Ep 239: Building Trust: A New CEO & a Hostile Culture - The Coaching Table 1

What would you do in your first 100 days as CEO, if morale is low, trust is thin, and the team didn’t choose you?

In this first episode of The Coaching Table, brought to you by the Humanergy Leadership Podcast (HLP), Humanergy coaches Jim Marshall and Corey Fernandez respond in real time to a high-stakes leadership scenario:

A first-time CEO steps into a disorganized organization following leadership disruption. Resistance to change is strong. Accountability is unclear. The board expects results. Fear and hostility are in the air.

With no script and no preparation, our coaches explore:

• How to enter a tense environment without reinforcing fear
• How to establish authority while rebuilding trust
• What trust-building really looks like in the first 30, 60, 90 days
• The power of non-negotiables and behavioral clarity
• Why listening may be your most strategic first move
• How to manage board pressure without overcorrecting
• What a real “trust campaign” requires
• When stakeholder mapping and leader assimilation matter

This is not advice. It’s thoughtful, honest exploration of a messy, real-world leadership challenge.

If you’re a CEO, executive, board member, or leadership team member navigating change, this conversation will stretch your thinking.

Have a leadership situation you’d like us to explore on a future episode? Submit it through our podcast page at Humanergy.com.

Leadership is about the choices you make every day.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

Join the Humanergy community on LinkedIn.

Sign up for our FREE leadership workshops. 

Transcript

THE COACHING TABLE — EPISODE 1

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MIMI (00:10)
Hey, I'm Mimi, and this is The Coaching Table brought to you by Humanergy. In each episode, we're going to bring a real leadership situation to the table, and we're going to let our coaches work it in real time. They don't see the scenario ahead of time. There's no script. This isn't an advice column. It's just thoughtful and honest exploration of real life, messy situations that people find themselves in in the workplace.

MIMI (00:36)
Well, hey, Jim, hey, Corey, thanks for joining us on this first episode of The Coaching Table.

COREY FERNANDEZ (00:42)
Of course, happy to be here.

JIM MARSHALL (00:43)
Hello. Indeed.

MIMI (00:44)
For our listeners, we have Corey Fernandez. He's been with Humanergy for how many years, Corey?

COREY FERNANDEZ (00:51)
Since 2017. I'm not going to do the math in this spot, but since 2017.

MIMI (00:56)
Awesome. And then we've got Jim Marshall, who was with Humanergy in a past life, left for quite a few years, and he's back now. So Jim, you have a couple of things you want to say?

JIM MARSHALL (01:09)
Greetings, everyone. I'm really glad to be here. I've been with Humanergy two years now from my second go-around, eight years total. And we're looking forward to sharing insights with you and doing our best to model what great coaching looks like.

MIMI (01:24)
Awesome. So I'm going to read a scenario — a real life scenario that's been scrubbed for anonymity and confidentiality. Then I'm going to hand it over to you two to do what you do best, which is dig into coaching. Questions, thoughts before we dive in?

JIM MARSHALL (01:46)
If I'm looking down, it's because I'm taking a couple of notes.

MIMI (01:48)
Great.

COREY FERNANDEZ (01:49)
My only thought is — every day you show up to try to be in a spot to coach and be supportive in this way. It's hard work. And so I'm excited with the challenge here, Mimi. We don't know what's happening right now, what you're going to throw our way. And I think the greatest work of a coach is just to be present and curious and thoughtful. And so I think that's where Jim and I are at right now as we approach this journey with you.

MIMI (02:17)
All right, guys. Well, with that, I'm going to give you the scenario.

I'm about to step into my first role as a CEO. The organization I'm inheriting is disorganized, unstable, and coming off a period of leadership disruption. Morale is low, trust is thin, and from the executive team down, there's a lot of resistance to change. I was hired by the board, and I have the authority to appoint my own leadership team, but I'll be walking into a workforce that didn't choose me and isn't particularly happy with what comes next.

What makes this more complicated is that I'm not an outsider in the traditional sense. I've worked in the broader system for years. I know the people, the politics, and the history. I've built credibility over time by proving myself through the results.

At the same time, I haven't been part of this specific organization, and right now it's clear that something is off. On paper, things don't line up with how the organization actually operates. There are signs of serious breakdowns in accountability, and I believe a deep financial and operational review is necessary.

The staff is frustrated. The organization is isolated from the community it serves. People don't trust leadership, and many are bracing for more disruption. I'm trying to think carefully about my first 100 days. How do you walk into a situation like this without reinforcing fear or hostility? How do you establish authority and direction while rebuilding trust? And how do you find resolve when you know tough discoveries and hard decisions are likely ahead?

JIM MARSHALL (04:01)
Maybe I can jump in first. I think those last three questions are really important. They were packed with thoughts and goals. So if you wouldn't mind — from "how do you walk in" — there were three questions. Would you read those to us again?

MIMI (04:15)
Yeah. How do you walk into a situation like this without reinforcing fear or hostility? How do you establish authority and direction while rebuilding trust? And how do you find resolve when you know tough discoveries and hard decisions are likely ahead?

COREY FERNANDEZ (04:37)
When I started to process those and hear those at the end of just an accounting of all the things going through this leader's head right now, I couldn't help but have an appreciation for where this leader feels like they want to go. Almost like, with all the noise in their world, they have some goals for their leadership — that they don't want to reinforce fear and hostility, that they very much want to build trust while also having the ability to provide direction. And thinking about that third component as well, there was a lot of focus on what they want to make sure they're capable of in doing well in these next transitionary weeks and months. And I was really excited about hearing that from this leader.

JIM MARSHALL (05:30)
I think where my mind goes initially is to start to work toward the goal. And my mind even goes to the word "aspirations." I think that's a really comfortable word for people to approach — to start to think like, let's talk about your aspirations for the organization. And if things go really well, whatever that timeframe is — a year or two years — and maybe it's turned around with really wonderful performance and things are just going smashingly, let's talk a little bit about what that looks like.

COREY FERNANDEZ (06:13)
I think where I start to go with this too, Jim, is this is a person who is recognizing that this is their first time stepping into the CEO seat. So I'm trying to understand how this feels for them — if they feel like an imposter taking on this role, or if they are going to be able to recognize the leadership that brought them here in the first place and find some confidence. That while this might be their first time stepping into this role amidst a path forward that seems challenging and hard, we can still help them periodically remember what they're capable of. Remember the successes they've had along the way, the relationships they've built along the way, so that they have a foundation and they're not starting from zero.

JIM MARSHALL (07:11)
Yeah. A couple of keys that I picked up on in the intro — at some point he or she said, "I've been proven and I've delivered results. I've worked within this system." And then one of the questions was about how and when to use authority. So I appreciated that it sounds like this person recognizes they're not always going to ask for permission to make the decision that needs making — or even the idea of, "I have permission to clean house and bring in my own leadership team." So building on what you're saying, I think yes, there's a confidence thing here — can I really do this? I'm a first-time CEO. But it also sounds like there's some infrastructure in their thinking around wanting to be a leader who dances between gathering input and then setting a direction or making a decision. So I think those would be interesting areas to explore.

COREY FERNANDEZ (08:26)
Absolutely. Because I think we're all doing our own fact-gathering, our own discovery along the way, even before taking on a role like this. The idea that they have an assessment of what's going on — it would be really helpful just to understand how they've arrived at that assessment. How they believe this fear is part of the current state, that this hostility could be part of the path going forward. It'd just be interesting to understand how they came to those conclusions. Because sometimes we all operate with limited information. And so it's about being supportively curious about how they arrived at those conclusions, but also helping them perhaps see — or even pressure-test — why some of that hostility or fear might not be exactly as they see it. It's useful in these situations to try to keep our perspectives more broad and not so narrowly focused on what we believe to be true based on our own fact-finding and discovery. That is a limited scope of information. So as a coach, how am I helping them hold space for a reality that might look a little different than how they currently see it?

JIM MARSHALL (10:01)
I can't remember how this came to be, but Lance — another colleague of ours — and I, on a project we worked on together, developed this little mantra: "We never know." And it just means: you see through somebody's eyes, you're sitting down with them, you feel like you understand, and you have to always remind yourself — you never know. You never have the full picture. You never have all the information. So I will regularly think: we never know.

COREY FERNANDEZ (10:34)
That's right. And around that piece too — I always liked the idea that if I were in the CEO seat, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing if you could see what I'm seeing. And on the flip side, if I'm a manager or a frontline employee, you wouldn't be asking me to do what you're asking me to do if you could see what I'm seeing. So we just don't know, until we start the journey of being curious and holding space for a little bit broader perspective.

JIM MARSHALL (11:09)
In the intro, the person says, "I know the people and I know the politics." To build on what you're saying, Corey — as a coach, I want to remind myself, "I never know," and keep probing and asking and broadening the perspective, searching for information that will either confirm or disconfirm my assumptions. I think this person is very careful. They sound like an executive. They've given a very good description of the situation. And it's like all I have to do is scratch and I will find more. Because the surface is laid out very well — but "I know the people and I know the politics" — that's juicy. I could ask a lot of questions there. Like, what politics are we talking about? And which people? If I were really going at it, I'd say, "Hey, who are the people you think you really want on your team, and who are the ones you don't?" This is behind a closed door. It's probably useful to just get it out there — not because that's the final answer or the right conclusion, but let's get your hunches and your assumptions out on the table, and then we can question and explore.

COREY FERNANDEZ (12:30)
Yeah. And even in your line of questioning, Jim, it makes me think — with these types of scenarios and the complexity there, as we're just starting this relationship in the very beginning of their journey, sometimes our work in asking questions is gaining clarity. We need to understand their landscape, their picture. And I think where we provide the most value is asking questions and providing a reflection back to them that leads to breakthroughs in thinking. But before we can get to those types of questions, before we can help them process in those ways, we do need to do some fact-finding and discovery of our own — to try to better see the world through their eyes and to see how they would evaluate their team. Who might they pull into their inner circle early? Who might they have to build a bridge with early on, so that things can start to feel like progress is possible?

There's always a little bit of a transitionary space. Even working with other developing coaches, it's like: while we want to be in a spot to move to that path of breakthroughs in thinking in service of the coachee, how can we spend a sufficient amount of time — but not dominate the time — with gaining our own clarity? There's a tension, because if I get too curious and have such a strong need to formulate my own picture, it can take away from the focus of where ultimately the coachee should be going to get the clarity they're looking for.

JIM MARSHALL (14:18)
Along the way I picked up from some training that it's useful as a coach to ask: is this question for me, or is it for them? And if I'm going to ask a question that's for me, I probably ought to think twice — or think three times — before even asking it. When I'm explaining this to folks, I often use the example: Corey is describing a scenario to me about a colleague, and I'm asking, "Well, how long has that colleague been there?" Corey already knows how long that colleague has been there. He doesn't need to share that with me in order to be moving forward — toward whatever clarity or next step he needs. And if I know they've been there seven years or two years or six months or 25 years, what does that change for me? Now, if I can come up with a reason it really impacts the scenario, then maybe it's a useful question for both of us to consider how tenure plays into it. But most often, a question like that is just for me. I'm just gathering information that really isn't needed for the conversation.

MIMI (15:42)
Jim, as you were talking, I wrote down: what kinds of questions would you avoid? And you just gave us a really great example. I'm wondering if either of you could give us a couple of questions to avoid for this kind of scenario, just so our listeners might have a better sense of what a powerful coaching question is and what isn't.

JIM MARSHALL (16:05)
There's a slide — and I think Corey, you might have been the originator of it — that covers question no-no's. It's all these two-word beginnings, like: "Have you...," "Can you...," "Would you...," "Will you...". I think a lot of advice gets disguised as a question. "Have you thought about going in and interviewing every one of your people?" That's a great idea. I hope that person comes up with it themselves. I think I would recommend it if I were giving advice all day every day. But I don't know that asking "Have you thought about interviews?" is the best coaching question.

COREY FERNANDEZ (16:47)
Yeah. One of the easiest criteria is if it's a closed question — or if it truly is my own thinking with a question mark at the end of it. Those are absolute avoid-at-all-costs, because they're just not going to add a ton of value for the other person. If I'm providing my own advice with a question mark at the end of it, now it's a sales job. You can see people processing your thinking, and then they're trying to evaluate the quality of your idea. And that's not where we want to land in a coaching relationship.

So continuing to dig and find questions that start with "what" and "how" are so important. But going back to where Jim was — we have to be really aware not to be asking "what" and "how" questions that serve our needs. We can tell as coaches, when we're aware, that when we ask questions about what we need to know and what we want clarity on, the coachee is often very quick to respond because they already have that information in their head. We're just extracting a biography in some ways.

But when we ask a powerful question that they might not have been able to consider before, or had the time in their day to explore — what happens is they pause. You might see them go within. I'm always looking for those types of indicators. It's almost like a scoreboard in my head: how often am I helping them be thoughtful, withdraw within, really get into their own thinking? To appreciate the silence that they're getting for once in their life, because they're so busy charging ahead — to really investigate something useful to them in their own mind that they haven't considered before. That, to me, is a hallmark of our work. If we can get there more and more with a sequence of questions, all of a sudden you start to really hear some wisdom. Some unlocking that we wouldn't have heard otherwise.

JIM MARSHALL (19:03)
I love it when someone says, "Hmm, that's a good question," and you can see them kind of look up a little or go into their own mind space. Then I think, in my own head: be quiet. Don't say anything more. Just don't interrupt. There's something sacred going on. You drop the thing in there, let them go after it, and just stay and wait. Be patient, be silent, and then take what comes next and run with it.

COREY FERNANDEZ (19:35)
Another validating piece is if a coachee might say, "These are great questions — I don't know how to answer this." That's probably an indicator that you're helping them advance and open up channels of thinking that they just haven't been able to explore before. An extra gear that they haven't been able to get into.

JIM MARSHALL (19:44)
I had a client, this is years ago now, who at a certain point in our 90 minutes together would say, "Damn, you just earned your money." And I got to the point where I felt like, what if he doesn't say that this time? But he often would. That was like all the marbles right there.

MIMI (20:05)
[laughter]

COREY FERNANDEZ (20:11)
That's great. And the piece too — for whatever reason, as human beings, we are uncomfortable with silence. In our work, Jim, I think we've learned early on that there's so much value in creating space, creating silence after you ask a great question.

I think the other piece for a coach is to continue to remind yourself: it's okay to have some pause to collect ourselves so that we can ask a really useful question. Because if we don't collect ourselves and give ourselves a little think time, we could ask a question that leads to five minutes of conversation that doesn't add any value. So why wouldn't we spend seven seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds — as awkward as it might be — to collect ourselves and then ask a question that's truly unlocking and supportive of the coachee in the work they're trying to do? To then lead to many more minutes of creating something special — for them to actually create something special for themselves. The only thing we're creating is the space, oftentimes, and helping them step into it.

So Jim, maybe since we're in this spot of considering the important and precious world of asking really effective, powerful questions, let's try to figure out where we might go and what kinds of questions we might start to support our coachee with — given the world they're inheriting and what they're trying to accomplish: minimizing fear and hostility, building trust while also making progress and setting direction. I don't have anything in my head yet, but I'm excited to see where this goes.

JIM MARSHALL (22:15)
I think you're kind of nailing it. The way I'm thinking is: what people say — there's a million things they could say — and what they do say tells you something about where they are. So this question around walking in without reinforcing fear and hostility — even just, "Tell me more about fear and hostility. How could walking in create that?"

And I don't know what would come next. There's a concern about fear and hostility. There's a concern about perception as the person walks through the door for the first time. And now they previously walked through the door as some kind of collaborator, but now they are the head honcho, so to speak, and everyone knows it. And so they're carrying this title, but maybe not feeling like the coat fits yet, or that people have accepted them in that role.

Again, I'm reaching on what might be going on for that person, and I'd be careful not to fill in too many blanks. But I would definitely want to pull on that thread. "Tell me more about walking in. Tell me more about fear and hostility. How do you imagine them playing out? How do you want them to play out?"

COREY FERNANDEZ (23:35)
Yeah. It sounds like you're getting a lot of value out of going back to those words — trust building, direction, fear, hostility. Those caught my attention right away too. And I start to see potential metrics in my mind. Low fear or high fear. Helping them even start to consider: after two weeks, what do you want to see in terms of fear and hostility? Start to help them evaluate what type of future they want to see going forward in terms of trust building, direction, and speed. Calling out some of those metrics to get them to articulate the world they want to move toward. Because if they can articulate that, we can start to really frame up that picture for them and help them begin to see some of the important steps and sequencing they want to take to lead to that reality.

JIM MARSHALL (24:51)
Yeah, absolutely.

COREY FERNANDEZ (24:57)
I'm also thinking — one of the things that is really powerful about our work is our framing of things. What I mean by that is: when we help people process the fact that trust is a result, fear is a result, hostility is a result — those are downstream things. They are what they are because things upstream happened to create them. So it's about helping people see the cause and effect, helping people see the upstream and downstream connections.

And so that's another piece that stands out here — to really help this leader be conscious that these are results, these are metrics at the end of the day. And if we want those metrics to change, we have to be conscious of what we're doing upstream to influence them.

JIM MARSHALL (26:11)
This is coming from a different direction, but as I'm looking at my notes and thinking — I'm remembering that sometimes it's useful to ask a person to get into someone else's shoes. So in the context of fear and hostility: if you were working in this environment and you'd been part of the activities that led to the downstream results — fear, hostility, instability — and someone walked in who had good intentions to lead an organization that you presumably care about and want to be part of, what would you want to hear? What would put your concerns at ease? What would fill you with hope, or if not confidence, then at least that inkling — well, maybe things might be taking a turn for the better?

COREY FERNANDEZ (26:49)
That's right. Even the idea of comparing and contrasting — if this was a manufacturing setting with multiple divisions, some high-performing and some lower-performing, either way there's this hint with a new CEO that nothing is untouchable. And if this CEO is going to be making visits to different environments, different locations and sites, you could imagine the fear — the sheer sense of boots on the ground with the CEO — would start to present some fears and challenges for folks, just with that type of uncertainty and ambiguity in the air.

So getting that person to compare and contrast: how might you behave or act that would create fear? How might you behave or act that would create a sense of calm, a sense of steadiness, a sense of relationship building and listening? What would that look like for you in those days when you're visiting these divisions and sites that you want to have eyes on before you start making decisions?

JIM MARSHALL (28:21)
Yeah. Even as you say that, I'm thinking of my own experiences around trying to create calm. And that's where the temptation starts — to say, "A value and a best practice around organizations is: once you start saying a message, you need to repeat it, especially in bigger and more complex environments." And that's — I don't know that the person needs to hear that or doesn't already know it themselves. So I would tend to be really careful. As a coach, I can't help but think: what would I do if I were in this situation? How have I faced similar situations and what did I learn? But those are tricky waters.

COREY FERNANDEZ (29:15)
No doubt. Almost like the closer you've lived to their experience, you can't help but project your own experience to some degree. That is a watch-out — to try to give yourself as much of a blank slate as possible, to honor this unique space that this person is in, and not your own space that you've been in.

JIM MARSHALL (29:37)
Yeah. I've been reading lately about the idea that the person across the table from you is inherently whole and complete. They're inherently capable. They have ingenuity and creativity and resources and experiences. And what we're trying to do is tap that. So that helps me remember: how do I tap into the ingenuity of this person, rather than try to transplant my own?

COREY FERNANDEZ (29:57)
That's right.

MIMI (30:11)
So I have a question. As I'm hearing two experienced coaches talk — if this person is trying to think carefully about their first 100 days, we've talked a lot about building trust and not reinforcing fear or hostility. What best practices around trust building might you talk about? There are books written on building trust that we've all read. So how would you talk about that?

JIM MARSHALL (30:51)
I'll jump off and prime the pump, and Corey can build on. I like some of the 30-60-90 day material that we've created over the years at Humanergy. If there's one word that defines each of those three periods — the first 30 days is to understand, 30 to 60 is to align, and 60 to 90 is to impact. My own experience tells me that's kind of aggressive, depending on how big the impact you want to make. I think you can make a difference, but I don't think you want to try to turn an organization around in 90 days. That would be pretty forceful.

But I think the words help — and they have helped clients. There's a great line in that material around "big ears, little mouth." So those first 30 days, I'm using my ears a lot. I'm listening, taking notes, trying to understand. I'm not trying to set a lot of direction or provide a lot of answers. And I even let myself off the hook. If someone's asking, I'll say, "I don't know that I'm ready to weigh in on that. It's my second week in the organization."

So lots of understanding. "Align" looks like when everyone agrees that process X is broken, or that we need to do this thing, and it's a clear, obvious win — there's no one who's going to say, "What are you doing?" I remember I was in a manufacturing organization where safety practices had gotten lax. I said, "Look, I'm in my first month here, but this is clear. If you're mad at me because I want you to be safe, go ahead and be mad. I don't really care. We can't have recordables anymore and we have to follow the safety practices that we have." So that was a clear, easy decision to make. I thought if somebody's mad, that's really a problem for them. Everybody else is going to recognize that I'm trying to do the right thing and be unequivocal about something that's not negotiable.

COREY FERNANDEZ (33:04)
Yeah. When Jim describes understand, align, and impact, we carry a lot of our own reading, a lot of our own mental models from things we've been working on for years with clients — things that we know have value in leadership. And I think that's where, while we might have those initial impressions and mental models in our head, I would love to know what this leader's trust-building campaign looks like.

Really think about it as a campaign. Because in a lot of ways, as a CEO — whether it's with the board or everyone down to the frontline — you're always campaigning. That journey does not stop in terms of how you build trust through change, especially if you're in it for the long haul. You have to recognize that there are going to be times where trust is higher and times where it's lower, just by the nature of what it takes to lead a company successfully over years.

So I would love to understand what their trust campaign looks like and how they're thinking about that. What are some of the behaviors they're going to lean on to do that work well? And even help them pressure-test some areas. If their first 30 days doesn't look like a lot of listening, it's not my job to say, "You should be listening more." It's my job to hold that up and say, "If you start to lean into these behaviors, how might people respond to that? If you were in somebody's shoes on the plant floor, how might you take that?" — giving them a chance to process and really get a sense of whether to refine where their heads at.

Because I do think listening is a key piece. I do think replaying back and summarizing what people hear is important. I do think investing in getting to know people — understanding people's names, learning things about them — is important. And helping them see and reveal things about you as a CEO is important. It humanizes the work ahead, and that's part of the campaign. If there are some gaps, again, it's not my job to say, "You should be doing this." It's my job to help them think more deeply about their current campaign and how they can make some refinements and improvements before they press go.

JIM MARSHALL (35:33)
The word "campaign" is a huge word to highlight and underline. It can't be done in a day. One great speech might help. And we all know that one great speech followed by a decision that looks to contradict the words in that speech means we're probably further back than where we started.

And I think there's an egoless humility to anticipating contradictions or hypocrisy. "If I do or say something that seems like it contradicts this, I want you to know that my full intention is to live according to this direction and these values — to try to be clear and consistent. And if I'm not, I would really appreciate it if you'd say something. I recognize that takes some courage, but I want to say, before we ever get into that situation, that I'm open to that. That's the kind of person I want to be and the kind of organization I want us to be." Those kinds of things can add a great deal to a message around trust.

COREY FERNANDEZ (36:43)
Yeah. And Jim, if I'm hearing you right — it sounds like one of the things that this CEO, or any CEO starting this type of journey, could be mindful of and use to their advantage is establishing some non-negotiable behaviors. And framing it up in a way that says, "Hey, we're in this space together. We have things we need to achieve and we're going to work hard toward those ends. At the same time, here's where we need to start." Being clear about some behavioral expectations so that they can be called out on those things should they fall short, and so they can expect other people to get back on track as well. It sets the stage for more open, caring, and honestly direct conversations — when there's clarity upfront for how we want to behave and treat one another.

JIM MARSHALL (37:39)
Yeah. I had a colleague who used to say, "You've got to define what it looks like to be a great team member." So if I've got non-negotiable behaviors, now I know how to show up, how to behave, what to choose in the moment: be honest, be candid, be courageous, own my mistakes, fix my mistakes — those kinds of things.

COREY FERNANDEZ (38:05)
And just given where you took that, Jim, it reminds me of work recently with a client where we were exploring the value of non-negotiables. And this has happened on a number of occasions — people start to see some of those lists that we've seen teams use with great success, and they're like, "Do adults really need to focus on these things? They seem so basic."

But when we don't state clearly upfront what we need to see from each other, it makes it so hard to have those conversations later down the road. And for whatever reason, it doesn't matter. Human beings are human beings — whether we're 12 years old or in our 20s, 30s, 40s, or as sophisticated as we might see ourselves at 70. We're still capable of making sandbox mistakes and having the same behaviors that have always tripped us up. And so yes, they're incredibly important to set the right tone for how we want to treat each other. So that when I, as the CEO, am not following through, people still feel like they have the ability to have the right conversations with me — so we do the things we need to do to not get in each other's way.

JIM MARSHALL (39:22)
Yeah. It's like there's a hurdle in front of me, and hopping that hurdle means starting a hard conversation: "How come you're violating our non-negotiables? How come you're doing this thing that seems like it contradicts what we've said?" But if beforehand we've said, "Here's how I would like us to have these hard conversations" — it just says: we expect them, I want them to happen, and here are the basic building blocks. Do it in private. Don't publicly embarrass me. Do it soon after and don't wait a long time. Those kinds of things.

It's almost like it doesn't matter that we rehearse the same couple of criteria. It's the fact that we preloaded it and said, "We expect this will happen. And when it does, please come talk to me." Whether I'm saying that from a position of authority and title, or just peer to peer. I want to make sure I've preloaded that and created an environment where instead of a hurdle, it's like stepping downhill — it just slides. "All right, well, we talked about this. It'll be okay." Otherwise somebody's debating: do I say something? Do I not say something? Is it going to make the relationship worse?

COREY FERNANDEZ (40:42)
And Jim, imagine a world where maybe the previous CEO was beloved. A nurturing figure. Capable, with great success — and the board was relatively happy with them, until certain things had to change. Maybe it was part of a succession. Yet they dealt with a lot of dysfunction because they weren't having the right conversations at the right times. They hadn't developed that skill set or that capability across the most senior team. And that has ripple effects through the entire organization.

Now imagine a new CEO coming in, and there's fear and anxiousness about what that means. Yet they establish these guidelines for how we need to support each other and work through hard things together. There's something about the relief that — while this person is unknown and a wild card to me — at least I'm getting permission to work alongside them when things are uncomfortable. And I have the ability now to see how we can engage in that work well. That's an incredible relief and gift. To set the stage for that harder relationship and the harder work that's yet to come.

JIM MARSHALL (42:00)
Early in my career, I was working with college students, and we started to say this phrase: on the other side of well-resolved conflict is a stronger relationship. And I couldn't help but think of that, Corey, as you were talking. If I'm thinking about a campaign of trust building — it's ironic, but if we have a few harder heart-to-hearts, a few of those "this doesn't make sense to me and I don't like it" conversations, and we get through them and handle them well and find a new ground rule or non-negotiable — actually, I feel a lot safer. A lot more comfortable. A lot more able to trust that person and hope that things will be okay as we keep moving forward.

COREY FERNANDEZ (42:56)
No doubt. And the cool thing is, when we've done that work well and the relationship turns out stronger as a result — in terms of campaigning, you've built a fan. You've built someone who can start to lean into your leadership and your relationship with them a little bit more.

And I think one of the things Jim and I can be really helpful with, in this type of scenario, is helping this CEO organize and prioritize their thinking and their time. What I mean by that, as it relates to the trust-building campaign, is this: no different than with technology, we have our early adopters, and then we have people who jump on board after, and then ultimately we have the laggards — people who might not ever adopt. Well, it's similar with a new CEO.

We need to find out who are going to be those early adopters, and then who are going to be some of those influencers down the road who are really important to help cement trust around this new leader. That's where stakeholder mapping can be really powerful — helping them start to identify various groups or pockets where they can organize their thinking and prioritize where they need to invest their time to build up as much early adoption and influence as possible, so they're not doing all this trust building alone. They have credibility with key groups, key adopters, key influencers. Organizing and prioritizing is a really important part. I think about this work as helping them create the whiteboard — and say, "In terms of stakeholder mapping, let's start to figure out what this looks like for you."

JIM MARSHALL (44:55)
You're reminding me, Corey, of the idea: take me, show me. If I want to build trust, how many times have we heard someone say, "My boss doesn't really know what I do"? So if I'm walking into an organization, I want to think about how I can walk a mile in people's shoes. It'll look different depending on the organization or the roles within it. But taking the time to walk that mile — "Would you mind if I shadow you today? Would you show me what you do? If there's any way I can be helpful, whether it's pushing a broom or whatever, I'm willing to do anything. I just want to learn a little about what it's like to work in this area."

When I see leaders doing that, the payoff is pretty huge. I was often saying to people when I was doing that work: I want to learn people, I want to learn process, and I want to learn products. And if I get a chance to do that — rubbing shoulders with you today — then when I'm in the boardroom making a decision, I'm making one that's more informed by what it's really like on the ground.

COREY FERNANDEZ (46:01)
That's right. It goes back to broadening their perspective. When they're doing that work — digging into people, process, and product — their original perspective has grown. It's become richer and deeper. And as they're making decisions, they can draw on more of those data points, not just the original picture they started with.

MIMI (46:40)
All right guys, we've only got a couple of minutes left and I want to be respectful of your time.

JIM MARSHALL (46:46)
I have one more thought, Mimi. This goes all the way back to your question about best practices. We've worked with MBA programs for a long while now, where a disparate group of individuals becomes a team — anywhere from four to seven individuals. You can't imagine a group of people who are more different. They don't necessarily come in with a whole lot in common other than, "We're all going to this school to get an MBA." But the reasons why they come are very different.

And I think: to let people know it's possible to build success from the perspective of the group of individuals. To get a group of individuals to start dreaming about what collective success looks like. I didn't realize, when I was first exposed to that now many years ago, how powerful that was. And I've seen us do it with clients too — especially in an environment like this one where trust is low.

If we started to talk about — and going back to Corey's idea of stakeholder mapping — what if we did a group stakeholder map? Corey, you talk about what's in it for you. What are your needs? What are your wants? What's important to you this year? What's on the horizon? Jim, you do the same. Mimi, you do the same. If we start talking about success by first assuming the individual perspective, and then have a process that looks at where we have common ground and where we don't — and maybe we need some conversation, discussion, and resolution — it's a very clear and ordered process. We assume we won't all line up perfectly. We will have some competing interests, whether it's for resources or time or whatever. Let's get it all out on the table from an individual perspective. Where we're in common, great. Where we're not, let's resolve it. And then let's move forward with a definition of success that's been built organically from the ground up, rather than built by getting up into the clouds and dreaming about where we want to go.

COREY FERNANDEZ (48:49)
Yeah. And even that process — as organic as it can be, by involving the right people early on — I think can be a little counter to what a board might expect. They might want to see their person step in and set the tone and set the direction. And I think there's something to be said about the pressure that a CEO feels when the board has expectations — or each board member has expectations — for what their leadership needs to look like in the first 30, 60, 90 days. But perhaps the steps that might be more productive in the long haul don't match the picture of how a board member might want them to behave in those early days.

Hopefully they have a board that's supportive and will create the space for them to do the work necessary to gain credibility and trust and reduce hostility and fear. And the CEO doesn't feel beholden to live into a picture of leadership that just isn't the style they're looking for or the necessary step they need to take.

JIM MARSHALL (49:57)
Yeah. Feels like with the board —

COREY FERNANDEZ (50:00)
One thing that also comes to mind, Jim — with that collective mapping and so on — another really helpful step for a leader stepping into this type of environment is a new leader assimilation. We've seen leaders have great success with a facilitated process where they assimilate quickly with their team.

The high-level journey looks like this: an independent facilitator — like a Humanergy coach — provides an environment for the team to ask questions anonymously. The leader gets a chance to digest those questions. They can be anything — helping the team get to know the person on a more personal level, but also the hard questions about things they're fearful of, things giving them angst, things they might not feel comfortable asking directly. Those questions are aggregated, and then the CEO has time to prepare. Then they come together jointly — ideally face to face in a room — where the CEO has had a chance to walk through those questions and create a dialogue with their team, engaging them on the different things that are on their mind.

What a difference-maker that can be — to really create connectivity, transparency, and initial trust building, at least with that smaller team, that can create great gains down the road.

JIM MARSHALL (51:38)
We like to say: leaders lead themselves before they go off and start leading any individual or group or organization or team. So what I'm hearing you say, Corey, is that if the leader does that assimilation process, they can really get at some of those insecurities or nagging things in their own mind. And I think that would be as difficult a thing to navigate as the board.

I almost feel like I'd rather deal with the board. I'd say, "Look, you are putting pressure on me to deliver results. But if I fire the entire C-suite, you've set this organization back years in executive search processes — trying to get the right people on board and up to speed. And there's no guarantee any of them work out or that they become a great team. That's a long, arduous process. To whatever degree we can build from what we already have, just give me a minute."

But if I go in — and I have gone in — needing to prove that I've got something to offer here, that I'm a really caring leader, that I really want us to get going — all with the best intent — and still let my needs and my ego get away a little bit, I'd almost be thinking: be more careful. You can tell your board, "Hey, give me a minute here" — and they'll probably accept that. But you've got to talk to yourself too.

COREY FERNANDEZ (52:54)
That's right. Help yourself operate a little bit calmer and steadier. Don't feel that pressure from your amygdala pushing you to perform right out of the blocks.

MIMI (53:24)
All right, guys. I'm just going to do a quick recap. We've touched on a lot of things: non-negotiables, trust campaigns, stakeholder mapping, walking in other people's shoes, making sure we're gathering all the information, taking into consideration the pressure a CEO might feel from a board in addition to the situation they're walking into. So obviously this person has a lot to navigate — and it sounds like they could use a coach.

JIM MARSHALL (53:53)
We'd be happy to help.

MIMI (53:54)
Yeah, how about that? I really appreciate both of your insights and your time today. For anyone listening, we have an option on our website — on the podcast page there's a button — if you have a scenario you want us to talk about, please submit it. We'll make sure to handle it with care. Corey, Jim, thank you both so much for being here.

COREY FERNANDEZ (54:19)
Thank you. This is a blast, Jim. I appreciate it. It's wonderful learning from you. And thanks for opening up the opportunity for us to explore this together.

JIM MARSHALL (54:27)
Absolutely. Ditto. Thank you guys.