12. Own your Mess with Scott Miller

In this week’s episode, I had an opportunity to sit down with Scott Miller, Executive Vice President of Thought Leadership at FranklinCovey and #1 best-selling author of the book “Management Mess to Leadership Success.” We talked about the lessons he writes about in his book, what he learned from his experience as a leader, and what he hopes others will learn while they go into their leadership adventure. 

Scott also hosts FranklinCovey’s On Leadership interview which features renowned experts and authors including Susan Cain, Seth Godin, Dan Pink, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Carly Fiorina,, Liz Wiseman, Rachel Hollis, Geoffrey Moore, General Stanley McChrystal, and numerous others. Subscribe to On Leadership: http://www.franklincovey.com/on

Reach out: leadintoitpodcast@gmail.com Instagram: @leadintoitLogo Design: Kamry Rose Creative, kamryrosecreative@gmail.com   

DISCLAIMER: Any opinions or comments made by host, Sara Greco, and/or her guests are their own and not endorsed by any external entity.

Thanks for listening!! Let’s keep the conversation going: Connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn, or subscribe to my weekly newsletter. Excited to be here with you!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to episode 12 of the Lead Into a Podcast. I'm Sarah Greco, and I have over 10 years of experience in various roles in industries. During this time, I learned just how crucial leadership is as both an employee and a leader myself. This has led me to a mission to inspire and provide resources for those who have a desire to be a leader in their field. The Lead Into a Podcast is designed to help you learn how to be a leader with advice, tools, tips, and inspiration from people with all different types of background. Let's get started. We got to talk about the lessons he writes about in his book, what he learned from his experience as a leader, and what he hopes others will learn while they go into their own leadership adventure. So have a pen and paper ready because this is going to be an episode you don't want to miss. Well, thanks, Scott, for coming on the show today. I really appreciate your time, and I'm so excited to have you on.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Sarah, I'm honored. Thanks for letting me join.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Awesome. So let's go ahead and just get into it. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Sure. So my name is Scott Jeffrey Miller. I'm almost 52. I live in Salt Lake City with my wife, Stephanie, and our three sons, Wentworth, who's five, Smith, who's eight, and Thatcher, who's nine. Thatcher is named after one of my heroes, Margaret Thatcher, of course, the prime minister of the UK. And uh let's see, we've lived in Utah on and off for a long time. I'm actually from Florida, born and raised in Orlando, Florida, a suburb there called Winter Park. Went to high school, college there, worked for the Disney Company for four years, the Disney Development Company. That's the real estate arm of the Walt Disney Company. After four years, they invited me to leave, which is um a gracious way of saying, and they kind of kicked me out because I was a, you know, basically a well-intended, but you know, total train wreck of a leader, right? Kind of young out of college. Had a great run there. I'm still great friends with those who invited me to leave. And I was picked up by the Franklin Covey Company 24 years ago, moved out to Utah, and uh I've been very fortunate to have nine different careers inside of the Franklin Covey Company. Of course, no, founded by Dr. Stephen R. Covey of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Fame. Started on the front line as a salesperson, sold our solutions for four or five years, became a sales manager, sales leader, sales um general manager. Then I became the chief marketing officer for eight years. And the last two years I've stepped aside from that and have been writing books for the company. I now serve as the executive vice president of Thought Leadership. I still report to the CEO. I uh have authored two best-selling books in the last year and have a couple more in the queue. I, like you, host uh a significant podcast called On Leadership. It's now the world's largest subscribed to podcast on the topic. Uh up until recently, hosted a weekly radio program for iHeartRadio. I write a column for Inc. magazine, and I'll stop there because now it's like it's um boasting. But I I got some stuff going on.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

So you're not bored, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

I am not bored. And I'm waiting for my boys' basketball to crash through the window here any minute because they're quarantined in their home and they're restless.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

As are we all. The book that I actually read, and I heard about you through Rachel Hollis's Rives podcast. You went on there to do like a fireside chat or something, and it was so good. Um, you just talked about leadership and kind of just talked to the whole crew there about your experiences and your book, which is called Management Methods to Leadership Success, which is a great book for anyone who's interested. I finished reading it and it's just 30 challenges to become the leader that you would follow. And you talk a lot about your experiences. So, what inspired you to write this book?

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Yeah, thanks for asking that. Uh, a couple of things came together at the same time. One was that leadership's tough, and leadership of people is not for everyone. I think too often in organizations, people aspire to be a leader of people for the wrong reasons. But but but but reasonable reasons, right? We want to earn more money, uh, we want a better title and we want to move up in the organization. We want a promotion, we want a new office, a better business card. We have to be the leader because if we don't, then the person two cup down for us might be our leader tomorrow, right? So there's lots of motivations. But I think too often, Sarah, people are lured into leadership. They're not led. Interesting that they enter into the role for the wrong motivations. And I think too often organizations promote people for the wrong reason. I think this idea that because you are the top salesperson or you're the most creative digital designer, there's no correlation of the competencies, you becoming the leader of the salespeople or the leader of the creative division. What happens is people take the job to be a leader of people and they realize this job sucks. This job is about having high-courage conversations. This job is about moving outside of my comfort zone and giving feedback and redirecting feedback and feedback, feedback, feedback, and taking responsibility for you know everybody's outcomes. So I just say that not everyone should be a leader of people, and that's okay. Not everybody should be an anesthesiologist, not everybody should be a corporate or commercial airline pilot, right? You know that. You're in the industry. So I wrote the book because I wanted people to realize that leadership is tough, it's not for everyone, that's okay, and that every one of us has a series of messes, and that if you are, going to become a leader of people. There are 30 challenges you're gonna face. Heck, there's probably 300, but you know, that book would have been fatiguing, right? So I I I I collated, if you will, curated 30 of them from across all of Franklin Covey's work and shared some horror stories of how really I had screwed up most of them in the hopes that I might make it safe for others to learn from my experiences. And that's why I think the book has done so well.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And reading it and going through it, you definitely bring in your perspective. And that's why I love doing my podcast and listening to other podcasts because a lot of people actually bring in their own experiences, which gives people a tangible method or tactic for them to use as they approach leadership themselves. And that's so good. Let's go ahead and talk about like the vulnerability that you bring to this book. So you talk about this through a lot of stories, and you are very vulnerable in all of the stories that you tell. Very personal. You just talked about your Disney experience and being asked to leave, and that's very vulnerable. So, why is this characteristic so important as a leader?

SPEAKER_04 7:33

Well, I think it's the number one leadership competency going forward. Uh, and that's not because Brene Brown talked about it at Ted, although she's phenomenal. She is. Or, you know, I'm a big Brene Brown fan. I it's not because it's vogue. I think the world is changing so rapidly right now, and people want to relate to their leader. You know, gone are the days of significant hierarchy where you revere your leader because she has the title, or you respect your leader because they've been there for 30 years. No one cares. No one's gonna be anywhere for 30 years, five years from now, right? The average lifespan of any one career now is uh about three years. So leadership is changing. And leadership not is not a title anymore. It's not something that's bestowed upon you. You have to keep earning it. And I think, especially in this newer generation of millennials and Gen Xers and Gen Y's and what's but what's to come beyond them, is uh they want to be able to relate to their leader. They want to be able to have a whole person conversation, they want to be able to talk about their fears, their passions, their talents, their angers, their frustrations. They want to respect their leader. They expect their leader to have some functional expertise in some particular area. They expect that their leader will be a good listener and a good model and a good representative of the company values, treat them fairly. But I think that vulnerability is a leadership competency, just like reading a PL, just like being trustworthy, like you know, having some expertise in your industry. That this idea of having thick skin, which we hear so much about, oh, it's gone. It's gone. Yes. The idea of translucent skin, to quote Viola Davis, right? Or transparent skin, have stuff move in and move out to not be so so uh hierarchical and so focused on separating yourself from the team. I mean, you want to be able to go onto a floor and not be able to tell who the leader is because of where they sit, or because of who's the loudest or most charismatic or dress the best. I think the litmus test is how hard is it if you'd even tell who the leader is.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

That's really interesting. So, how would you recommend to people to lean into vulnerability?

SPEAKER_04 9:46

Oh, yeah, just own your mess. I mean, everybody's got a mess. I got a thousand messes going on, right? I mean, uh everybody knows your mess, the receptionist, the CEO, your mother-in-law, your neighbors, your colleagues, everybody knows all of my messes, right? So why not just own them? Make it your brand, not to wallow in them. I had someone on Amazon write a review once. I didn't I didn't I don't check them for obvious reasons. Well, I heard this quote once, Sarah, where someone said um it was advice given to celebrities, of which I'm not a celebrity. They the advice was someone else's opinion of you isn't your business. And I think it's great advice. Someone wrote a review once that I learned where they called me a hack and said that my book was horrible because it just licensed bad behavior. And it kind of made me sad, not sad, like I'm gonna go, you know, cry, but like, yeah, that wasn't my intention. Well, my intention was never to license bad behavior. My intention was to be vulnerable to say, here are things that I've done wrong, here are things that I'm not proud of, but I'm I'm abundant enough, I'm vulnerable enough, I'm transparent enough to talk about them as a gift to others to prevent you from making the same significant, you know, hurdles that I had to face. I mean, had I had this book, Sarah, 20 years ago, I would have been the CEO, not the CMO. And by the way, there's a comma worth of difference in that salary package, right? So um I didn't really want to become the CEO, but my point stands that um I really wanted people to understand that we've all got a mess and just own it. I love this phrase. I've coined it, I didn't invent it, but I kind of have adopted it called hanging a lantern on your own troubles. Hang a hang a light on your problem. You know, you're gonna have people your entire career, your entire life, that are gonna try to weaponize your weaknesses against you. Does that make sense? Yes. These are petty people, these are jealous people, these are insecure people. Doesn't mean they're bad people. I've been petty. Have you ever been petty, Sarah?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

All the time.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

I try not to be, but have you ever been jealous, Sarah?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I think we're human, so it's kind of like you as long as you acknowledge those feelings.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

Right. I I don't think you're a sociopath. I don't know you. I'm not a I'm not a sociopath and I know me. But I think that you know, well-intended people sometimes use our weaknesses, our messes against us. It's gonna happen. Well, the best way to neuter that is just to own them. I I have people who don't like me. I'll hear them say about me, well, you know, Scott, Scott has ADD. Oh, newsflash, Scott Miller has a short attention span. That that was that was your strategy to bring me down? Or, you know, I have a stutter. You may not know, but I have a fairly pronounced stutter. I I'm a stutterer. And I've gone through decades of speech pathology. I've had braces twice, I wear a retainer every night religiously. I have a speech coach, I have a stage coach. There are about close to 26 words I do not say in public. I I I I can't say them. I have a stutter. And so I talk about it. I just, you know, straight out talk about it so that when I do stutter, those people who don't like me or who are looking for a reason not to like me, or who are jealous of maybe my hard work or my success or my luck, I neuter them. So I I think being vulnerable is both a way to neuter your detractors. And we all have them. We all have detractors. Yes. It's also a way to authentically magnetize people toward you. Because when I when I'm speaking on a stage, and if appropriate, I decide to disclose that I have a stutter. Probably one out of every 20 speeches will I disclose that. I I I can't get to the Uber car because I have so many people standing up wanting to talk to me about their son's stutter, their husband's stutter, their issue, whatever it is, right? Because I was vulnerable, because I shared my mess. I I think it's a way to neuter your detractors and to get people to cleave to you with your own authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

That's really good.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

The long answer, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Oh no, that's it's really good and really true because you're right. Every single interaction I have with somebody who I admire, it was because I related to them on some level or I admired them for bringing that vulnerability to the forefront of whatever engagement they were doing. Come on.

SPEAKER_04 14:30

Some of your listeners will hear, oh, so just you know, accept what you can't do and acknowledge it. No, I didn't say I can't do math. I didn't say that I can't speak in public. No, I'm willing to press my boundaries all the time. I don't have a math degree. Hell, I never made it past algebra one. I can like I never made it to geometry. I never made it to algebra two, I never made it to trigonometry, right? I but but can I read a PL? Damn straight. Right? Can I calculate EBITDA and cost of goods and margin? Of course I can. Because that's a business, you know, a business school you have to have to thrive. So I I I you'll never hear me say I can't do that. Let me rephrase. If it involves a snake, a shark, or an alligator, I will not do it. Beyond things that involve snakes, sharks, or alligators or jumping out of a plane, I'll do it. And I can do it and I'll try.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And as long as you have those boundaries, I feel like that's good.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

But I have some more. I won't, I won't um dishonor my marital vows. I won't use illegal drugs, I won't drink and drive. You know, there I do have broader boundaries. But you get the point, right? Yeah. Hanging a lantern on your problems doesn't mean you're stagnant. It just means you're self-aware, you're vulnerable, you're confident. Let me share this other thought with you. Okay. I used to believe that humility was for weak people, that weak people were humble people. They were quiet, they were shy, they were retiring. I thought leadership was about being loud, which I am, and charismatic, which I am, and and domineering, which I am. And a lot of those things can become bullying tactics, which sometimes I am. It was after reading a really powerful book called How Will You Measure Your Life by two friends of mine, um, Karen Dillon and Clayton Christensen. It's a phenomenal book. Highly recommend this book, How Will You Measure Your Life. They talked about how humility is born out of confidence. Confident people are capable of being humble people. It is arrogant people who are incapable of being humble. So I think humble people are naturally able to talk about their challenges, their vulnerabilities, their messes.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

That is so interesting because there's a lot of overlap, or it seems, from humility to confidence to arrogance, and you just distinguished all three.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

So that was that was perfect.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Because I'm because I'm both. I mean, I'm all three, right? I mean, I can be an arrogant jerk sometimes. That wins me nothing in the long term. I I have a lot of confidence, probably an overabundance of it. So I'm not justified. And no one has ever called me a humble person. I'm I am working towards trying to be more humble as I am a father, a husband, a leader, being more abundant, letting others take the credit and not having to be, you know, kind of a hog, right? Of all the credit.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Mm-hmm. Oh, that's so good. Okay. So going into more leadership characteristics, uh, when you were on the Rachel Hollis's Rise podcast, you talked about how great leaders are great listeners. Can you dive into that a little bit more and talk about that whole concept?

SPEAKER_04 18:01

Yeah, how much time do I have? Talking is fairly selfish. Listening is fairly selfless. Listening is a leadership competency, but it's counterintuitive because most leaders have been educated and enculturated to speak, to be a powerful influencer, to be in sales mode, persuasion mode. When is the last time you voted for a candidate because they were a great listener? No, they were talking, right? And they were persuading you and influencing you. So most leaders have spent the majority of their professional development learning how to speak better from stage, PowerPoint, keynote, how to how to master your nonverbals, right? And and how to influence, clarify mission, vision, values, systems, structures, strategies, clarify, clarify, overclarify, keep speaking, right? I mean, all of us as leaders have been taught the power of being forceful communicators. It's an important competency. I don't I don't denigrate any of that. The problem is, hardly any of us have had any training around being a better listener. Because we're always in persuasion mode. So I think the call to action for your listeners is to really be aware of what a poor listener most of us are. Not because we're bad people, because we're inherently selfish. It's just, you know, I'm a better tennis player than I am a high-like player. Why? I've never played High Lie. I played tennis my whole life. So naturally I'm good at playing tennis. I was never turned on to High Lie. Highlight, by the way, is a sport in Florida. Okay. Sorry. Highlight is like an indoor boomerang that you throw with a hook and you catch a ball. It's like a South American sport. Sorry, called Highlight. So I think to become a better listener means you do a couple of things. One is first you become more self-aware of why we are bad listeners. We're bad listeners because we're always on our own agenda. When someone else is talking, naturally we're all distracted. The American Express bill is due. You know, I need to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer, right? What time is my flight tomorrow? Right? Have I checked in? On and on and on, right? We have tons of distractions that aren't going away. Netflix is not going to have less programming next year than they had this year. Um there's going to be more choices and more options as we go forward. So one is to recognize that we're all easily distracted. B is to recognize that when we are listening to someone else, we're usually listening with the intent to respond and not to understand.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

And that's because we're trying to help people, right? Genuinely, we want to help you. Oh, I dated her. Here's how you break up with her. I've worked for him, here's how you manage them. I've shopped there. Here's how you return that blouse to the store, right? It comes from a good place. We want to help other people. And when we're listening to someone, we're listening on our own agenda, our own timeline, our own frame of reference. The problem is most people don't want you to help them. They just want you to listen and understand. Even need you to agree with them. Right? My wife does not need me to solve the latest issue with her girlfriends at Orange Theory this morning. She just wants me to listen to her and validate her. So I think the first step to being a better listener is to recognize that your need to solve their problem, to respond, to jump in, comes from a good place. But it's usually not helpful because most of us listen with the intent to respond. And therefore, our listening style is to ask a bunch of questions, right? To probe, to interpret, to evaluate, to peel the onion. And as leaders, we've been taught to ask great questions, right? Metaphorically get to the root cause and peel the onion. Those are good business skills to have in a meeting where you're Trying to understand the supply chain. Those are not good skills in relationships.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

So the first thing is to recognize how often you kick into response mode, problem solving mode, questioning mode. The other aspect I'll share with you is this idea of interrupting. We have time for that.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yes, go into it. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

So I think most of us, if you are really self-aware, all of us have some propensity to interrupt for any number of reasons, right? We want to help solve their problem, they're long-winded, we want to get to the bottom line, we're uncomfortable with silence, whatever it is, right? We want to move it along, we're anxious people, we don't like small talk, whatever your motivation is, most of us are interrupters. I don't know many people that aren't. And Dr. Deborah Tannin, who's a famous linguistics professor from Georgetown, if you got an organizational development or a communication degree in the 70s or 80s or the 90s, you know who Dr. Deborah Tannin is. She was the Oprah of communication in my generation. And I was interviewing her once, and Dr. Tannin shared that the reason most people interrupt, and I think Sarah, this is profound. So to your audience, if I'm boring you, check back in right now because this next like five sentences is good stuff. The reason most people interrupt is because all of us have a subconscious alarm clock that goes off in our minds when we think the other person should stop talking. Like literally, like a metaphorical ding goes off in our brains. When Sarah thinks that Scott is done at 38 seconds, that bell goes off and you jump in. When Scott thinks that Don should stop talking at 49 seconds, the ding goes off and I interrupt. When that bell goes off, we jump in and interrupt. And Deborah Tannin says that if you can resist the urge to interrupt, you can transform your leadership skills, your listening skills, your empathy skills, your relationship skills. So Dr. Tannin said, whenever that alarm clock goes off in your mind and you're tempted to interrupt someone, very gently take your upper lip, close your mouth, touch your upper lip to your lower lip. Don't grimace, right? Don't don't even do it in a way the other person can see. Just very gently have your lips touch each other and count to 10. I'm gonna do it right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

And that was my 10.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I I was trying to do it with you too.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Yeah, and Deborah Tannin, you have a faster 10 than me. Dr. Tannin says that it's in that time, that eight to ten seconds, if you can resist the urge to interrupt someone, it's likely, highly likely, Sarah, the other person will complete their thought, land their point, or share something especially important or sensitive or vulnerable that then allows you to decide should you ask a question, should you validate them, should you follow up? It's a it's a it's a it's a it's a transformative skill. I encourage all of your listeners today, if you want to be a better listener, move off your agenda, move off your timeline, don't try to solve someone's problem for them and resist the temptation to interrupt.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

That's so good. Have you found that when you started applying this, that the conversations that you had transformed?

SPEAKER_04 25:30

Uh the relationships transformed because I found myself not trying to solve everybody's problems. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't trying to fix my wife. And I was just, I she found that I've I I I don't know that I've I've I've conquered this, but my wife will tell us to say to me, Scott, I can't even talk to you because you know you're always going to interrupt me and just jump in and try to fix it, and you jump to conclusions and you never listen to me all the way through. And I said, you know what, it comes from a good place, right? I've spent 25 years trying to solve problems as fast as possible from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. Right? That's been what I paid to do. I built a business around tackling problems, assessing them as fast as possible, and solving the moving on. That's that that is not what happens in interpersonal relationships. Dr. Covey, the author of our our famed book, The Seven Habits, said with people, slow is fast, and fast is slow. You cannot be efficient in your relationships. You have to be effective. That requires you to slow down.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

That's so good. So, in your book, one of the challenges you talked about was inspiring trust. And you talked about a leader who really trusted you to do a job. And you were kind of almost overwhelmed in a way during that part, but you tried your best and he trusted you to do that. And during that experience, you learned um more than what you would have had he kind of been over your shoulder that time. Um, I really related to the story because I had a leader who did the same thing. And in fact, I get to talk to him sometimes in more recent future, and I asked him, I'm like, How did you deal with me? Because I was very, it was right as I entered the military, I was very excited, I was very confident, and I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing. But looking back, I did not. During that time, I learned probably the most in such a short amount of time because he trusted me to go forth with what I thought was right. And so by doing that, he empowered me to learn in my own way, in my own manner, in my own time. So, how do you recommend to leaders to embrace this concept? And also, if you want to go into the story a little bit more, uh, feel free to.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Yeah, yeah, I don't remember the exact story. I shared a lot of stories like that, but I think the principle is easy for me to resonate with. I believe that when a leader becomes a leader of people, they have to consciously adopt a new mindset. Your job as a leader, especially first-time leader, frontline leader, new leader, your job is not to rush in and solve the problem. Your job is not to get results on your own. Your job is to achieve results with and through other people.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Oh, that's so good.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

So I'm gonna repeat that, right? Because your job is to achieve results with and through other people. I think too often new leaders think, well, I was promoted, so my job is to turn everybody into me, right? My mini-mees or my clones, or we're all gonna do it my way. No, your job is not to get people to do it your way, your job is to get people to achieve the same results that you got as an individual contributor, but through their own fears, their own passions, their own competencies, their own timeline within reason, right? So if you if if if you adopt this new mindset that in fact your job is to get work done with and through other people, everything changes. Now you realize, oh, I have to be more patient than I'm used to being. Oh, I have to be less judgmental of others. Oh, I don't have the full story and everything. I don't know what this person's fears and pressures are. Oh, I see, I need to be a coach. I need to be a model. I need to not rush in and save the day. I need to without patronizing them or without emasculating them, I need to kind of walk them through what the results need to look like and let's brainstorm ways we could get there. And which way are you more comfortable getting there? That I don't have to micromanage them, that I have to make sure we're both crystal clear on what success looks like. Which means, you know, as a sales leader, you might say you have to invoice $43,000 by the end of the month. Now, you have to invoice it ethically. You can't have ghost clients, you can't cook the books, you shouldn't sell solutions to clients that don't need them. You you know, you set the parameters, and then brainstorm what are some ways that you think you can go do this? I'm happy to brainstorm with you, but you get the point. I think there's a mindset shift that allows you to extend trust to people. Now, some people will violate your trust, some people will honor your trust, some people will breach your trust, but you keep trusting. You continue to trust. Now, only a fool wouldn't extend smart trust, right? So I'm not gonna hire a new employee and say, I need you to organize a conference and I need 1,800 people there. Come report a month from now. No, no, we're gonna have you know three-time weekly check-ins Monday, Wednesday, Friday from four to five. I want to discuss marketing, logistics, registration, online tuition, margins, speakers, you know, you know, everything, right? Carpet, logistics, whatever it is. I think there's a fine line between having a high quality standard and having a micromanagement personality. But here's what I think is profound. One of our founders, Sarah, said something that changed the entire way I lead. He said, nearly all, if not all, conflict in life comes from mismatched or unfulfilled expectations. Yes. And so I would say to everyone listening: if you are a leader, it is incumbent upon you to make sure that you are clarifying expectations, that you have made it very clear what the results need to look like, and that everyone's on the same page, that because it's in your mind does not mean it's clear in their mind. And you may have to communicate it every day for 30 days. You may have to say, Hey Sarah, can I ask you a favor? I'm not trying to embarrass you at all. Could you re pet repeat back to me the key goals for next month's product launch so I make sure that we're in the same page and have to repeat it back to you, right? And by the way, they might get it wrong. Or they might get it different. Or they might say something that you didn't say, but you might say, you know what, actually, you said something that's actually better. I'm actually glad you heard that differently than I said it because I like that idea. You get the point. I think that as a leader, if you're going to inspire trust, it means you're going to extend trust to people. It doesn't mean you don't verify it. It doesn't mean you don't check in. But see, that's the difference is I think effective leaders have a mentality of checking in versus checking on. And that's subtle. It's subtle, but it's significant in terms of how you how you hold meetings, how you let them talk versus you talk, how you empower people, how you clear the path, how you save them before you see them hanging their own cells, right? It's just a it's a fundamental mindset shift for leaders. And by the way, I don't think most people get a chance to understand this. No one taught me this when I was a new leader. I had no idea, right? I was just thrown in feet first and I was a total jerk and I wreaked havoc across the company and I was like a bull in a china shop. I wasn't a bad person. I just didn't understand this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Actually, this kind of leads into my next question where you in the align actions with wildly important goals, you say meaningful change comes from the inside out, and it has to start with you as a leader committing to and then enacting new behaviors. So when you're talking about setting those expectations with your folks, how do you ensure that you are behaving as you wish your employees would? So kind of you're setting those expectations for them, but you're also setting those expectations for yourself.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Oh, sure. I mean, let me repeat it. Leadership sucks. Let's be very clear. I mean, I'm I'm the executive vice president of thought leadership for the world's most renowned leadership development firm. Let me repeat it. Leadership sucks. It is unrelenting, it is, it is sometimes unrewarding in the short term. Leadership is really hard because the spotlight is always on you, right? You're always being set up to be a hypocrite. I'm gonna scare most people out of being a leader because your standard has to be one where you're modeling everything you want everyone else to do. You have to model taking responsibility for your actions. You have to model forgiving people, you have to model offering apologies without any excuses. You have to model that you're open to feedback, you have to model humility, you have to model hard work, you have to model taking your PTO, you have to model being to work on time, you have to model showing up to a meeting with an agenda and running it effectively, right? You have to model when someone comes into your office with an important topic, you have to model paying attention, closing your laptop, turning off your phone, taking off your glasses, and checking in. I mean, it's relentless, people. It's non-stop.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

But it's so true because it's a perception that as a leader, you're sitting on this top of the mountain and you're enjoying all the fruits of the labor. When sign me up. Yeah, I know. Sign me up for that. It has to be the hardest job because you're worried about every single action that you're taking and making sure that everyone is doing what they need to. They have everything that they need. It's exhausting, and people need to hear that when they take on a leadership role. They need to hear everything that you just said.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

I think it's very true. I and I could go on about that for another whole podcast. Let me modify one word you said.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:46

Is it and I'll just try to change the word worry to being cognizant, right? Maybe it's a subtle difference. And I'm not correcting you. I've just I've learned if you're worried about everything you do, you'll never be productive. You'll never be vulnerable, you'll never exhibit confidence. By the way, don't mistake vulnerability with lack of confidence. People want to follow a confident leader. People want to follow a vulnerable leader. But I think as a leader, you have to be cognizant of what you are modeling. I'm often asked when I'm speaking around the nation, so Scott, how do you get your team to take feedback? And I say very clearly, oh, they have they have to see you taking feedback. You have to model it. They have to see you when someone criticizes you for your 80 PowerPoint slide deck that put them to sleep in a meeting, right? Or how you droned on at the town hall, or how you took too much credit in a meeting. They have to model you saying, Oh my gosh, thank you for that feedback. I had no idea. Oh, I had no idea that I do that in meetings. Thank you so much. Can you tell me, do you have any idea why I do that? Or did I seem nervous? Did I seem unprepared? Was I intimidated? I mean, you have to model everything you want to see in your team, including, for example, not gossiping. Gossip is the biggest cancer in every organization. As a leader, you cannot talk about anybody in a disparaging way in front of anyone else. Dr. Covey calls it being loyal to the absent. In fact, what he says is, and this is prophetic, you retain the trust of those present when you are loyal to those who are absent. Because if I'm trash talking Maria in front of Sarah, what Sarah is thinking is who is Scott gonna trash talk to? About me. And so as a leader, you may not speak to anybody differently about anybody differently if they're away from you than if they were sitting right in front of you. And that is a very high standard. But if you want to raise everybody's standard on how they respect, communicate, you will never gossip again. And you'll be a transition figure in your organization. Now, listen, that sounds Pollyanna. It's tough. It is, right? We're humans. We've been modeled gossip from our grandmother, from our father, from our preacher, from our minister, from our first grade teacher, you know, everywhere in life, right? Gossip is just that kind of, oh, you kind of this is what you do with fun. No. You go you have to be a transition figure and not tolerate it without shaming anybody, but you need to be that figure that is going to say, in this division, that's not how they respect each other. Now, some people, Sarah, will hear that as, well, then you just don't discuss the undiscussables, or you don't have high courage conversations, or you don't talk straight. Oh no, that's the flip side. As a leader, it's incumbent upon you to do exactly that. In fact, I'd argue that next to retaining and recruiting talent, your number two most important job as a leader is to give feedback to people on their blind spots. And that requires a whole other podcast conversation around balancing courage with diplomacy, right? Courage with consideration. No, that means that you model straight talk, you just say it to people to their face in private, in public, whatever is the appropriate for the environment.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

And that does take so much courage and preparation and just role-playing, right?

SPEAKER_04 39:38

And and admitting you're gonna get it wrong, and declaring your intent up front that I may use the wrong words, I'm kind of nervous right now, my intent is not to embarrass you, my intent is to help you see a blind spot. We could have a whole podcast on how to give feedback.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

You talk a little bit about it in your book too. And it was uh, I feel like if you had that chapter in your book and then Brene Brown's Dare to Lead, it was talking about the feedback. Combine those two chapters and you will be somewhat prepared for the role playing.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Um the other part of your book that I want to talk about was challenge 28, which was you make high value decisions. So it was so impactful when I read this. And I believe it's it's one of the last ones because you have 30 challenges. But can you dive deeper into that concept and why it's so important as a leader?

SPEAKER_04 40:30

I think your reputation is your most valuable asset. If you're religious, I would guess your soul is your most valuable asset. But for those who aren't religious or spiritual, I'd say that your reputation is your most valuable asset. And your reputation is merely a collection of all the decisions you make in life. But I think that's pretty simple, but even in itself fairly profound, right? Your reputation is merely the collection of all the decisions you make in your life. And increasingly, a leadership competency like vulnerability, like reading a PL, like being able to communicate, is this idea of making high value decisions. Should I do this or should I do that? Should I say yes to this or should I say no to that? And that may seem like super simplistic and elementary, but no, I think it's actually quite hard because all of us have egos, a lot of us are pleasers, a lot of us are overcommitted, we take on more and more projects, and we don't truly differentiate the good from the great, right? To quote Jim Collins. Jim Collins, of course, the famed author of Built to Last and Good to Great, talks about not just having a to-do list, but having a not-to-do list. And I think as you're thinking about high value decision making, it really comes down to being very deliberate on where you spend your time, where you spend your emotions. You know, yesterday on my podcast, I interviewed Mark Manson. He wrote the book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yes, such a good book.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

And um, it's a very good book. And he basically talked about the premise of the book is you kind of only have so many F's in life, right? And you can only give an F about so much stuff. So be deliberate about where what you choose to give an F about and not give an F about. And do you need to have an opinion about everything? Do you have to weigh in on everything? Does everything require you to be involved in? And I think, you know, for those of us who have a little bit less self-confidence or our self-esteem has been beaten down or our self-worth is low, we all go through those parts in life that we send this we tend to say yes to a lot and get involved in more than we should. One thing that I have found very helpful for me, Sarah, is every dur during the weekday, I've disciplined myself every hour on the hour. I say to myself, is how I'm going to spend my next hour the highest use of my time? Is what I'm going to do now for the next hour going to provide Franklin Covey the highest return on my hour, on my salary? You know, is Sarah's podcast the best use of my hour right now? Honestly, right? Should I be on a radio program? Should I be writing a book? Should I be writing my article for LinkedIn? Should I be, you know, just doing something else? Should I be downstairs with my boys playing basketball? As a matter of fact, I chose that the I was not desperate for podcast interviews today. This is my honestly, this is my fourth podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

My fourth one. It's my last one. But I chose to do this because I researched you, I learned about you, uh, and I and I really thought this is a good use of my time.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

So I think there's how much we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Well, that you know, and I know, and and I and I I was looking for no response from you, right? No, I know, but I mean it to prove the point that as disciplined as I am. There is probably three or four times a week that I look at, so how was I going to spend this hour and I say, that is not high value decision making, right? I'm not going to go do this. I'm not going to go watch CNN and listen to the governor of New York for the 800th time talk about how many ventilators he needs. I find him credible. I like him, but that is not the best use of my time. I'm not in the capacity to help Mr. Cuomo get more ventilators. I'm not being callous at all. My time needs to be spent over here doing this to this client, to for this colleague, for this podcast host, for whatever it is. So I like that idea. You'll be surprised. If you do that for three or four days, you will fall into a pattern of watching the clock and asking yourself, well, how am I going to spend the next hour? Honestly, I had no plan, right? I was going to check my email. I might find myself surfing the web. I might find myself, you know, you know, just putting around the house, being paralyzed. You'll find yourself being more deliberate about how you manage your time, aligning your time with your top priorities, and naturally becoming a higher value decision maker. This or that. This or that.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Is that helpful? Oh my gosh, it was so helpful. And it is, it is all about being deliberate and how you approach your time. I think for your role, your personal life, for the people that you lead, where can you have the biggest impact or make the most impact for that next time? It's so good.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Yeah, I think the question to really ask yourself, Sarah, is you know, what's going to bring a disproportionate progress towards my mission, my goals, my vision? Like, what am I going to do next that can bring the highest value? For a lot of your listeners, you might be entrepreneurs or have a side hustle. You have no shortage of options. Most of us tend to gravitate toward the things we like to do, the things that give us validation, the things that are natural strengths, the easier things. I think it was Brian Tracy that wrote the book called Eat That Frog or Eat the Frog. And it's really kind of premised on this, right? Is do the hard things first. I used to own a jewelry business, and I found myself doing all the parts of the business that I love the most most, you know, sourcing of sourcing and marketing and advertising versus looking at, you know, lowering my cost of goods or you know, my deep supply chain or inventory. And so I think the whole premise of this is make sure that you're looking at what I could do in the next hour that would bring the highest value to my marriage, the highest value to my relationship with my mother-in-law, the highest return on the company's salary or the biggest value to my client. You'll find yourself exponentially increasing your value within one week.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

That's really good. And it's so true, completely. I do think we're almost out of time. So I do want to ask you one more question. What is one piece of advice that you would give yourself as a younger leader?

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Just one. Dr. Covey was very deliberate when he titled the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I hear a lot of people misquote it as the seven habits of highly efficient people. There is a significant difference between being efficient and being effective. With people, you cannot be efficient. You can be efficient with your social media, with your email, making dinner, mowing the lawn. I have been a very efficient person my entire life. I like to do everything fast and faster, quick. And so that's worked very well for me. In many areas of my life, my productivity, my list making, my checking things off, my getting things done was helpful for me. The problem, Sarah, in my life is I used that same mindset, that efficiency mindset into my relationships in the workplace, in how I managed my brand, how I built trust with colleagues. And so the advice I would have given to myself is which I was incapable of understanding this. There's a time to be efficient and a time to be effective. And in relationships, you should always be effective. I think it was Brendan Bouchard that said, nearly everything in life is done better, slower.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

And it leads back to your slow is fast and fast is slow.

SPEAKER_04 48:47

That's right. That's right. I did not understand that as a young, as a younger professional in my 20s, 30s, honestly, most of my 40s.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Going back to that point, it's probably the experience that you gathered over that time and reflecting on your uh younger days.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Of seeing how the differences made as you were growing up as a leader. It's hard to see it unless you're reflecting back too.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

Well, I was a bit of a train wreck, right? Which is honestly to your first question, it's why I wrote the book. I I I I'm doing my favorite, my favorite speeches are when college professors invite me to come speak to their college marketing classes or their college sales classes, because I think, oh my gosh, guys, you have no idea. You've, you know, some of you think I've achieved some fame or celebrity or best-selling author, and you're wrong. I haven't. But read this book because this book will help you. This book would have been so valuable to me to have read back in my 20s. And you know what? Go read it every year. And by the way, I've just taken principles in life that wise people have taught me, that I struggled with, failed with, stumbled with, and wrote the book in the hopes to provide really a guide path to a lot of up-and-coming leaders. Don't do this, don't say that, don't think this. Instead, say this, do that, think that. And I think I think it's having some success doing that. And I'm honored to have been on your podcast today, Sarah. Thank you for the um opportunity and the platform.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Oh, thank you so much. And again, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I learned so much from you. I know the audience will, and I am sure this will become one of the most popular episodes that I have. So that's gracious.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

Thank you. Hey, nice becoming your friend. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Oh, thank you so much. I can't tell you how much, again, appreciate it so much. Thank you for listening to another episode of Lead Into It. Don't miss any episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or following on Spotify. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks. Have a great day.