Clarity in Leadership: Understanding the Superloop of Beliefs, Biology, and Behavior

Part 1 of our 4-part conversation on the Superloop framework.

In this episode of Relationships at Work, host Russel Lolacher and Susan Leger Ferraro, author of Superloop, unpack how beliefs, biology, and behavior create the framework for everything we do as leaders and employees. Discover how awareness of this loop helps us stop running on autopilot and start shaping better outcomes for ourselves and our workplaces.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: And on the show today, we have Susan Leger Ferrero, and here is why she is awesome. She's a speaker, executive coach, senior advisor, and CEO founder of G3 Works, which builds on and offline customizable workplace training programs to elevate untapped leadership.

She's also the number one bestselling author of Superloop, How Understanding Beliefs, Biology And Behavior Creates a Business That Works For Everyone. A system that Dr. Deepak Chopra has called an inspiring and practical system for operating consciousness ...? Conscious businesses while being a conscientious leader.

And Susan is also here with us today. Hello, Susan.

Susan Leger Ferraro: Hello, Russel. Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

Russel Lolacher: Thank you so much. I am excited to talk about this. I loved. The SuperLoop. It's an interesting framework. I can't tell you how much, it's sort of like one of those things you're like, well, obviously, but at the same time it's like, but nobody's writing this down. Nobody's connecting the dots. So super excited to dig into this.

But before we do, Susan, I have to ask you the question I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience?

Susan Leger Ferraro: Well, I appreciate that Russel, and thank you for just the acknowledgement of understanding why beliefs, biology and behavior make a difference. And the fact that we're gonna lead into that. And so the, my I'll start with my, my best employee story, which is, about 15 years ago, we were expanding in our early childhood centers that I sold in 2012 called Little Sprout Child Enrichment Centers.

They were a award-winning early childhood program in north of Boston, but now they've expanded all over the east coast and beyond. We were looking to hire a a music person in a startup music program inside of our schools. And so because we're in Boston and we're next to Berkeley, we went to Berkeley School of Music and we interviewed a bunch of music therapists.

We found this wonderful young woman, her name was Gwen, or it still is Gwendolyn. And we affectionately called her teacher Wendy, and she was really excited about taking the position and I met her in Boston. We kind of did our thing. She came and did some of her just sampling for us to show us what she could do. And, on a weekend, the weekend after she came out to our school, she sent me a text message and told me that she was unfortunately not going to be able to take the position. And she was such a perfect fit for it, I thought that's really strange. And so I said, would you be willing to talk about it?

And at first she was just like, no, Susan, I really appreciate the opportunity. I just, there was something about it that I thought, let me try one more time and go deeper. So, I sent her an email and I just said, Wendy, you have been amazing to work with. I'd love to hear how we might be able to meet your needs better.

Because I sensed that there was something. And sure enough, come to find out, she she, her car broke down between the time that she had come out to our schools to finalize her working interview and she didn't have the money at that time to be able to pay for even the repairs on the car because it was an old car.

So after going through some conversations, we, we considered our leadership when I was running these businesses, very innovative and would be solution oriented. And so we worked out a deal with her where we helped her purchase a car. We financed it for her and she basically paid back the loan on a monthly basis.

She was one of the best musical teachers and now she, she went and got her master's degree and she's working in public schools as an educator. And it was just such a great story for us because. Had we done what most people usually do, which is just okay, it didn't work out. But it's that next level, going deeper and understanding the needs of the people that are trying to work in your institutions and can you actually meet their needs?

Can you do something innovative that's going to light them up and make their world a better place? Not only did it add value to what we were doing, but it changed the trajectory of this person's life. She was now in a field that she didn't even know that she would love and be amazing in, and she's working in Boston Public Schools in, with her master's degree.

And so that to me is one of my, most precious employee stories.

Russel Lolacher: Quick question on that. What was the pivot for you on that. 'cause I'm guessing you'd never done that before for a prospective employee and your blueprint had been, as you'd said, modeled everywhere else was that's not what people do. That's not what leaders do. You are a great fit, but it's just not gonna work out. Moving on. That would've been the absolute normality of that. But you didn't, what was the, what was the pivot? What was the change mindset that sort of stuck out to you, that made you make that leap?

Susan Leger Ferraro: One that, I could tell she was a person of integrity and that she really wanted to do this and I sense that there was just something that I needed to understand better about her. And at G3 we have this process called Curious Questions. It's one of our most precious, right, skill sets and competencies that we lean into when we don't know something instead of getting into judgment instead of getting into really just, labeling people, labeling. Well, that didn't work. It was, this person is valuable enough that let's figure out what we can do. And at first my, my team was kind of like, come on, Susan. That's just like ridiculous. It's like, is it, is it ridiculous? Because that's what she needs to be able to do this for us and being integrity.

And so, the pivot of it Russel is that I was the CEO. And so when you think about innovation and you think about creating opportunities for people, the people that are in those leadership positions, taking the risk and being courageous and doing something different. We all talk about innovation as it's like this sexy thing and it is, but it's only effing sexy if you do it right.

And so like really understanding that you have to be the pioneer in these things. You've gotta think about things differently to, to make that pivot. And yeah, I had to enroll the rest of my team on what, because then it was like, well, if we do it for them, we're gonna have to do it for everybody. It's like, why?

Who says? So it's blowing up these, institutions and these dynamics that we think we are conditioned by. But it's, the conditioning is in our mind, right? No, sure. You have to look at, we, we did. We have to ask our attorney, if we do this for this person, are we required to do it for everybody else so I human, everybody, and I did what I'm supposed to do as an executive.

And it's like, no, not necessarily. And so it's, it's just being willing to say, I'm not too busy to think about something different. And, and what happened as a result of it is that it started getting everybody else on the team to stop thinking innovatively. Like, how could I make this work? And, and then, they're bringing solutions to the table rather than getting stuck with traditional answers.

Russel Lolacher: Innovation, not as lip service, but is actually something you're doing within the organization. I, I love that because you'll hear people, we'll drop innovation, adaptability, courage. We'll drop those words like they're on a poster or a website, but the minute there's an opportunity, they're like, yeah, it's not gonna work for us.

We're gonna do, like everybody has before us. The hypocrisy is a bit much.

Susan Leger Ferraro: Yeah, absolutely. And, and as we think about our, our biology, right? Our brains are wired for the path of least resistance, right? It wants comfort, it wants what it, it knows. And so we've gotta push ourselves to do something outside of the box. And you're right, we all talk about it all the time, and we want it, but we have to be the ones that we've been waiting for, right?

That Gandhi quote, we have to be the change we wanna see. And, and people are, they're lazy with their thinking. They, and, and I say that with myself included, right? I have to say, Susan, think about this differently. I still have to call myself forward in, in those places. So yet you're right. That is, but that is a chronic complaint across industries that they wanna put the blame out there.

Like, yeah, we wanna be innovative, but they won't let us. We wanna be creative. But it's like, so how are you trying to influence them? How are you coming up with a proposition that they can't refuse? And, and so some of it, it's that they're like, well, I've tried and it doesn't work. It's like, try it one more time.

Be, be a little bit more courageous to create the kind of environment that you know you wanna thrive in. And, and so it's, it's just that, that getting back to basics around our own accountability to ourself.

Russel Lolacher: This is such a nice segue into what we're gonna talk about today. I, I love the book. Really, really enjoyed the book, but I wanna set the table to start because I mean, I could, I read the book so I can say, here's what the Superloop is, but let's talk to the person that originated it. So I'd love it for you to define in your words, what the Superloop framework is, especially as it pertains to the workplace.

Susan Leger Ferraro: sure. And thank you for reading it, Russel. I really appreciate that. As you said at the beginning, the, the concept everybody reads. What it is, which is understanding how beliefs, biology and behaviors influence the outcomes in our lives. Okay. Influences us individually and influences us collectively as teams and influence us organizationally as the all, which is the concept we talk about in Superloop.

Always looking through the lens of I, we and all. And so when we understand Superloop, we can have it work for us. Okay? When it, when we don't understand our superloop, how our beliefs are informing how our body shows up in our neurology, and then how our behaviors show up. It uses us, right? We people talk about getting triggered and they talk about it like it's a problem out there when it's really in here.

It's our own neurology that we get to be responsible for. So when we understand that, how I believe, what I believe about this person, or the beliefs that I have been conditioned, right? Because they are conditioning. They're conditioning from our childhood, that conditioning informs our neurology. It, and I'll use this example.

One of my beliefs is about reciprocity. Okay. I grew up in a family, in an environment, in, in New England, in, north of Boston Catholic family that I, that I was conditioned on the right, that, do un to others that you want them to do, to you is about reciprocity, right? So I have a very strong biological wiring towards reciprocity.

And when it doesn't happen the way that I think it's supposed to happen, I, I can get judgy, right? Wrong, good, bad, yum, yuck happens in my brain without me even thinking about it. And all of a sudden I get this rush of adrenaline that is queuing me that something's wrong in the environment and it's because what's happening in that relationship doesn't align with my beliefs.

And if I don't interrupt that, if I am not using metacognition and becoming aware of my thinking thinking about my thoughts, then I just go into it like, yeah, can you believe they did that? Like, I did this and, and they were gonna do this and it didn't happen. All of that thing just happens in my brain.

That is the protective personality, right? Dr. Sue Morter, a term that she uses for ego, the protective personality. It's trying to protect us. At that point, that is the, the vortex that if I interrupt that, that pattern, I'm going to get a different outcome. Most of us don't, we don't understand that that is not who I am.

That is who I have been conditioned to believe that I am, and I can change those beliefs if I want. What, what we look at Russel, is the behavior which is the third part of SuperLoop, right? We judge people based on behavior. We judge ourselves based off of intention and beliefs. So that other person, I'm judging them because they are not showing up in a reciprocal way, is that the right word?

We're gonna leave it at that and, uh.

Russel Lolacher: It's good communication. I knew what it meant.

Susan Leger Ferraro: Okay. They, they're not showing up in a way that, jives with me. That align, aligns with it. And so I start shutting them down. I start not wanting to engage with them without even understanding that that's what's happening, and then they're responding to my res, to my behavior.

They're kind of like, what's that vibe? You know what, what's that feeling that's going on? Because we know about mirror neurons, and mirror neurons are a really important part of our work environment. Our way that we show up. And essentially what, what mirror neurons are, we've known about 'em since the early 2000s, is that when we are in an environment, whether it's virtually or in person with people, mirror neurons get asked to be doing and influenced by the behavior of other people. So if it, it is why I talk about that moods are contagious, right? If Russel's not in a great mood and his cortisol, his stress hormones are high, it actually regulates to me, it, it influences my hormones based on how you are showing up. And so it's really important that we understand it because when we're thinking about team environments, it is contagious.

So, so as we look at, as we look at behavior, we want to be thinking about it in a way that we take responsibility for it. We understand that, hey, I'm gonna be in charge of interrupting myself so that the result that I want happens rather than it's just always happening like this and I live in Groundhog Day and I don't know what else to do.

And so Superloop was really created out of that, tens of thousands of hours in my own teams and in other organizations watching this dynamic happen. Watching people really not understand that their own beliefs were informing the way that they were showing up as leaders, as employees, and as team members. And once they took responsibility for that and understood that they could influence it, it changes the game.

Russel Lolacher: So, the SuperLoop from beliefs, biology to behavior. I wanna walk through it from a positive and negative because my immediate thought was, it's always, it's negative. It's, this is bad, my beliefs are bad, so my biology is gonna impact psychological safety, which is gonna be bad in the workplace, but that isn't the case.

You can, you can have good SuperLoops. So first, as an example, can we go through something, say like career limiting beliefs? How does that show up through that sort of framework?

Susan Leger Ferraro: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and that, that's a good one to be thinking about Russel. Because we all do have career limiting beliefs. If I, if I do not see myself as a leader, whatever, my belief of what a leader is, okay. And, at G3, we ask this question when we start right away, which is who here is a leader?

Okay? And you'll have the people that have positional leadership, right? They will raise their hand. And then we talk about, so what does leadership do? And we do this exercise and we all start with these, they make decisions and they, support people. So who in this team does those things?

Then they start thinking about it, then about, two thirds of them raise their hand. Then we get deeper and say, so at G3 our definition of leadership is anyone who influences.

Russel Lolacher: Okay.

Susan Leger Ferraro: Okay? Because that's what a leader is doing. I cannot make Russel do anything actually. If Russel doesn't wanna do it, he ain't gonna do it.

That's just how humans are, and especially in this environment. But if I influence you to align with the strategic goals that we're committed to, to make sure that the project that we're working on, that the deliverables that you have, if you need support, I'm there. That if you individually are having a tough time, that I'm able to influence and say, Hey, I know your car's broken down.

You want me to pick you up when you go into work? That is leadership, right? That is looking at a situation and taking responsibility for it. So people, and let's just use that one as our example, if I do not see myself as a leader, because I believe that leadership is about a, a position that if I don't have the title of senior manager or anything that looks like a traditional leader, I actually don't contribute. The, the negative of it is I'm sitting at meetings and I'm like, yeah, not my place, right?

All these terms that we have above my pay grade. Don't get paid to do that. There's all of this BS that we have, have created to feed into that, which doesn't serve us anymore, but it takes courage to do something different. So if I believe that I'm not a leader, I'm sitting at meetings, I'm not contributing, I'm not part of the solution. I'm not using my creative energies to create solutions that are going to help create the working environment that I wanna be in. As, as a, as a team member, I'm not leaning into supporting my team members in a way that's getting their KPIs done, that's getting their deliverables done, because I'm like, I don't wanna make them feel bad.

They're doing okay. They'll be fine. Because I, I'm not a leader, i'm just on the team individually. Something comes up, I work with an opportunity to move up and I don't wanna interview for it. 'cause it's like, I'm good here. I'm just gonna stay here. And we, at G3 we call it, human survival skills.

Keeping ourselves small is one of those human survival skills, based on Kali Young's work. It's easier to do that because I don't wanna, I don't wanna feel pain. Because we are still very worried about pleasure and pain. That is painful. Or I can interpret it as it's painful if I interview for a job and I don't get hired, so I'm not gonna go there.

So that's the negative part of Superloop. Let's use that same thing, the positive part of Superloop. I do look at myself as a leader. I'm, I'm an entry level employee right now, but I know that I have leadership capability. I know that I want to learn. I'm willing to learn. I'm taking, listening to podcasts like this, I'm doing my own reading on the side, right? Because I know I wanna get there, which is really how I came up as a leader. I read and read and took courses. I'm an autodidact, I still read five books a month. So I, I believe that I have leadership capabilities. So when they're talking about things at the table, I say, Hey, I've got something to say, can I contribute to that?

And they're like, wow. Look at Susan. She kind of understands this. Like, what is she doing? Can we develop her more? So the way I show up in a group environment informs how other people relate to me, right? On teams. Okay. I could, if I am a leader, I am going to say, Hey Russel, I saw like on your, KPIs on Friday, you're struggling in that area. Do you want me to help you with that? I, I have like three hours this week. I could do some of that with you. Would that be helpful to you? So, so why show up as collaborative and not controlling? Which is a very different dynamic in leaders. And, and then as, as an individual, I am taking responsibility for my career, for who I wanna be in the world and what I'm willing and not willing to do.

And so it totally informs every outcome we have and it starts at the root cause level of the belief, what it is that I believe about myself and, and what I want to, to be leaning into more all unfolds. And, and this happens in, split second, right? Our neurology is kicking in, doing all of these things before we even realize it's there.

Russel Lolacher: When you wrote the book, obviously you were looking at the workplace or just our lives. I mean, this is a, a it's a development book. I mean, it's here to help us develop as humans, which I always love the idea we talk about leadership development. I'm like, no, it's human development. It's, it's just, we call it leadership, but it's really, are you being a better human?

Are you listening?

Susan Leger Ferraro: Absolutely.

Russel Lolacher: All that sort of thing. What were you trying to fix with this book? Like obviously there's a problem you saw out there and you're like, I've got the solution and I can see this in a way that maybe isn't being, in a way that people are. What, what is Superloop fixing?

Susan Leger Ferraro: Yeah. I will tell you that the, the, the hypothesis that I used in the thesis of this work was can we be good humans and run good businesses? That was it, because that's what I've been wondering too in my career watching it. But because I had a firsthand experience and like we talked about at the beginning of this, I knew that I could do it because I had been doing it, but what, the Stars, moon and Sun aligned in 2012. And although I I walked away from my organization that I had founded for 30 years, Little Sprouts, it gave me the, the opportunity to go out and iterate this work of Superloop in over 30 different industries.

I went into media, I went into tech, I went into healthcare, I went into retail, I went into hospitality. I went into the restaurant business. I tried to get into any industry that I could to see does this translate? Is this just an education piece or is this about human development? And my sense was I knew I knew myself, but I needed to prove it.

And so I went out and did case studies. I worked in with a lot of politicians and I brought it into government, which was really interesting and challenging. I've worked in higher Ed right at, at the university level. And so, that was what I was trying to solve for. One. Is this about exactly what you said, Russel?

This is about human development and we get all caught up on this, well, is that, executive function is a great example of that. We've been talking about executive function forever and in many cases they wanna look at it as well. That's something you do in child development, right?

In adolescent development. It's like, nope, we like disproved that a long time ago. Grownups and you too need executive function. You need to have cognitive flexibility. You need to have working memory, you need to have impulse control. All those things as leaders that I'm trying to do myself, but I also want my team to develop, there is a way to build that capacity and that competency.

And so that's really what I was trying to prove that these things, Russel, that we call soft skills, right? Which drives me batshit crazy, by the way, because they're the hardest thing that we can do. The, this is the underpinnings of being in strong relationships at home with my partner, being a good parent, being a good neighbor, being a good community member.

All of these skills inform that same type of quality of life that we all allegedly say that we want, but it's a practice and we have to interrupt habits, and it takes intention to do it.

Russel Lolacher: I've always found it funny that we look at work and life as others. So for instance, we'll have trust strategies and respect strategies, and I'm like, have you ever made a friend in your life? Because it's the exact same skillset at home, building a community, your partners, and then you're supposed to do it completely differently when you walk through a door, turn on a computer.

That's just not how humans work. And yet, and yet we treat it like it's a strategic plan that we need to do.

Susan Leger Ferraro: Yep.