Unlock the transformative power of clarity with queen of clarity Ann Latham in our enlightening discussion where we dissect the impact of undefined processes and directionless meetings. We share our own battle scars from corporate inefficiencies and contrast them with the streamlined, clear-cut approaches that drive businesses toward success. Ann lays bare the staggering costs incurred by organizations muddled in confusion, driving home the vital need for crystal-clear communication and solid leadership in achieving optimal outcomes.
Strap in as we navigate the art of running meetings that don't just occupy time but catalyze progress. You'll learn how to zero in on the six outcomes that should crown every meeting's agenda – decisions, plans, resolutions, lists, authorizations, and confirmations. Drawing from our collective experience, we furnish you with practical steps for crafting meetings that are not self-congratulatory but laser-focused on actionability, ensuring your team not only talks the talk but walks the walk towards collective milestones.
We then pivot to dissecting workplace communication, revealing how the Disconnect Principle can reshape interactions into opportunities for growth rather than conflict. By redefining issues as misunderstandings rather than failures, we foster improved teamwork and understanding. The discussion also spans leadership communication, the transition from doer to delegator, and the art of providing feedback that aligns with company ethos. Dive in and harness these strategies to sidestep toxicity, and position yourself within a dynamic that champions growth, values alignment, and the pursuit of excellence.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
Unlock the transformative power of clarity with queen of clarity Ann Latham in our enlightening discussion where we dissect the impact of undefined processes and directionless meetings. We share our own battle scars from corporate inefficiencies and contrast them with the streamlined, clear-cut approaches that drive businesses toward success. Ann lays bare the staggering costs incurred by organizations muddled in confusion, driving home the vital need for crystal-clear communication and solid leadership in achieving optimal outcomes.
Strap in as we navigate the art of running meetings that don't just occupy time but catalyze progress. You'll learn how to zero in on the six outcomes that should crown every meeting's agenda – decisions, plans, resolutions, lists, authorizations, and confirmations. Drawing from our collective experience, we furnish you with practical steps for crafting meetings that are not self-congratulatory but laser-focused on actionability, ensuring your team not only talks the talk but walks the walk towards collective milestones.
We then pivot to dissecting workplace communication, revealing how the Disconnect Principle can reshape interactions into opportunities for growth rather than conflict. By redefining issues as misunderstandings rather than failures, we foster improved teamwork and understanding. The discussion also spans leadership communication, the transition from doer to delegator, and the art of providing feedback that aligns with company ethos. Dive in and harness these strategies to sidestep toxicity, and position yourself within a dynamic that champions growth, values alignment, and the pursuit of excellence.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you think you are all right.
Speaker 2:Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes. Well, I'm a little biased. It's my own podcast. What if it did work? This week's guest and Latham, known widely as the queen of clarity, author of the modern classic, the Power of Clarity, the new release, the Disconnect Principle, in addition to the Clarity Papers and Uncommon Meetings, she's also the founder of US-based consulting firm Uncommon Clarity. Over 40 industries and range from organizations such as Boeing, hitachi, medtronic to nonprofits such as the public broadcasting service, united Way and colleges and universities. In her writing and consulting, she exposes a tremendous and unrecognized levels of disclarity surrounding us that erode our productivity, confidence, communication and performance. That also prevent us from maximizing the contribution of every employee. She then shows leaders where clarity is and isn't in their organizations, the incredible cost of this clarity and how to harness clarity to get better results, much better, faster, with far greater confidence and commitment. How's it going, ann?
Speaker 3:It's going just great. Good to be here.
Speaker 2:Lack of clarity. Isn't that the number one thing To me? Isn't that what separates bosses and organizations that have like a turnstile of people that are either disinterested, checked out or they're always looking for the next thing Because there's no clarity, correct?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean, a lack of clarity makes it destroys everything from your productivity to how you communicate, to how, whether people know what they're supposed to do, whether they feel empowered to do what they're supposed to do, and I could just make this huge list of problems associated with a lack of clarity. Unfortunately, most people when they think of a lack of clarity, they just think in terms of communication, but it's unclear, processes unclear, you know, ridiculous ways of running meetings that produce nothing. Yeah, it's extremely broad, let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2:Oh, completely. Now, when you talk about means, it's funny because when I owned a business for 20 years it was short and sweet I had a meeting with my general manager and possibly my managers, but before that it was just once a month. Did we hit the target? Did we hit our goals? A little training, one-on-one later on. But coming back into corporate America, I mean one of the jobs I had. There was one meeting at like clockwork at like 9.30, another at 5 pm and then we had one somewhere in the middle and it was to go over the same thing over and over and over. A little bit of overkill, don't you think?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And the single most important question to ask before you go into a meeting is what must be different when we're done. And you asked you used an example of you know, did we hit our targets? That's a simple question with a simple answer. Of course, you probably don't have to be in a meeting to answer that question, so you know. If you can do it by email, fine, but still, it's like what's going to be different when we're done? What are we going to walk out of here? That's going to unleash next steps. That's concrete, tangible signs of progress. And the good news is that there's really very few that make a difference and they are decisions, because decisions you're at a fork in the road and a decision means you've chosen to fork and it unleashes next steps. The next one is a plan. If you create a plan, you know what you're going to do. It unleashes next steps right, so you can move forward. The third one is the problem resolution. If you can solve a problem, it's great. You've just solved the problem. It unleashes next steps.
Speaker 3:Number four is a list, and I throw a list sounds probably kind of funny, but you need lists as inputs to those other three. Like in a plan. You need a list of action items, a list of resources, a list of risks. So if you don't make the whole plan in the meeting, are there specific lists? You need to further that plan.
Speaker 3:And then there's two more. One is authorization If you need permission, if you need the authority to move forward, and you need a meeting to get that that unleashes next steps as well. And the last one is confirmation, and this one is abused all the time. It kind of goes like this so far I've done X and next I intend to do Y. Am I on the right track? And they're just looking for a yes or no answer. But usually they get tons of advice, war stories. Wait until you get to this, they'll start talking about step number 10. And this guy's on step two and it really wastes a lot of time. But those, each of those six things, moves things forward. They're concrete outcomes and we often start meetings without any clear, concrete outcomes that we're trying to achieve.
Speaker 2:Now what is the ideal time frame for a limit for like a for a precise meeting? It definitely doesn't have to be the 30 minutes to an hour meeting Five minutes.
Speaker 3:If you, if you know exactly what you need, then you should also have a process. You know how are we going to get there. Process, you know how are we going to get there. For instance, decisions are like the most important thing that we probably do in any given day, because they unleash lots of next steps and unfortunately, most people don't have a shared process for making decisions. So if you asked a room full of people how do you make a decision, you would probably get as many answers as there are people in the room and most people would probably not even be able to tell you these.
Speaker 3:Well, you just get in the room and talk and you figure it out. You know, but a decision process can have four simple steps and have four simple steps. You know what's the objective, what are the alternatives, what are the risks. And, of course, I missed the first one, which is what is the decision, because a lot of times we go in and talk about a decision and we're really talking about six decisions at once. It's like, specifically, what decision do we need? And then, what are the objectives, what are the alternatives, what are the risks? So if you know that the purpose of your meeting is to make a decision and you have a process for doing that. You can do that oftentimes incredibly fast and you don't need to sit around and just kind of talk about things for an hour 55 minutes whatever is the typical length of a meeting.
Speaker 2:Well, what I love best? Going, going through the process. You said it best decisions. Talk about having clarity, because a lot of times we don't even know. Usually a lot of people don't even know what the meeting's about. It's just like oh my gosh, another one, another, one another. It's like and that's what brings me back to like office space, that movie, you know, the TPS reports. Everybody's like oh my gosh, once again we're back to having a meeting. There's no decisions. You have to have a plan, which, once again, if there's no decisions, there's no plan.
Speaker 2:A lot of times these meetings are ineffective because just management wants to hear themselves speak. Sometimes management also wants to give themselves attaboys and kudos. Last couple of jobs I have short pick Jobs. I have short pick After being an entrepreneur for 20 years. Once I see a lot of toxicity or drama. It's like you know, I've evolved beyond that.
Speaker 2:But it's funny because a lot of times you'll see management saying, oh my gosh, thank us, thank us. Maybe you guys should all buy just a birthday present for the CEO. You should do this, you should. It's like hero worshipping and it's like no, that's not why. Let's have real meetings. What are we discussing? Let's create an action step. Let's hit some targets, let's hit some goals and if we want to hero a worship, whomever you know, congratulations. Maybe we should all have have like one of those meetings where we, we sit around and we do breathing exercises and we, we go, we go into the zone, you know, we, of course, we should be grateful, for if we're going to say the grateful to the boss, we should be grateful, the guy, we should be grateful, you know, that the sun rose.
Speaker 3:There's everything to be grateful for yeah, a lot of times what happens with meetings is that, I mean, people know they need to get work done, but they don't do the hard work up front to figure out what is the next step, what, what do we need to unleash progress? And so they just walk into the meeting and talk about things, and you know a lot of. I think it was probably way back in the 90s or so when people started saying I'm not going to a meeting unless there's an agenda, and the problem is that that just that just led to this huge number of ridiculous agendas that are filled with what I call treadmill verbs. So these are words like report, review, communicate, share, update. I call them treadmill verbs because, just like being on a treadmill, you can report forever, you can share forever, you can communicate forever, you can review forever. There's no way to know when you're done.
Speaker 3:So people build these agendas using general topics or treadmill verbs and then they wonder why they sit in the meeting for an hour and accomplish nothing, and then, because people are kind of getting got wise to the idea that nothing was happening, they would quick at the end of the meeting, say okay, so what are our action items? And so people would dream up things to put on everyone's to-do list to justify the time they spent in the meeting, even though those things might not have any strategic value, might not have anything to do with why the meeting was scheduled in the first place. But you get a bunch of people in the room who are trying to make something happen and they're going to come up with action items and just give more work to people, and it might not be the right stuff at all.
Speaker 2:Now also too, it's like everybody has these posters up like on leadership teamwork. They love to, they love to pretend that they're practicing all these things, but but they're not preaching, and that's where. That's where, like, the disconnect completely comes from. The disconnect completely comes from, I mean, a reason why also, everybody feels like they're on a treadmill is there's no communication. Like what you said, communication isn't just speaking just to be heard. Communication is when everybody hears the message, it resonates and they completely understand what the message is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they know what to do with it. So what do you want? I love it when they first started telling us, when I was an employee, that you're empowered Empowered to do what? What specifically are we doing? What's going to be different when we're done? It's that same old question, you know. Let's get, let's get specific here. That's clarity.
Speaker 2:Now your first chapter. It goes into the disconnect principle and it's very powerful In your own words. How would you summarize, how would you sum up the disconnect principle?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, the disconnect principle was the topic that I couldn't fit into the Power of Clarity book, so I had to write a separate book. And it all started because a client of mine was really struggling with giving feedback, and so I taught him everything I had learned and been taught about how to give constructive feedback. And then I watched poor Max fail again. He thought he was going to do well, using all my advice, and he had this miserable conversation. And so that's when I realized what was missing from all the advice, and that's when I came up with the disconnect principle, which basically says if something doesn't happen the way you expected, all you know for certain is something didn't happen the way you expected.
Speaker 3:That's it, that's all you know, and we tend to you know, when someone doesn't do what we expect, we tend to leap to conclusions that they're irresponsible, they're incompetent, they're lazy, they're thoughtless, and we're probably wrong, because there's a lot of reasons why they might not do what they did.
Speaker 3:But those thoughts, those negative thoughts about what the person is and how they failed and how they screwed up, that's what makes conversations difficult. So if you say, look, all I know for certain is something didn't happen the way I expected, and you just say the simple phrase I think we have a disconnect, and that means that you know that lets. That acknowledges that something's amiss, but there's no blame, there's no judgment in that, there's just there's a disconnect in that there's a disconnect. And so the next step is where are we now and what do we have to do next? There's no suggestion that you screwed up. I'm not even implying that you might have screwed up. I'm just saying where are we? What do we need to do next? And that's the disconnect principle in a nutshell. When I started teaching it to clients, I discovered that there's lots of management practices that make it hard to embrace that disconnect principle, because we've got lots of bad habits in our standard practices. So that's why I ended up writing a book instead of just a chapter.
Speaker 2:Well, what I love about that is it doesn't even have to be business. You can use it on a personal level. That's so powerful. Yeah, not placing blame on myself or on you. Clearly there's miscommunication. Let's discuss this, because once you point fingers, there's no nice way of pointing fingers Exactly.
Speaker 2:The person's going to be defensive. You could be the one minute manager. I tried that, you know. Oh well, you know, start out with you're an amazing person, or I love this about you. Oh, by the way, bam Well, yeah, right, it's like we bring them here and then we slowly no that. In theory, that's nice, but nobody, nobody likes that. That they won't even remember the oh, the kudos or the cyber hugs or whatever. They're going to go straight to the criticism. This is, this is what you need to work at. And it goes straight to oh my gosh, you are blaming me for something. You are saying I am not good at this, I am not worthy, I am incompetent. That's what the employee, whether it's mid-management, whether it's lower level, goes straight to hey, they're blaming me for something, they're calling me incompetent and they're personally attacking my character and who I am.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, especially when you leak to your irresponsible. You're careless. Now you're attacking your character, not even what you did wrong, you know, but the whole idea that, as soon as you said, you start talking down to someone and suggesting they did something wrong and that they're to blame and that they're a failure. How can the conversation not be ugly, you know? But if you step back and say we have a disconnect, you know. If it's a, you know, even if it's a bigger problem, like an employee who's been in trouble multiple times, if you embrace the disconnect principle instead of them becoming a problem employee, you just go okay. First, disconnect comes along, you acknowledge it, we have a disconnect, you resolve it. Another one comes along, you do the same thing. Another one comes along, you do the same thing, and then, if it looks like you know this is happening too much, we have a bigger disconnect and this is what my company needs and this is what you're willing and able to provide.
Speaker 3:Is it a match or isn't it? So if it's a match, great, the employee does really well for the company and vice versa. But if it's a mismatch, the problem is the disconnect, the problem is the mismatch, and there should be no shame, no blame, no feelings of failure if you decide to part ways. If you can make the match work by changing something up, great. But if you can't, it's about the match and the employee shouldn't be blamed for that, although both the employer and the employee have some responsibility for trying to make that a good fit in the first place, you know, is it can, can the employer explain clearly what needs to be done, what the company needs and what it's like to work there? And can the employee ensure that they're willing and able to provide that? And is that how they want to spend eight to 10 hours of their day? Oh yeah, I might be able to do that, but you know what?
Speaker 2:I have zero interest time is short, but you know, what I love about all that is that you find some common ground and also that's where the let's say the guy was a boss. If he started doing that, he becomes a leader and then he leads, yeah, and people are willing to go above and beyond, willing to say, to take ownership, I'm happy to be, my leader has my back. My leader cares about me, he understands me, and I don't care that the person's General Patton, I don't care if he's like Jack Welsh or some amazing leader. At the end of the day, it's the way someone makes you feel. Yes, it's that perception. Now, if we all perceive the guy to be awesome, if we all perceive to be like he doesn't blame me, he says that somehow there was a lack of, there was just miscommunication on everybody's part. That goes a long way that a person having a grocery list say well, this is how you screwed up, this is why you're not doing your job, right, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know we don't know why people don't, why they do what they do or don't do what they do, and there can be so many reasons and some of those can be the boss's fault. You know, it's not just misunderstandings. There's differences in priorities, competing priorities, differences in opinions of how to do things, differences in the knowledge and skill level. Some employees are fearful or lack the confidence to do what they need to do. Some make legitimate mistakes. You know, sometimes there's accidents. There are sick children, long COVID broken down cars. I mean, there's a myriad possibilities as to why something doesn't happen the way you expected.
Speaker 2:Well, not only that, but things are moving at such a faster rate now than, I mean, my heyday was in the 90s. Now everything's speed. Now everything's speed. Decisions are quicker, turnaround's quicker, finding information, getting information, everything is at such a super fast pace. We're in such an environment now that, yeah, that's why, hey, let's pivot. Let's just figure out what's wrong. As a team management, upper management custodian who cares, let's fix it, let's move on, let's conquer whatever's holding us back and let's go on to our next goals. And then just talk about exponential growth in any organization. If they all had that mindset instead of the us versus them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean, think about the information overload we suffer. But at the same time, those shifting priorities has been a problem always in companies. But right now I bet it's shifting even faster. You know, if you get one minute, this is the most important thing and the next minute, this is the most important thing. And there's a disconnect in there. How can I, how can I give you the report you just asked for when I'm rushing to meet my project deadlines? Help me out. We've got to disconnect. What are the priorities here? And it doesn't get to the point of being about blame.
Speaker 2:And another thing that you talk about is when it comes to expectations, and this is something I don't care if people listen that own a business, run a business, if they want to just take it for personal development. When it comes to expectations, the only reason why there is disappointment is because we create we create our own expectations. Management creates their own expectations. When everybody comes from their own mindset, without trying to understand the other person and understand their world, you're, you're, everybody's going to be disappointed because of their own expectations, their own thought process.
Speaker 3:Yes, there's a whole chapter in the book that talks about the difference between doing to and doing with. And if you try to do something to someone, you usually fail. And when you try to do something with someone, you're more likely to succeed. And when you do to somebody, you're controlling them, manipulating them. You know, putting your stuff on them and setting expectations can typically is done to people as you say it's my expectations of you. It's not. If you want to do that with someone, you say, look, this is what we need to have done. You seem to be a good choice for that. Can you make it happen? Does it fit with your schedule? Do you have the skills or the resources? Can it work? And you come to an agreement that, yeah, this is the right person to ask and they agree, they sign up for it, they're ready to go. That's doing with, as opposed to saying so. That's doing with as opposed to saying I need you to do this by the end of the day. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And that's no one likes that, no one likes being too too, too too, tell me about it. The boss, not a leader, middle management just wanted to be a bully, was always in everybody's face and he randomly just came up to me and he was like, got into my personal zone. He's like I just want you to know. There's nothing that you've ever done in your life that impresses me and I'm like thinking, you know, being the business owner for 20 years, being the guy that's done the personal development, done the business development, and I just snickered because not because, oh my gosh, this guy. It resonated. I was like what the? From what school of management would you ever tell that to anybody?
Speaker 3:well, what kind of arrogance is that?
Speaker 2:because he, how he doesn't know everything about you, how can you possibly say something like that exactly, and not only that, I'm 50 a guy I think the guy's like in his mid-30s to to say that and I wanted to say, well, I'm, you know, I, I, I was on the way out, anyways, I just want I just snickered. But my thought process is, if, by 50, if I'm trying to impress anybody, then you know I need to do a lot of work on myself, both personal and business, because that's, that's something maybe like an 18 year old feels or a 20 year old. But even even you know, we're generation x and I don't think that would have motivated us in the 90s to have a boss say, hey, you know what you? You suck, I'm the boss. Do something different, because looking at who you are doesn't impress me much.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, and to apply the disconnect principle to that, you would say instead of just walking away incredulous, you could say I think we have a disconnect. You don't know very much about me and you just said I've never amounted to anything. Please help me understand what you're thinking.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just a lot of times. You just have to look at the source. Oh, I know Completely. You know what I love in the book like how it, like the old way. I love because we've heard this a million times throughout the years you screwed up. There's no nice way. There's no nice way of saying that I love that. Hey, that didn't turn out as I expected.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, one of the things about the disconnect principle is that it makes it easier to admit your own mistakes. So where suppose you really do screw up? And typically a lot of people would just kind of play it down or hide it. But with the disconnect principle you can say if the people around you understand the disconnect principle, you say whoa, I think we have a major disconnect, I just screwed up, things are a mess and we need to sit down and figure out what to do next. And if the people understand, they're going to go. Yes, we just need to figure out what to do next. There's no room there for blaming the person or going down the road of you screwed up.
Speaker 2:And here's one of my favorites feedback, because usually feedback they'll give it to you. Usually, when it comes to your 30 day eval, your 60 day eval, your 90 day eval, whatever days you know, their handbook says, and this is my feedback, says, and this is my feedback, there's the constructed feedback and there's the feedback that you discussed, but usually the feedback is the negative one. It's the usually. Let me attack you, let me tell you all your shortcomings and I I want you to know what your actual shortcomings are and you need to work on your shortcomings.
Speaker 2:Talk about great feedback, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the whole disconnect principle is about fix the disconnect, not the person. And just the fact that we talk about you use the term negative feedback. No one uses that term. They say, you know, constructive feedback or corrective feedback. But just the fact that we talk about the positive feedback versus corrective or constructive or negative feedback, we've already decided the person's to blame. All feedback better be constructive because that's how we learn, and why would you tell anyone anything if it isn't going to help them? Just do better and better and better. You know you do this really well. I'd like you to do more of it. That's constructive feedback. You could do this a little differently. You want some advice on how I would do it? Good advice, yeah. Constructive feedback it's all constructive, or at least it better be. Good advice, yeah, constructive feedback.
Speaker 2:It's all constructive, or at least it better be. Wow, where were all these principles in the 90s and the early 2000s? Before I became an entrepreneur yeah, I'm sorry I hadn't written a book yet I had so many cliched, horrible, horrible bosses literally coming out of college bosses, literally coming out of college. I've never had any expectations of wanting to be a business owner or being an entrepreneur. It was just that every time I had an entrepreneur, it was never a leader, it was always a boss. And clearly, all your books I would.
Speaker 2:If I, if I, if I had that flux capacitor and I knew doc Brown, I would give each and every one of them a copy, because and the best part about it is we always use that excuse Like that was then, like even like in the 90s, I mean, there was still a lot of amazing leaders and we didn't need to read the John Maxwell book on the 50 books on leadership. A lot of times it's just common sense and it's one of the things that you know. Yeah, to have clarity and to be connected, just just be rational, just be how, how would a boss or how would a leader want to be treated? And a lot of times you know, if you ask them like I don't know off the record there, or if I was a shrink, their excuse most of the times would be well, this is how I was, you know, this is how I was led.
Speaker 3:Or this is what I learned in business school.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I love that one yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:So Okay, um, so okay. What I love too is when you talk about that there is a difference between manipulation, and just to me it's either selling or manipulation. To sell someone an idea, to sell someone a thought process, to sell someone hey, what, what? Maybe we should do it this way. That's a win-win situation. A lot of people confuse that manipulation. Manipulation is timeshare. Manipulation is ponzi schemes. Manipulation is when you're you're telling, you're trying to have someone do something, and it's not a win-win. Yeah, it's already. Yeah, it's coercion.
Speaker 3:It's only a one-way street and it's only used for to better one side, and it's usually not not not the other person's side, it's usually the better management yeah, and I would use the word collaboration instead of selling, because I've had a lot of people try to sell me stuff that they have no idea if I could use or I need or that would help improve my condition. Selling can often be very coercive. Now, good salesmen learn what your needs are and they help you find a good match. Other salesmen often are just pushing, pushing, pushing. They're trying to get you to do something that you're reluctant to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that that's where everybody gets that, that stereotypical, bad stigma. Oh the salesman, everybody believes oh, I'm here to sell timeshare or I'm I'm here to sell you a lemon of a used car. Let me go. Let me go talk to my manager and see if I can get that deal for you. Now, with the disconnect principle, how does it increase confidence?
Speaker 3:Well, the disconnect principle should increase confidence because you're not focused on fixing this person and you know kind of building up your. It's like an artificial confidence that you try to create before you go into a difficult conversation. You know you gird yourself, you try to be tough, but if you just go wait a minute, this is just about the disconnect. Let's focus on the disconnect and help your employee focus on the disconnect, even if it's a complete mismatch of their role in your company. You're not taking them apart, you're not picking on them. You say how can we make this work? So I think that makes you much more confident because it takes away those negative feelings that make you miserable.
Speaker 3:You know as much as employees don't like to be chewed out and blamed. Most people I have worked with in my career who are managers and supervisors, they don't like doing it either. I mean it's almost like they got to put their tough boss hat on and go OK, I got to go in and do this like I've been taught and it's no fun. But if you can just say you know we have a disconnect, let's figure out how to do this differently and let's figure out what we need to do next time so we don't have disconnects like this again.
Speaker 2:Well, that's easier too when you do things, because the way to gain confidence is by achieving, by doing, and instead of having a negative Nancy, or instead of having somebody that's hovering over you or telling you, if you do have a cheerleader, if the leader is a cheerleader, middle management is a cheerleader, that's just going to increase confidence right away. Because everybody already has that fear, that fear of failing, that fear of falling down, that fear that they're going to get reprimanded, they're going to get written up, they're going to be scolded, and especially usually in those meetings where, hey, guess what John did? Let's talk about how he screwed up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, let's humiliate people.
Speaker 2:That's helpful? Oh, yeah, completely. I've been in plenty of jobs where humiliation is seen as a tactic and it's like just common sense. When would anybody, you know, just pick themselves up and go you know what? Thank you for humiliating me in front of all these people. Now I'm empowered. Now let's go off the battle. Now let's make this, these numbers, work. Let's make the quarter the best quarter ever. No, it's always. And if anything is, especially with with the newer generation, you know, generation x and boomers, you know we can take it, but but the younger generation and the, the reason why gen z and millennials are different is because they've seen mom, they've seen grandparents getting treated bad at work because they they got to hear about how horrible, or that they got laid off or that, you know, the company never saw them as anything, that they just got laid off. And especially with the information superhighway and all this information that we have, that's why the younger generation isn't the okay. Well, maybe this we also had that. Maybe this is a test, maybe this is like a.
Speaker 2:I was in a fraternity so I was a slow. I always went to the. This is just. They're just hazing me. This is a pledge. I'm a pledge I'll show them, because the first job out of college the guy thought I was wealthy, which I wasn't. Miami I got a job and he kept on like doing horrible things to me and he was like like working without a day off and telling me to quit so I could go live in my mansion in Miami. He was a big fan of Miami Vice, I guess, and it was like, oh, he said, oh, yeah, I'll show him. I know he's, he really loves me. He just wants me to show I'm worthy. The new generation they're like come on now, there's a million jobs out there. They want to be a part of something. The leaders that you write about, the leaders that you know it's an us, yeah Want to build something. They want to be a part of something. They want to know that they do matter right off the bat, which isn't a bad thing.
Speaker 3:Yep, they want to. They want to be part of us. They want to be involved in a win-win deal. And you asked about confidence and I answered from the point of view of the manager or the supervisor giving feedback and all From the employee side. It's even more obvious is that you know they're not getting beaten up. It's not about them, and even if they end up leaving the company and going, you know this isn't a good fit. I'm not really happy here. I'm not contributing the way I could. It's time for me to go find someplace where I can be part of an us, an organization that I'm excited about and that just imagine being in that situation. Compared to if you've ever been on the beaten up side of this whole equation, I would much rather be in a position to go okay, what are my options and can we make this work, and what do I learn about myself in this? And maybe I should just leave, and you know what a nice deal.
Speaker 2:Well, not only I mean, you said it best, because a lot of times too, they want to have a perception that they've evolved. The last, one of the last places I worked, they had meditation Meditation Mondays to start the week, Meditation Fridays oh, how amazing. You get to do that in the circle of trust and then talk about wins and the boss then talks about how amazing he is, how evolved the company is, while he's firing people left and right, while it's a revolving door, yeah, but then it's like namaste, you see, don't you want to be a part of something big? Yeah. And it's like dude, you're taught, you know. Meditation is supposed to lead us to having clarity. Talk about a disconnect, you know if you're saying one thing or you're trying to show something, but you're completely you're. You know. It's like that old saying actions always speak louder than words.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it turns out we are really bad at hiring and so we end up doing a lot of firing. If they use a disconnect principle, the firing wouldn't be firing. You would never put someone on a performance improvement plan. You would create a disconnect improvement plan. You'd either fix the match or you wouldn't.
Speaker 3:Very clearly what is needed and you need to be able to convey what it's like to work for you, for your company and the employees generally, because they've been in this power dynamic. That's just bad. Where the boss does you know the managers, the companies, they get to make all the decisions and I think it makes employees kind of think only in terms of you know status and salary and hours and they don't stop and think about what do I really want to do and how do I want to spend my time, and is this a good investment for me to work at this company? I can convince them I can do this, but is this really the way I want to spend my time? So there needs to be more introspection on the part of employees and more, more. They have to be more empowered to help ensure this is a win-win deal in the first place.
Speaker 2:You know so Well there needs to be more introspection in the sense to. I mean there's an abundance of jobs out there. We live in a place where you can even work remote for a company out east, out west. Lots of options, so many options. You can't just say, well, I don't care if I buy into whatever this company is, let me see who's going to pay me more, because, right, there is going to be. If it's something you don't agree with morally, if it's something you're not really sold into but you're chasing the money, then you're going to find out quick that well, maybe I should have looked at every option. Maybe the highest paid is not always the best situation.
Speaker 3:No, it's not. Yeah, yeah, you know, I think I was pretty far along in my career before I finally had a manager who helped me see the differences in between. You know, like the perfect example is that a lot of good employees get promoted to be managers or supervisors and suddenly, instead of producing the product or doing what it is, creating something, now they're responsible for helping people, their employees, create stuff, and that's a totally different interest. You know different way of spending your time. It's a different skill set. It shouldn't be that different a skill set, because if you embrace things like my disconnect principle, that works both directions, but it's.
Speaker 3:You know, if you like to build, you know write code and make software, you're not going to be a staff person that's leading from behind, or whether you want to be the person that's out front and it's the face of the organization. You know whether you want to create versus support, versus organize versus problem solve. And it was the first time I had a really good conversation with a supervisor where I realized that, oh, I need to be making choices about this. You know this is for me to make those decisions, not them. You know, yes, you take different jobs so you can have different experiences. It's like you know, if you like to build boats, you're not going to be happy sitting in an office writing documents. I mean, it's a very different way of spending your time and a different skill set well, exactly.
Speaker 2:But also like, yeah, management has to accept some blame, because usually what happens the way they hire from within or promote from within is oh, we have this number one sales guy. Yeah, well, let's make him the sales manager. Yeah, that's a big mistake. That doesn't mean he knows how to lead. He knows how to do his one thing, which is selling Great. Now, that doesn't mean he knows how to teach it. That doesn't mean he knows how to become part of the team and lead others.
Speaker 3:Doesn't mean he wants to teach it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So what happens is usually he's miserable, the numbers are down because he's no longer selling, he's management and he's overseeing what the team's doing, and then they're like, oh my gosh, we don't know what happened. Well, what happened was you took the number one guy who loved doing what he was doing, you promoted him and you gave him a position that he really didn't. One he didn't really know whether he wanted it or two, he was really qualified or if he was really good at it. So now everybody suffers in that aspect.
Speaker 3:Sure, management makes huge mistakes in hiring. There's no question about it. But the number one sales guy who loves selling, if he'd realized that he wouldn't like sitting in the office and managing people instead, he would have said no and he probably got lured in by a salary boost and a promotion, a better title and it's like the whole hierarchical structure and salary structures of our organization help defeat putting people in positions where there's a good match well, also, we're humans, it's.
Speaker 2:It's hard to tell someone a lot of times, no. It's hard for that guy to be like, no, I'm happy where, where I'm at, because oh my gosh, you might be, you have this feeling of I might disappoint because once again there's no communication. It'd be easier to say, hey, you know what, I'm pretty good at what I'm doing. I think this is the place where you want me to maximize not only myself, but maximize sales for the corporation, for the company. I'm not really good at leadership, but I can help find someone that can be an amazing sales leader. So it's a win-win for myself, win-win for whomever and win-win for the corporation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the manager can help make that happen by saying you're a number one sales guy. You are really good at this. This is how you seem to really like to spend your time. We'd like to have you consider this other position, but pay real close attention to how it will shift the way you spend your days. And, by the way, don't pay him more for that job, because it probably isn't adding more value. I don't know, but our whole hierarchical structure of salaries and job titles, like I say it, leads people astray in a way, because they go after the wrong thing thing.
Speaker 2:And now this book is all your books. You don't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur to get a lot of it. You know, pretty much anybody can read this, and they should, shouldn't they?
Speaker 3:yes, yeah, my books are are really broad, you know it's like. Just take the disconnect principle, for instance. Did you have a messy room as a child? Did you have a parent who nagged you to pick up your room?
Speaker 2:did I? Uh, no, just because my mom worked two jobs and went to college.
Speaker 3:I had a single mom, so so there must be people who listen to this. Who had messy rooms, you know. And imagine, instead of a parent nagging you, your father came in and said you know, I think we have a disconnect. I really think tidy rooms are important, but you don't seem to think that way. So let's talk about this and figure out what we can do about it, so this isn't a constant sort of source of tension between us. So it's like, imagine being that young child and just go. Oh my God, they would feel so proud and empowered to suddenly.
Speaker 3:Someone wants their opinion, they want to know why they treat the room the way they do, and my guess is that this kid is going to suddenly try to figure out. You know, this is why I don't care. This is what I might be willing to do. This is, you know, some kind of compromise, although in the end, keeping the door closed so the parent doesn't see the mess might be the best solution, because it's got to become. You've got to come to it as a cooperative decision. So my books apply, I believe, very broadly, even though a lot of times my examples are quite corporate, because that's where I've spent a lot of time. But the power of clarity has help in there for just about anybody, and the disconnect principle will absolutely work for anybody starting today. I mean, you don't have to spend a month studying that book to know how to apply it and how do we buy all your books.
Speaker 3:They're all available on Amazon. If you go to annelathamcom you will have links to all the books. There's a place there where it's got all books and you can link to each one. You can learn more about them. You can buy them from multiple sources, so that's probably the easiest way. But if you just remember Ann Latham Clarity or Ann Latham Disconnect, you will find them on the Internet.
Speaker 2:Now, ann I know how to find them on the internet. Now, ann, I know how to find you, I know how to find you through your publicist, but how does the listener find you On social media? How do they find you? And, more important, I know you work with everybody. How do they get the chance to work with you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, unfortunately they can't, because I retired from consulting and I've poured all of my wisdom into my books. So the best thing to do is to read my books and, if they're lucky, I'll write some more. If they're lucky, I'll write some more.
Speaker 2:Well, I know you can write more.
Speaker 3:You can find me on LinkedIn, ann Latham, on Common Clarity, or Queen of Clarity, if you.
Speaker 2:Google that I guarantee you will find me. Well, ann, here's a question, a final question, and it's not the million-dollar question, but what words of wisdom do you have? It's a two-parter, for for the boss, he's not a leader, he's a boss, and he's doing the same thing over and over again. How can he use the disconnect principle? What words of wisdom do you have? Because we can all shift and change our world, just like that. And then the second part is what words of wisdom do you have? The employee that's beaten down, that goes job to job every 60, every 90 days, like the digital nomad, just one place to another.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the boss should read the book, the Disconnect Principle. But the simple advice for the boss is the next time someone disappoints him or her, instead of leaping to conclusions that the person is bad, you just, you know, count to three and you say I think we have a disconnect, where are we and what needs to be done next. And the more you do that, the more he or she will gradually learn how to actually think that. So start with the words and then realize how that is helping you. Because when you say I think we have a disconnect, where are we and what do we need to do next, with no blame, you just created the opportunity for a calm, objective conversation, which is something that that boss may never have experienced. So you've just paved the way to being respectful and helpful. So that's my advice for the boss.
Speaker 3:As for the employee who's been beaten up repeatedly, that's a really hard one, because it's really really hard even for employees, while they're employed, to push books upstream and to push ideas up to their bosses, because I found it that they don't listen to your average employee. They're just not going to pay attention. So if you bounced around, because bosses are terrible, keep bouncing. Talk to your friends. Get a referral to an organization that treats their employees well. Try to find those organizations that are worth working for. There really are a lot of them out there. We hear the stories about the worst ones, and even in a bigger company there are good bosses, good supervisors, good, good leaders. You know they're not all terrible, but when you do encounter a toxic boss, just move on.
Speaker 2:Don't waste your time wow, that's very powerful on that. Thank you for your answers and, more importantly, two things. Thank you for a copy of the Disconnect Principle. It's a very good read. I recommend everybody. I don't care if you have a side hustle, I don't care if you have a main hustle. It's a great way to also learn how to sell. It is a selling book, it's a business book. It's a fabulous book. It'll help you get closer to all your goals. Thank you for the copy, thank you for the coffee, thank you for the hour and thank you for understanding and letting us reschedule. I completely thank you and best of luck, and I can't wait to read more of your work because I know there's plenty of more books. You're an amazing writer.
Speaker 1:Thank you. To make it happen, you gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work.