terms of developing emotionally intelligent behaviors, I always go back to work and personal that if we look at those three things, there’s no difference why that isn’t important to be able to have in a personal life, whether in family or in the community, wherever that is. So from a business case standpoint though, which is what I often start out from, is we look at why is it important. Again, why is it important to develop a stronger skill set in terms of managing other people’s emotions? Well, obviously when we’re able to do this, we create greater workplace morale and satisfaction. It helps us to deal with workplace conflict more effectively. It can help us to effectively inspire or motivate other people to be more committed to their own work as well as to increase their own level of performance. If we’re able to help them stay in a place where they’re more effective. That’s really what this is about.

Patrick:            How can we do that? How can we help other people? Well, there are really a few different strategies that we can use. When we think back to the module that we talked about or the episode that we talked about around managing our own emotions, much of this is the same. It’s trying to first hopefully model our own ability to manage emotions so that others can see what we’re doing. Really, this idea of walking the talk, they see us doing it so they’re able to understand like, “Hey, I can do this too.”

Patrick:            Before we can help others manage their own emotions though we really need to go back to one of the episodes that we talked about before in terms of awareness of other people’s emotions, and that really deals with our own ability or skillset that hopefully we had been working to develop that’s looking at maybe the words that somebody is using. Are they using more emotional words? The tone of voice that they’re using, the facial expressions, maybe some of the emotional displays that they might have. What are they doing with their body and what are their behaviors? What are they doing? I mean, are they … Can you just visibly tell if this person’s upset for angry? Whatever that is. We need to be able to understand that first.

Patrick:            Then next when we’re talking about the idea of managing that emotion. Really what we’re trying to do is slow this whole thing down, because oftentimes we are in two different states. We’re either reacting or we’re responding, and responding often is more effective. Obviously, if we’re really … If it’s a life threatening event, then we need to be able to react, that’s the primitive part of our brain. Most of the time, though, we really need to just slow down, and we need to respond, and that’s the difference here. That’s what helping other people manage their emotions as able to do. It’s to say, how do we slow this thing down?

Patrick:            Our first strategy in this situation is really going to revolve around distraction. How can we get them out of that space that they’re in? Some suggestions might be just to go for coffee, give them five minutes to vent. Again, we talked about this before, right? Venting should be like gone on vacation, not living there. Maybe it’s just to take them and go for a walk around the block or to recommend a timeout, but the whole goal of this is to say, how can I break the pattern? What can I do to almost sort of call a time out here? We’ve got to switch this thing up. That’s the first part of this.

Patrick:            Then the next part is really around disrupting the thought pattern too. What is actually going on? To do this we look at four different components, we look at evidence, alternatives, implications, and usefulness is one way to frame this as a box almost. The first part is this idea of clarifying all the evidence, and really what that involves is uncovering the supporting and discounting evidence related to the unbalanced thoughts, really, or feelings that we’re having. When feeling negative people can discount evidence that directly contradicts their thoughts and feelings. Really, what they’re trying to do is validate where they are, so they forget everything else that goes counter to that, and that’s where the first part of this, distracting people, allows us to get to this next part where we can almost, on a more even keel basis, we can say, “Okay, let’s look at the evidence. What really is going on?” Almost like, “Let’s look at the facts.”

Patrick:            So from there, what we do is we go onto considering the alternatives. Really what this allows us to do is generate a range of alternative ways of thinking and feeling. It’s helping people to consider that what might be occurring for the situation they are feeling is there’s more to this. So as an example, when we’re talking about considering all of the alternatives, you could simply ask that question, what else could be going on here? Or what’s another way of thinking about the situation? It allows us to help the other person to see things like maybe what we think we’re seeing isn’t really what’s going on. Once we’ve done this, we go onto step three, which is about identifying the implications. An example here is to help somebody consider like what are the implications and likely outcomes for the, we’ll call them unbalanced thoughts that they’re having that’s creating this environment?

Patrick:            As an example, sometimes unfortunate things happen in life. However, those things typically are not as severe as people imagine they’re going to be. So it’s almost like taking what’s the worst case scenario here when we think about the identifying implications? I mean really, based on the situation that we’re in right now, what is the worst case that can possibly happen? Somebody says, “Well, you know what? I could get fired from my job.” Okay, so from that standpoint then what’s next?

Patrick:            The last part of this is the usefulness piece, and it’s really challenging people at this point to really think about what is the value of the position or thought that they’ve had, and is there a more effective or appropriate way that they might be able to respond to the situation other than the one that they’re currently doing? So, as we recap on this box model, we say, “Okay, let’s look at the clarifying evidence first.” Question might be: what’s the evidence that supports and contradicts what you’re thinking? From there we go onto considering all the alternatives and we say, “Well, what additional points of view or perspectives and opinions might exist? What other things are there?”

Patrick:            Then we moved down to this idea of identifying the implications, the third box, and we say, “What can you do to minimize the negative impact of this issue?” Give people that alternative. What do you think you can do? And then lastly, we go over to the fourth box here about assessing the usefulness of their current thinking, and the question there could be: how useful is it for you to continue to think like this? What’s the value here? Almost to get them to recognize themselves like, “This is a waste of time. I’m wasting so much energy on something that in all likelihood isn’t going to happen and even if it did, worst case, we’ve already explored that, what that might look like.” That’s a way that you can start to work in terms of managing the emotions of others.

Patrick:            Now, the last component of the emotional intelligence work that we’re discussing is: from my own perspective, what do I do about my own self control and what does that look like? When you think about when we discuss emotional self control, it really is the skill of effectively controlling strong emotions that we experience, and this really is the ability for us to have what I would call a long fuse. It allows us to overcome anger at work by thinking through what’s causing it. We don’t get hijacked. It also allows us to more easily concentrate on a task when we’re really excited at work or upset about something, we can stay focused more often.

Patrick:            One of the examples that I use is from US Air. Everybody is probably familiar with the pilot Sully. When he put the plane down in the Hudson River, and it was great when people are asking like, ‘How did you do that?” They just listened to him and his correspondence or whatever and he just matter-of-factly talked about putting this plane down the Hudson River, and they were amazed. They were like, “How could you do that?” And he said, “Well that’s really just what we practice for. So when that happens we’re able to remain calm and do it.” That really is very similar to this idea of emotional self control, that’s what we’re doing here is we’re, almost ahead of time, we’re identifying certain triggers that create emotions for us before they happen. Same thing with training, putting the plane down in the Hudson River. I need to be prepared for it before it happens. So when it does, I already have a pattern or a way to deal with it. Again, it’s responding versus reacting.

Patrick:            So, how can you enhance your own self control in this situation? Well, there are a number of things that you can do, and I’m just going to list five of them.

Patrick:            1. Really identifying what are the strong emotions you tend to experience. I would think if you really think about it, there are certain emotions that we tend to experience on a more regular basis, and the idea is to find out what those are. Not to ignore them or deny them, but really say, “What things tend to happen to me when I’m in a really high stress situation? What emotions tend to come out?

Patrick:            2. Describing the things you notice when you’re experiencing those strong emotions that tend to sort of build up and become more intense. When we’re able to describe our thoughts, our feelings, the physical sensations and memories for the strong emotions that we’ve experienced, it allows us to put them into context and also to better understand why they tend to occur and what situations do they tend to come up in.

Patrick:            3. Determining what are our emotional default patterns of behaving when we’re experiencing these strong emotions? As an example, when we’re in danger, we fight, we freeze, or we flee, and by identifying our emotional defaults we are better able to choose the most mindful way of responding when we notice that we are having an experience of that strong emotion, what am I going to do? “All right, I know I’m feeling threatened right now. What? What’s my normal default? And is this really something that I should be getting that upset about?”

Patrick:            4. So once we’ve sort of understood what our defaults are, then that fourth component to this as to say, “What are some alternatives?” That plan B, “What can I do when I know this is coming on? This has been my default all along, hasn’t been the most effective in many situations. Here’s an alternative.” So when I know I’m starting to feel those sensations or I’m feeling I’m in that situation where I know I’m going to blow up right now or I’m going to behave in a way that probably isn’t very productive, what’s an alternative? What else can I do?

Patrick:            5. The last recommendation here really is around visualizing what that looks like, and there’s more and more research that demonstrates the impact and importance that visualization can have on our actual outcome. A lot of times our brain doesn’t know the difference. If you’re old enough to remember, there was a Memorex commercial that was with a tape player, and they used to play music so loud that it shattered a wineglass. And the tagline was: is it live or is it Memorex? And our brain is the same way. Is it real? Our brain doesn’t know the difference, oftentimes, especially when we’re visualizing. So, the whole idea here is to say, visualize a better situation, a better response, what that would feel like, how you would respond to that, because when we’re doing that we’re practicing and strengthening that self control muscle and what that might look like.

Patrick:            Now, when we look to put this into practice, if we think of the first part of this of labeling a strong emotion that I experience, I would challenge you to pick an emotion or two, maybe it’s resentful or it’s fearful or it’s furious, whatever that might be for an emotion. Why did you select it, first? Then as you’re thinking of that situation in the past where you experienced that, say it’s anger, what triggered it and what were the thoughts that you noticed when you felt that? So you might say the feelings, the moods that I noticed when I was experiencing that strong emotion of anger were what were they? Betrayal, whatever it might be. Then what were the physical sensations that you noticed in your body? You know, I was tensing up. I felt myself getting hotter, I could feel my heart rate, I could feel my hands shaking, and what were the memories that you have of that? This is a way of really sort of understanding what was that situation, because we’re going to use that again when we go forward in terms of how do we visualize a situation that doesn’t look like that.

Patrick:            After we have identified that strong emotion, the next is to dig a little deeper in regards to what are our defaults, and we all have them, and really we start to see our defaults when a core belief that we have, our value is challenged. That’s when our default tends to come up, and there were a number of defaults, so I’m going to list a few of them here:

Patrick:            1. What we term as an attacker, and this is the person that comes out charging. The best defense is a strong offense. This person comes right at you.

Patrick:            2. Another would almost be the opposite. This is the victim. This is the person that becomes overwhelmed by emotion. They over generalize the situation as this never ending pattern. It just won’t end.

Patrick:            3. You might have an avoider, somebody that just completely withdraws from the situation.

Patrick:            4. You might have what’s called a hero. This is the person that refuses to ask for other people’s help.

Patrick:            5. You might have somebody that acts like a sniper. They use innuendos or almost sort of passive aggressive to trigger distracting emotions in others. Could be playful teasing or not so subtle remarks.

Patrick:            6. Maybe you’re a judge. You’re the person that adopts a tone of absolute certainty.

Patrick:            7. Maybe you’re the saboteur. You’re the person that finds fault with everything, but you’re seldom offering a useful solution.

Patrick:            8. The opposite of that is a Pollyanna. This is sort of that unrealistic optimistic person. They’re always demonstrating a strong positive bias, but they’re unable to recognize sort of the downside of what’s going on, and there can be.

Patrick:            9. You could have the fortune teller. This is the person that sort of jumps to unsupported conclusions. They’ve already said where this thing is going to go. It’s already been predestined for them.

Patrick:            10. You could have a person that is super agreeable, always reasonable and sincere, but really unauthentically so.

Patrick:            11. Another one might be as a child, right? You report the shortcomings of others, but you fail to take responsibility for your own actions. It’s always somebody else’s fault.

Patrick:            12. Then the last one, it gets termed as sort of a gloomy gus, this is the person that discounts the positive. They’re hyper pessimistic, they exaggerate the issues and they discount either others or their own sort of qualities in regards to being able to deal with us.

Patrick:            Those are just a few of the defaults. My guess is, if you were to go down that list, you can find out that you’re probably in one of those buckets at some point that that is a default that we have.

Patrick:            The key to addressing our emotional default is really to almost create an emotional alternative. What is the different approach that we’re going to take? We can’t do that until we respond. We need that space between the action of what happened and how we respond to it, and that’s really when we’re able to develop the emotional alternative.

Patrick:            So for each of the defaults that I mentioned to you, there’s actually an emotional alternative:

Patrick:            1. If we were to take the attacker and we think of it now as the alternative really is around being a coach. This is now somebody that can work with others. They cooperate, they’re willing to connect with other people and sort of how they’re feeling.

Patrick:            2. When we’re the victim our emotional alternative now is to be the strategist. We’re able to recognize personal power. We connect with the emotion and we plan the outcome.

Patrick:            3. If we’re the avoider, we become the engager. We take ownership and we’re open to sort of a win-win resolution here.

Patrick:            4. If we’re the hero, our alternative is then to become the collaborator. It’s not, I can do it all. We ask for help. We’re not afraid to do that.

Patrick:            5. If we were the sniper, now we’re the supporter. We’re more of an advocate for others. We’re developing that ability to not try and shoot people down or stab in the back, but we’re actually going to try and support them however we can.

Patrick:            6. If we were the judge, we’re going to be the acceptor, we use a tone of curiosity now and we’re sort of open minded. What might be the third alternative to the situation?

Patrick:            7. If we were the saboteurs we’re now the problem solver. We seek solutions to our own and to other people’s issues here.

Patrick:            8. If we were the Pollyanna, we’re now going to be more of a pragmatist. We’ll sorta look to develop this power of emotional discernment where we’re able to account for many perspectives and we weigh a lot of options.

Patrick:            9. If we were the fortune teller before, now we’re more the fortunate seeker. We seek out supporting and emotionally balanced evidence. We ask other people their opinions.

Patrick:            10. If before we were super agreeable, now we’re more dependable. We demonstrate sort of this sincerity in terms of what we say.

Patrick:            11. If we were the child before. Really now we’re just the adult. We take ownership for our own and for others.

Patrick:            12. If we were that gloomy gus before, now we’re more harmonious. Where self-compassionate, we seek out the positives, we explore sort of the, what’s termed the emotional shades of gray and we’re just more stable.

Patrick:            So, you can see I’ve listed down emotional alternatives and those are ways that we can challenge each other to take a different perspective on things when we’re talking about self control. But again, this is just like a muscle. The only way it gets stronger is when we actually sit there and say, “Okay, how can I become more like the coach? What things can I do to prevent myself from being the attacker?” Well, again, “What do I know about that default and what do I know about the emotions that bring that out or the environments that create this space where I fall into the attacker mode?” And until we can do sort of the things around visualization and labeling what those emotions are and how they feel, then we don’t have the opportunity to create a different environment going forward. We don’t have that ability to be Sully and to have a plan B. We’re just going to crash as opposed to land it smoothly on water.

Patrick:            I hope you have found both of these outlines on developing emotional self control as well as helping others to manage their own emotions, I hope you found both of these to be helpful. If there’s somebody that you know that you think can benefit from this as well, please forward it on and maybe there’ll be able to gain benefit from it as well. As always, I appreciate your comments and if you found this valuable in help for yourself, if you’d go online and rate this, and certainly if you haven’t already, if you’d subscribed to it.

Patrick:            Also, if you have any suggestions on future episodes or things you feel like weren’t addressed here in regards to developing emotionally intelligent behaviors, I’d love to hear about it. Until our next episode I hope you’re able to go out there and rise above your best.

Thanks For Listening!

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment below.
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest

To help out the show:

• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
• Subscribe on iTunes

Patrick:            Hey everybody. I’m Pat V, and you’re listening to the Rise Above Your Best Podcast. Where, as you know, I’m not only obsessed with the success of others, and understanding their own habits, and how they’ve reached the heights that they’ve reached. But, also in exploring, and understanding the research that is abundant, that demonstrates that great success is available to all of us. And, it all starts when we believe in the power of rising above our best.

Patrick:            This episode is a little different. Thursdays are usually about interviewing somebody else, and what I decided to do was hold off on some of those. The feedback on the last episode around emotional intelligence, and the belief that it can be learned, and the research that demonstrates it can be learned. I wanted to follow up on that, and really just do a series of these now, almost to close the loop on EI. There really are several different modules that I teach in regards to developing emotionally intelligent behaviors, so the second one I thought that I’d discuss in today’s episode is around self awareness of others, right?

Patrick:            First, we need to understand ourselves. Our own awareness, what makes us tick, and connecting those dots again that we spoke about in the last episode, 14. That, we touched on how our emotions really impact our decisions, our behaviors, and our performance. Well, this is going to look at this from the standpoint of once I’ve done a better job of understanding my own, it’s how do I apply that same understanding to other people? How can I read them in different ways? It’s certainly doable. Again, it’s just like self awareness of self, it only happens through practice. Why don’t we get started?

Patrick:            All right, so as we mentioned, the last episode we talked about self awareness. I presented you with those two studies, showing that it’s learnable. We can do this, but it takes practice. Now, once we’ve done that, the next area that we need to focus on is, how do we read other people? How are we aware of their emotions, so that we’re better able to interact with them? And, what does it mean, really? Well first, what does the skill involve? It involves being able to recognize others feelings, and also demonstrate an understanding of those feelings. Then you might be asking yourself, “Well what’s the benefit of that?”

Patrick:            Well, in terms of the work that I do, again, around from a business standpoint. There’s a strong business case for why you want to be socially aware, or emotionally aware of other people. One, is it really builds, I would say high quality working relationships with them. It allows you to understand what motivates them in regards to their decisions, their behaviors, how they perform. And, also when you’re able to read that, you’re more effective at positively influencing those people that you work with. In an ethical way, this isn’t about trying to manipulate people, or understand how they operate, and a way to take advantage of them. It’s really just trying to be more effective in how we communicate with people, and that’s really about awareness of others. How can you read other people?

Patrick:            I think I mentioned in the last episode that I had one of the first accounts that I went into was one that I had worked for in the sales department, as a rep and involved in some training. The Director of Sales basically said, “Don’t talk about EI, it’s a little too fluffy for them.” This was about a decade ago, and really EI is all about effectively influencing other people. Because, when I’m able to read the situation that I’m in, the other components of emotional intelligence are able to sort of pick up, and take over in terms of how to move that conversation, or that situation, or resolve that conflict.

Patrick:            As I mentioned, this is a strategy that really is very important in a work setting. It’s equally as important at home, or in the community, wherever you are. But, a lot of the work that I do starts in a workplace, so it builds out from there. In a workplace, approximately 70% of our time is spent in communication, and approximately 45% of that time is spent listening to others. At least hopefully it is, that we’re not the ones doing all the talking all the time.

Patrick:            The ability to be able to demonstrate understanding of others emotions at work really contributes in a number of ways. One is, establishing sort of this initial connection with working colleagues. Especially if it’s a new place that you’re going to work. If you come in with a strong skillset around emotionally intelligent behaviors, you’re able to really insert yourself into that community, or that culture much easier because you’re just more aware at how you read it, and how you interact.

Patrick:            If it’s customers, if it’s people outside that we’re dealing with, it allows us the ability to sort of gain more rapport with them in a productive way. If it’s conflict, it allows us, again, to take a solid read of the situation that we’re in, and how do we move forward, how do we interact in a way that we’re able to pause and not just react? We’re really responding at that point. All of this, really what it does is it provides a deepening of this sort of interpersonal relationship that we have with those people we work with. On so many levels it works.

Patrick:            It’s not always easy though. I don’t make light of how difficult this can be at times. I know certainly there are times where I’ve probably not been the easiest person to work with, and it’s probably taken a person that’s got a very high level of emotional intelligence to be able to navigate, or manage me in my situations. How do we start to develop this? Well, if we’re enhancing emotional awareness of others, it probably would be pretty helpful if we sort of were able to understand the importance of effective listening, and the impact that, that has in terms of paying attention. Because, we’re looking for two things. One is content, the word somebody uses. But, also the process. Why is the person saying the words at that time? What does it mean? What’s the underpinning component of that?

Patrick:            The first is this idea of recognizing. That’s number one, recognizing. That’s effectively noticing the verbal, and non verbal sort of emotion cues of others. As an example, hearing others verbalize emotive words. So, “I feel happy, I feel sad.” And, their tone of voice. Recognizing as well, facial expressions, body language. There’s an excellent book that I use pretty regularly now. It’s by a gentleman named Joe Navarro, and this will be in the show notes. The name of his book is, “What Everybody is Saying.” What’s great about this, is in this book, if you get it online, as well as if you buy it on Amazon, or at a bookstore if you can find one, is it has a PDF in there that sort of shows the body language, and the positions of people, and potentially what that might say about how they’re interacting.

Patrick:            I won’t steal all of it, but there really are some very interesting things to look at in terms of, how do you read other people, you know? Maybe you’re at a party, and you’re trying to insert yourself into a conversation. We can probably all think of those people that we’ve been around, that inserted themselves into a conversation awkwardly, and it probably showed on us. Maybe the words didn’t show, but our body language, how we were looking at them might have keyed them off if they were aware to it. Certainly myself, I’ve felt that before when I’ve walked into a situation where it’s sort of like, “You know what? I don’t really feel like I’m welcome in this. I’ve come into a conversation that maybe is private, or whatever. It’s time for me to sort of extract myself as quickly as I inserted myself into it.”

Patrick:            Hopefully I’m that self aware in that situation. I guess I should probably go back and maybe look at some of the situations I’ve been in. Maybe some people would say that I wasn’t very aware of the situation. But, enough on that. I will say on his book, one of the things that I found interesting was what they call tells. One thing that is, or can be most effective in terms of being able to read other people, are their feet. As an example of that, if you’re talking to somebody and their feet are not pointed toward you, they’re away from you. It could indicate, not necessarily, but it could indicate that this person’s really not interested in that conversation with you, they’re looking to get somewhere else.

Patrick:            As opposed to if their feet are sort of pointed directly in your direction, then this is a person that’s probably more engaged in the conversation, and really being part of the conversation that you’re in. Again, does it work all the time? No, but it’s an interesting way to start building this skillset of being able to read other people’s body language. Again, that’s one that I would highly recommend reading, or listening to as an audio, which is what I’ve done.

Patrick:            When we talk again about this idea of words, one of the examples that I use in a group is to say, “I can say the same sentence, but depending on where I stress the word, it can have completely different meanings.” I’ll give you can example of, if I were to say, “I didn’t take the book.” That’s fine. But, then if I were to say, “I didn’t take the book.” Well, what does that mean? It means probably somebody else did. I didn’t take it, but somebody else did.

Patrick:            Or, if I then say, “I didn’t take the book,” the reality is, is what I’m probably saying is, I may have borrowed it but I didn’t take the book. Then lastly, “I didn’t take the book.” Well, yeah I didn’t take the book. But, by the tone of that, I probably took something else. Maybe it was the computer, or something else was taken. It’s the exact same sentence, but depending on where I stressed the word, it changed the meaning of that sentence. Being able to pick up on that in conversations can be really valuable.

Patrick:            After we sort of recognize the conversation that we’re in, really it’s about then demonstrating understanding. So, effectively interpreting other peoples cues, and appreciating that meaning. Sort of the subtext, or the broader context of what they’re saying. This also involves at this point, this idea of you want to pick up on incongruence. I sense that they’re saying one thing, but really they mean something else. I’m not upset, but you can clearly tell by the look on their face, they’re pretty upset.

Patrick:            The last part of this really is demonstrating to other people that you do understand, sort of effectively acknowledging, or validating, or even clarifying the emotions that you’re seeing in somebody else. This could involve telling people you’ve heard the emotional content. In other words, you heard sort of the verbal dialogue that they’ve said. The others might be, telling them that you’ve heard sort of the emotional process. What I mean by that is, in the broader text, sort of the emotion that they’re bringing to this. The frustration that they may have in this.

Patrick:            As we continue to refine this process of effective listening, one of the ways that we can do it is think of it in terms of levels. The first level is around attending. It’s this idea of posture, my body language, my eye contact with the person, providing them an opportunity to speak and not just, again, being the one that wants to speak all the time. As an example, I’m not going to build much of a rapport with somebody if when they’re having a conversation, or speaking with me, I’m constantly looking out at the door to see who else is coming in. Or, as people come in the door, I’m constantly looking to see who that person is. Because, what does it say to the person? You’re really not interested in talking to me.

Patrick:            The next one involves following, and this really is the active part of maybe asking questions. For example, as they’re talking, well what’s your experience been of that? It might involve using encouraging words, where you’re almost encouraging them to go on, right? “Oh yeah, really? Mm-hmm (affirmative).” Or, it’s head nods, “Please continue.” Along that line, but it’s their encouraging words.

Patrick:            Another more straight forward might be asking questions that directly relate to a person’s emotions. “What’s on your mind right now? How are you feeling? What are your thoughts on this?” Another might involve simply silence, or demonstrating that you’re really listening to the other person.

Patrick:            Now, on a phone, that could get frustrating for somebody, right? Because, well all of a sudden they’re like, “Are you still there?” It might involve saying that to the person. “You know what? I’m silent right now, but I’m really trying to listen to what you’re saying, to really understand it.” Then the last part of this, after attending, and then following, is around reflecting. It’s really about sort of basic empathy, or demonstrating that. You know, where you might say, “You know, I think you feel upset because of what happened. Is that correct?” Or maybe it’s if I was listening to this story, “If I were you I think I’d probably be upset right now. Is that what you’re feeling?” Where, I’m also reflecting their feelings right now. I might be saying, “That must have been exciting.”

Patrick:            When we do this, when we basically tell somebody how we think they’re feeling. What it allows them the opportunity to do is either validate, “Yeah, that’s how I am feeling.” Or, it allows them to say, “No, that’s not how I’m feeling.” Either one is beneficial, because it allows us, again, in terms of strengthening that muscle of awareness of others, I get to get a better ready on that person. That, oh, you know what? I always think when their facial expressions like that, that they’re upset. But, it really isn’t. It means something else. I’ve only learned that because I’ve asked them, “You seem like you’re upset right now.” “No, I’m this.” If I wasn’t doing that, this active level of listening, that would never happen.

Patrick:            Again, this is part of that muscle. That’s the building of it. A way to tie this into our last lesson in episode 14, would be to maybe think of a few people or colleagues at work. You remember, we did the piece on values. Think of something that is probably a high value to them. As an example, we may just use again, respect. Now, think of times when you know that respect was an issue, either positive, or negatively in terms of how it was demonstrated, or perceived with that person. What type of words did they use, what’s the tone of their voice, what’s their body language like when they’re in those situations where either they feel like that has been compromised, or that has been satisfied? Again, you’ll start to get tells, or reads on how you can be aware of other people’s emotions.

Patrick:            The more you’re able to do this, the more you can use it outside of that. Well, you’ll start to pick up cues on other people around you in terms of knowing the situation that you’re in, being more aware of your surroundings in some way. It really does provide so much benefit to not only yourself, but also to those people around you because it makes our conversation much more efficient when we’re dealing with them. I hope you can go out there and give this a try. Start to build that muscle.

Patrick:            Our next episode will be around emotional expression. How do we, once we’re aware of our emotions, how are we the most effective in terms of displaying that? Which, can be a real challenge. I hope you’ll have an opportunity to listen to that lesson, in regards to managing emotional expression.

Patrick:            I hope you found this episode on awareness of others to be helpful in terms of some tips that you might use, in terms of listening, and reading other people. It will help you to be more effective in your next communication with somebody. If you found this helpful, I hope certainly you’ll have an opportunity to subscribe to this podcast, or you can forward it on to somebody else you think might find value in this. And, that you’ll give it a rating, ’cause that certainly helps the message of Rise Above Your Best get out there to more people. I really appreciate it. It’s so much fun to be able to do this, and share these, and hear the stories of how it’s working, and the impact that it’s making. That’s the fuel that keeps me going. Until our next episode, I hope you have an opportunity to go out there and rise above your best.

Thanks For Listening!

What Every Body Is Saying by Joe Navarro

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment below.
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest

To help out the show:

• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
• Subscribe on iTunes

Patrick:            Hi everybody. I’m Pat V. You’re listening to the Rise Above Your Best podcast, where I’m not only obsessed with interviewing and understanding the habits of people that have achieved great success, but also in uncovering the research that demonstrates the great successes available to all of us. And it all starts when we believe in the power of rising above our best.

Patrick:            Today’s episode really is a foundational tool. A lot of the work that I do, it’s around emotional intelligence. And over the last two decades emotional intelligence really has continued to grow in relevance and importance. There’s so much research available, whether it’s across industries, could be healthcare, biotech, manufacturing, IT, it really doesn’t matter. There’s so much evidence in regards to the impact that emotional intelligence has on our abilities to be more effective as individuals, as leaders, however we wanna cut this up.

Patrick:            Even with that, though, there is some challenges. One, I think, is the belief by still a large group of people when they don’t understand emotional intelligence think fluffy, kumbaya, let’s hold hands, this weak set of behaviors. And the other part is even for those that do believe in the impact or benefit of demonstrating emotionally intelligent behaviors, there’s a fall back to, “I can’t do it. I’m not able to develop those skills.” So by the end of this podcast, what I’m gonna present to you is data that says that you actually can. That we all have the ability to develop these emotionally intelligent behaviors, and it’s just a matter of putting it into process. And that’s what we’ll talk to. So why don’t we get started.

Patrick:            I remember when I first started my business Emery Leadership Group. I went into a company in New Jersey that I had worked for for several years. I was a successful sales rep for them. I was involved in their management training program. And I went back in after becoming certified as a coach through iPEC and also licensing a program around emotional intelligence. And I went back into this organization, met with the director of sales, and one of the first things out of his mouth in our meeting was, “I’m happy to talk to you about any of the trainings that you want to do as long as they don’t deal with that emotional intelligence bullshit.” And he really blew me away. Because here I was successfully a sales rep with this organization.

Patrick:            And looking back, my success really was directly the result of those behaviors. Those emotionally intelligent behaviors are perceiving, understanding, and managing emotions. That’s what created my success there. And it’s what’s continued to be the foundation of the work that I do, whether it’s leadership or team building or sales development. It’s really around helping people understand that when you really are able to wrap your arms around what it means to be emotionally intelligent and how to display these behaviors, you realize that it’s not weak or fluffy or bullshit. It’s real. It is probably the most important skill set that you can have.

Patrick:            And lets face it, that’s all we are, every day. We’re emotions. Either we’re frustrated, or we’re happy, or we’re sad, or we’re annoyed. There are things that are going on all day long every day and our emotions really create what our behaviors will be because of that. How do we act on those feelings or those emotions that we have. And that’s really what this process is about. So again, the process for today is I’m gonna present to you two different studies, almost a decade apart, but really looking at, can emotional intelligence be taught? And I think both of these will demonstrate that first off, that it can. And then what we’ll look to is to say, okay, we know it can be taught. What’s something that quickly I can learn that I can continue to practice that will help me to develop in this area. And for today we’ll only touch on self-awareness, which really is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Because the belief is, if I can’t be aware of myself, how am I ever gonna be able to be aware of somebody else in terms of their emotions.

Patrick:            But I would caution you and certainly in the work that I’m continuing to do in this area, over a decade of formally working with emotional intelligence is I’ve come to realize that people can be self-aware but still not be emotionally intelligent. And what I mean by that is, I’ve worked with individuals, executives in organizations that know that their behaviors are disruptive and that they might alienate people or intimidate people and they’re okay with that. They’re self-aware. They know their behaviors and the impact that it has. The negative impact that it can have. And they just don’t care. So that’s where I would say, self-awareness, you can be self-aware of being a bad person. But that’s not being emotionally intelligent which is really what we’re here to talk about.

Patrick:            So the first study that I’m gonna talk to you about is one that was published in Personality and Individual Differences. It was back in 2009. And the title of it was Increasing Emotional Intelligence, How is it Possible. And what’s interesting about this study is what they did was it was actually a controlled study where they had a group that went through the training and one that didn’t. Now it was a small group. It was only 37 people. The training group consisted of 15 women and four men and in the control group there were 15 women and three men.

Patrick:            The training group actually had four sessions consisting of only two and a half hours of actual training. And what was interesting is when they looked at the content of the training or what was involved in the content of the training, each session was based on short lectures, role plays, group discussions, what they called readings], and also each of the participants were required to keep a personal diary in which they had to report daily one emotional experience. And these emotional experiences had to be analyzed in the light of the theory that was explained around emotional intelligence in class. It was very important to stress that they were practicing what they were learning, which is really important and something that we’ll see in the next study as well.

Patrick:            What is really impactful about this is that when they finished up, obviously, the four weeks and tested the two groups and assessed them based on emotionally intelligent behaviors, what they found was that the training group scored higher. Also what they found was that six months later when they reassessed these groups, they found that much of the training was durable in terms of the group that had gone through the training. That they tended to, again, maintain that higher level of emotionally intelligent behaviors. Again, really important in terms of the work that we’re doing because for those people that are out there that are saying, “I really can’t do this. This is just who I am.” This starts to suffocate out that excuse. You can do it. It’s just about being trained. And what’s important here is it showed that it was ongoing. We can’t just go through a great workshop, a one day workshop and think, well, we just waved the magic wand and now we’re emotionally intelligent. That’s not how it works. There’s ongoing work to be done here, but when that is done, it becomes durable.

Patrick:            The next study that I will quickly touch on was much more recent. It was actually published this past year in 2018 and it was in the Human Resource Management Review. The title of it was Can Emotional Intelligence be Trained? A Meta-Analytical Investigation. And again, I’ll have these in the show notes for people to be able to reference for themselves. What the authors of this study or meta-analytical investigation tried to do was they identified a total of 58 published and unpublished studies that included an emotional intelligence training program and their whole goal here was to say, “Is training effective? And if it is effective, what are the ingredients? What needs to be there for positive development of emotionally intelligent behaviors?”

Patrick:            What this study first recognized was that there are multiple meta-analysis as it relates to emotional intelligence in the relationship to positive aspects on leadership, job performance, as well as health. The purpose of this for the authors was really just to demonstrate that we know that there is a positive impact on emotional intelligence, the behaviors of emotional intelligence in many aspects of work. That has been proven multiple times. What they wanted to really look to is, again, what’s the training? How does that part work? And what’s effective?

Patrick:            One that I wanted to site here in particular was workplace training interventions where they had looked at what are some of the high stress jobs out there whether it’s police officers, or nurses, even managers. And one study that they sited individually was one that was done between EI and about 70 nurses in a teaching hospital. And again, these teaching nurses went through, or these nurses in a teaching institute, I should say, went through two hours of training a day for seven weeks. And what they found was not only was there an increase in the nurses EI score but also their job satisfaction was increased.

Patrick:            And again, certainly we hear so much today about employee engagement and how few employees are engaged within work places. We know that if people understand how to manage their own emotions as well as those of others and perceive them, they’re gonna be more effective in this area and the likelihood of them being more engaged certainly is there as well. So again, the purpose of this study was to answer the question of whether emotional intelligence can be trained. And I as mentioned, they addressed this really through conducting this meta-analysis and both of the meta-analysis that they did they found that the effective training was both moderate and positive as it relates to EI, and it certainly confirmed that the more training that was done the more positive the outcome would be for training around the emotionally intelligent behaviors. What’s important here to recognize as well is that this was beneficial for both males and females. As well, it was to say what specifically needs to be done if we’re gonna develop this skill set. Because when we think about this, EI really is like a muscle. What they found was that in these groups effective training involved not only classroom time, but also individual case studies, reflection, journaling, as well as coaching to provide feedback for them on the practices that they were implementing.

Patrick:            So you may be thinking, that’s great. There’s research that shows that you can develop these skills. Well how do I do it myself? One of the things that I do when I work with organizations is when we start talking about developing self-awareness, what do we do? Well, first it’s why do we wanna do it? What’s the benefit to better self-awareness? Well, to start, it can enhance our decision-making, it can enhance the behaviors that I display to others when I’m self-aware of it. And it also has the ability to enhance my performance at work. So those are some of the why’s?

Patrick:            The first part of this process is really about reflection. It’s asking individuals, so yourself right now say, spend some time and consider the types of emotions that you have when you’re at work. And when do you experience these kind of behaviors? And what strategies do you currently use now to manage these, if any?

Patrick:            Next of all is getting feedback from others. There’s gotta be somebody that you can go to. A trusted colleague or person that you can ask them based on the reflections that you’ve made on yourself, what are some suggestions? And how do they perceive you in terms of how you perceived yourself? And again, this has to be a trusted person that you want somebody that’s going to be able to really tell you how they see you showing up, and the caution here is for you not to try and defend your position once they tell you. Because if you do that then you truly have lost probably the opportunity for them to be really open with you in the future. You need to take this information, and simply reflect on it. Where does this show up? Or why are they probably right in this situation? To look at it from their perspective.

Patrick:            The third component of this is to look at our emotions, because they really can be placed into one of probably three categories, either positive, neutral, or negative. And there’s a list of emotions if you were to google emotions, that’s a quick way to do it, that you can go and look and say, “Okay. Of this list I’m gonna take 10 of these that I probably exhibit most often.” And I’m gonna say, “Which one of these are positive? Which one are neutral? And which ones are negative?” From there I’m gonna maybe take the positive emotions and say, “What events, either at work or at home, typically cause these? Which ones cause the positive ones? Which ones cause the negative ones? And which ones cause neutral or just they’re not positive or negative?”

Patrick:            What you can then write down is the strategies I use to identify and understand the causes of my emotions at work include and then you list them out. Because really what we’re starting to is we’re taking things that maybe are just automatic to us now that we really don’t even think about and starting to write them out to see. As you do this, you will start to see that there are patterns between my emotions and my actions, what I do. And we tend to have fall backs or things that we do automatically. And its not until we really look in the mirror or put the mirror up there to say, “Oh my God. I can’t believe that that’s, if I’m starting to see a pattern here. This is what I do.”

Patrick:            After looking at this, the next part that I’ll ask you to think about is values. What things do you value? Especially in a work setting. Could be leadership. Could be a quality, recognition, competence in others, trust, honesty, respect. Now start to think in terms of degree of importance of those things. How important is, let’s say, respect to you? And now think about a time when somebody’s been disrespectful to you. What kind of emotions tend to come up? How do you tend to behave in those situations? And again, what you’ll start to see are patterns that these things they trigger each other. And in terms of self-awareness taking it to the next step which we’ll talk in a different episode this idea of managing our emotions. Well first we need to recognize what’s happening, and what’s gonna come up as a result of certain behaviors that we might see in others. That if I’m around somebody that I feel like they’re disrespectful, I’m gonna behave in a certain way. And if I want that to change, then I need to recognize how this person’s behaviors put me into that place and work on strategies to avoid that.

Patrick:            The last exercise I’ll challenge you with is writing down a value. Just take one value that’s really high to you. And on a piece of paper say, my personal definition of this value is? And after you’ve written that down, workplace events that result in positive emotions associated with this value are? Workplace events that result in negative emotions associated with this value are? Then next write down, decisions I sometimes make when these events and emotions arise include? And answer that. And then the last one is, behaviors I sometimes display to others when these events and emotions arise include? And lastly, what are some strategies that you can do to optimize your emotions? If you start to see a pattern here, what are some things that you think you can do now when you’re not in that place where you’re hijacked by somebody else’s behavior, maybe. What are some things that I can do to manage that right now?

Patrick:            When you start to understand how your values, your emotions, and your behaviors interconnect, you’re able to start to become much more self-aware and then deal with all of the next stages of becoming more emotionally intelligent in terms of how you interact with somebody else.

Patrick:            Hopefully I’ve given you a lot to go on here. First is, demonstrating to you that there’s research that demonstrates the impact that emotionally intelligent behaviors have on every aspect of our lives, whether it’s personal or business, whether it’s around leadership. It doesn’t matter the industry, whether it’s healthcare, again, or manufacturing, or finance. Developing stronger emotionally intelligent behaviors has a positive impact on every one of these that we’ve discussed today. And hopefully I’ve given you some strategies in terms of how you can start to develop your own emotional intelligence. The next step for you would be either find a coach or find some trusted individual that you can start to develop these over time. And it does take time, this is a muscle. And just like with any muscle, if you don’t work it, it begins to break down, it won’t be as strong. But if you continue to develop it, the way you approach situations and other people will just get stronger.

Patrick:            If you found this helpful and valuable, I’d ask that you share it with somebody that you know that can benefit as well. If you haven’t already, I’d ask that you subscribe to this podcast, and as well it would mean the world to me if you’d go online and put a rating on here or comment in terms of how this has positively impacted how you look at emotional intelligence, and how it can help you to improve your own abilities. And until our next episode I hope you can go out there and rise above your best.

Thanks For Listening!

 

Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?

Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta analytical investigation.

Emery Leadership Group

To share your thoughts:

• Leave a comment below.
• Share this show on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest

 

To help out the show:

• Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
• Subscribe on iTunes

 

 

 

 

Patrick:            Hey everybody, I’m Pat V. and you’re listening to the Rise Above Your Best Podcast where I’m not only obsessed with interviewing and researching individuals who have already achieved great success but also in uncovering the research that demonstrates that great success is available to any one of us. And it all starts when we believe in the potential to rise above our best.

Patrick:            I had a great guest on today, Lisa Whited from the company WTF. That’s right, WTF. We’ve probably all said that many times but her company actually stands for Workplace Transformation Facilitation and she does a great job of going into organizations and really combining the company’s vision, perhaps even helping them understand what that vision is, and matching that up with the people in the organization and the environment they work in, the place, and the blending of that creates such an incredible opportunity where people are spending a third of their lives at their job. Why not do it in a way that when people show up to work, they feel energized and engaged? And that’s really the mission of her organization and what she does is really helping to blend vision people in place to create a better work environment.

Patrick:            She started her company at the young age of 23 and continues to exhibit her drive and passion for what she does. So I hope you enjoy this and are able to take something away that is valuable to your own work environment. So let’s get started.

Patrick:            Lisa, I am so excited to have you on the Rise Above Your Best Podcast today. You and I have worked in different circles but never had a lot of opportunity to interact until we did the Disrupt HR Program together earlier on in the year and ever since then, I have wanted to have you on the show and really talk to you more. And really, to start off, your company WTF, that in and of itself is to me a great place to start. I’m sure you get a lot of curiosity around that.

Lisa:                 Yeah, I do. Well, thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here talking with you. I was thoroughly enjoyed the Disrupt HR process. That was such a fun evening. And so, I’m honored … really, truly honored … that you invited me to talk to you today. Yeah, the WTF, I joke about that that I’ve had at least three midlife crisis, at least three. And it was my last one that I was rebranding, reiterating what this company would be. I’ve been self-employed since 1986 and I was 23 when I started out doing workplace, really looking at workplace design. And then, as I evolved over the years, the work I did evolved. So I honest to God was working with my website designer and couldn’t think of the name. I didn’t know what it would be. And I just jokingly said, “Robert, just call it WTF.” Just as a placeholder. Build the site. We’ll figure it out. And we tried all these different, oh my God, every different type of name you can think of.

Lisa:                 And it was early morning spinning class, and I all of a sudden, I’m on my bike spinning away and I’m like geez, Workplace Transformation Facilitation. Huh. And it’s all about making the change easier in the workplace. That’s really what I’m all about, facilitating change, making it easier in the workplace. Oh my God. It’s WTF. And I thought that’s crazy. That’s just crazy. But then, the more I sat with it and thought of it and I mentioned it to my husband and he said no, really? You think? You’re crazy. And I said you don’t think it’s a good idea. And he said I don’t think so. And I said well, then I’ll probably do it. So I did. I did.

Lisa:                 And the other thing is, with WTF, think about it. How many times a day are employees in workplaces … we were just talking about this in the Gallup poll and how unengaged people are at work … they are wandering around just inside their heads going WTF, what are we doing this for? What’s this all about? So it’s a reminder for me to do my best work and to really show up and help people make positive changes in the workplace.

Patrick:            Yeah, I can certainly see in the companies that I’ve been in at times of somebody just walking to their cube saying that and just looking at it, WTF.

Lisa:                 Yeah, oh my God. Another Dilbert world. Another gray, panel workplace.

Patrick:            And you know, on another end of this, I would like to be on the receiving end of you calling the company and them saying who’s calling and you say Lisa at WTF.

Lisa:                 Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. I do sometimes … Younger people especially will look at me, God does she know what that means? I’m like yeah, I know what it means.

Patrick:            LOL.

Lisa:                 Right, LOL, right?

Patrick:            So 1986, 23. How did you make the decision to go on this path to begin with?

Lisa:                 Well, it wasn’t that hard because I was working … Right out of college, I got a great job working for a local office dealer that sold workplace furniture and I was a designer within their company. And I was not making a lot of money but I worked hard. I loved what I … I even, honestly, dealt with workaholism, I worked a lot in craziness and was in therapy for workaholism early on in my 20s. I went in and I asked the president for a raise and he said no. Probably the best thing he could have said to me because it just spurred me on.

Lisa:                 I’m like well, why am I working so hard. I love what I do, yes. But I am working hard and I believe I deserve more money. Why am I doing it for this company? Maybe I should go do it on my own, work as much as I want, and make the money that I want. So that’s how I started my company. It was an early no on a request for a raise.

Patrick:            That’s great.

Lisa:                 There was no looking back.

Patrick:            I think there are many people … I know, me, starting my own company was really due to in air quotes, what I’ll call, a bad boss. And I will often joke to say now God bless bad bosses.

Lisa:                 Yeah.

Patrick:            Because they really spur a lot of people to go off and do what their real passion is.

Lisa:                 Yeah. And you know, I think I was fortunate, I was so young. Right? I didn’t have a family at the time. I didn’t have children. And I was also fortunate in that really, I moved back in with my parents for at least a year to get things going and they welcomed me back into the house. That was another … I was fortunate that way that I could come here and get my house and get started, get established, yeah.

Patrick:            So when you go into a company now, what’s the process?

Lisa:                 Well, the very first thing is I talk about is I believe so much in vision, in organizational vision, in personal vision and what we aspire to do and what’s the impact going to be. So whether it is a board of directors of a nonprofit or a CEO and leadership team of an organization or an individual just thinking about what he or she wants to do in the future, I believe imagining 20 years out, what is it that you want to have? What’s the headline? It’s one of my favorite exercises. So you do the headline exercise. If there were a publication in 20 years, what would the title be? What’s the sidebar? What are the photos or captions? Just a way to think forward in a creative way. So I like to do that as one of the very first steps.

Lisa:                 The other thing I do with workplaces is I believe in 100% employee engagement in the process of a change early on. So I’ll do a relatively short, anonymous survey from online, like Survey Monkey, asking a few questions. And they’re questions that have to do with three different things. They have to do with the physical work environment, what we call indoor environmental qualities like acoustics and lighting and ergonomics. There’s a set of questions around teamwork and are the people that I need to work with close by? What’s the team environment like? And then, there are questions about what we would call workplace engagement. Are you happy at work? Are your strengths used every day in your work? Things like that. Then I ask a couple of open-ended questions. What’s the vision of this organization? And I ask them just in their own words and a lot of times, they don’t know or there isn’t one.

Lisa:                 And one of my favorite questions is if this organization were an animal, what would it be and why? And sometimes, I get eye rolls or this is a crazy question but what it tells me when I get the animals back, it tells me a lot about that culture of the organization in a much more colorful and interesting way than if I were to say what’s the culture like at XYZ Organization? If I ask that question, you’d get the well, we’re collaborative or we’re this or that. But when somebody says we’re like an elephant. We’re slow to move. Or we’re a chameleon. We’re changing all the time. They give me a little bit more narrative.

Lisa:                 So I take the results of the survey and then I do a workshop with the employees. I usually can do a series of workshops where I’m sharing the results because that’s one of the things. The employees need to see the results right away so that they know somebody has paid attention to what they wrote. Share the results. Have a discussion. I facilitate conversations and small group discussion. And then, that just starts to inform what the physical change might be. Some clients are physically going to move to another location. Others might change within the place they’re at. Others, it’s no physical change. It might be an organizational change. But it’s just a way to engage people in that conversation from the very beginning.

Patrick:            It’s interesting. You know, our work, even though it deals with different components to employees, it is very much the same in terms of how it lays out. You talk about results and getting that information back to them as soon as possible so that they know that really people have been heard. And I think too, I’m working with a group now that they just had an employee engagement survey done. They just got the results back. And they had almost 80% participation which is, as you know, is really good.

Lisa:                 Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.

Patrick:            And I put that both in the column of strengths and threats. And they looked at me like why 80% and it goes in threats. Because this many people have contributed to hopefully thinking that there will be something done with this and if you don’t, you really run the risk of really alienating those people because they will cynically say this company doesn’t care.

Lisa:                 Right, right. And then, the next time you ask them, it will start to drop off. It’s the why bother? You get that apathetic … yeah, absolutely. Great, yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Patrick:            So I noticed on your site, you talk about vision, people, and place. And you also talk about evidence-based design.

Lisa:                 Yeah. So there is social science research to back up just about everything that we do. Just like evidence-based … We were talking about evidence-based medicine earlier. Same with evidence-based design so that we’re getting better about saying before we just start planning and designing a space, first getting the employee input and organizational vision is critical. But then also looking at what’s out there for studies that we can look at whether it’s neuroscience or whether it has to do with daylighting. Or maybe you’re designing an environment, a certain type of learning organization, and we know that there are certain things that will impact people one way or another. So to have that and share it, we’re helping to essentially build a case for change. I think it’s good to have that data. So it’s great to have analytics and statistics and surveys and also some research-based articles or abstracts that we can reference.

Lisa:                 And then, as you know, you can have all the data and all that research in the world, but you still have that emotional piece, right? To help people make the emotional leap of why they should do something in a different way or why they should consider a change. But I think the evidence-based absolutely helps build the case for why we might do something a certain way.

Patrick:            I would agree. I think similar on this end. When you started out, what was there for evidence. It would seem to me as though this has become much more relevant today.

Lisa:                 Absolutely. It’s much more relevant today. When we started out, there was … And honestly, the major furniture manufacturers have done a lot of contributing as far as what we call utilization studies. How do people use this space and how often are they using it? And you see a lot right now around agile working or activity-based work. And that’s because based on sensor studies … This is more space utilization, I’ll come back to the research on neuroscience … But based on the utilization studies which are sensors under a desk, they have found out that 40% of the time a workstation is being used, which means 60% of the time, somebody is not sitting there because they’re offsite or they’re in a meeting room or they’re doing something else. 23% of the time, an office is occupied. The rest of the time, the person isn’t there because often people that get offices are out on the road or meeting with clients or whatever.

Lisa:                 So that space utilization studies and research have driven how we’re thinking about workspaces and how we use workspaces. So that’s one thing. The evidence-based, the neuroscience, the research around some of the buzz terms you hear now are workplace experience. Because you can do so much with technology. You can have sensors on people as they’re going through a space and how often are they interacting with somebody else. So that and the studies of brains and with neuroscience and scanning. Anthropologists are involved in looking at how we are in work environments together. There’s just a ton more of crosspollinization or experts thinking about this stuff.

Patrick:            It’s amazing, right? And to think of people, right? We spend roughly two thirds of our lives in an office setting to some degree if you work for a company.

Lisa:                 Right, right. More time at work than sleeping in your own bed.

Patrick:            Right. Or even seeing the people that are at home with you. You see the people you work with more than that.

Lisa:                 Yep.

Patrick:            And it’s interesting when you talk about the neurobiological components to this because we see that too where they’ve done FRMIs where they’re able to see when they ask people to talk about themselves, the pleasure part of their brain lights up. And I would think that it’s the same with you, right? That that’s what starts to happen. You could probably to see based on the environments that people are in, what parts of their brains become activated.

Lisa:                 Yeah, yeah. What fires up. And the debate about should people be allowed to listen to music at work or have earbuds in. Well, studies show that for certain tasks, having earbuds in and listening to music actually makes them more accurate. They work faster. And yet, this is the challenge with generations, five generations, in the workplace. You’ve got people that have a perception, well, work doesn’t look like that. Work looks like your butt is in the seat and you’re there eight hours straight and that’s what work looks like.

Patrick:            Sure.

Lisa:                 And be happy. By God, put a smile on your face, right? And one of my favorite stories about this is there was a picture floating around of these students in maybe it was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And they’re in front of this huge masterpiece, like the Picasso, and they’re all hunched over looking at their phones. And people are like oh God, kids today. They’re not even paying attention and this and that. Well, the real story was the museum had an app and the students were doing their work. They were looking at the painting and looking at the phones. That was part of the assignment. But we jump to conclusions because so much about judgment in the workplace. You judge if somebody is there or not or what they’re doing. Do you find that there’s a lot of that going on? I don’t know.

Patrick:            I will go down and I will say I don’t want to hear the word millennial and not working in the same sentence. It drives me nuts because I can find a narcissistic boomer as easy as I can find a narcissistic millennial. This is the stereotyping that goes on is …

Lisa:                 Stereotyping, yeah.

Patrick:            And it’s interesting because it almost builds … If you look at the research on that end is these self-fulfilling prophesies. That’s what we create by what we expect of other people in that environment. So if you don’t expect much from somebody, oftentimes you behave to them in a way that you don’t get much.

Lisa:                 Exactly. I was at, oh what was her name? Sarah Singer, I think is her name. And she talked about intention. She does a lot around education. And intention with the number 10 on your forehead. So if I’m looking at somebody, I look at them with the number 10 on their forehead with the intention that they are a 10. They’re going to perform. And if you … But if you look at them and go they’re a two, then they’ll meet your expectations. Absolutely, yeah.

Patrick:            It’s interesting because this research has been probably since the late ’60s. It first started with Pygmalion, in fact, where they actually had high school seniors and they had instructors that were given basically phony assessments on these kids as high potential/low potential.

Lisa:                 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick:            And then, they tested them and at the end of the semester, these kids fell in these buckets just based on this bogus report that wasn’t even real.

Lisa:                 Yep, yep.

Patrick:            And some people could argue that this is just high school kids, you know? Well, they’ve done it with the Israeli Army and in many other places where it’s been replicated, where what was interesting about the Israeli Army one was they had four different groups going through … or four different instructors that were working with, I believe, it was 104 officer cadets. And after a 15 week course, again, these instructors were given these phony reports on the recruits that had nothing to do with their actual ability yet at the end of this 15 week course in a written exam, these soldiers fell into these buckets based on this report that had no relevance.

Lisa:                 It had no relevance, yeah.

Patrick:            What was even more interesting is when they looked at them and asked of the instructors which they liked better, it was the ones that were the high potential were liked by their instructors better. We create that environment and I think we … unconsciously.

Lisa:                 Unconsciously, right, yeah. Also, in my work, we do a lot around bias. And we’re biased. We’re just wired that way and we’re biased in so many ways as much as we think that we aren’t. And so, the reality is how do you, again, have that awareness and then counter it. What can we do to be even more aware to actually push ourselves to counter that bias that we have intrinsically. Yeah.

Patrick:            And you’re right, oftentimes, it is just a matter of slowing down, of taking time as opposed to our normal we react versus respond. It’s that little bit of space that allows us to say maybe this isn’t quite what it seems. Something else might be going on here.

Lisa:                 Yeah.

Patrick:            You know, I’m curious. Speaking of the research, what about Feng shui. Is that involved?

Lisa:                 Well, and I know it is absolutely strongly adhered to in the Eastern world. And I do think that there is something to that but a lot of it, when we look at it in the Western world, we think oh, that’s just common sense. Don’t put something behind a door or this or that. But I believe there’s a lot of power in it and people that know what they’re doing and are true Feng shui practitioners and have had all the training, I think that anything that helps us get to a healthier and better environment and more productive, I’m game for. I’m completely game for. And actually, early on when we moved into the house that we’re in now. We’ve been here, I don’t know, 15 years or more now. Oh my God, it’s 2018. Anyway, we’ve been here a while.

Lisa:                 And I had a practitioner, not just Feng shui but he also, he had another practice. I can’t think of what it is. And he was from … Verner Brendmire, I think was his name and he think he was … I don’t know which country. He was from another country. He came into the house and he did some energy readings. Like he could tell where water was underneath the house, deep, deep, deep down in the earth. And I’m very open, of course, to hearing what people say and he made some recommendations for moving things around and I did it. And I’m still kicking so I guess that was okay.

Patrick:            I think that’s real interesting, sure. I made a note here of one of the things that you said. This number here of 23% utilization for an actual office. How does that change certainly how space is being utilized now that we have that information? Do you find even more shared space in that regard for offices or more open space? What’s the trend?

Lisa:                 So most definitely there’s more sharing of spaces like that. The example is that if you have a conventionally or conservatively designed office space and the president or a vice president has an assigned office, his or her own office, and that person’s on the road all the time and they might say use my office when I’m not here. Totally, it’s okay to use my office. Nobody in the company is going to want to come in and use the president’s office or the vice president’s. They will not do that. They will not cross that line.

Lisa:                 However, so that’s the old model. Today’s model is and I’ll give you one extreme, a local plant I worked with determined that they did not want any private offices for anybody but what they did was many focus rooms … we call them focus rooms or solo rooms … where anybody could go in and use that space as a private office for two hours or longer as long as they needed. But it was not. They did not have ownership on that space and there was many of these spaces.

Lisa:                 So what we call choice in the workplace. I can choose to go sit by the window and work there for a while. I can choose to sit in the café and have coffee and work there or meet with somebody. I can choose to go into a private room and shut the door and focus on writing a report or have a private phone conversation. It’s choice. And that’s smart real estate use. It’s the smartest way to use space.

Lisa:                 And what you find globally is really large organizations can save literally millions of dollars a year when they look at their real estate, the amount of space that they have, compared in the old model of everybody has their assigned workspace versus the new model of I come in and technology supports this. It doesn’t mean that I’m wandering around looking for an open place. I look at a screen, a monitor, and it shows me with green lights or green dots where there’s an open space. I can go sit there and occupy it all day or for three hours or whatever I want. Much, much smarter use of real estate compared to what we’ve seen in the past.

Lisa:                 But you know, Patten, Maine has no shortage of space. So it’s not necessarily a real push in this state anyway but we have a shortage of people. And so, how can you create really vibrant spaces that people want to come and work in and feel alive in. A lot of these strategies create those environments without giving everybody an assigned space.

Patrick:            Sure. Yeah. It’s interesting. The other question that I would have in that regard with open spaces, people transitioning from more traditional space, there must be a lot of concern around privacy. How do I have conversations that not everybody can hear or how do you address that?

Lisa:                 When I read articles in the Washington Post or New York Times or you see them everywhere and they’re negative about certain types of workspaces, the first thing that I look at are the photo that a company had. And usually, either hard concrete floors. There are hard metal pan ceilings with exposed duct work. There’s lots of glass, maybe brick. You have the worst acoustical scenario you can imagine for working in.

Lisa:                 So one thing that I think is critical to pay attention to is acoustics. I use a three tier strategy. The first is looking at the ceiling material and the ceiling tile. Is it highly attenuated ceiling material? There’s NRC, noise reduction coefficient rating that you look for. A white noise system. White noise is designed to mask the human voice. So it will not … I’ll still know people are talking but I won’t see every single word. It’s when you hear every single word, you get sucked into a conversation you don’t want to be a part of. That’s distracting, right?

Lisa:                 And the third strategy is talking to people about how they’re going to be in their new work environment. How do they choose to work together? I call it a working together agreement. It’s a set of guidelines, better written by the employees than a manager, so you don’t have the manager having to enforce guidelines. But if the employees write these guidelines together and they, and we talk about this stuff. It’s etiquette. It’s the stuff we don’t want to talk about in the workplace. But if we can talk about it up front and get really clear around expectations and how we want to be with each other, then it’s easier to hold each other accountable.

Lisa:                 So an example is a call center. If I’m working with a group of employees and they’re in a different work environment than they’re used to, I’ll say to them do you have a signal you want to use to keep each other in check with the voice volume? And one group said yeah, we’re going to use a lift up their hand and turn as if they’re turning the dial down on a radio. And just doing that is a quick visual cue to others around them that I’m on the phone. I can’t hear. You guys are being too loud.

Lisa:                 And then, you always … someone will say well, Joe just has a loud voice and that’s just the way he is. No, when Joe goes into the church or library or some other space, I am sure he can bring his voice down. If four year old or five year old kids can do it in the halls of a classroom, I am sure that Joe can work on that. But Joe, nobody wants to bring it up with him. Right? Nobody wants to talk to him about that. It’s like talking to somebody about body odor except not quite so bad really. So you know, it’s like talk to him. So those are the types of things if they just have those healthy conversations early on, the people do it together. The managers are really necessarily part of the conversation. They can … You can start to figure out how people want to work together.

Lisa:                 But you know, the other thing, all that said as far as needing visual privacy or audio privacy is people do need places that they can go to, that they can duck away. Whether it’s a little nook or a corner or a private room, we need those spaces. It’s not fair to think only the president and senior level people need those spaces. We all do. So that’s the new way of working, that people have choice, and it’s okay for them to get up from their workstation and go somewhere else and work. And just because when I as a manager walks by and Susie’s not in her workstation, she must be goofing off. No, maybe she’s writing a report in another space in the office.

Patrick:            That is such great stuff. I’m going to switch gears here for a minute going back again to 1986 because I didn’t realize that you had started at such a young age, 23.

Lisa:                 Yeah.

Patrick:            Where I was at 23, this wasn’t even in my wheelhouse to be thinking of starting something on my own. Obviously, a pretty focused and driven person. And certainly my conversations with people that have been successful and are out on their own or working for companies but have really moved through an organization, it’s generally not from all the positives that they have moved forward. It’s oftentimes been from the challenges that have really shaped them to get them to that next level. And I’m just curious from your own perspective of are there things certainly in your past that you look to and say those moments, as difficult as they were, those really have shaped who I have become?

Lisa:                 I sometimes joke that I was so young that I didn’t know the difference. I didn’t, you know? I never worked for a huge company. I worked for a smaller company. And then, I just it’s like it seems like a natural step. I also need to share, my father was an entrepreneur and I grew up with him as being a self-employed person. He had some employees as well. And my mother was a public school teacher. So I grew up in this rural state, a solid middle class white person. So I didn’t have any … I had a very supportive family. My mother believed in me wholeheartedly in anything I did and my father was a role model of hard work and fairness.

Lisa:                 And so, I can’t say that I had a lot of challenges early on. And it’s funny, one of the things you said, if you could go back and tell your 20 year old self something, what would you tell her? And honestly, my 20 year old self wouldn’t have listened so I wouldn’t have tried to tell her anything. So yeah, determined is a word that’s been used to describe me. I am determined but I also have always been very forward thinking and the vision forward. A book on a shelf early on as a kid that I remember seeing here in the house … I keep saying here because we bought the house from my father that I grew up in. So this is the house that I’ve been in …

Patrick:            Oh, that’s great.

Lisa:                 … and he designed it so I feel very fortunate. But there was a book in the living room on the shelves by Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking. And I was probably, I don’t know, maybe 10 when I found that and read it. And I think I was born an optimistic person but it just cemented this idea of forward looking, thing can always be improved. I’m very interested in continuous improvement both as an individual human being and in organizations. I think almost any process can be improved. So I think that’s what drove me. And yeah, I’ve definitely had failures along the way and things that have been challenging but I try to remember those. Like we were talking about, take some time to just reflect and assess and say okay, what can I learn from that? What could I do differently next time? And then, now the challenge is that I’m in my 50s is to remember what I thought about. But yeah, just keep going forward.

Patrick:            I will often say, your past is your power. And it’s all we have in some regards. That’s how you learn where to go forward is what happened in the past, positive and negative.

Lisa:                 Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Patrick:            Any quotes?

Lisa:                 Yeah, yeah, and again, this sort of goes with what we were talking about but in high school, my mother, I think it was when I graduated she gave me a plaque that I still have and it was, “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.”

Patrick:            I love it.

Lisa:                 So just a reminder. “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” Just be focused on that.

Lisa:                 And then, a bracelet I found that I just found out this is a quote by Robert Frost which on certain days when I feel like I need a little bit of power, I’ll wear it. It’s, “Freedom lies in being bold.” Which reminds me to use my voice to speak up. So that one definitely resonates. “Freedom lies in being bold.”

Lisa:                 And the last one I actually used in that Disrupt HR which really was, I think that was my second midlife crisis. I literally was googling what is the meaning of life? That’s what I was googling. What is the meaning of life, into Google. And the one that came up which I think is … It’s been attributed to Howard Thurman and then questioned if it really is his or not but it’s the, “Do not ask what the world needs, instead ask what makes you come alive and then go and do that because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” And that definitely resonates with me just in the work that I do. I want … I mean, that’s what drives this work. I want to see people more alive and more engaged and happy in their workplaces and not just checking boxes and being really not just gray in their environment but gray in their whole appearance and feel. That life is such an amazing, exciting thing that it would be awesome if we could get a little bit more of that vibrancy into our workplaces.

Patrick:            I couldn’t agree more. With that said, what’s the best way to get ahold of you if people wanted to look at your work and then talk to you?

Lisa:                 Of course, everybody probably says this but it really is true. We are in the process of updating my website and hopefully it will be ready within a couple of weeks. But the best place is lisa@workplaceTF.com. That’s probably the best way to send me an email and it’s workplace, T as in Tom, F as in Frank, .com. For workplace transformation facilitation which is a mouthful. So just remember WTF.

Patrick:            And I will make sure that will be in the show notes as well. There will be a link to it so people will be able to jump right there.

Lisa:                 Great. Thank you.

Patrick:            This has been great. Thank you so much for your time. I’ve really appreciated this. It’s been a great conversation.

Lisa:                 Oh, I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Patrick:            All right, take care, Lisa.

Lisa:                 Yeah, you too. Bye-bye.

Patrick:            I hope you enjoyed hearing Lisa talk about WTF and all the things that she’s doing with her company. In trying to create a better work environment for those that are in the workplace. If you found this valuable, it would be a great honor for me if you went online and placed a comment or a rating. Certainly, I hope you’ll subscribe to this podcast. And until our next episode, I hope you’re able to rise above your best.

Thanks For Listening!

Lisa Whited

Emery Leadership Group

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Patrick:            Hi, everybody. I’m Pat V, and you’re listening to The Rise Above Your Best podcast where, as I’ve told you, I’m not only obsessed with interviewing those that have achieved success and fining out their habits, but also in uncovering and exploring the research that demonstrates the great successes available to all of us, and it all starts when we believe in the power of rising above our best. I’m really excited about today’s episode because I think so many people are probably in this place, and it’s how do you deal with a bad boss? What can you do about it? And by the end of this podcast, what I want you to walk away with this is a feeling of you have control over this. As frustrating and stressful as it may be in the place that you’re in right now, that by the end of this you’ll understand that you do have control over this, or you can gain control over this at the very least. And it’s up to you, and how you wanna navigate the path going forward. So, why don’t we get into it?

Patrick:            It’s interesting, there’s so much data right now from organization such as Gallup, or Mackenzie talking about disengagement in the workplace. And most of this data, over two decades, says that roughly two thirds of employees within companies are disengaged. And the cost of that disengagement per employee is about 13 thousand dollars for an organization. Now, that could be in turnover, could be in absenteeism, six days, low productivity, theft, whatever that might be, but disengagement has a cost to organizations. And I’m not telling you anything that you don’t know, certainly if you’re one of those that has disengaged. You show up differently at work.

Patrick:            What’s more important here is that 70% of disengagement, from an employee perspective, comes from the manager that that person reports to, and the root cause of that really is all about behaviors. So if that’s the case, how do we deal with that? How do we deal with a bad boss? And there are ways that we can do that, because in fairness to managers most have never been trained in terms of how to lead people and what behaviors are most productive. And if listen to episode 10, I speak to some of that in terms of how our unconscious attitudes or expectations of others really create the environment that we’re in. And the good news of that is that we have control over it when we understand that, so that’s really what this is about.

Patrick:            We’re gonna take this in stages. We’re gonna first talk about a study that was published, and the study really looked at how to effectively be a suck up in some regards. The academic title, obviously, is different but that’s really what the study was about. This study was actually published in the Leadership Quarterly, and it was Volume 18 in 2007, and the title of it was Coping with Abusive Supervision: The Neutralizing Effects of Ingratiation and Positive Affect on Negative Employee Outcomes. And really, what it did was it explored a couple things. One is, as an employee the approach that I took to the manager, and also how I perceived myself in that situation, impacted me being able to neutralize a bad boss.

Patrick:            And what important here is, well, what does it really mean to be a bad boss? In regards to the study, what it did was it defined it in a way that said that it had to be ongoing. These couldn’t be one off situations. But the bottom line was that if a boss, if their behavior toward you impaired your abilities to succeed at your job, based on navigation behaviors that they had toward you, then that was considered to be abusive supervision.

Patrick:            Now, what do you about that? In this study, it was involving tactics such as speaking with the boss about projects that they wanted completed and what their expectation was, or how they could effectively do these projects. So, it was about dialogue and about constantly being in touch with the manager in terms of trying to build a stronger relationship with them. And from a standpoint of positive affect, it was looking at how can I, as an employee, feel better about myself? And if I don’t feel confident, in terms of who I am, that this ability to ingratiate myself to the manager is gonna be diminished. Because, if I don’t feel confident in who I am then that’s gonna come across even stronger in regards to the manager. And again, that speaks to, in episode 10 where we talked about this idea of set up to fail syndrome. Where I began, as an employee, to feel less confident in my abilities. And what happened was, I built this self fulling prophecy that I became worse as an employee.

Patrick:            This goes both ways, which is important here, that with a manager that if you expect to be on the receiving end of poor behaviors then often times that can create its own environment. So, it really is about this idea of positive affect, that I need to go into this with a standpoint of … of feeling as though I have control over this situation. And stress, really, the origin of stress is about lack on control. That if I’ve got a manager that I don’t feel like there’s anyway that I can make this person happy, or I feel like that I’m their sight line, so to speak, of poor behaviors, then I begin to get stressed out because I feel like I’ve got no control over this.

Patrick:            We do have control and I think that’s the most important thing to understand is we go through this. Is to say that you do have control over this. As bleak as things may seem, that you do have control and we’ll explore that. And I speak from experience when I say that, because the last boss that I worked for was the one that finally provided me with enough motivation to go out and do what I was really meant to do, which is help other people in terms of leadership and develop their own levels of success. And I’ve never looked back, and I had three kids in private schools, and income that was well into six-figures, and lots of benefits, and how could I ever just walk away from this without having any income, so to speak, but I was able to. I look back on it now and think, “God bless bad bosses.” And I mean that, god bless bad bosses. And, I think, when we look at it in that frame of mind you will have a different outlook in terms of how you address challenging situations.

Patrick:            I can still remember that moment for myself, where I was sitting in a Panera with my boss at that point, and I was on a performance plan one that the objectives seemed to keep changing. It was almost like whack-a-mole, that any time I got close to hitting what was required of me the parameters changed. And I remember sitting there at the table with this person, and my eyes welling up and it wasn’t because I was sad or frustrated for the situation. It really was a deeper sense of, “How could I allow this person to control me,” which is what was going on. How could I allow this person to have control over where I was gonna go? And I made a point at that moment that I was getting out, I was starting to work on my exit plan. That’s all that it was and that’ll be a stage that we’ll speak to later on. But I knew, at that moment, that I had control over this. I was not gonna allow this person to have control over me anymore.

Patrick:            Now, that required my own ability to have a lot self confidence, and that came from the next phase that I’ll talk about, is to say that after ingratiation to be able to have positive affect really requires a strong sense of who you are and I developed that through a study that I had come across by a gentleman named Shawn Acre and I was a 21-day challenge. And it’s another episode that I speak to on what I’ve called power, and if you’re interested that’s episode five. But in that episode, or in that model, what I continued to do was five things. I made sure that every morning I was writing down three things I was grateful for, and at the end of the day I was writing down two to three sentences on what went well during the day. In between that, I was trying to do something for somebody else every day, at least one thing. I was getting exercise every day, and I was finding time to meditate, or just find some quiet time where I could think about how things were gonna work out in my favor.

Patrick:            And as simple as that may sound, that it really does create this sense of positive affect where I knew I was in control of the situation. I didn’t know how it was gonna turn out, but I did know that it was in my control not this manager’s. And I think that really is important, in terms of how you develop positive affect.

Patrick:            So the next is to say, “What do you if … I’ve done this ingratiation, or tried to basically get on my manager’s good side, where I’ve asked them questions, maybe around … or had conversations where I’ve said, I want this to work out. How can I do this. How can I give you what you need?” As a manager, that’s the ingratiation part where I’m going to them and saying, “You know what, my belief is that if I do well, you do well as a manager and how can I make that happen?” I’m trying to get on this person’s good side. That’s the ingratiation. And if I have positive affect, if I’m confident in who I am, then I’m able to do that more effectively and that’s certainly what the research showed.

Patrick:            It showed that those people that had strong positive affect when they did this ingratiation, they were more effective and it worked out in their favor more often. And I think the reason being is that, again, we create this expectation of things are gonna work out. We go in with that frame of mind. Now, they may not. In my case, it didn’t in that standpoint, but it did certainly work out much more in my favor down the road because I knew that, “Okay, this isn’t gonna work. I’ve tried this. This doesn’t work. What’s the next level? What do I have to do next?”

Patrick:            And what I did was, I started documenting everything that happened, and this was more for my own sanity too, that I knew that I was able to work these things through as I was writing them down. I was able to work through what was going on and how I was gonna take it to the next step, what I was gonna do. So for companies, if you’re working for a larger company, I would highly recommend at this point that you try and act … try and gain access to an EAP system, an Employee Access Program, because they provide you a whole host of resources. They may help you to navigate the situation.

Patrick:            Within your company too, also, try and find other advocates, other people that you work with that maybe are on good terms with the person that is managing with you, and see if maybe you can, from an influence standpoint, ask them to advocate on your behalf with that manager. Maybe that’s another way that you can try and ingratiate yourself with this person, to try and get yourself in a positive light.

Patrick:            The next step, maybe reaching out to the Human Resource advocates within the organization, and speaking to them about the situation and where you, and maybe asking them to intervene on your behalf in terms of how you can take this to next level. I will tell you from my own personal experience, that didn’t work out favorably. I think, often times, a manager may have influence over your influence. And what I mean by that is, that their word is taken as higher than your word is. And again, I don’t think anybody would admit that that happens anecdotally. Speaking with other people that have been in similar situations, I think most would agree that on some level it probably does happen and that’s just human nature. I know in my own situation I had a manager that was probably very convincing and told a very good story, and I never really had an opportunity to voice my side of it to those same people. So, this person’s only getting one real side of the story.

Patrick:            But again, I think it’s an avenue that you have to approach in terms of effectively trying to navigate the situation that you’re in. I think also, another important approach may be to look at an attorney. I know you can generally get initial consults with attorneys for, probably, $150 to $300. And depending on the role that you’re in, or where that you are, that might be worthwhile to do. I know in my situation that was something that I did. I went to an attorney and said, “Here’s the situation. What are my options?”

Patrick:            Again, that provided me with control of being able to know what my next steps could be, what was it gonna be that I was gonna be able to do to try and navigate the situation. Between that and speaking with HR, I knew my timeline. I knew how much time that I had, worst case, with a manager that I felt at that point really was just … was not going to work with me to try and keep me within the company, but essentially was gonna fire. So, I knew that going in and that allowed me my timeline to work out what I needed to do on my end to make sure that I could provide the most runway available to get me to starting my own business, and I used that time appropriately for that. Certainly, did what I needed to do in my job at that role, but also knew that I was looking at time ticking away and how was I gonna deal with that, and that was part of my exit strategy. I knew that there was something else I had meant to do.

Patrick:            And with that said, I think in the environment that we’re in today, look at whatever talents or abilities you may have and what are your side hustles? What are things that you can do on the side that can help you to get where you wanna go? And we all have them, think of what resources you can tie into that can help you to get where you wanna go? For me, I focused a lot on podcasts, on people that were doing what I wanted to do. There were several that I listened to on a regular basis that really helped me and inspired me to have the confidence to go off on my own. One was Gary V, the other was John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneurs on Fire. The last was by James Wedmore and it was the Mind Your Business podcast. These were all ones that I listened to on a regular basis, while I was driving in the car, or mowing the lawn, or folding the laundry, whatever it might be, any downtime that I had I was listening to these.

Patrick:            And as much about gaining confidence and motivation that I could do what I wanted to do, all these other people had done it. I was able to do it too. There was no reason why I couldn’t, and I think that’s probably the most important thing that you have to realize here, is as bad as your manager may be, in the situation that you’re in, you do have control over it. And if you tell yourself you don’t have control, then that’s the path you’re gonna take. You need to find ways to look at this and say, “I do have control over this. There are things that I can do.” And maybe it’s a year long process where you’re mapping our how you’re gonna get to your next place, but just by doing that provides you with a sense of control. I know that I’m in a difficult situation right now. I know that this isn’t favorable, but I’m taking the steps that I need to get me where I wanna go. That, in and of itself, helps from a mindset standpoint of reducing that stress.

Patrick:            Yeah, this is a bad situation. This is crappy, but I know that I’ve got control over this. I’m doing the things that I need to do to get me where I wanna go. That’s the most important thing that you can do, whether it’s to start out where we talked about first with this idea of ingratiation and positive affect where the study showed that by almost trying to find ways for your manager to like you, so to speak, to get on their good side, to do things for them or whatever that might look like how you can do that, that’s your first step. But even when you do that, you’re in control. You’re choosing to navigate that situation. The manager doesn’t have control over you. I’m choosing to ingratiate myself to this person, so that this situation will be more favorable, but in control of this. It, again, reduces the stress. Going from there, if I find that that’s not working, if I’m a situation where this is just too far down the line, I’m still gonna have a positive expectation on where this gonna go, but I’m not gonna take … What are my next steps?

Patrick:            All along the way, I can’t stress enough that you document what’s going on. If it’s not for legal reasons, it’s for your own personal sanity where you can write out what’s going on and how you’re gonna address it. Find other people around you that you can advocate with, that you can bounce ideas off of that’s a safe place that you can have these conversations. That, in and of itself, can help as well, because it allows you to be able to speak to this to somebody else that maybe has an idea on how you can address this, or maybe how you can advocate, or there’s somebody else that can advocate for you, but this is really important. Always remember, there is something that you can do today that is more than you did yesterday. That is the essence of rising above your best. You always have the opportunity. There’s something else I can do to make this situation better that I didn’t do yesterday. There’s a new approach I can take, what’s that gonna be?

Patrick:            In the end, you have control. And to followup on my own experience of “god bless bad bosses,” that as stressful as it was, at a time where I felt I didn’t have control, when I made that decision to make the move I had built up a strategy, a runway of how I was gonna do that and I recovered that income that I was prepared to loss within that same year. Within that same year I recovered that income, and I know that it was because of my own expectations, that I knew I had done all the pieces on my own. I had control of this. You can do the same thing.

Patrick:            I hope you’ve found this episode valuable, and certainly inspiring if you’re in that situation where you’re dealing with a bad boss. That hopefully, first, you can find a way to resolve it right up front, if that’s what you wanna do. That there is research that shows, certainly, that this idea of ingratiation, of finding ways to make a connection with this person, that it works. But if that’s not possible, to know that you still have control over this. There are other things that you can do. Maybe you know somebody that’s struggling with a manager right now, or what their next steps are, or feeling as they have no next steps. They do, and I’d ask you forward this to them and have them listen to it, or listen to episode five on power, on how you build up your own self esteem, or listen to episode 10 on how our own personal unconscious biases create the environments, often times, that we’re in, that we do have control over this.

Patrick:            And again, if you have found this helpful it would mean the world to me if you went on and rated this, and certainly you subscribe to this podcast going forward because I am committed to finding ways to help other people to rise above their best. And until our next episode, I hope you’re able to go out there and do that. Rise above your best.

 

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Coping with Abusive Supervision Study

Gary Vee

John Lee Dumas

James Wedmore

 

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Patrick:            Hi everyone, I’m Pat V., and you’re listening to The Rise Above Your Best podcast, where I am not only obsessed with searching out and interviewing individuals that are achieving great success to uncover their habits, but also in uncovering and presenting the research that proves great success is available to anyone. It all starts when you believe in the power of rising above your best.

My guest today is Jon Jennings, who is currently the City Manager in Portland, Maine. Jon has an exciting and very professional journey. He’s been an NBA scout and coach, a legislative candidate, a franchise owner, an investor in a developmental NBA team called The Maine Red Claws. Prior to that, Jon grew up in Indiana, where he was the first in his family to go to college. On top of that, he then went on to earn a Master’s from Harvard.

In this episode, Jon speaks to how his experiences of growing up in Indiana, his experiences in the NBA with coaches such as Red Auerbach and players like Robert Parish and Larry Bird, have shaped his journey and his commitment to helping others. We’re going to pick up this conversation where Jon is talking about growing up in Indiana. So let’s jump right in.

Jon:                  So my mother always said that I couldn’t keep a job. That’s why I had so many different opportunities. But honestly, I’ve just been the kind of person that’s had a lot of different interests. I grew up in a small town in Indiana, and she worked in the same factory for most of her career. That was just never going to be my destiny. I always believed that there was much more for me to do, and to explore all these different interests. That’s where really, I think our society, particularly since the ’80s, has become much more of a transient society.

Our parents, our grandparents, basically born and raised and worked in the same town mostly. That’s not true of our generation and certainly later generations. So I’ve always enjoyed challenges. I think that’s kind of really the … Whenever I see something ahead that challenges me, that’s kind of what motivates me to do something.

Patrick:            Well, obviously it shows in your resume. Born in Richmond, Indiana?

Jon:                  Yes.

Patrick:            What was that like growing up?

Jon:                  You know, it’s interesting as I reflect back, because my hometown is a microcosm of what’s happened in this country over the last 30 years. In my little hometown, we had five major factories. My mom worked at the Alcoa Plant. My brother in law worked at the APCO Plant. There was a bus plant. There was two other major manufacturing facilities in my hometown. So you look back and you think, wow, we really had this poor middle class in this town of 20,000 people in Indiana.

So you had kind of the very wealth people who owned the businesses in Richmond. You had a large middle class because of factories, and because of job opportunities like that. People like my family, we were not very wealthy, but my mom did have a full-time job in one of those factories. Unfortunately, my dad left when we were young. So she was the sole breadwinner, if you will. But fast forward to 2018, all of those factories are gone except for one. If you go to my hometown today, you’ll still have that tiny sliver of wealthy individuals who own businesses and so forth, but that middle class has disappeared to a large degree.

And people of my age and younger have fled the city. And what’s left is a fairly large group of people who struggle on the margins. They’re one paycheck away from being destitute. And so that, I think, has really informed me as I’ve grown into adulthood, and certainly at this point in my life. But obviously, it’s something that’s happened in a lot of different cities and towns all across the country, right here in Maine. The manufacturing base in former mill towns and so forth just disappeared, and those opportunities left. So that is a cataclysmic shift that has happened in our country. And that’s what we’re suffering from right now.

We’ve never really had a leader in my opinion, in the country, that can really explain what has happened to the country. In the turn of the last century, Theodore Roosevelt became president through the assassination of President McKinley. And that was the end of the agrarian society, and into, really, the burgeoning railroad and manufacturing society that we ultimately became. And he was the kind of president who really did teach, and the American people, what they were living through. And that is really kind of the same time, there’s a lot of fear in our country right now. Fearful of immigrant people coming to the United States for the first time.

That’s not unique. We’ve had those periods in our history. But that’s the unfortunate part about our era, though. We don’t really have true leadership in this country, at all levels of government, to be honest with you. And that’s where I think we’re most suffering.

Patrick:            So there’s a quote by John Quincy Adams that says if your actions inspire somebody to do more, learn more, dream more, become more, you’re a leader. Really just talks about behaviors. Where do you see that fitting in terms of what we’re talking about? What are those things that inspire somebody to do more? Here you are in city government, which, notoriously, has been one of these that any type of agency, it’s hard to get people to change. How do you do that?

Jon:                  Yeah. I think for me, I had a very formative experience when I was in high school. I was 18 years of age, standing on the steps, or the grass, of the US capitol in January of 1981. I was president of the student body, and had organized a trip to Washington for the inauguration, of what became the inauguration of President Reagan. And so I distinctly remember standing there with all of my high school friends and listening to the inaugural address of President Reagan. And he came to the famous part where he says, “Government is the problem.” And I remember standing there thinking to myself, I just fundamentally disagree with that statement. I don’t believe government is the answer to all of our problems, but I believe government is a partner in addressing the issues that face our country and face our world.

So in various parts of my career, from basketball I went to Washington, from business I went to run for congress. And then Senator Kerry’s office, and now I’m in city government. And I think a lot of my career has been about trying to prove that statement wrong. What I mean by that is, I think government can be effective, government can be efficient if run in the right way, and with real leadership. It’s not who was willing to put their neck on the line, in order to make tough decisions that have that type of change that I think is really needed at this point in our country’s history.

Patrick:            Sort of take a step back in terms of you growing up, right? We all have this ability to hopefully form the direction to go in. What was it about you that you said, “This is not where I’m meant to be?” How did you take the responsibility for that?

Jon:                  Growing up without a father, for a boy, and for a girl, is certainly a formative experience. I had the most incredible mother. My mom, to the day I take my last breath, will be my hero. She was a person who had a really tough life in various periods of her time. She was a domestic violence victim, she had a lot of challenges facing her. But what she did do is, she got up every single day, got us dressed for school, provided us a roof over our head, provided us food. She went to work, a lot of times, in the third shift of the factory, putting sheets of aluminum into a press that made bottle caps. I can’t imagine how difficult that work was for her day after day, year after year, of putting aluminum sheets into a press.

So for me, I think, with the absence of a male figure, I just began reading. And I read everything I could find on heroic figures in history. And I think through that process, I probably, without completely psychoanalyzing myself, formulated a father figure that I wanted to emulate. So I read a lot, I just read everything I could find about Churchill. I read everything I could find about Robert Kennedy. I remember the book that really had such an impact on me was an Arthur Schlesinger book on Robert Kennedy. I was 15 at the time, and I read this book about this wealthy guy who had kind of the ease of life, but transformed himself over the course of his political career to really understand the plight of the poor and the dispossessed in our country. Who actually went to the Mississippi delta to see firsthand. I mean, how many US senators do that today?

We had an ambassador at the UN just say yesterday that we shouldn’t, UN shouldn’t be looking at poverty in America. Well that’s great if you want to turn a blind eye to people who are suffering, but there are a lot of people who are suffering in our country today. So all of this reading that I did, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, the founding fathers, many, many others. I think, for me, I realized that there was a larger world out there. That I wasn’t consigned to work in a factory job in Richmond, Indiana. While there’s nothing wrong with that, I just had a different idea for my life.

I think that that’s really both my mother’s incredible support, and this belief that there are people who had tough childhoods, like Churchill. Churchill’s father was fairly nonexistent in his childhood. He was, in fact, scorned by his father. His mother was really not present. And he grew to be on of the greatest figures of the 20th century, if not the greatest figure. As a kid growing up in Indiana, the person I’ve always looked up to the most is Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln spent his formative years in Indiana. He was, from the age of nine to 18, he lived in Southern Indiana. His mother died when he was nine. My parents divorced when I was nine.

So everything I could find on Lincoln, and then of course his personal story of success, failure, failure, failure, success. And then dealing with the Civil War, and losing a child in the White House, and so many other things that were going on. He had this depressive side, this melancholy, that was often written about. Which I found fascinating. Churchill had the same thing, which he called the black dog. Actually, Theodore Roosevelt had the same thing, but he believed that a vigorous life, he could outrun that blackness of depression. So it was an interest period in my life. Because of course the absence of having that paternal figure, but being able to kind of create this figure in my own mind of what I really wanted to be.

Patrick:            So it’s interesting, I don’t know if you’ve read Napoleon Hill, his book, Think and Grow Rich. But he speaks about this imaginary cabinet that he had, he had all of these different figures that he would, in his imagination, refer to, in terms of helping guide him to where he was going. Which I think is interesting, based on what you’re saying.

Jon:                  Well that was in the early, the formation of me in the early stages. But later I was blessed to have incredible mentors. People who really did come in and out of my life. My fifth grade teacher, I have a scholarship at my high school in honor of Mr. Clark. He was the guy, and it was right around the time when, honestly, I could’ve gone one way or the other. The chaos of my own family and everything else. And Mr. Clark put a firm hand on my shoulder and directed me toward the life that I currently have. And if it wasn’t for him … So 15, I guess, years ago, I created this scholarship. It’s for any student going into elementary education, as a way to thank him for what he did for me.

Later, of course, Red Auerbach, with the Celtics, he was the person who had such an impact on me in my adult life. The way, really the way I do everything. The way I manage, the way I lead, the way I treat people, the sense of family that I’ve tried to take everywhere I’ve been. So I’ve been very, very fortunate that I’ve had great mentors. And then adversely, what I’ve tried to do is try to pass that along. To young people who constantly come into the office here, or I’ve met over the course of the last 20, 30 years of talking about their interest in sports or government, or you name it.

Patrick:            You mentioned in one of our last conversations in regards to Red Auerbach, specifically, in terms of how he managed different players, in terms of how he would approach them, whether it was Cousy or Robert Parish. Can you sort of tell that story again?

Jon:                  Yeah absolutely. I mean Red was, he was a master psychologist, in order to describe. Red really could understand and read people. And this is what, I learned so much from that man in this area. So I remember him telling me the story that, when he was coaching, this was back in the ’50s and ’60s, he had a racially diverse team, which was fairly unusual for that era. In fact, he drafted the first African American to play for the Celtics. Boston, at that time, was still a very difficult city, in terms of race relations. He was Jewish. And so you had a team full of African Americans, whites, different parts of the country, coached by a Jewish fellow from New York.

And what he used to talk with me about was, you’ve got to understand the people you’re leading. So for instance, he knew he could not scream at Bill Russell. Bill would not react well to screaming, to kind of a direct confrontation. It was just not the way to get through to Bill. Conversely, what Red would do is, he would scream at Tommy Heinson. So Tommy could take that screaming. But the message was actually being sent through Tommy to Bill, and to the rest of the team.

Patrick:            Such a great story.

Jon:                  It was the same point with Bob Cousy. Bob could be very sensitive, at times, according to Red. So he had to figure out ways in which he could best get through to Bob without getting him in a place where it wouldn’t be productive. And all the great coaches are like this, I mean, there’s no Mike Kryzewski at Duke. The great other great pro coaches, Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, Casey Jones. I mean, the coaches that, certainly of my era in basketball, they had this very compelling way of leading teams that wasn’t a one size fits all. And I think that’s true of leadership. You simply cannot treat everybody the same, because we’re not all the same. And that’s, I think the real successful leaders understand that. I think those people who, it’s my way or the highway, fail. And often fail spectacularly.

Patrick:            So what was your high point, in terms of your coaching with the Celtics?

Jon:                  My high point, for me, on the basketball end, really was being around some of the greatest players that ever played the game of basketball. Larry Bird, I’ve learned so much from Larry, just through observation. Larry and I were both from Indiana, we spent a lot of time together when I first came to Boston. And Larry was not an overly emotive leader. He was not a person who was a screamer or anything. He led by example, and that taught me a lot. Larry would be, usually, the first to practice and the last to leave. And when those young kids, the rookies, and first and second year players like Reggie Lewis were drafted, they would come in and they would see the omnipotent Bird.

Now Bird had already won Championships, Player of the Year, just incredibly successful, one of the greatest of all times. So when Larry’s on the court till well past practice had ended, you didn’t dare leave. And that taught those guys a lot about professionalism and the commitment to excellence. And that’s really what I learned most from Red, was that commitment to excellence. He used to tell me that the goal is perfection, but there’s no such thing. So you settle for excellence in all that you do. Not just in basketball, but in life, in your family. Every conceivable thing. Boy, you’d love to get to that perfect game or that perfect season or whatever, it’s just not possible.

Coach and I used to say the same thing. His goal was to have the perfect game, but there’s no such thing. So as long as you understand that, and everyone is rowing in the same direction toward excellence, that’s really where it all comes down to.

Patrick:            Speaking of excellence, and on that path to excellence, I have yet to read or speak to somebody that didn’t come through challenges. Probably those most difficult things are the things that as they look back on it now, those were the turning points or really the fuel that got them to where they are. I’d be curious, from your own experience, what are some of those challenges that you had either growing up or later on, that you look back on now and say, in the moment, darkest time I’ve had, looking at it now, probably what has propelled me going forward?

Jon:                  I think again, I go back to my mom. My mother used to assign us chores. And as a kid, you’re not terribly thrilled with the idea. You’ve got to wash the dishes, or run the vacuum cleaner, whatever. But I always remember my mom saying something, we never want to half ass anything. And I don’t think I could understand what that meant when I was real young. But later, of course, I understood completely. If you’re going to do anything, do it the best of your ability. So that was really, to be honest with you, that lesson came from my mom. And at the darkest moments of my life, when my family was going through a very difficult time with my father leaving and his alcoholism, and abuse, and so forth, my job was to protect my mom.

So there were times when I intervened, and I was recipient of some of that behavior from my father, but I always knew I was doing the right thing. So I think that is, I also think my Catholic faith, to be honest with you, has been there for me in the darkest of times. It is something that is, I’m not a person who wears my faith on my sleeve. It’s just not me, I am deeply embedded in my faith. It means everything to me. But other people don’t believe the way I believe, which is really cool. I don’t agree with everything the Catholic church stands for. I completely disagree with them on serious social issues.

Growing up, I had this priest, Father Francis Van Betten. And the chaos of my childhood, I used to go to mass oftentimes by myself. And Father Van Betten was this old priest in my hometown, I think saw me in the pews, and kind of took an interest in me. In the way in which he was concerned about seeing this young kid all by himself, I think. And so, really, I think through conversations I had with him and others, the life of Jesus really was the thing that is so much more important to me than a Catholic church. So that example, that I think Jesus taught all of us, is really the way I try to live my life. In service to others, and acceptance of others. And fundamentally understanding that we’re all in this together, and we need to help each other.

So I think through the darkest times, certainly my faith, my mother, my readings … I just, I learned to be resilient. There were certainly in jobs like I have today, I’m constantly criticized. You’ve got to be able to understand where people are coming from, and not necessarily take it personally all the time. There are times that it’s impossible not to take things personally. But I think, whenever you’re trying to affect any type of change, if you’re not unsettling someone, then you’re probably not addressing the kind of change that needs to be addressed.

Patrick:            I would agree with that. In regards to sort of where you are, if you look, are there any rituals? Things that you sort of do on a regular basis that you would say, “These definitely help where I’m going, or where I’ve been?”

Jon:                  Yeah absolutely. I wake up at 5:00am every day. It’s been something that, I don’t know, I don’t even set an alarm clock. I wake up and it’s almost always at 5:00am unless there’s been a long council meeting the night before. And then I start to read. Right now, I’m reading a book on President Bush 41, who I think is one of the greatest Americans this country ever produced. I’m not saying that in terms of a political sense, but as a man and a human being. I read a lot, there was an excellent book written last year on Washington’s farewell address, which I read. I’m constantly reading, and reading books.

Before this job, I used to exercise all the time. I ran the Boston Marathon a few years ago, which was always a goal of mine. And unfortunately with this job … Running the marathon, I hurt my hip and had to have that replaced. I just said, got to get back to the ritual of exercise. Then at night, I always pray. It’s remembering, praying for my family, the people I love, certainly the people who have left. My best friend in the world was a guy by the name of Lenny Zakim. Lenny was a man that was the head of the Anti -Defamation League in Boston. He was a person that I admired so much more than just your ordinary friendship, because of his commitment to justice, and people of all backgrounds and races.

We created a foundation together. That’s the thing I’m most proud of during my basketball years, on the non-basketball side. This foundation called Team Harmony. Reggie Lewis was one of our players when I first talked about doing something like this, and unfortunately, Reggie died suddenly on the basketball court at the age of 27. Reggie and I were very close friends on the team. But Lenny and I were really, really close friends, and we decided to do that together. So for several years, we had this large event at, what was then, the Fleet Center. Now it’s the TD Garden. To invite thousands of young people from all over New England to take a stand against hate and bigotry.

We had people come, like Mrs. Clinton, Hilary Clinton came and wrote about the foundation in her book, It Takes a Village. A young Justin Timberlake came, he was 16, he came with his mom. I didn’t even know who he was at the time, until he walked out on stage, the ear piercing scream. I realized those teenagers must know this kid Justin Timberlake. And sports figures, and elsewhere. What we were trying to do is empower those young people to take a stand against hate and bigotry in their schools, in their communities. Because oftentimes, that type of work can be somewhat lonely and isolating.

So I think the relationship I had with Lenny was more based around love, as a friend, and not just your typical friendship. Unfortunately, Lenny passed away from cancer back in 1999. So my prayers are Reggie, and Lenny, certainly my mom, and my brother passed away some years ago, and others.

Patrick:            So in the experiences that you’ve had, if you were to look back and tell yourself something at age 20, what would you tell yourself?

Jon:                  I think, enjoy yourself. That’s what, I think, when I was 20, and certainly in my 20s, I was rushing to be something else. I didn’t enjoy the moment. So you go to work for the Indiana Pacers, you want to be … So you’re scouting and doing video work. But you really want to be an assistant coach, you really want to do this, you really want to be general manager. You get to the Boston Celtics, I get to the Boston Celtics, and I’m doing video work and scouting. But I want to be an assistant coach, I want to be a general manager. I think if I could tell myself something, from that time of my life is, slow down and enjoy the moment. Because I felt that I, as I look back, I was rushing through all of that. That’s maybe typical for people, but I don’t know. That’s certainly what I would say to myself.

Patrick:            Which is interesting to hear you say that. Because right, isn’t that what we sometimes hear today? With the millennial crowd, is they’re always looking to get ahead. Is it really just, generationally, at that age, that’s what we do. And we’ve pegged the generation for being impatient, but at 20 years old, we’re probably all impatient to a degree. If we’re high achievers.

Jon:                  This idea that you can broad brush an entire generation is,

Patrick:            Ridiculous.

Jon:                  It is absolutely ridiculous. I get very frustrated with the baby boom generation, and I’m at the very tail end of the baby boom generation. Because of many things that’ve happened in this country over my adult life. But I would never say that the entire baby boom generation was horrible, in the country. And the same is true for the millennial generation. I just think it’s so convenient to take broad brushes. But we do that, unfortunately. Or people do that, in order to achieve some type of a, I think, political outcome. Or dividing us. It’s just, there’s so much division in this country now, and certainly around the world. And that’s where I just wish we could get back to feeling as though we’re all in this together.

The great leaders, certainly that I’ve read about, were really ones that brought a country together, brought a people together, brought a city together, brought a state together. John Paul the second, one of those individuals I had the honor of meeting a few times in my life. And Nelson Mandela was another one of those individuals that I had the honor of meeting a few times. And both of those people, when I met them, you realized you’re in the presence of grace. It was a different experience … I’ve been around presidents, I’ve been around basketball players, I’ve been around iconic sports figures. But being in the presence of Pope John Paul the second and Nelson Mandela was a completely different experience. They radiated grace in their presence, and you felt it, it was palpable.

That was where I realized that there is a, whatever you believe in, whether it’s Jesus or anyone else, you realize that there is a sense of grace amongst us. And that is where I really believe that if we could just put aside our petty differences and realize that we’re really, we’re in this together. We have this very, very, very short time on this planet. And why should we spend our time in such divisive ways, instead of really try to figure out how to have the best life possible? And not assign blame to everyone else.

So I think, I’m sure many people through the millennium have thought that. But that’s really, I think, the goal. It always should be the goal. Unfortunately I’m living, my adult life is, I’ve been consigned to live through a horrible, horrible last 30 plus years in our country’s history, where we’re so divided. And we shouldn’t be.

Patrick:            Your experience is so broad, in terms of basketball, business, into public service. In all of this, I failed to mention, in terms of all of your achievements, you actually have your master’s in public administration from Harvard. Which, I didn’t see a date on that. Where did you manage to fit that in in all of this?

Jon:                  Yeah. Again, that’s one of those things that, I went to Red and said, “I have an opportunity to go to the Kennedy school.” And I said, “I’ll still do all my scouting and everything, I promise you, and I’ll go to classes.” So it took me a few years to get the master’s degree. And a relatively poor kid growing up in Indiana, I never thought in the world I would ever have the opportunity to go to Harvard. Well for that matter, go to Indiana University. I’m the first person in my family to graduate high school, let alone go to college. When you were asking me earlier about where this all comes from, it’s really that determination to be much more than what the examples I had seen from others growing up, other than my mom.

Patrick:            So I’m going to shift a little bit here. You talked about the Boston Marathon. Were you actually, and you said, you injured your hip. Were you able to finish that, or?

Jon:                  Yeah, no, no. I didn’t injure my hip during the marathon. It was age, to be honest with you. My mom was dying, and many of us, of course, go through that process. And it’s a really horrible process, I think, for all of us to go through, when we’re losing a parent. I think, for me to be able to cope with that experience, I started running again. And I really, really set a goal. So I started running 5ks and then 10ks and then I ran a 20 miler from Kittery, Maine, to Salisbury, Massachusetts. That was a pre-marathon.

Then I ended up running the Boston Marathon in 2015. I was very slow. It was a rough day, it was raining and cold. But to honor my mom, I was determined to finish. And I ran and I ran. I never, I stopped once for a bathroom break, which was about 20 seconds. Then I kept running, and I didn’t stop, and crossed the finish line, and was very, very proud that I could do that.

Patrick:            That is certainly one of the things that I love about sports in general. There’s that opportunity, I’m sure, along the way, even through training and running it that you maybe said, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know that I can go another mile.”

Jon:                  Yeah, you know, there are certainly those moments in life where you’re not sure. Unfortunately, some people take extreme measures when they hit that wall, when they feel like they can’t go another step. In running, you can’t go another mile. But the perseverance that I’ve had in my life, that willingness to never, ever give up. That’s one of the Churchill quotes, that my sister bought a sign for me, and Churchill said that, “Never give up, never, ever give up, in anything, great or small. Never give up.” That has really been kind of the way in which I’ve lived my life. I’ve certainly had moments where life can break you. Hemingway said that if you live long enough, the world will sometimes break you, and you’re strong at the broken places. If you’re resilient, you become strong at the broken places.

That’s really, I think, the definition of all of us. None of us get out of here alive, none of us get out of here unscathed. We all have, whatever your story is. You had a difficult time. And it’s really how you react to those difficult times. To push through the pain and the sorrow, and to keep running to finish the marathon, is really, I think the apropos way of looking at life. This is a marathon. We keep running and keep running, we get a rainstorm once in a while, or fall on the ice, or you name it. But we pick ourselves up and we keep going. And with that, I think, defines the quality of life one leads.

Patrick:            Whether it’s public service, or business, what would your parting thoughts be? Or suggestions, to somebody that’s just starting out, so to speak?

Jon:                  I really think it’s finding your passion, and in that moment in your life, passion changes. A lot of people, and this is where I’ve tried to live my life. When I was a kid, I had memorized all of the presidents. So I was like the family freak show. I’d come out and recite all the presidents, and then I’d run off to bed. So I was very interested in government and politics and all that stuff from a very young age. But I had this opportunity in basketball. And what a phenomenal opportunity to have been a very small part of an organization like the Boston Celtics. A true family type of situation.

And the experiences that that gave me, as well as the people that taught me. So I think it’s really important for anyone starting out is to find the passion of the moment, find mentors that can help educate you, and most importantly, be open. Make sure you are open to the fact that you may not have all the answer. When you’re young, you think the world is never going to end. And certainly, life is never going to end. And a lot of times, you’re the smartest person in the room. As you get older, you realize, that’s not even remotely the case. So be open to learning from people who have already gone down that path that you’re passionate about.

Most importantly, be open to people who are less fortunate than what you are. All of us, regardless of our station in life, can help each other. Whether you do big things or small things, that makes a difference in someone’s life. That, to me, is really what, at the end of the day, other than my beautiful and wonderful daughter, Abby, the thing I have been most proud of is the lives that I was able to touch along the way. And hopefully for the better. And most importantly, the life of this beautiful daughter that I have. My dream, when she was born, was to raise a very strong, independent, and smart young lady. And that’s what she’s turned into, and I believe she’ll be that way. Her mother, and certainly I, have spent a lot of time trying to make sure that she is this well-adjusted, wonderful, beautiful young person.

Patrick:            I’ve seen my hint. So I’d be able to concur that you’ve done a great job there.

Jon:                  I’d say the same thing about you as well. Your wife, with grace.

Patrick:            Well this is a great way to end this, Jon. I’ve really appreciated your time. You have such a great and valuable story for other people to hear, in terms of inspiring, how can they rise above their best? So I appreciate that.

Jon:                  Well thank you for the opportunity.

Patrick:            I hope you enjoyed this exciting episode with Jon, and his conversations around growing up in Indiana, the experiences of his life that shaped who he’s become as an individual, his experiences with legends such as Red Auerbach, and how they shaped who he’s become as a leader. I hope you find ways through our conversation that help you to go out and rise above your best.

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Patrick:            Hey everybody, I’m Pat V. and you’re listening to the Rise Above Your Best podcast where I’m not only obsessed with interviewing people that are achieving great success to find out their habits and behaviors, but also in uncovering the research that demonstrates that great success is available to all of us, and it all starts when you rise above your best.

Patrick:            I’m really excited. This is the 10th anniversary or 10th episode anniversary of the Rise Above Your Best podcast. One of the topics that I’ve really wanted to discuss for a while is this idea of our expectations, and oftentimes our unconscious expectations of others and the power that that has over really creating the reality of the result of that relationship, or the outcome of the other person’s performance based on really what we’re expecting from them.

Patrick:            What I’m going to focus on first are two pieces of research around Pygmalion and the Golem effect, and the last one is a Harvard Business Review article called The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome. Whether you are a teacher, a manager, a parent, or you’re involved in any relationship where there’s an expectation on the other person in regards to their performance, then this is really important information for you to understand so that you can leverage it going forward in terms of just understanding how some of the behaviors that we have we’re really not even conscious of. When we look at some of the research, it allows us to bring it into the forefront and be self-aware of how we behave this way. So let’s jump into it.

Patrick:            The first study I’m going to talk about was one that was published in the Academy of Management Learning and Education was back in 2007, and the title of it was Restraining the Golem and harnessing Pygmalion in the classroom: A laboratory study of managerial expectations and task design. Now, obviously that’s pretty wordy and pretty obscure, but basically what it looked at was two things, Pygmalion and Golan.

Patrick:            Pygmalion is this idea that positive expectations of another person will oftentimes create a positive result. Golem is a term that’s suggestive of this idea that negative expectations of another create a negative outcome. This goes back to the late 1960s and it first started out with high school kids.

Patrick:            They looked at a group of high school kids and teachers, and what they did was they set up basically these bogus assessments on these high school kids, the seniors, and said to the teachers, “Here’s a group of kids that are high performers, here’s a group of kids that based on their assessments are low performers, and here’s a group that is sort of unknown.”

Patrick:            Lo and behold, they go out through the semester and they find that when they test them at the end of the semester that those that were perceived … again, it was a bogus report that the teachers didn’t realize. Those that were perceived as high potential, or had high expectations, or were high performers, they tended to score better statistically, and those that were low scored lower.

Patrick:            What’s interesting about this is it’s not just used in high school, it was done with the Israeli army at one point too where they had 104 officer cadets. It was a 15-week course, they had four instructors. Once again, the instructors had no idea about the actual potential of these cadets. What they found was, again, same story, cadets were ranked as high potential, low potential or potential unknown.

Patrick:            What they found at the end of the 15 weeks I should say, is that those soldiers that were rated as high potential scored the best on a written test, and those that were rated on the lower end of that scored lowest, and those in the middle sort of fell somewhere in the middle for the most part. This was statistically significant.

Patrick:            What’s important as well about this is when they asked the soldiers to rate their instructors, that it was those instructors that we’re perceiving their officer training or officer cadets as high potentials, those are the ones that the cadets said that they liked the best. Which again is interesting because the subconscious expectation that we put on other people, if we like them, we think they’re high potential, or we think they’ve got good characteristics, we tend to treat them differently.

Patrick:            We think about this from a standpoint especially in school. I can certainly attest to the fact that I lived out Pygmalion angle, that there were teachers that I know expected a lot from me and I didn’t want to disappoint them. There were again teachers that didn’t expect much of me, and guess what? I didn’t disappoint them either, I didn’t give them much. I think what’s important here is even though it was looked at in schools, this study that that I’m talking about right now, this laboratory study looking at managerial expectations, what they found was this translated over into management as well.

Patrick:            In this study there were sort of three hypotheses. One was that negative expectations verbalized by the instructor would negatively influence basically the person’s performance. The next was positive expectations verbalized by the instructor would positively influence the student’s or the worker’s performance. The third was that the absence of verbalized expectations would neither positively nor negatively influence student’s performance.

Patrick:            What they found was at the end of this study, that those hypotheses were confirmed. That those individuals that verbalized their expectations in terms of what they could do or couldn’t do, they tended to follow through on those. I think what’s concerning about this too, when you look at it in terms from a negative standpoint is these weren’t ongoing negative verbalization. They found that on just one negative verbalization by an instructor, that could have a detrimental effect on the worker’s performance or the student’s performance.

Patrick:            This is really important in terms of any relationship that we’re in, probably this can translate over to as a parent with a child, the same thing can happen. Certainly, we can see it with a manager. We can certainly see with the manager and the employee, and we can certainly probably see it with a student. Any relationship this is going to play out. It speaks to the power that our language and our behaviors have towards somebody else and their outcome, and being aware of this.

Patrick:            How do we take this and use it? Well, if we think about this, if I’m having a difficult time with somebody, then maybe my approach is not to say, “Why do you always do this this way?” or you reinforced that they’re not doing the right thing. The opposite is probably what needs to happen here, is if it’s somebody that I’m managing, I certainly as a coach in sports as well as a coaching business, I do this now, where I might say to somebody, “You’re better than this, your performance is better than what you’re showing right now.”

Patrick:            Because what I’ve done is I’ve set a higher expectation not only for them, but also for myself in terms of what I’m expecting out of them. Just by being aware of the power that this Golem and Pygmalion effect can have allows me to really frame things differently. That if I want better results then I need to frame it that way and let the other person know that, that my expectation is higher of them than what they’re producing. Because if we take a step back and think about this from an influence standpoint, there’s a principle that Robert Cialdini speaks to and it’s around this idea of conformity. We like to be seen as consistent with what we say we’re going to do.

Patrick:            By putting somebody in a positive place of saying, “This is what I expect of you” or, “You’re better than this”, it allows that person really to be able to think like, “You know what? I am better than this, and this person believes that I’m better than this.” And again, I go back to school and think I know when I had teachers, they called me out on that that said, “You know what, Patrick, you’re better than this.”

Patrick:            I had a manager that said the same thing when I started out in sales, that he saw my erratic behavior in terms of my numbers when I was really performing and when I wasn’t, and I will never forget this when he said to me, “You’re better than this.” It stung because I knew at that point like I almost I was disappointing this person and I was letting myself down. It drove me harder going forward to say, “I’m, I’m not gonna disappoint this person and I’m better than this, what my numbers are showing right now.”

Patrick:            The next piece of research I’d like to talk about was actually published in the Harvard Business Review and it was actually, it’s an older article. It was actually the March- April issue in 1998. It’s hard to believe that somebody listening to this might not even have been alive when that article came out, but anyway, well worth the read. The title of it is how bosses create their own poor performers, The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome.

Patrick:            When I read this article for the first time probably about eight years ago, it resonated so strongly with me because I believe certainly I had experienced this personally, and I certainly had seen others fall victim to this. Again, I think some of this is just unconscious. Actually, I think a lot of it is unconscious, that we don’t even recognize that this is happening, which is even more important to speak about articles or research like this so it allows people to sort of realize how this can happen and how powerful it is.

Patrick:            The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome basically goes through this scenario, and I’ll just sort of walk you through sort of what this looks like. There’s a cartoon series in this article that speaks to The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome and it says, “No harm intended. A relationship spirals from bad to worse”, and it’s so true that how this happens. In this case the first box is to say before The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome begins, the boss and the subordinate are typically engaged in positive or at least a neutral relationship. Then somewhere along the way there’s a triggering event as what they call it in The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, and it’s often minor.

Patrick:            The subordinate may miss a deadline, lose a client, or submit a subpar report. In other cases, the syndrome’s initiation might be from the boss who distances themselves from the subordinate for either personal or social reasons. It then goes on to sort of talk about this idea of the boss or the employee reacting to the triggering event. The boss increases his supervision of the subordinate, gives more specific instructions and almost starts to begin micromanaging I guess is the easiest way to look at this. The subordinate sort of starts to respond now by beginning to suspect that there’s a lack of confidence in their ability.

Patrick:            What happens is the person starts to withdraw emotionally from the boss and from work, and he may even fight the change or the boss’ image of himself, and he reacts too high in doing that, or he runs too fast, or to almost counteract what’s been said about him or what he thinks is going on or she thinks is going on. The boss starts to interpret this in a way that it starts to snowball, to the point that the subordinate could actually be performing well and the boss doesn’t acknowledge it, or might consider that it’s a lucky one off that this really isn’t indicative of their performance anymore.

Patrick:            What happens is is the subordinate starts to feel boxed in and really underappreciated, and increasingly starts to withdraw from the boss and from work, and may even resort to ignoring instructions, speaks to [inaudible 00:11:34], almost openly disputing the boss. Because now the person feels like I’m cornered, and oftentimes somebody is probably going to try and fight back and show that this isn’t who they are. It raises this sense of cognitive dissonance, this uneasiness that the person wants to fight against it.

Patrick:            The boss starts to feel increasingly frustrated as well, and they’re even convinced that this individual can’t perform without an incredible amount of oversight, so the micromanagement even increases more than that. To the point that what happens is is that when it’s in full swing, the boss pressures and controls the subordinate during interactions, always, or he just ignores the person during routine assignments.

Patrick:            Basically, it’s only when he wants to pick something apart or she wants to pick something apart that they’re going to get involved. For the subordinate’s standpoint, what happens is the person just shuts down or leave, is really the only two things that happen. So we have disengagement from the employee, or actually the third is that the person’s eventually fired all because of something that probably was not an issue in the first place, but just snowballed. It was almost like a catch 22 and self-fulfilling prophecy all in one.

Patrick:            Now, if you went back to either the subordinate or the manager, certainly if you went back to the manager to say that a lot of this initiation was unconscious to begin with, they’d disagree, they’d vehemently say that this isn’t the case that they had. They had factual examples of why this person wasn’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. It’s no different than when the researchers questioned either teachers or military instructors on bogus reports on assessments, and they both denied that they had any leaning toward just treating somebody differently because they looked high potential or were told they were high potential.

Patrick:            Unfortunately, it’s human nature, that happens. We’ve only discussed two of hundreds, if not, thousands of pieces of research that demonstrate this Golem, or Pygmalion, or Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome. The question is, how do we deal with it? Well, if we are the initiator of these, meaning we’re the ones that basically are expecting less of somebody or expecting more of a certain group but not the rest of the group, then just being aware that this is powerful, that that this does happen.

Patrick:            If it’s from a Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, if you can think of that situation you’ve been in where maybe somebody stopped performing and you were part of the problem, or you certainly were responsible for maybe creating the downward spiral. Not all of it, but certainly you had a hand in that. If you’re the recipient of Golem or Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, it’s again, first you got to recognize what’s going on.

Patrick:            From a Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, a strategy that you can take is to have a conversation with the manager or whoever the person is to really get an idea on what are the clear expectations, what do we need from each other. From an influence standpoint, the process here is to try and peel back to something that we both can agree on because I could say to the manager, “I believe that we both want the same thing. We both want success, because if I succeed, you as a manager look better. I just, for whatever reason, seemed to have missed an opportunity for that to happen, and I need to know from you, Mr. or Mrs. Manager, how do I do that?”

Patrick:            It’s the same thing from a relationship that we’re in, trying to have clear expectations are set clear expectations on what does good look like? How can we get back on track? What do we need to do? Anytime we can do that, we’re in a position where we have the opportunity to break that cycle, that self-fulfilling prophecy, especially that Golem or that Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome has placed in front of us when we can do that.

Patrick:            I think in many ways being the recipient of Golem or Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome, if we are practicing self-awareness allows us to be more empathetic or certainly more aware of how we might do this to other people. You can think about it in any place. If we were around the water cooler so to speak, and we talk poorly about somebody else, so and so such, and somebody else us there that doesn’t really know this person. What you’ve started in a sense is Golem because you have given this person basically an expectation. It’s your own, could be unfounded, but an expectation of what to look at when they go and see this person.

Patrick:            What tends to happen is that person now has a preconceived idea of who this person is. If I say, “Oh, so and so’s can’t be trusted.” Well, when this person goes and interacts with the so and so that I talked about, they’re going to be looking for that, and maybe unjustly looking for that.

Patrick:            Again, from a standpoint of being in school, I think about the number of times that in the teacher’s lounge, that two teachers are speaking about a student, one that have the student and one that’s going to be getting the student next year. The conversation comes into, “Oh, who you getting for next year in your class?” “Oh, I’m gonna have Patrick V.” The other teacher says, “Ugh, good luck with him, he’s a problem.”

Patrick:            When I show up in September, that teacher is more than likely, at least it’s going to be, their radar is going to be up to look for that, and that’s what they’re going to try and confirm is that based on what this other person said, it matches the description they’re given. The same thing is true if it were the other way, “Oh, he’s a great kid, you’re gonna really enjoy him”, then this person automatically comes to me or I go to them and when I behave, oftentimes they’re looking for those things that will justify or validate what was said about me.

Patrick:            We all have this power to do that, and then I go back to again, whatever relationship that we’re in, I know that we want more than this. I know you and I want more than this side of each other. Anytime I can set a higher expectation then it gives us both a place to go from there. That’s a way that you can practice this going forward and hopefully start to eliminate or at least reduce the amount of time that were spent in either Pygmalion, or Golem, or Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome.

Patrick:            I hope you found this episode valuable and important. It is a topic that I think is is critical to engagement in any part of our lives whether it’s at work, or at home, or in the community. I think oftentimes unconsciously, we don’t realize the power that our thoughts have over the outcomes that actually are produced, it’s just trying to bring awareness to that.

Patrick:            If you found this helpful or valuable, I would ask that you forward this along to somebody who you think might need to hear it. If you found it valuable yourself as well, it would be a great honor to me if you were to go on and rate this because when that happens, it allows other people to be able to see this as well. Until our next podcast, I hope you’re able to go out there and rise above your best.

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Patrick:            Hey everybody, this is Pat V. and you’re listening to the rise above your best podcast where I’m not only obsessed with interviewing those that have achieved great success to uncover their secrets and habits, but also in exploring and uncovering the research that demonstrates that great success is available to all of us and it all starts when we rise above our best. I had the opportunity to have on Phil Giordano from Walden Woods Leadership Group on this podcast and it was so much fun.

Patrick:            He really is such an inspirational individual and we really were talking about his book that soon to be out called Discovering Significance and he just had some great points in terms of the one that sticks out to me is this idea of going all in and how often we probably don’t go all in and the impact that that has when we don’t do that, and also he speaks to really how do we do that on a more consistent basis that we’re able to put ourselves in that place. And I think his view and discussion around significance and what that means really plays into it. I know you’re going to enjoy this podcast, so let’s get started.

Patrick:            I want to thank you today for taking the time to speak with me, Phil, regarding not only your company, Walden Woods Leadership but also the book that you recently wrote on Discovering Significance, which I think I sent you the picture of my last day reading this book. I was in Jackman, Maine on a lake that you could only get to by boat and it was just, it was a magical place to sort of finish up on what was really just a very powerful book. So I thought what might be a great way to start this out was to say, what was your life prior to starting your own company, Walden Woods?

Phil:                 Let me just thank you for having me on the podcast today and helping me get the message of discovering significance out and I can picture you sitting at the lake in a self-reflective mode because that is what Discovering Significance is all about and helping people to just open up and face their future with such positivity and enthusiasm knowing that they can accomplish anything. And in some ways, that’s the same catalyst that helped me start Walden Woods Leadership. For a long time, Walden Woods was a theory in my mind, having spent 25 years or so in the financial planning and banking industry.

Phil:                 My success, my good success in that industry came from listening to people’s stories, helping them overcome their limiting beliefs and truly living into a future that they wanted. And what I’ve learned through the process of helping people with their money was the quality of the relationships their lives was all affected by money and Walden Woods Leadership started as an idea to help put out a kind of retreat process to unleash the potential in others. And finally, everything moving toward the dream, one thing after another. It became a reality and do a lot of one-on-one coaching retreat and pieces that really help people discover their unique, authentic self so they can go have the impact in the world to do whatever they need to do to live their passion and make this world a better place.

Phil:                 I guess I see myself as the catalyst of making other things happen. I know I’m rambling here, but one of the things that comes to mind is a question that was asked to me years ago by my coach. One of the first questions he asked me was, “If you could do anything, absolutely anything knowing you wouldn’t fail, what would it be?” And this is a question you can find in Tony Robbins’ books, a common question out there. And I struggled with answering that question in the beginning was I could cure cancer, I could cure major diseases, I could end world hunger.

Phil:                 And then I started looking at the strengths that I had as a unique individual. My strengths to listen to people, my strengths to help people discover their stories, help people see the patterns in their own lives. And I realized that if I could do anything, it would be open Walden Woods Leadership and become a leadership and communication coach because then I can unleash the potential in others. So the cures to cancer can be found. Cures to world hunger can be found, conflict or especially violent conflict can be eliminated and my place in that role in the place in the world is being that person right behind the scenes to make that happen. And that’s my motivation is to unleash people’s potential and see how together we create to make this world a better place.

Patrick:            It’s such a great analogy because, in my head, when I hear you say that I think of this ripple effect, right, of you being a part of that, what goes out, right? I can’t cure it myself, but I can certainly have an impact on those around me that may have had a hand in that directly. So I think that’s a great way to look at it. One of the things that comes to my mind too when I’m thinking about the industry that you were in prior to this is oftentimes it’s not a very trusting environment, right? You’re dealing with people’s finances and you hear these stories of people having their life savings pulled away from them because the person that they were dealing with directly was unscrupulous. So I would think it was a natural training ground for you to say, “If you can build trust and really look at other people’s best interest,” it seems to be like a natural progression.

Phil:                 A very natural fit. So I started in the financial planning arena when I was 22 years old and at 22, I was asking people to trust me with their money based on this theory that I knew as opposed to me actually having a penny. I mean, at that point I was in a commission-based financial planning sales job. My wife wasn’t working and I had two kids at home. So if there was $5 in a bank account, we were lucky. And overcoming that limiting belief and learning that the theory works if you build trust. And I quickly learned that if I can connect people to their values and what they value the money for, that it’s not, you don’t save all of this money for college and get excited about paying a college bill, but you save all of this money so your child can walk across the stage and you can be there, and participate in that moment, that’s what the value is.

Phil:                 You don’t want to sacrifice and not go on vacations and put more money in an education fund if you’re not connected to the motivation of why this is important that you want to give it to your children. And as soon as I started connecting those values and those things together, there was always a story behind it. And as you listened to the stories, it was, “Why do you want to do that for your child?” “Well, because it wasn’t able to be done for me.” Or, “Education is a great example of how I can pay the world forward,” or, “What type of parent would I be if I’m not able to do this?”

Phil:                 And understanding that story of how that belief comes into play was how trust was built. And you’re right, there’s so many instances in banking and finance of skirting the system and not putting people first, but the true advisors out there and the true salespeople and the true people that you just say, “Hey, that’s a very authentic human being and I want to trust them,” and part of it I think comes from knowing your own story and part of it comes from being willing to just accept people for where they’re at and help get them to where they want to go.

Patrick:            And it’s interesting, once again, as you speak to that process, it’s the same thing in regards to the coaching and for leadership. If you don’t have a strong enough why in terms of where you want to go or there’s always an opportunity to sort of steer away from that because why am I doing this? It is difficult. Saving money is difficult.

Phil:                 Absolutely. And that goes within the industry and what do we all need to look at is what is our motivation? And as a leadership coach and being in this industry, it’s what is the intrinsic motivation, the piece that’s coming from inside of you living into that passion that keeps you going forward, especially when you get faced with adversity? And then there’s the outside motivation. What are the things that are coming from the outside that keep you on your path?

Phil:                 Many times the outside motivation is, especially in businesses, sometimes looked at as a bad thing it’s the boss that manages out of fear is kind of a good example of an outside motivator. But some people need that piece to get going. Or sometimes there needs to be that outside force that use of a coach that use of an expert in the industry. We talked a little about that, of getting up and running as an author. Me having to use the expertise of editors to make the final process better. Outside motivation to get it done, versus just an internal motivation to keep moving forward. And we’ve got to balance the two. And you’re right, when we know why we’re going someplace, we have a better chance of getting there.

Patrick:            Yeah, and certainly as you mentioned, using resources around us to help us get where we need to go. If it was as easy as just reading about it, well, then Google is all we’d need for everything, right? We could just-

Phil:                 Absolutely. But it’s life’s experiences. That’s the thing is we got to read about it, but we got to put it in action. Just as theory with financial planning, I needed real expertise to move it forward.

Patrick:            Which brings me right into, obviously, this podcast. The title of it is rise above your best. Most of our successes are not built on our successes but are built on our challenges. And as you look back on your own life, in terms of where you’ve been, and where you’ve ended or landed so far, what have been some of those challenges for you that you think have had the most impact on the direction that you’ve gone in?

Phil:                 So the challenges, looking back with the knowledge that I have now versus the knowledge that I had in the middle of those challenges, I think the biggest source of the challenges came from some type of self-imposed limiting belief. So just as I talked about the financial planning. That was a very real thing for me of feeling like I didn’t have enough mastery for somebody to trust me. When I look at different pieces of my own health being diagnosed with diabetes or overcoming my food addictions. It’s the challenges of that self-imposed limiting belief that it has to be this way because and there’s no other option.

Phil:                 And I think the biggest growth that would come and comes out of some of those things is once you recognize that this is somewhat a made up belief, it becomes a possibility of a new script to be written, a new path to go down. In the book, I detailed my life. I mean I put my life out there for everybody to see that details, the challenges of getting married at a very young age, having kids young, education and some other very personal pieces that are in there that I’ll let readers and let podcast listeners kind of dive into the book to find what they are, but we all have those. We all have those deep dark secrets and I think once we understand them and put them out to the world, we completely open up possibility for ourselves. So free.

Patrick:            Yeah, I would agree. A couple of things on that point in regards to the book, which I guess we’ll sort of go right into that now, which I loved the layout of it, where to me as I was sort of making notes, it provides a framework, tools and a quote along the way to sort of help. That’s why I found it, really it was almost like a coach in a book in terms of helping me apply what I was reading. And one of the stories, in the very beginning, that I found it really stuck with me was this idea of all. Have you finally said, you know what? You really started to question what am I gone all in on before and feel as though you hadn’t. It forced me to look back on my own life and remember those times where I didn’t go all in.

Phil:                 Yep, and what did you gain by looking back and starting to question?

Patrick:            It made me realize myself, opportunities that I probably did miss out on when I didn’t go all in and those events and looking at who I am today, taking those risks, that it really opens so much more possibility and I’m right with you, that we hold ourselves back. Nobody else does. We hold ourselves back.

Phil:                 And that’s the point of the book. It’s written in a way that I tell a story. I put out a concept in the very beginning going all in and think about the big things that we can go all in with. A young person going off to college can go all in into their studies and really learn mastery, or the entrepreneur going all in and really putting everything on the line, the athlete putting everything on the line. I mean, we romanticize that concept of going all in when we see the outcome on the other side, not all the blood, sweat and tears and practice that it took to produce the results, but it’s the little things in life. Can I go all in, in a conversation? Can I say, “Hey, I’m just going to let my inhibitions be free and be all present. Can I be all focused? Can I use active listening?

Phil:                 Who do I need to be in this moment that allows me, in this moment, in this podcast, in this, whatever we’re doing right now, to go all in? And I think it’s a great question to always ask. And it’s one thing when I started writing the book that wasn’t the premise, but it became one of the first premises of the book because, as I looked back at my life, I said, “Man, imagine if I did things differently if I went all in here or I thought I went all in and I hit a point of not getting the results I wanted and I stopped and changed direction. But what if I just went a little further, would I have pushed that boulder up the hill, far enough to roll down the other side and I think it’s just a great place and a great starting point of getting a feedback loop and asking a question.

Patrick:            I think of that primitive part of our brain, the amygdala, which is always about self-preservation and it’s almost like a broken smoke detector at times where this is just burnt food on the stove. Yet we, our brain, treats everything as though this is a threat for survival. And it really holds us back. It’s like, “Oh, what are people going to think? What are they going to say? Am I going to embarrass myself?” And it really is this idea of, as you talk about to me, I would say it’s intentional vulnerability where you just have to say, “Sure, I’m going to put myself out there.”

Phil:                 But think of all the mindset patterns that we put ourselves through as we’re in situations and we don’t even realize that our brain is holding us captive. And the process of this book, this process of self-discovery is to override some of those things when you need to. And that’s why it has a journaling, it has a Phil’s coaching section at the end of every chapter that I kind of take out some leadership and communication pieces that I talked about in the chapter. And then we have the journaling questions and whether someone takes time to actually journals them a really takes the time to ponder to them, the important piece of starting to think about your life story, the different ways you have formatted different beliefs. And then I always like putting in some quotes at the end to help inspire that process.

Patrick:            Yeah, it really does prompt self-awareness. You’ve got to start with just sort of seeing how you connect the dots. And I feel like I’ve done a lot of this work and as I read this, things came up that I revisited myself. It was really very powerful.

Phil:                 Absolutely. And that’s what it is life-long learning, how story continually evolve and our beliefs about something continuing evolves and our stories change, as we frame them in different ways.

Patrick:            As you were putting this book together, when did you really feel like I’ve got something here like this is something that needs to get out?

Phil:                 It was a long, long process, so I started writing the book back in 2007, and it really came with the concept of measuring success and I wanted to change the corporate culture from a measurement of success to a measurement of significance because the corporate cultures I was part of, sales goal started over every year. It was driving towards the numbers. It wasn’t people-orientated and I thought they needed to be more of that people-orientated, more emotional intelligence in the measurements of what we did and I wanted to completely shift where we needed to go and measure of significance as a measurement of impact. And then along the way, with leadership studies and other pieces I was involved in and trying to find the right wording and the way to get this message out, I realized quickly that we needed a message of both. We need to be able to measure our success, which is a measurement of achievement, is very much time-bound.

Phil:                 I mean, success for me today is having a great conversation with you in the podcast. Significance for me is measured today by all the work I’m doing on this book to get it out to the public. So it’s my impact on the world. One is time-bound, the other one is measured over time. And when I start to look at those two measurements as coming together as a Yin and a Yang and a whole. I kind of knew that the world needed a paradigm shift. Then I also wanted to use my strengths of leadership, coaching, stories, storytelling, and somehow, in the last year, year and a half, it all came together in a way. And what the difference was is my editor looked at me and she kind of stripped it down and we took all the coaching pieces out of it, and throwing pieces out of it.

Phil:                 And she said, “Write a conversation between you and your daughter. And in that conversation, there’ll be power.” And that’s what we did. And then my wife read the version of that and she said, “This is powerful, but it’s missing those questions. You have powerful, powerful questions and you have powerful insight the way you frame out the coaching.” She’s like, “Add those back in after the stories to give people a break in the conversation.” And as soon as that happened, it was like, “I can’t get this to print fast enough.”

Phil:                 It was a life of its own and it felt good. It felt like there was enough of not just telling my life story for the sake of telling my life story. It was telling my story as a roadmap to allow someone else the space to tell their story. So the book wasn’t a memoir though it could be. The book is really about how do I help Patrick V. connect into any little bit piece that will help you be more productive, more sense of success, more sense of significance in this moment? And just keep going. So yeah, long journey, long answer, but it was the accumulation of driving toward the passion, going all in and finally coming up with a product that said, “Hey, the world needs this and you need to be vulnerable enough to put it out there.”

Patrick:            Yeah, and I would say from, I think the first thing I mentioned was on page 13, so right out of the gate. I think in this book, you’re able to sort of put yourself in that place of like, “I’ve experienced that or have thought of that,” and it reads well. Provides just some great direction. As you were finishing up any surprises yourself in terms of maybe things you really hadn’t thought of or you looked at differently after finishing it?

Phil:                 There was kind of that moment of as the final product came together. It was, “Man, I can trust this with my inner circle.” I mean that’s the type of stories I tell. Can I trust this with the world? Do I want to be that vulnerable out there? And it was, “Well, if I can free myself to tell these stories to the people that know me, I just got to accept the world to see the story and see what’s there.” If I didn’t go that in-depth, I don’t think the book would be as powerful as a connector for people.

Phil:                 So there was, there was a moment of pure, absolute fear of what am I about to unleash in terms of changes to my life, the changes my personality and even some respect, the changes to my family because again, I wrote it as a conversation with my daughter and I, I’m like, her life is affected by the release of this. So once I got over that and comfort from family to say, “You got to do this, you got to put it out there.” It became freeing. It became empowering and it became kind of a mission to put this in as many people’s hands as possible. I think it’s a great gift.

Patrick:            Yeah, I would agree. As this gets out there as a gift. What do you hope people to walk away with?

Phil:                 That they have a new sense of who they are. They shed their limiting beliefs and they enter the next time they hit the cliff of kind of fear of going all in. They do whatever it takes to take that leap of faith to make this world a better place.

Patrick:            I know you had mentioned several people in the book that we’re sort of people that you looked up to. Any story in particular that you look to somebody that that has inspired who you’ve become and shaped you?

Phil:                 So I mentioned, and I talk about three very distinct mentors and centers of influence in my life. So the first one was my grandfather that I affectionately called Papa, and that is now my name for my grandson. So kind of come full force, and his ability to ask that question. Look at details. I mean he was a machinist, he was an engineer. He lived through the depression. He saved everything under the sun, but he had a compassion for people that was second to none. Giving you your shirt off his back in a moment’s notice, always there to help out.

Phil:                 And I look at the mentors in my life from a very young age like my grandfather and know that, that profoundly shaped the person that I grew into. And then later in life, I mean, one of the people I talk about a lot in the book, especially in terms of the influence on my leadership and coaching is my mentor, Doug Kotter, who runs Kotter International Training out in California and a lot of the things that I experienced this and a lot of the things that I teach a directly related to what he taught me in being a coach and what I experienced to free me up.

Phil:                 So there’re stories, I mean there’re stories with each of these people and there’s power in that story. So I encourage you to pick up a book and find out why each of those people mean something very unique to me.

Patrick:            Any rituals that you have?

Phil:                 I am not a huge ritual guy though. My morning time is sacred. So for my day to happen and happen productively, I have to have a cup of coffee in the morning.

Patrick:            That’s a ritual.

Phil:                 It is a ritual and it really is a ritual because it’s 10 to 15 minutes and I have to have the cup of coffee alone. I can’t have my first cup of coffee in front of the computer with the TV on. I typically go out to my deck, or in the winter time, I sit in the kitchen. If family is home, I either get up early enough for them to be in bed or if it’s during, my wife’s a teacher, so she leaves early in the morning. I wait for her to go.

Phil:                 And that 10 to 15 minutes is all about I ask one question, “What do I need to be looking at that will make me feel like today was successful and how does that play into my significance?” And on the mornings that I take the time to ask that question, review how I did the day before, with just a thought process, nothing judging, nothing putting there and usually it has to be in nature of some point. I mean, I love looking at the birds. I love looking out at the water. There’s that sense of wholeness and when I start my day with that ritual, I typically end with a great day.

Patrick:            That’s a pretty solid ritual.

Phil:                 I like it.

Patrick:            So you mentioned a lot of quotes in your book. Is there anyone that you have is sort of a Go-to that inspires you?

Phil:                 So my Go-to quote comes from my mentor, Doug Kotter, and it’s, “The quality of your life is directly proportional to the quality of your relationship. When your relationships are in good order, the details don’t seem to matter and when the relationships are not working, the details seem to get in the way.” So as a leadership and communication coach, as a human being, as a person that wants to help eliminate conflict, especially violent conflicts because I think conflict is a good thing. Looking and examining the relationships of our lives and how we can become better communicators drives most of what I do and that quote is a quote that I come back to. I would say I’m saying it to somebody at least three to five times a week and continually come back to.

Patrick:            That’s great. I’m going to go back and listen to that again after we end this because I do think that was very powerful and I would also agree with you in regards to conflict. I think conflict is positive. We need to learn how to leverage conflict as opposed to manage it, which is oftentimes what I think we fall into the trap up, but without understanding how to effectively have conflict, we never really get to issues that need to be addressed in a productive way.

Phil:                 In a productive way, and what I teach when I try to get to is how do we keep conflict at the frustration or resistance stage as opposed to always entering it when it’s at the revenge stage and everything is going haywire because it was very poor communication skills that brought it to that point.

Patrick:            Right, which oftentimes will be lack of trust.

Phil:                 Usually starts with lack of trust or some triggering event that made the lack of trust develop.

Patrick:            This has been such a great conversation, Phil. If people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that? What’s the best way?

Phil:                 So the website for discovering significance is discovering-significance.com and all the information for the book is out on the website, pre-order information and all information will be directly at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and all major bookstores and retailers are out there. So the best way is to look up Discovering Significance. You can find my phone number there. If you want to call me directly, email me directly. All the info is on the website to be able to do that.

Patrick:            This will be in the show notes as well and it’ll be on the blog to your links to this so there’ll be able to get it there as well.

Phil:                 Perfect.

Patrick:            As well.

Phil:                 That’s the best way.

Patrick:            This really has been wonderful. Again, I hope listeners will have an opportunity to pick up the book Discovering Significance because it really has an opportunity to take wherever you are to help you to rise above your best.

Phil:                 I agree, and that’s what it is. How do we get to the next level? And we all have a next level to get to. So once we obtained something that’s always something more to attain, no matter what age we are together will help people make that happen.

Patrick:            That’s a good thing. Alright, well, Phil, listen. Have a great day. Thanks for your time.

Phil:                 You too, Pat. I appreciate it so much. Enjoy.

Patrick:            I hope you enjoyed listening to Phil talk about his own journey through self-discovery and gained inspiration from his process of talking about basically looking at the impact of significance on us and what does that mean? And most importantly, how do we challenge ourselves more times to go all in? If you found this valuable, it would mean the world to me if you go on iTunes and rate this podcast. Better yet, if you know somebody that could benefit from this podcast, if you’d forward it along to them so that they can listen to it. Until our next episode, I hope you were able to go out there and rise above your best.

 

To reach Phil Giordano go to:

Walden Woods Leadership

 

Thanks For Listening!

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Special thanks to Pete Atherton for joining me this week.

.