MindsetGo iCommunicate Podcast
Welcome to the iCommunicate Podcast where we develop the mindset and provide communication strategies to foster confidence, emotional intelligence, as well as organizational, team, or personal growth. Our progress and improvement is not limited to a training session; it embodies a constant cycle of self-reflection and continued learning on individual and communal levels.
MindsetGo iCommunicate Podcast
ICommunicate Radio Show #171: Conversation Expectations And Simultaneous Thoughts
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Welcome to iCommunicate on Full Service Radio 830WCRM. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.
SPEAKER_00Okay, welcome to iCommunicate. I'm your host, Mark Altman, and you know what I'm gonna do today? I'm gonna start the show with two things. I'm gonna start the show with a joke, and I I can't say that promise the joke will be funny, but I'm gonna start the show with a joke. And Jazz, you can tell me the truth if you think this is funny. I thought it was kind of funny, or it's kind of like a borderline dad joke. You know we call it a dad joke, but this is the joke. So I just found out that this this part's real. I just found out that there's something called like World Listening Day to celebrate and focus on listening. So I said when I heard it, I said, yeah, it's usually not those, it's I said, it's usually not successful though, because people don't seem to get the message.
SPEAKER_02Oh my God, that's that's a good dad joke.
SPEAKER_00That's a dad joke, right? Okay. Anyways, comedy's not included on I Communicate. So all right, anyway, so today's show. Um so today's show is kind of cool because we're gonna be talking about a couple of things. We're gonna be talking about conversation expectations, and we're gonna be talking about a concept that I've alluded to on the show before around simultaneous emotions and simultaneous responsibilities. And what really got me thinking about this topic today was I was just in uh Illinois speaking at a conference uh for HR, a group called uh Illinois Sherm. And uh at the conference, I was talking to a lot of the HR leaders about how difficult it is for HR people to balance two very distinct roles. One is to advocate for employees, and one is to protect companies from risk. I mean, two totally disparate responsibilities, because on one hand you're protecting the company, and on the other hand, you're supposed to be advocating for the employee. And I thought, what a tug of war that is, and it really fits into this simultaneous emotion role concept. So before I get into that piece, though, I want to share a story that will really set up this concept. Well, this is a story that just happened to me, and um, I was so blown away, and I and I I tried to get this guy on the show, but as you'll find out by the end of the story, he was forbidden, unfortunately. So here's what happened. For those of you who have taken a flight anywhere in the last couple of years, um I think we can all agree at this point airline travel is kind of a disaster. Um for so many reasons, right? There's there's shortages in labor for pilots and flight attendants, customer service has dropped, um, prices have gone higher, and there's just so many problems, there's delays, there's issues, there's everything. So, right, so if you have to fly somewhere right now, you you're probably not only have low expectations, but you probably go in bracing for the worst. Am I going to get delayed? Is my flight gonna get canceled? So there's so many things that are that are you you brace for bad, right? So I was flying out uh a couple of months ago uh to speak at a conference. It was on jet blue, and I was in the terminal waiting for the flight, and about a half hour before we were scheduled to board, the pilot, whose name is Jerry Todd, came out. Now keep in mind, I want you to listen to the beginning of the story, not the flight attendant. The pilot came out to the terminal to address the people at the terminal. So all of a sudden he says, very loud voice, could I have everybody's attention, please? I was working on my laptop and I said, You know what, what's this about? So I look up, and so this is what the pilot said. He said, quote unquote, I've got some news for everybody, and it's not good news. The news is that the plane we were supposed to fly out on has mechanical issues, and we have not located another plane to replace it. So I just wanted to be honest and transparent. You have my word that we were working on a solution actively, and I will continue to give you updates every few minutes. Now, of course, you hear the rumbling and grumbling because now people are like, are we even gonna get off the ground? And when's another flight? Now people are irritated, and it's kind of that self-fulfilling prophecy of preparing for the worst when you fly. But then before he walked away, he actually kind of joked around with some passengers and built some rapport with passengers. So I was really taken aback by the fact that the pilot himself came out to address the group, was honest and transparent, which is very rare with an airline. I actually made the joke, Jazz, on this flight I just came in. We were coming back from Chicago, we were delayed 45 minutes. And of course, the delay was not the airline's fault. It was the weather, it was this, it was that. It's never the airline's fault. And this is gonna show my age, everyone, by the way. I'm digressing from the story for a moment. This is gonna show my age. But for those of you who remember the movie Airplane, which is one of my favorite movies of all time, Leslie Nielsen, may you rest in peace. There's a scene in the movie where they're there's they're they're coming down, they're about to crash, it appears they're gonna crash, and Leslie Nielsen comes out and addresses everyone on the airplane and says, Don't worry, you have nothing to worry about, everything's gonna be fine. And as he keeps repeating that over and over, his nose grows longer and longer and longer like Pinocchio. And I thought, how great would it be if when an airline gave an excuse for why there's a delay or why there's an issue, if they were lying, like their nose would grow and you could actually detect whether they were really being accountable for something that had something to do with them, or it was just an excuse trying to throw someone else under the bus. But I digress. So back to the story. So this guy, Jerry Todd, is building rapport, clear and transparent, honest communication, um, being accountable. Everything's rare. And I'm working on my laptop and I'm like, who is this guy? Like, this is so inconsistent with what I would expect from airlines, and so inconsistent for the expectations I would have for how airlines would handle their customer relationships that I was kind of surprised. But I'm like, okay, so let's see how this plays out. He comes out 20 minutes later, and this to me was so significant because what do we talk about with leaders? Follow up. Keep your commitments, do what you say you're gonna do. Well, he said he was gonna give consistent updates. Out he comes out 20 minutes later. He comes out and he says, Okay, everybody, I still have nothing to report. However, um we think there might be another plane here in Logan, actually, that we can use. So we're still checking on that, but don't have any final answers for you. But I will be out again in a few minutes to update you. Still the pilot, still following through. So finally, 15 minutes later, he comes out and he says, Great news, everybody. We have located a plane in Logan, and we're gonna actually be able to begin boarding in 20 to 30 minutes. So I'm just still taken aback by the level of communication, the consistency of follow-up. It's being done by the pilot, not the flight attendants. So I get on the plane and I walk on the plane, and this guy, Jerry Todd, is at the door of the cockpit, and I stop and I look at him and I go, Who are you? I literally said to him, Who are you? I go, Jerry, and I saw his name tag, I didn't know him. I said, Jerry, I have never had an experience this positive on an airline where you took a situation that was negative and frustrating and disappointed, and because you were so honest and clear with your communication, you totally made people feel like included, comfortable, gave them peace of mind of what to clearly expect. And I said, I'm just I'm just taken aback and I really appreciate the communication. And if he was very humble, he's like, Thank you very much. I said, Jerry, I I need to have you on iCommunicate. I need to have you on the radio show. I said, So he's like, Well, yeah, I'd be interested. I said, but in the meantime, when we land, I was going to Las Vegas. When we land in Las Vegas, I said, Would you, and this was now you're talking 11 o'clock at night Pacific time. I said, Would you stay back with me for a few minutes and let me just do an interview with my phone? So he said, Yeah, I will. So we land in Las Vegas. The story gets better. Like it's not, I'm not even done yet. So we land in Las Vegas and I'm walking off the plane, and I said, Jerry, I would understand if you don't want to do the interview, because you I'm sure you're tired. And he goes, No, no, no, I'll do the interview. I just need to help the flight attendants clean the plane first. I'm like, huh? Again, who are you? Right? So now he's helping the flight attendants clean the plane. So now I'm like, this guy's this guy's an outlier. Like, where did this guy come from? So meanwhile, I wait for him. He comes out, I walk with the pilot and the co-pilot. He lets me do a six-minute interview with him, and I was not able to use the interview because Jet Blue said that he can't do that. He couldn't come on the show and he couldn't do the interview. But I I could I did do the interview, but I wasn't able to put it out on social media. And one of the things I said to him in the interview is I said, Jerry, this kind of behavior from airlines is so unique and unusual. And part of me is frustrated that I'm making such a big deal because I'm making a big deal because it's so unusual, which is disappointing. But, you know, how did you get this way? And I found out since he's actually the assistant chief of pilots nationally for JetBlue, and he's based out of Boston. But he basically said, to get to the moral of the story, he basically said, look, leading by example to me means that you're not better than anybody else. You don't, you don't, your responsibilities or your things aren't more important than anybody else. So when I clean the cockpit with the flight attendants, or when I clean the plane with the flight attendants, the message I want to give is, I'm not better than you because I'm the pilot and you're a flight attendant. We're in this together. And, you know, what better way to lead by example than to actually do the action that you're talking about? And the last piece is, I asked him, I said, so where did you learn to do that kind of communication? Because I bet Jerry you would acknowledge there's not a lot of pilots in your own airline that are doing things like that. And he said that it's just the people that have influenced and mentored him in his life, you know, really prioritize that. And so I started the show with the story today because when we come back, what we're really talking about today is conversation expectations. What do you expect of other people when you have conversations with them, right? How do you balance as an HR person? How do you balance when you're having conversations with people, knowing that on one hand, you have to protect the company and any potential risk, but also you want to be supportive and advocate for the employee. How do you, as a leader, hold people accountable for the work they're supposed to do day in and day out, and at the same time remain empathetic to the challenges they're having during the pandemic?
SPEAKER_02Well, and manage their expectations, right?
SPEAKER_00And manage their expectations. And what Jerry did, final thought before break, what Jerry did is he balanced his responsibility to the airline to be honest and transparent and say what was really happening. But by communicating effectively, he supported the team. So with that said, I'll be back after the break. I'm Mark Altman for i Communicate.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to iCommunicate on full service radio, 830 WCRM. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.
SPEAKER_00Okay, welcome back to iCommunicate. So just want to give a shout out to Jerry Todd one more time of JetBlue. Um if you if you're on LinkedIn and you want to give him a shout-out or acknowledgement, please do because Jerry is uh certainly an amazing outlier of what the role is and uh just really grateful for having that interaction with him. So, what are we talking about today? We're talking about conversation expectations. We're talking about balancing roles and responsibilities in the workplace, we're talking about simultaneous emotions. So let's start with a concept that we're doing we're hearing a lot about, and it's called psychological safety. The previous show I did, we talked a lot about psychological safety, but I want to kind of take it from a different perspective. You know, when I attend a lot of these HR events, it's such a buzzed topic, and a lot of consultants and speakers online talk a lot about psychological safety, and they talk about the importance of psychological safety. They talk about the value and the benefits of psychological safety. And those things are all really important because when you're motivating people, if you're motivating leaders or parents or people in positions of authority to open up channels of communication and make people comfortable speak their truth to speak their truth, then yeah, it is important to understand the importance and the value and the benefits of psychological safety. And what we take a lot of pride in at Mindset Go is we coach people how to have conversations that facilitate psychological safety. Because that's where if you understand the importance of something, you understand the benefits and value of something, that's wonderful. But that execution piece to incorporate psychological safety strategies in a conversation and excuse me for a moment, and this is the thing about psychological safety. If you're going to create a culture in your organization as a team within an individual conversation of psychological safety, it very often can be easy to do that in the beginning of the conversation. What gets in the way often of maintaining psychologically safe conversations is the responses and the reaction from the other person. And there's a there's a concept I talk to people about I alluded to at the last show, it's called the killer D's. And the killer D's are denial, defensiveness, and deflection. And usually when you're talking with someone and you're in a position of authority and you're talking to them about a performance area, um, a habit that you want them to replace or improve on, something where they're not meeting your expectation. Usually when you have a conversation like that, the tendency of the other person is to become defensive, is to deflect, is to deny because it's almost a human instinct to defend yourself and to justify a behavior. And so when we talk about conversation uh expectations, sometimes in conversations we get so focused on preparing, which is incredibly important, setting ourselves up for success, but then once the conversation gets rolling and it doesn't follow the script that you expect, the killer Ds come into play, your expectations aren't met, the other person doesn't cooperate, then are you able to still maintain a psychologically safe conversation? And what gets in the way when the killer Ds come up is your willingness and openness to be empathetic may be compromised. Your ability to listen to understand now that you're triggered or frustrated may be compromised. Your tone may become judgmental or frustrated. The words you use may not be as compassionate and respectful. And so psychological safety starts right with managing yourself. Because to create a psychological safe conversation, you can facilitate something where people feel comfortable speak their to speak their truth, but you have to own your part of how you show up in that conversation to create that culture of psychological safety. And I think a lot of times in conversations, if you think about it, if you are in an organization and you are going to speak your truth, because you don't want to be a quiet quitter, you don't want to be one of those people that becomes part of the great resignation because you're unhappy with the job, you want to advocate for yourself. You want to speak up for what you want and need to be happy. Well, the question is, what is your expectation of that conversation? The second the conversation starts and you advocate for yourself and you speak up for you what you want and need, what do you expect of the other person? Here's an example as a parent. If you're a high school student and your curfew is at 11 o'clock at night, and you want to have a conversation with your parent to extend the curfew to midnight, and you decide, you know what, I'm gonna say something. I'm frustrated. I'm not gonna just the high school kid says, I'm not gonna just sit there and be resentful and frustrated. I'm gonna I'm gonna advocate and say something to my parents. So you have that conversation as a child. You go to your parents, and the parent says, I'm sorry, the curfew has to be eleven o'clock. Do you now, as the high school student, feel like that conversation was a waste of time because you weren't agreed with? Because the parent didn't do what you wanted them to do. And I believe, listeners, that a lot of times when people are making the decision to advocate for themselves, if the outcome of the conversation isn't the outcome they sought, then it becomes confirmation bias at times and a self-fulfilling prophecy where they say either to themselves or out loud to the other person, see, this is why I don't say anything. This is why I don't speak up. To which I would say, if I was the parent in that case, I would say, Well, wait a second. Are you saying that the only way you found it valuable to speak up and say something is if I agreed with you and did what you wanted to do? And of course the answer is that is not the only benefit in value of speaking up. Simultaneous emotions is recognizing that there is a value in speaking up for what you want and need, and at the same time being clear on not only what your expectations are in the conversation, but what your expectations are of outcomes of the conversation. So to me, if a parent came to me and said, What's my job? If my child comes to me and wants to extend the curfew to midnight from eleven o'clock, what's my job to show up and be a support system in that conversation? This is what I would say. Your job in that conversation is to listen to understand to the request. Ask questions. Why do you feel like a midnight curfew is more reasonable than 11 p.m. curfew? Ask questions. Get to understand their thought process. Learn why they think it's reasonable. But here's the deal in a psychologically safe conversation, you're not judging. Okay? So for instance, let's say your child says, you say, Well, okay, well, thank you for coming to me. You know, why did you think a midnight curfew is more fair than eleven? Well, it just is. I'm old enough now, I should have a midnight curfew. See, in that moment, as an authority figure, you don't get to judge and say, Well, that's not a good enough reason. You can have your opinion on the reason. But if you become judgmental in the moment, that's not what how you want to show up in the conversation by being judgmental. So here's the point. If I was coaching a parent on this, here's what I would say your role in that conversation is listen to understand, ask meaningful questions. If you are going to actually consider the idea or the request, consider it and make sure you follow up with an answer so they don't have to come back. To you. Those are your responsibilities in that conversation. And no one wants to deliver bad news. It's one of the worst things for people. When you have to tell people no, when you have to tell people we can't do what you want us to do. In the workplace, people come up with ideas for processes, for sales and marketing strategies, for how to serve your customers better. People have ideas all the time. But if the premise, when you have an idea or you're going to provide feedback, or you're going to give a recommendation, if the premise is that it was only worthwhile if the person or the company adopted your idea, well then no one would ever speak up. And no one would ever exchange ideas. Because that exchange of ideas allows for progress. And this is why part of being psychologically safe in conversations, right, is asking someone, if someone says to you, Jazz, if you go to Chris and you say, I have an idea on how to run radio shows more effectively at the station, you know what I would want Chris to say to you? Happy to hear it. What is your expectation when you share this idea? Right? Think about how weird that question would be. So Jazz spoke up. What is your expectation to share the idea? And then Chris could say, or Jazz could say, well, what would you say, Jazz? How would you answer that?
SPEAKER_02I would probably try to figure out, you know, every show host has a different way of doing things, and we have some people that come in and do live shows like you do, versus some people who do it from their home office. So, you know, it would kind of be one of those things where I would try to figure out what works best for the hosts, but then how do you translate that into an expectation for the business?
SPEAKER_00No, but I mean, yes, but I mean, if Chris said, What do you expect me to do after you share your idea? Like, what's my role in this conversation? What would you say?
SPEAKER_02I don't think I would have any idea how to respond.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So just before the break here, you know what a good answer to that? I would just like you to listen and hear me out. You know, I would just like you to consider the benefits of this idea. Like that would be a reasonable thing to say, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_00So I think as we go into our next break, when we come back, we're gonna we're gonna talk about some of these conversation expectations, how they apply in the workplace, how they apply in parenting and authority, and some strategies you can use to create psychologically safe conversations. So for iCommunicate, I'm Mark Altman. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to iCommunicate on full service radio, 830 WCRM. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.
SPEAKER_00Okay, welcome back to iCommunicate. So, right before the break, we were talking about conversation expectations. If you advocate for yourself, is it only worthwhile if people adopt your feedback, adopt your ideas, act on it? And, you know, I was talking right before the break about look, if you're receiving feedback, if someone's managing up, and let me just quickly give context and explain what managing up means. Managing up means someone has authority over you. It could be your parents, it could be your boss, it could be a senior leader in your organization, if you play sports, it could be your coach, if you're in school, it could be your teacher. So that's what I mean when I say managing up, how you communicate up to authority. Okay? And so when you're managing up and you're the receiver of the communication, this is what I believe your responsibilities are. And this is to me, this is the template of communication we teach at Mindset Go. There's four things I want you to do when someone manages up, okay? The first thing I want you to do is reinforce the behavior. And what I mean by that is if someone has the courage and confidence to speak up in a meeting, share an idea, share a frustration or something they're disappointed about, and they're assertive enough to do that, I want you to recognize that behavior. When people do that to me, my initial response is thank you very much for sharing that. Thank you very much for feeling comfortable to speak up about that issue. It means a lot to me that you would feel comfortable doing that. Okay, so that's step one. Reinforce the very behavior you want to create in the workplace, a culture of psychological safety. The second thing that I want you to do is I want you to listen to understand, and the way you listen to understand is by asking questions to be curious about how they arrived at the idea, their thought process. Okay, she's managing up, and Jazz says to Chris, you know how I think we could really grow revenue at the radio station? I think if we bring in circus clowns every day to make people happy. And as soon as Jazz says that, what's going through Chris's mind is that may be the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And you know how I'd want Chris to respond? Instead of being judgmental and frustrated that she took his time with the idea, I'd want Chris to respond by saying, Geez, Jazz, how do you think that would help? Because when you respond with curiosity, that's what I think people expect when they share idea and feedback. I think people want you to show interest. I think people want you to be present and focused on the conversation. I think people by responding with curiosity and not judgment, it makes people feel like they're good. Because frankly, if if the idea doesn't make sense or is illogical, I would want to know the thought process that led to the illogical. If the if the idea made a ton of sense, I would want to know the thought process that created the good idea. So again, first, you're recognizing the positive and reinforcing the positive behavior. Second, you're listening to understand, you're asking questions, you're trying to understand what critical thinking steps they used to come up with the idea. Third, if the idea doesn't make sense or it's not something you're going to be able to follow through on, follow up with them in a timely manner and again thank them and say you can't wait to hear the next idea they have, and you can't wait to hear the next time they have feedback. And the fourth thing when you're doing this is when you have to deliver bad news and you have to quote unquote reject the idea or not meet their expectations of what they were hoping that's happened, don't play games. Be transparent, be open and honest, and empathize. You know, if you have to give bad news, say, listen, you know, I spoke with the president of the company, you know, we're not going to be able to do your idea at this time. I can see why that this would be frustrating news for you. And here's your simultaneous emotions again. I can see why this would be frustrating, and keep them coming. Keep those ideas coming because the more we're thinking about how to improve process and communication and our leadership, the better we're going to be as a company. So the message itself is simultaneous. It's not manipulative, it's truthful, it's transparent, and it reinforces the very behaviors that create a culture of psychological safety. Now, when you look at the role of HR, and I alluded to this at the top of the show, the rule of HR is, or the challenge, not the rule of HR, the challenges of HR are that you're supporting an entire organization. You're managing up. If you're not on the senior leadership team and you're an HR, you have to manage the needs and expectations of the senior leadership team. Frankly, even if you are on the senior leadership team, you still need to manage the needs and expectations of the team. And then you have the rest of the organization, all the different leaders, all the different employees who are coming to you with problems. Now think about a role in an organization where the majority of your day or a good portion of your day every day is hearing problems, complaints, negativity, frustration. Aside from balancing your responsibilities to protect the company from risk and advocate for employees, man, if you're absorbing negativity and frustration all day, you have to manage yourself in HR because that's a lot to process and a lot to balance. So, how do you have a conversation in HR where you could make a person feel heard while protecting the company from risk, while not giving them the outcome they seek? Because in my experience working with a lot of HR executives, the expectation when someone comes to HR is you're going to solve the problem. Right? This is why I'm coming to you. Fix it. Solve the problem. But the reality is, when it comes to problem solving, the solution to problems, if you're an effective leader or HR executive, what you're doing is you're developing the critical thinking skills and problem solving skills of the people coming to you so they can in turn be able to solve their own problems. And the reality is some stuff has to go to HR. So if you make a complaint, this brings the whole thing full circle. If you make a complaint about your boss to HR, what do you expect from the HR person in that conversation? You're complaining about your boss, their boss. Are you expecting them to talk to your boss? Let's just start right there. Is the expectation that now you voice the complaint, you expect the HR person to talk to your boss? And I think that's a reasonable expectation. I mean, you go to HR because you need another voice. You need someone to advocate. You don't feel like you're impacting change. All right? So fine, you'd like the HR person to talk to their boss. So let's pretend in this conversation that you advocate for what you're frustrated and disappointed with. You talk to HR, and the HR person says, Thank you for sharing. I will talk to your boss and I will follow up. And let's say that exact process happens. You know the HR person spoke with your boss and followed up and let you know. Now in that moment, you're happy. You went into the conversation and you said, Well, I wanted HR to advocate and they did. I wanted HR to follow up with me afterwards and they did. So now you feel happy. But here's where the problems start. One week later, two weeks later, four weeks later, your boss continues to do the same behavior that they did when you went to your HR person to talk to the boss. So now what's going through your head? Now have your expectations still been met. Realistically, you had what you wanted completed, but the behavior persists, the negative behavior persists. So now was the conversation worth it? Now are we saying to ourselves, Well, I guess HR can't help. I guess HR can't do anything. I follow the channels, I did my thing, and look where we are. The person still is struggling to do act differently than I requested. And this is where conversation expectations are a problem for so many people, and it involves behavior change. Their whole life in some cases. So when you have someone that doesn't act the way you want them to act, the likelihood that that person is spoken to and they are able to immediately and permanently sustain that behavior change is virtually nil. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not giving anybody a free pass. I'm not promoting that we should let people off the hook and enable them when they don't act a certain way in the workplace. That's not the message here. The message is we're talking about conversation expectations. We're talking about how to create conversations where you can facilitate psychological safety at the beginning of the conversation and all the way through the conversation despite opportunities to be triggered and frustrated when people don't cooperate. And we're talking about, and Jazz said it earlier, we're talking about setting expectations and we're talking about managing expectations. And if you're a leader from a CEO all the way down to a floor supervisor, if your expectation is that you're going to have a conversation with someone about a problem and they're going to agree at the end of the conversation to do something different, and that the change is going to be instant and permanent with no setbacks, it's not going to happen most of the time. And before we go into our final break, one final thought, and then we'll really develop this and continue to expand on it, is again, elephant in the room, if these are safety issues, if these are sexual harassment issues, if these are high-level urgent issues, risk, yeah, you don't have time to let people develop habits, right? It's it's risk, it's safety. So those are outliers. Those are exceptions, not outliers, they're exceptions to what I'm talking about. But that's not the focus of this conversation. It's about expectations of habit and behavior change in the workplace. So we'll come back for our final segment. I'm Mark Altman, and this is i Communicate.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to iCommunicate on full service radio, 830 WCRM. To join the conversation, call 508-871-7000. Now, here's your host, Mark Altman.
SPEAKER_00Okay, welcome back to iCommunicate. So, you know, we're talking about these conversation expectations and managing up, and so the moral to the story is having a behavior change takes a long time. And there is not a one conversation solution in many of these cases, in the majority of these cases. There is no one size fits all. The premise, the very premise of the manager as a coach program we work with leaders on is coaching. Is coaching. What is coaching? Coaching is not instant. Coaching takes time. Coaching is gradual and continual and momentous progress. And that's why when you look at all the core competencies of leadership in HR, knowing how to coach people up, coach people to improve their habits, to make progress, to up level their performance. Nothing in coaching is instant. Awareness can be instant. Um, epiphanies can be instant, but progress is gradual, and that very premise, progress is gradual, relates to the expectations you have of others, the expectations of the outcomes of a conversation, psychological safety, part of being facilitating psychological safe conversations is again how I said in the beginning of the show, how you manage yourself in the beginning of the conversation. Do you expect people to change instantly? Do you expect people to cooperate when they're hearing critical feedback or constructive feedback? How do you expect people to react to your feedback? Do you expect people to be frustrated? Do you expect people to be disappointed? When you're listening to understand and you're empathizing, do you expect them to all of a sudden be happy and not frustrated anymore just because you're doing your part in the conversation? So the whole premise here is this word expectations is so big, right? Because think about this. It starts with what do you expect of yourself for success in the different things you do in life and the different roles you play? Then it's what do you expect of others? And then it's what do others expect of you? And then it's what do others expect of each other and what do others expect of the organization. Expectations are intertwined so much with our frustration, with our emotions, with our relationships with people. We expect so much of so many people, we expect outcomes, we expect wins, we expect successes, we expect people to meet their goals. It's a lot. Like it's really a lot. And before you even get into what you expect of others, if you expect an unreasonable amount of yourself, you're already behind the eight bowl. You're already you're already at a deficit. Because if you expect so much of yourself, if your template for is perfection, is progress has to be substantial and not incremental, it's going to affect your other relationships. It's going to be affect how you connect and relate with people. It's going to affect how your ability to influence and motivate people. It's going to affect your ability to recognize, appreciate, and value people. Again, expectations. I mean that's powerful stuff. So balancing empathy and accountability has been probably our most requested program in leadership the last two years. It's not an accident. It's so hard for people to balance being empathetic, well, you're not meeting your expectations. You're letting me down. You're disappointing me. So I need to hold you accountable. And I feel kind of bad for you because there's a lot. You can do both. The whole premise behind simultaneous emotions is you can have a conversation where you lead with empathy and you segue to accountability. You can have a conversation in HR where you can do both. You can protect and advocate for the company, and you can make people feel heard, validated, respected, and empathized. They're not independent responsibilities. It's called conversation intelligence. And that is what we do. That's what we love to do because it is so hard for people to balance those simultaneous concepts in conversation. I mean, you know what? One of my favorite ones that I've been working with people on lately is accountability from a point of individual accountability. Be accountable. This is something that hardly anybody ever discussed. You know how I want people to be accountable? I want people to be accountable for their thoughts. I want people to be accountable for their voice. Values and belief systems. And the way you're accountable for your thoughts, it's called kind being kind to yourself. You know, I joked my bad joke at the beginning of the show around listening. There's also a National Kindness Day. And you know what I want people to celebrate on National Kindness Day? Because everybody's going to talk about being kind to others. I'd like you to be kind to yourself. That's what I want you to work on on National Kindness Day. In the way you're kind to yourself, here's a perfect example. I'm going to model it for you again with the concept of simultaneous emotions. You've failed. You've let yourself down. Perhaps you've let other people down. You're saying to yourself, I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I made that decision. I can't believe I did that. Your inner voice starts with that conversation. And this is how you balance simultaneous emotions where you're accountable for your actions and your thoughts, and you're kind to yourself at the same time. You can do both. And it looks like this. I can't believe I made that decision. And I just need to learn from it. It's okay. Everybody makes mistakes. A matter of fact, I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't learn from past mistakes. If I didn't embrace failure as a learning opportunity. But if the message to yourself is, I can't believe I did that, and you stop there, it's only about the criticism. And being accountable with your thoughts is recognizing when you're tearing yourself down, when you're being unreasonably or unfairly critical of yourself. Listen, if you make bad decisions and you didn't communicate effectively or you didn't do due diligence, I want you to be accountable for that. I don't want you to get a free pass. I wouldn't give you a free pass. Being accountable with your thoughts is being accountable for recognizing mistakes and areas of development or growth, and at the same time, being kind enough to yourself to give yourself the latitude to grow and learn and fail. You can do both. So there's so many concepts around simultaneous emotions and thoughts. The HR piece, we talked about it. The risk for the company and advocating for employees, balancing empathy and accountability, speaking your truth and doing it in a kind, compassionate, respectful way.
SPEAKER_02One of the things that you have just brought me to with this conversation is the difference between feeling valued and wanting to quiet quit. Or feeling like you're a big part of the team versus feeling like you're just another replaceable pawn, right?
SPEAKER_00It's a great point, Jazz. And it really what your the point you just made really summarizes the the the primary takeaway I wanted people to have for the show. In the beginning of the show, we talked about what do you expect when you advocate for yourself, right? And you know what I want you to expect? And I say expect, I don't know if I mean expect. What I want you to strive for is the better way, because you can't expect something of someone if they don't know you expect it of them. So I want you to strive for it. I want you to strive. If you're a leader in an organization, you are impacting people's lives every day. And you know what I want you to do? Your job isn't to agree with everything that someone on your team says. Your job isn't to adopt their ideas. Your job is to make people feel valued. Your job is to make people feel empowered, make people feel like they have say, they're making a direct contribution. They know how their work is contributing to the overall success of the team and the organization. That's the culture. That's what you're trying to create. And I got news for everybody. If you execute on those roles in leadership, making people feel heard, valued, empowered, recognized, appreciated, you can get away with a lot.
SPEAKER_02Gives them motivation, right?
SPEAKER_00It motivates and engages people. And guess what? You're building up um what's the word? You're building up um oh, I can't think of it right now, but but you're when you don't take their ideas, when you can't agree with them, when you can't let them do what they want them to do, it'll get offset. Because whatever disappointments they feel, they'll be able to overcome because they feel valued, empowered, recognized, and appreciated. You can't quantify this, everybody. If you make people feel those characteristics and those qualities, you can't quantify. That's what motivation and engagement is all about. People will overlook a lot because of how you make them feel. Maya Angelou, great way to last end the show today. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite quotes, people won't remember what you people won't remember what you said, they won't remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. And that's what it's that's what psychological safety is about, and that's what motivation and engagement's all about in a culture in the workplace. So, thank you very much for joining us for another episode of I Communicate. If you want more information on MindsetGo, can support your culture, your leaders, your teams, it's 978 793 1159 or info at mindsetgo.com. Jazz, thank you very much, as always. And I hope everyone has an emotionally intelligent day.
