Power To Create With Tim Redmond
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
What makes a successful organization great? What does every organization need to bring their labors to fruition? In this episode, we hear the answers to these questions as John Livesay interviews the CEO of Redmond Growth Initiatives, Tim Redmond. Tim discusses the values and culture necessary for organizational success and why respect is given, not earned. Tune in and learn more from this powerful discussion.
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Listen to the podcast here
Power To Create With Tim Redmond
Our guest on the show is Tim Redmond, who is an expert in helping businesses grow. He’s the author of Power to Create. He has a great definition of wealth, “Creating value to serve.” He said, “Leadership starts with leading yourself.” Find out the one missing ingredient from teams when they are not performing at their best.
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Our guest is Tim Redmond, who for many years has been growing highly successful businesses, including his work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, growing a software company from 2 to 400 employees, and selling it to Intuit. He helped thousands of business owners gain time and financial freedom. Tim is also the author of Power to Create and a speaker throughout the world on leadership maxims that have been featured in John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Welcome to the show.
John, thanks so much for having me. I’m looking forward to this discussion.
We found out we have a mutual friend right off the get-go, Tim Sanders. He’s someone we respect and admire. I love to open the show with your story of origin. You can start from childhood, college, or wherever you want. Give us a sense of how you’ve got on your path.
I’m 1 of 11 kids. I’m one of the older ones. It’s learning cooperation in the toughest place on the Earth, which is in your own family. I have learned a lot of skills. I was very introverted as a child. I read a whole bunch of books, determined the person I wanted to be, and began to do it afraid. Even for me to get in front of anybody to speak, it was a miracle.
I had somebody in authority when I was a little baby, a cleft palate, and a number of challenges. I was not expected to live through the first week of my life. He said, “This boy will never be a public speaker.” Even being on the show is like defiance to what I consider somebody trying to curse my life. I did live under the power of that lie for many years. I’m living above that now.
I did go to college. I studied Accounting because I interviewed the seniors and the only ones that had a good-paying job were the Accounting and Marketing majors. They were applying for assistant manager at Payless Shoes and different things. If that’s what you do, that’s great. More power to you but I want to build something. I have more of an entrepreneur mindset. I put my time at Coopers & Lybrand. At that time, that’s PricewaterhouseCoopers. I started with a software company and we grew that. It was just the two of us CPAs. We wrote software for bookkeeping and taxes. You would find it fascinating.
[bctt tweet=”Learn how to lead yourself first.” username=”John_Livesay”]
When you start a company, has it been something that you know? If you would say, “My two CPAs started a company about marketing or car manufacturing.” I would be like, “That worked?” You are in your client’s shoes. That is probably why that was successful. You knew the pain points better than anyone else and exactly what to say to get people to want to even have a conversation around changing what they are doing.
We used some very innovative marketing at the time. We built this thing up to about 400 employees and sold it to Intuit QuickBooks. We had 117 employees and I affirm that these guys are the winners. We had a lot of great people here and it was a huge, successful story. I learned so many lessons on management, building out systems, and how to communicate, motivate, and create a leadership culture where the expectation from the get-go is for you to lead. The first aspect of leadership is learning to lead yourself. We had had a lot of, “Go inward before you go outward.” I’ve got tons of proverbs written about that.
After that, we sold our business. I was in a pretty good position. I started a nonprofit, traveled around, and did training on leadership and growth. I did it in a faith-based environment, a lot of churches, and business groups in South America, Central America, and all over the world. It kept coming back to me where I would do these seminars about how to grow your business, church and idea. People will say, “Can you coach me on this?” It was like, “Bite me in the butt.”
I finally turned around and realized I had been given all this advice for years, not realizing that people have a business where they charge money for this. I still remember somebody came after I did a seminar. I was up in Toronto and they said, “Do you do coaching?” I go, “I do.” “What are you charging us?” “I will give you 90 minutes a month. It’s one session for a $1,000.” I figured they would say no because I didn’t know that’s what I wanted to do. They said, “That sounds great.” I go, “Let’s do it.” That’s how I’ve got started in coaching.
How many people would have the confidence to charge that out of the get-go with no proven track record yet or proof of concept in the startup world? The key, for everyone reading, of what you said is you were not attached to the results.
I wasn’t coming from a place of desperation. In a roundabout way, I came from a place of abundance that I didn’t need that but I had a lot of value to throw out something and say, “$1,000 for 90 minutes. Am I worth that? Yes.”
Power To Create: You’ve got to have a vision for where you’re going, and it’s got to be compelling for somebody to say, “You know what? That would be so cool to be part of that.”
That’s based on your successful sale of that company. That’s the dream.
I figured they would say no but when they said yes, I go, “Let’s do it.” That honestly launched me into coaching.
We were talking about Tim Sanders earlier. When he wrote the foreword to my book, Better Selling Through Storytelling, he wrote about how there is either an abundance mindset or a scarcity mindset. Once you have a decision as to which one you are going to come from, that determines your behavior and experience in life.
The way I look at it is if you want to grow a company, you’ve got to improve your looks. It’s not how you look in the mirror but how you look at what you are looking at, and you are looking at it from a place of capability and incapability. There are only two ways, either you can do it and it’s possible or it’s impossible. Your brain is going to begin to see the way you are looking.
Let’s dive into some of your expertise. How does someone, especially in dealing with this “Great Resignation” after the pandemic, convince someone to come work for their company? You grew a company from 2 to 400 people. Maybe you didn’t have to do a lot of selling and recruiting at the time but maybe you did. You might have some tips for people who are saying, “We are competing against all these other bigger companies with better-known names to get people to come work for us.” What is it you think people are looking for over and above benefits and salaries?
The first thing you sell when you are selling a job is your vision and how compelling is your vision. Is there like a gravitational pull to say, “We are headed in this direction, do you have the guts to join us?” I am a growing coaching company and I hire a bunch of twenty-somethings. I use twenty-somethings to build a number of businesses because they are daring, almost reckless, and smart and most of them are moldable, got vision, and are fearless.
[bctt tweet=”Value differences versus just tolerating them.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I’ve got a vision to 10X our business from where we are at, which as a coaching company would be huge. On top of that, the main reason for our coaching is to train up people because I’m going to be buying the businesses I’m coaching instead of coaching these businesses. We’ve got a whole plan to do that. I said, “If you behave yourself, learn, get after it, and run a business, run one of these businesses and you will be very well rewarded. You’ve got to have a vision for where you are going and it’s got to be compelling for somebody to say, “That would be so cool to be part of that.”
It’s also true when you are trying to get a new client or customer to buy something from you. You have to be able to articulate what the vision is of what business you are in and why people would want to pick you over another competitor. Vision helps both sides of the equation or the coin of recruiting great people, which we know is key to success. Once everybody working there understands the vision and is part of it, they automatically communicate that in subtle ways, not just the marketing and salespeople but even the person answering the phone or customer service.
You are an expert on teamwork, being part of such a big family, and learning that at a young age. You seem to have identified that there’s a missing ingredient. If the team is performing mediocre, not killing it or their enthusiasm might be waning a little bit, what is this missing ingredient? If you bake a cake and you leave out yeast or something, the cake is not going to rise. We look at it and go, “What is missing?” You have heard people say that all the time, “Something is off. I don’t know what it is.” Enter Tim Redmond.
This is simple. People have paid me to hear me explain this. I like to define genius as going on the far side of complexity to make it simple that anybody can embrace it. The missing ingredient that I have seen in teams is the word respect. How do I define respect? Respect is normally thought about as, “I demand your respect.” It’s something that you want to get from somebody but in the hands and bosom of a leader, respect is more of a gift that you give.
I look at respect as valuing the differences rather than tolerating them. It’s finding that person’s unique wiring. You and I talked and I have said, “You have your whole show. You remind me of this one person.” You said, “We talk about the same thing but you have unique wiring to do your pitch in such a healthy way that I tend to embrace that.” It’s a non-salesy, consultative, and intelligent way of interacting. Respect is valuing the difference in people. There are many times when people are at war with themselves.
There’s authority, abuse, their interpretation of that, going through rough times, what they had to endure, and how they look at that. We look at respect as this powerful gift to say, “You are valuable. Your opinion counts and your contribution matters even when your skill level doesn’t measure up.” It’s a gift that you give that reciprocates some time. When you believe in somebody before, they may not even respect you.
Power To Create: If you want to grow a company, you’ve got to improve your looks—not how you look in the mirror, but how you look at what you’re looking at.
The old way of, “I’m the VP. You have to respect me because of my title,” no longer works.
When you empower somebody to say, “You are valuable.” I had a team meeting and it’s like, “When you come up with a question, I want you to have a recommendation of what you would do. I want the other coaches to coach you. If I need to weigh in, I will weigh in.” I sat back most of the meeting and didn’t have to do a whole lot because I’m hoping they felt respect from me because I respected them to come up with the answers.
You are competent. In other words, you are not giving them a fish. You are teaching them how to fish. That’s what it sounds like to me. I was giving a keynote and talking to an audience. I said, “When you are a kid, you jump in the pool, and you want your parents to watch you make a splash, that’s a need that as a child you can’t verbalize.” It’s the need to be seen, heard and appreciated.
What I hear you saying is that doesn’t go away just because we get to be adults. To the people we work and interact to possibly do business with, if you can make people feel seen, heard, and appreciated, not only do they want to work with you but they will stay loyal to you and not jump at the next offer they get because they feel like you see them as a person.
We have these interactions. The whirlwind of the business is going fast. We end up barking at people. They leave not because of a lack of benefits but because of a lack of respect and recognition. This is where you are giving that gift. It frees up and gives breath to the organization to begin to solve problems. It’s such a powerful process. It moves from a parent-child communication that people get defensive.
When the negative reaction comes along, they get this negative feeling called resentment and that leads to resistance, which leads to even revenge. To begin to stop that vicious cycle of parent and child ending up in revenge back, it’s giving them what they may not even be deserving of, which is respect. It’s a chisel that begins to work on people to bring out their best. I’ve got hundreds of people who have worked for me over the years. It’s like a life message because I have seen it work.
[bctt tweet=”We look at respect as a powerful gift that says, “You’re valuable. Your opinion counts. Your contribution matters,” even when your skill level doesn’t measure up.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I love this concept of giving people something they “don’t even deserve,” whether it’s respect or grace. Maybe that person is having a bad day and you don’t know what’s going on in their personal life. They say something insulting, rude, or something you would never do instead of jumping to the reactive mind because they are tense and angry all the time inside that they don’t have any buffer or tolerance. That’s what I see people struggling with sometimes.
It’s almost like they are looking for someone to insult them, ignore them or somehow make them angry as opposed to, “Is it that big of a deal? I don’t think so.” That’s why they say, “Someone has got a bad temper.” The slightest thing triggers them. They get cut off in traffic and you would think somebody smashed their car. It’s like, “I don’t think that was personal,” but their reaction is 0 to 100. Are you helping executives try to not be in such a fight or flight mode all the time?
It’s a huge thing. One of the most powerful leadership books I have ever read was written by the Arbinger Institute. It’s in a story or parable form and it’s called Leadership Deception. The second book they have in that is called the Anatomy of Peace. I’m wired tight, I want to win, and I have to take my own medicine. The whole premise of this book is instead of being at war with the world, you have peace. Choose the way of peace rather than war. It desensitizes that strain that’s ready to go off when people trigger it.
It’s exhausting. You wonder why you are tired at the end of the day. It’s because you are so wired tight all day long. You also have hinted at this but let’s do a deeper dive on this concept of leading from the heart. We want people to feel seen, heard and respected. We want to make sure that the things that we are saying to ourselves are kind and gentle because how can we give that out if we are not doing that to ourselves? I’m guessing you have some other insights there, too.
I’m always focused on taking action. If I don’t go off on this, I want to challenge the folks that are reading this to think about a person they may be resisting and look at that as an opportunity. Identify how you may be resisting them and drop the resistance. How can you hug and embrace them? Most people already got that person. Take action. Instead of resisting them, respect them. Respect is giving them some gift. Maybe it’s a physical gift, a hug or a powerful word.
In terms of leading from the heart, this is where our power is and where we change the outside world with our inside world. First of all, I don’t speak from a place of perfection. I speak as much out of need as out of mastery. I will own that myself. Leading from the heart is you are clearing your mind what your goal is and your relationship with people.
Power To Create: The first thing you sell when you’re selling a job is your vision.
There is no such thing as a neutral transaction, either you are tearing down or you are building up the relationship. Even the slightest little eye movement can mean a world of difference here like Daniel Goleman and his Primal Leadership. He talks about how the executives have little awareness of how they are added to or their responses, and how it sets the course for the entire organization.
It’s leading from the heart as you get clear what your goals are overall in your company and also with connecting people. The better you are able to connect with that person’s uniqueness, the more you are going to benefit from that person coming out and solving the problems they need to solve. Leading from the heart is leading with a mindset of, “I’ve got a goal of connecting so that 1 plus 1 is not 2 but it equals 11 or more.” That’s what that whole concept is about.
There’s no such thing as a neutral reaction. Many people think, “What? I didn’t say anything.” Your face did or, “All I said was no.” How many different ways are there to say no?
One guy told me I remember being in a conference down in Brazil. He and I were the only English speakers. He’s like, “Here’s my perspective. Women speak and hear in the language of emotion. Men speak and hear the language of logic.” How you say them is everything.
Let me ask your opinion on that. I am a firm believer that men and women buy emotionally and back at it with logic. Even the Tesla, the fanciest sports car or Lamborghini don’t usually talk about miles per gallon or how long you can drive the car without needing to recharge. They are going to talk about the environment or how fun it will be to drive this. It’s an emotional decision first, and then you will start doing the logic.
That’s where more my heart is. You put words to it, John. We are emotional creatures first and we back up or support our emotions with logic, which is good or bad because the power of justification can help us or hurt us. I love that thought and that’s accurate to understand that we are more felt than heard and we are going to project whatever is in our hearts. We can’t play poker so well.
[bctt tweet=”Get obsessed with the next thing for you to do and execute that with all of your heart. You’ll make more progress with a serial approach than a multitasking approach.” username=”John_Livesay”]
People see and perceive things thousands of times faster than they hear things. They pick up on things. You project how you feel. That’s why I thanked you. At the beginning of the day, I have a ritual of getting myself built up. I want to project positivity, “We can do it,” rather than being overwhelmed and beginning to conform to the challenges that I’m called to change.
I believe you might have a gift for the readers.
We work with businesses all over the country and we help the world’s growth companies. We have a full marketing service bureau that we offer and we do all this in-house like website, SEO, ad management, and all the things you need in digital marketing. Also, we help with the hiring, training, creating a cadence in the business, and the structure and how to run the meetings.
We help with all aspects of the business. To the people reading, we want to offer our Growth Plan. We bring them through their business and we analyze your local market, the regional market or whatever their reach is. We look at where they are effective and ineffective and we do an analysis. We also look at what does the next three years look like?
Based on what they give us on that, we give them at least eight concrete action steps that they can take immediately and do on their own. We will help them implement it but we give them eight concrete action items to begin moving towards that three-year revenue goal. It’s a powerful process. I normally charge $2,500 for that but give it to your folks if they want it. They’ve got to have a legitimate business.
How do they get that? Is there a website to go to?
The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
If they want to send me an email, it’s [email protected]. They can go out to our website, RedmondGrowth.com and there’s a form to fill out and say, “John was my hero. I read his blog.” If they identify with you and say, “I want to have that Growth Plan,” our team will follow up and we will bring them through that process. I would love to do that.
It has been a delight knowing your insights and wisdom. I love the concept of respect. Is there any last thought or quote want to leave us with?
In people, there’s a hesitancy to do the next thing. What we try to do as leaders, and this is your readers, leaders or people that run businesses, is we are trying to solve too many things at one time. Get obsessed with the next thing for you to do and execute that with all of your heart. You will make more progress with a serial approach rather than a multitasking approach.
Tim, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you so much, John.
Important Links
- Power to Create
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- Intuit
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
- Better Selling Through Storytelling
- Leadership Deception
- Anatomy of Peace
- Primal Leadership
- [email protected]
- RedmondGrowth.com
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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Earned Power With Alan Utley
Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments
Many promoted leaders are handed token power that runs out. To be a good leader, you need earned power. The show’s guest today is Alan Utley, MBA, a speaker, trainer, and coach who has shaped his career around helping leaders reach for their goals. Alan discusses with John Livesay that you create earned power when you tap your ability to influence. When you’re good at what you do and stay good at it, you build credibility. Join in the conversation and discover the power of leadership that lies inside you. Tune in and unleash your earned power!
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Listen to the podcast here
Earned Power With Alan Utley
Our guest is Alan Utley, who’s an expert in leadership and HR. We talked about how leaders have earned power, not token power. He has three key elements that make a good leader and how to avoid the struggles that leaders face. He said that, “Leadership needs influence, which needs power.” Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Alan Utley, who’s a San Antonio local. He’s a speaker, trainer and coach who shaped a career around helping leaders reach their goals. Tapping into over twenty years of human resources expertise, working across corporate, nonprofit and academic spaces, Alan consults with emerging leaders and senior executives on topics that range from careers to leadership, to organizational effectiveness. He’s very passionate and optimistic. He’s on a personal mission to help unlock and ignite human potential. He’s an overall interesting, well-educated, smart guy. I’m happy to have him. Welcome, Alan.
I’m not as smart as you made me sound but thank you for doing that. Thank you for having me. I genuinely love what you do. I’m a fan of all your shows. I’m glad to be part of it.
Let’s dive in. If you know, I love to ask about the story of origin. You can take us back to childhood or when you were deciding what you wanted to major in in school. What do you think was the genesis of you becoming you?
I’m going to show you, my inner geek. I love this question because it reminds me of superheroes. I love that they all have an origin story. My favorite part of any superhero story or movie is where they came from. I like it too when you think about it from the perspective of what I do with working with leaders and coaching leaders. I always like to start with who they are, where they came from, their origin, what shaped their career, the people and the experiences that define what kind of a leader they are and who they are. When I think about where I want to go back to, I’m going to go back to sixth grade. I grew up in Texas. For those who also grew up in Texas, you might remember in sixth grade you take Texas History. That’s the History class. We had an individual assignment. The assignment was to tell a story about the Battle of the Alamo.
[bctt tweet=”Your title is token power that runs out. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
The only real instruction was to be creative. I’m sure the teacher was expecting stories or something artistic colored written on paper. Back then, I decided I was going to grow up and become a film director in Hollywood. I’ve got all my friends, even some of my classmates in that same class. I hired my dad for the weekend. We went out and we scouted a bunch of locations that we thought looked like 1800s Texas, which they didn’t but we thought they did. I had the coonskin cap so I became Davy Crockett. We cast everybody. I directed this thing. We spent the weekend telling the story of the Battle of the Alamo. We are talking about a video camera with a VHS cassette inside of it. We would shoot it, we would stop, we would watch it and we would say, “That wasn’t any good.” We rewind it, and then we would record it again.
It was in-camera editing. We made it up as we went along. We thought it was being historically accurate. Who knows if it was or not? When the whole thing was over, I remember getting all my classmates together. We’ve got in front of my dad’s television. We watched it and rolled on the floor laughing at how bad it was. It was terrible. I’ve got an A though so there’s that. I did get an A for the level of effort. We did a sequel, John. We’ve got everybody together a few months later. We said, “We are going to do Texas Rangers.” Like any good sequel, it was a bigger cast. There were more deaths and a bigger budget. It was bigger and better. Why is this significant? When I think back, it was the first time that I took on any kind of leadership role. What inspired me to do it was doing something fun, doing something creative, getting to do something with people and tell a story.
If I think about it, what I was fascinated by back then, the reason I wanted to be involved in movies, acting and I continued acting all the way through high school and college is that I was fascinated with people and human behavior. Eventually, my studies took me into learning about organizational behavior and leadership. I eventually found my way into the human resources world working with leaders and teams, also getting to teach students in a university setting about leadership.
In this HR career professional world and being a practicing leader myself, I have been in a position to help shape leaders and be the best kind of leaders that they can be. It’s more behind the scenes like a director, more of maybe a producer role. I’m not necessarily the business owner or the business leader out there doing it. I’m the guy behind the scenes helping the leader be the best that they can be, focusing on their career, culture, leadership, organizational effectiveness and all these things. That was the beginning of what inspired me to get into what I’m doing now.
I always tell people, you are the movie director of your own life and your career. If you don’t like what’s happening, you can say cut. You can change the location, change the cast. The leaders aren’t very involved with hiring the right cast, the right team. In fact, at Disneyland, they call them cast members so that fits that culture. Let’s go to some basic concepts of what makes a good leader, Alan. Is it different than it used to be?
Earned Power: What makes a great leader is something you have to discover.
Some things are different than maybe they used to be. A perspective that I have gained over the many years working inside organizations and working with leaders across different industries is I have discovered that the leadership struggles are the same. No matter what you do, where you work or what kind of situation you are in. I find that a lot of leaders fall into the same kinds of mistakes, especially new leaders. What makes a great leader is something that they have to discover. I want to talk a little bit about what a new leader runs into. If you think about what gets someone into a new leadership role for the very first time, it’s often a promotion that comes from being a good individual contributor.
For example, if you are a great salesperson, sometimes they go, “We are going to promote you to be the sales director.” You are like, “I have never managed anybody in my life. What do I do?”
If you think about the entrepreneur who has a great idea, who has gotten the investment to start a business, they are going from innovator to actual business leader. In your example of a salesperson, it could be an engineer, an accountant, a marketing person or anybody. They are great at what they do but they haven’t yet proven any kind of leadership capacity. They haven’t necessarily learned how to be a leader and they don’t know what it takes to be a great leader quite yet.
What I find that they all tend to do is access the first thing that they can think of, which is their title. When they need to get something done, they go to that title, which I consider to be what I call token power. It’s bestowed upon them. It’s handed to them from the very beginning. It’s like a crutch. If you have ever used a crutch for a long time, you know that it starts to hurt. What they do is they become the boss. Sometimes they become the mean boss. They haven’t discovered that what made them a great individual contributor and maybe even a great teammate was their hidden ability to influence.
Leadership needs influence. Influence needs power but power is a limited resource. This token power idea is a limited commodity. This is going to be a little cheesy but think of it like a battery. A battery has built-in power. You take it out of the package. It’s ready to go. It’s like handing somebody a title. You’ve got power immediately but like any battery, it’s going to run out eventually. When you have run out of that initial source of power, what are you left with? You have to find another source. Where you have token power, you then have earned power. That is what makes a great leader. You have to discover and understand that to lead people and people can choose who they want to follow, you need to tap into your ability to create influence by creating power.
[bctt tweet=”Leaders need influence which requires earned power. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
Earned power comes from people respecting you first, not because of your title but they respect you as a person. Probably you have respected them as people and individuals so they return the respect. It’s not something you can demand, “You must respect me.” Unless you are maybe the king or something of a country or playing that character. If leaders would realize that if they show their team respect, then the team will respect them, which then gives them some earned power as opposed to demanding it or its token. “You must respect me because I have this title.”
I will never forget once I’m working for someone who was in the publishing industry. She went from ad director to associate publisher. I happened to be in her office when her new business cards arrived. You would have thought she won the lottery. She was so excited about it. I was looking at her like, “I don’t get it.” I was never motivated by that. That was a big goal for her to be able to say, “I’m an associate publisher. I’m on my way to becoming a publisher.” I was like, “Congrats.” It was so odd to watch somebody in their own internal head. It had nothing to do with, “Therefore I can make a better difference.” It was all about her and her need to feel okay based on that power. What else can a leader do to earn power besides giving respect first?
I’m in 100% agreement with you about respect. I break it down into three components for me that makes the most sense. One is simply being good at what you do. You’ve got to have that built-in credibility. Most people will have that. They’ve got promoted because they were good at what they do but they have to stay good. They also have to be good at managing, which everyone will agree that management and leadership are two different things. You’ve got to be good at that. You have to be trustworthy. For me, that’s being transparent about what you are trying to do. It’s being transparent about your agenda and not being manipulative. Not trying to play games and work an angle to get somebody to do something.
Let me think of an example of that. Let’s say if someone says, “We are going to have to have some layoffs but when the layoffs are over, that’s going to be it. We won’t do it again for the rest of the year.” Three months later, they have another round of layoffs. You have lost trust. Even if it was your intention and you didn’t know you were consciously lying, you would still have lost that trust factor because that’s the biggest disruption that people are always afraid of.
They often may have said that too because they wanted to keep that individual engaged and motivated, keep them from living on their own. They gave them this false sense of security, whereas if you had simply said, “Times are tough. We need to weather the storm. We need to make some big changes. I want you to be part of the solution. I need you to help me not be in this situation again. We could get here again but if you stick it out with me, imagine the possibilities.”
Earned Power: Be good at what you do because you need to have that built-in credibility.
Let’s jump back to what you said in some cases people go like, “Leading and managing, I would love a distinction.” Leaders earn power. Managing people, that’s a lot more day-to-day stuff. “You are not coming in on time. You are not delivering your projects on time. How do you handle that?” Is that an example of managing?
It is and thank you for going back to that. It’s about planning, organizing and controlling. I’m referencing a leadership and management concept that John Kotter wrote about many years ago. You think about management as short-term, leadership as long-term. Management is about being clear about what people need to do when they show up. “I’ve got a business. I have a job that I need to get done. I’m going to hire John to do that job. I’m going to be clear about his roles, expectations, responsibilities and what time to show up to work every day.” It’s about how you churn the machine to keep the business running. Leadership is the inspirational piece, the vision piece, the human aspect.
A lot of people are stuck in the weeds and they don’t ever express their vision. People feel like they are being micromanaged without any vision of what life could be for the company, them or anything. You need both. You can’t just give a vision without expectations. I remember hearing a story of a company hiring young people right out of college and getting so mad at them that they would show up at 9:30, 10:00. They said, “What time did you tell them?” “We didn’t.” They did an internship where people could stroll in whenever they want, as long as they’ve got the work done or they worked late. If your culture is different if you haven’t expressed that and expect because your generation showed up at 9:00 AM on the dot, is that important here depending on the jobs? Are the phones getting unanswered? Are they doing software development that no one is wondering where they are?
The other phrase I have heard so many times and I would love your expert opinion on is hire slow and fire fast. Many people go, “We’ve got a job opening. Let’s fill that as fast as we can,” especially if it’s a sales opening. “We don’t lose a lot of revenue and have that territory open too long.” They rush and they get somebody who doesn’t perform or isn’t a good cultural fit. They are like, “Let’s give them another chance way past the 90-day mark because we don’t want to go through that process again.” It takes a lot of emotional intelligence to wait for the right person, as well as confronting the awkward. “I made a mistake.” Let somebody go sooner than later. What are your thoughts on all of that?
I am familiar with that concept as well. I have been known to repeat it to many people and leaders because they have made a quick decision that ultimately didn’t pay off and then you need to part ways with them quickly. I thought about this. There needs to be a caveat. In the environment that we are in, companies need people. I think that people are being a little more careful. They are scrutinizing their options more and they have a choice of where they go to work. What we are dealing with is this war on talent. If we wait too long to hire somebody, then we are going to lose them because someone else is going to pick them up. I’m not saying hire the first person that comes along. I’m saying hire the first person that seems to be a great fit that you know is a talent. Don’t spend the time saying, “I have only interviewed one person. He’s great or she’s great but I need to look at least 5 or 6 other people before I make this decision.” If you’ve got a burden at hand, run with it.
[bctt tweet=”All superheroes have an origin story. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
It’s like buying a house. It’s either a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. If you find your dream house, it is probably not going to be around next week or there’s going to be multiple offers sooner than later. It’s a seller’s market with homes. There’s a shortage of homes. Buyers are bidding over asking. That can happen with talent, where people are having trouble finding good talent. Is there a big mistake that you see leaders make, whether they are new or not, on keeping talent? Is it that they are not giving them a vision of what their career could be and that they are not investing in helping them get new skills or they take them for granted as any relationship can happen? What’s the mistake you see people have that causes people to leave for a few thousand dollars more somewhere else?
That tells nicely to the third element that you need to earn influence and to earn the right to lead people. You are going to laugh and your readers are going to laugh at how simple this is but its likeability.
I won’t laugh at that. I have done a whole interview with Tim Sanders on his likeability book.
A little bit about me, I have always been the boy next door or the good influence for my friends. My friend’s parents would always say, “Hang out with that kid because he’s a good kid.” Even as an adult, some of my friends call me Mr. Nice guy. It’s because I believe in bringing this human element into the equation. That gets to the respect concept that you shared before. I have found that a lot of people disagreed strongly with this concept. I love your perspective on it too. I remember training a group of leaders talking about power, talking about influence and how to be a good leader. I shared this idea of likeability. I had one particularly vocal leader stand up. He was newish as a leader but he stood up and said, “I do not buy into that concept. I need to be respected or feared. I don’t need to be liked.” It gave me a pause. I spent time thinking, “Why is that. What’s so wrong with being a nice person? What’s so wrong with likeability?” I’m curious about your thoughts on this.
I have a couple of thoughts. One is this great phrase that people don’t leave their jobs, they leave their boss. It’s because they can’t tolerate that behavior, whether it’s micromanaging, outbursts, lack of empathy or whatever it is going on. Tim Sanders’ book The Likeability Factor shows research that doctors spend more time with patients they like, teachers spend more time with students they like. Your biggest way to up your likeability factor is to simply show empathy. It doesn’t mean you are weak. It doesn’t mean you let people walk all over you.
Earned Power: Long-term management is being clear about what people need to do when they show up.
I have worked for people and I have been fortunate enough to work for some wonderful bosses. Alice Alston, Nina Lauren comes to mind. They liked all of the people on their team so much. I liked and respected them. They certainly had their credibility. You go the extra mile for them when you like somebody. Your job requirement is just to do this and they need a favor. “Can you ask your client to move an ad from this month to another month?” You can go, “I asked them. They said no,” not even do it. They would never know because they don’t have the time to manage that many people and get in the weeds that much. You are like, “Let me try.” You are doing something for the team and because you want them to look good. They are sharing their goals with you and you see your part of being the big picture.
People work harder for people they like, as opposed to resenting people or being afraid of that. Let’s face it. We cannot stay in a fight or flight mode. We burn out. We are like, “I’m going to grind this out for the next year or until something better comes along.” You know this. People are like an actor. You have this framework in your age range, in your career. I would say 25 to 35 for actresses and actors. That’s the lead role. You have your first break and then you get the next one. You age out of being the rom-com guy as Matthew McConaughey talks about in Greenlights. He decided to reinvent himself. It’s the same thing in sales. You become Willy Loman, Death of a Salesman if you don’t get into management or you don’t reinvent yourself somehow.
Trying to stay in something and not grow is the kiss of death but within that framework, when you are being wooed all the time to, “Come work here. You’ve got enough experience and not too much that we can’t afford you.” Are you going to be wooed away with a few thousand dollars more because you are so young and naive you don’t do the math and go, “After taxes, that $5,000 bump is only whatever it is per paycheck? Maybe I’m jumping into something that I won’t like the people.” I’m like, “I would miss my coworkers and my boss too much and the flexibility they have shown me or when I had a tragedy and I needed some extra time off, they were there for me.” All those little things, you can never undervalue, in my opinion. That’s my long answer to your question of why I agree with you about likeability.
You have touched on so many things that I want to talk about. I talked about being Mr. Nice guy. You hear the phrase, “Nice guys finish last.” I think we need to rephrase this.
Tim Sanders says, “Nice smart people finish first.”
[bctt tweet=”Velvet hammer leaders can make somebody feel responsible in the right way for something that they did.” username=”John_Livesay”]
I love this guy. The idea is that people who believe in this non-likeability idea believe that civility calls it respect, call it kindness and accountability are on opposite ends of the same spectrum. They believe that you can’t hold someone accountable and also be nice about it. I strongly disagree. They are running on two different spectrums in parallel and it is possible. I have worked with people who we call the velvet hammer, who have the ability in one conversation to make somebody feel responsible in the right way for something that they did and will say thank you.
This person has fired people for not performing. They have hugged them, cried with them and thanked them for the experience, the opportunity and the honest feedback. That kind of skill is what we all should aspire to. This whole idea of civility is so important. That’s what we need to bring back into leadership. That is what the workplace needs. It’s this humanity, civility. It gets to people being willing to make sacrifices and be vulnerable.
When someone wants to work with you, they are either a new leader or they are looking for new leadership skills to stay current. Credibility is not forever and that because you had your heyday years ago, you still need to be keeping your skills up and learning new things to stay a better leader. What’s the best way for someone to know if you are the right executive coach for them? Who’s your ideal client? When do you love to work with people?
I spent some time thinking about this as well. I have worked with the emerging leader to the senior executive. I enjoy the space of working with someone newish to leadership or someone who needs to renew their leadership. Someone who has been doing it for a while and has found that they want to reinvent themselves or they have lost a passion, maybe they need to get refreshed on what does it mean to lead, what are these Millennials like and whatever behind Millennials is called. For me, the right kind of client is somebody who isn’t in a place where they want to be better. They recognize there is some opportunity, some skills and gaps to fill in. What I don’t do is try to teach them and tell them, “Here’s how to lead. Here’s what you need to do.”
The value that I offer is not in the advice that I give. It’s in the questions that I ask. A good coaching experience is about self-discovery. John, if you and I were working together, we would first spend time getting to know you. Who are you? What makes you tick? What got you to where you are? It would be about discovering what your passions are, what your strengths are and what are the areas that you feel like you are not being most effective? We would look for ways to fill in those gaps. We would find resources and people. We would have conversations. We would talk about real-life scenarios. “Let’s talk about this week. What did you do this week? What are the conversations you had? Why did you approach that situation in the way that you did?”
Earned Power: If you wait too long to hire somebody, you’ll lose them because someone else will pick them up.
“What did you get so triggered?”
“What could you have said or done differently? What other options do you have?” It’s about creating intentionality about how we lead every day.
What’s the best way to reach out to you? Do we connect with you on LinkedIn or your website for people to go to?
They can find me on LinkedIn. You can email me directly at [email protected]. You can find me on Facebook. Look for AD Utley Consulting. They can find some of my writing about leadership if they go to LeadChangeGroup.com. That’s not my website. It’s its own thing. They have guest writers so search for my name and you will find my articles.
Any last thought or favorite quote you want to share?
[bctt tweet=”A good coaching experience is about self-discovery. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
My favorite quote of all time is from John F. Kennedy. It’s that, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
Readers are leaders is another way of saying that. Alan, thanks for sharing your expertise and your passion for helping make us all better leaders of our own life, whether we are managing people or not.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me, John. This was fun.
Important Links
- The Likeability Factor
- Tim Sanders – Past Episode
- Greenlights
- LinkedIn – Alan D Utley
- [email protected]
- AD Utley Consulting – Facebook
- LeadChangeGroup.com
- https://LeadChangeGroup.com/3-secrets-of-great-leadership-in-3-seconds/
- Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course
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