Seasons Leadership Podcast

Creating inclusive teams by cultivating alignment with Patty Beach

April 24, 2024 Seasons Leadership Program Season 5 Episode 59
Creating inclusive teams by cultivating alignment with Patty Beach
Seasons Leadership Podcast
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Seasons Leadership Podcast
Creating inclusive teams by cultivating alignment with Patty Beach
Apr 24, 2024 Season 5 Episode 59
Seasons Leadership Program

Patty Beach, CEO of Leadership Smarts and author of "The Art of Alignment: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Leadership," joins us for this inspiring episode about inclusive leadership. She gives practical, actionable advice on how you can be more inclusive in your leadership and how to get your ideas heard.

Show notes: 
(1:00) Patty shares her background and her passion to be both an evangelist and evolutionist of inclusive leadership. The leaders discuss the difference between the two and why they are both important. 

(5:00) Patty talks about her book “The Art of Alignment,” and about how to move big powerful ideas out in the world by including others. She highlights the simple and measurable structure of her alignment method and gives examples of how it has worked on high-stakes projects. 

(12:08) The leaders discuss how her alignment method can work in all environments – in the workplace for first line leaders to at home negotiating chores with a teenager. Patty shares how she applied this alignment method to her own business. 

(16:00) Talk turns to disruptors – Patty defines the difference between a dissenter and a disruptor. She gives advice on how to work with disruptors to help them buy into the process and contribute. 

(22:45) Patty shares the powerful application of SHUVA. She talks about how respecting the universal needs of all people to be seen, heard, understood, valued and appreciated can help tap into the collective wisdom of the group and bring about a better world.

(29:55) The discussion ends with actionable advice that listeners can apply today to help get their ideas heard. Patty promises that this shift, will be a gamechanger.  

About Patty: Patty Beach is the bestselling author of "The Art of Alignment: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Leadership," and a sought-after TEDx speaker, who specializes in empowering managers to excel and executives to inspire. 

Resources:
Tedx Talk: SHUVA: The Secret to Inclusive Leadership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGf6svw9CmM
Website: leadershipsmarts.com
LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/pattybeach/
YouTube:  @leadershipsmartstheartofal3556

Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)

And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Patty Beach, CEO of Leadership Smarts and author of "The Art of Alignment: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Leadership," joins us for this inspiring episode about inclusive leadership. She gives practical, actionable advice on how you can be more inclusive in your leadership and how to get your ideas heard.

Show notes: 
(1:00) Patty shares her background and her passion to be both an evangelist and evolutionist of inclusive leadership. The leaders discuss the difference between the two and why they are both important. 

(5:00) Patty talks about her book “The Art of Alignment,” and about how to move big powerful ideas out in the world by including others. She highlights the simple and measurable structure of her alignment method and gives examples of how it has worked on high-stakes projects. 

(12:08) The leaders discuss how her alignment method can work in all environments – in the workplace for first line leaders to at home negotiating chores with a teenager. Patty shares how she applied this alignment method to her own business. 

(16:00) Talk turns to disruptors – Patty defines the difference between a dissenter and a disruptor. She gives advice on how to work with disruptors to help them buy into the process and contribute. 

(22:45) Patty shares the powerful application of SHUVA. She talks about how respecting the universal needs of all people to be seen, heard, understood, valued and appreciated can help tap into the collective wisdom of the group and bring about a better world.

(29:55) The discussion ends with actionable advice that listeners can apply today to help get their ideas heard. Patty promises that this shift, will be a gamechanger.  

About Patty: Patty Beach is the bestselling author of "The Art of Alignment: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Leadership," and a sought-after TEDx speaker, who specializes in empowering managers to excel and executives to inspire. 

Resources:
Tedx Talk: SHUVA: The Secret to Inclusive Leadership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGf6svw9CmM
Website: leadershipsmarts.com
LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/in/pattybeach/
YouTube:  @leadershipsmartstheartofal3556

Join Debbie Collard and Susan Ireland, certified coaches and co-founders of Seasons Leadership, in making positive leadership the norm rather than the exception on Wednesdays on the Seasons Leadership Podcast. (Selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 15 Positive Leadership Podcasts on the web!)

And now you can join our community of values-based leaders on Seasons Leadership Patreon at Patreon.com/seasonsleadership. At our gold-level, unlock our exclusive Lessons in Leadership Column from our Resident Seasoned Leader David Spong, a lifetime member of the Board of the Malcom Baldrige Foundation and our Leadership Elements Series.

Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to the Seasons Leadership Podcast, where we are committed to leaders everywhere, at all levels, who want to make progress on their leadership journey. We will bring you actionable advice to improve your leadership and life today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for joining us At Seasons Leadership. We share a vision to make excellent leadership the worldwide standard. Learn more at seasonsleLeadershipcom.

Speaker 1:

Well, welcome all of our listeners out there in Seasons Leadership land. Today we get the honor of talking with Patti Beach and we're just going to start right in Patti and say welcome to our podcast. And why don't you tell us and our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you're into today?

Speaker 3:

All right. Well, I'm CEO of a company called Leadership Smarts. We specialize in leadership development and coaching, and then I'm also author of a book called the Art of Alignment A Practical Guide to Inclusive Leadership. I'm an inclusive leadership evangelist and also try to be an evolutionist, moving it forward as as best I can so that we can continue on that path.

Speaker 1:

I love those two terms. Say a little bit more about the two terms. And what's an evangelist versus an evolutionist?

Speaker 3:

well, you know, I think an evangelist really believes in something and they're out preaching the gospel, as you would say. You know like I'm passionate about this topic and I could talk about inclusive leadership all the day long. It just never wears out for me and actually I believe that, like inclusive leadership is leadership. You know that's how much I believe it. That leadership is not a solo sport. You have to include others in order to lead. That's what it's all about. So there's that in the evangelist term. But an evolutionist is someone who wants to make it like a doable reality. I want to take it to the next level, because we all have the aspiration to be inclusionary in what we do, but we don't always do it because, you know, there's an unlimited demand on our time, money and energy and a limited supply, and every time you include somebody, it introduces complications and can be harder. So I want to make that a reality and give people tools and resources, evolve it so that we have more and more of it out in the world.

Speaker 2:

Patty, how did you get started on this? What started this fire in you?

Speaker 3:

Annie, how did you get started on this? What started this fire in you? Well, I started my career as a woman working in the energy industry and oftentimes I would be in meetings where you know there's like what are you guys and me and off? I knew I had some really great ideas and I just never really knew when I was supposed to bring them up. You know, sometimes it was because I was the only woman, sometimes it's because I was the only ge really knew when I was supposed to bring them up. You know, sometimes it was because I was the only woman, sometimes it was because I was the only geologist or I was the youngest person in the room. I just never really was clear when I had permission to say what I needed to say. I was pretty sure that they wanted me to be there, but I really kind of just held back on my own voice.

Speaker 3:

And I think that had I been invited more to say what I needed to say, or had I felt like there was really space to do it or step in that process, then I thought, you know, I could really integrate my ideas. And I found out I wasn't the only woman in the company who felt that way, I found out that I wasn't the only person in the company that felt that way. There are a lot of men who felt that way, and so I got really interested in what is it that allows us to have a conversation the way we need to have it in order to make things happen. I also had this other experience too, because I was working in energy. But the truth of it is I'm a tree hugger, like I really care about the earth and you know the planet and so you know, being a woman tree hugger in oil and gas and energy in Houston, you know that's an awkward fit, right, but I have always believed that there should be room for tree huggers in the, you know, in all kinds of industries where there's contamination happening. That's where tree huggers should be right To prevent those contaminations.

Speaker 3:

So I wanted to create the possibility for inclusion to really include all the people that need to be a part of the equation, to make sure you know that we stay safe, that we do this in the most conscious way possible, that we're bringing profits to what we're doing and that no one feels marginalized. So often people aren't a part of that conversation and then bad decisions are made that hurt people. So this is how passionate I am about it. I wanted to make sure that leaders have the tools and techniques they need to do this, because when we are inclusionary in what we do, we can solve any problem. I have a very, very passionate belief that every voice matters and together we really can solve anything. You bring enough smart people in the room, a solution will be found, and so that's yeah. That's where they have the evangelist and the evolutionist comes in.

Speaker 1:

This is this is what I'm here on the planet to do well, you talked a lot about, um, these, uh, evangelical and evolutionary ideas in your book, the art, art of Alignment. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the Art of Alignment and what you want people to know about your book?

Speaker 3:

Okay. So what I want people to know about my book is that, as I mentioned before, leadership is not a solo sport. If you want to move big, powerful ideas out in the world, you're going to need other people to do it. That's just flat out. And that's what I think leaders are here to do. They need to create a better world in a better way through these inclusive practices. That's really what my book is about and I try to make it as simple to learn and master and remember.

Speaker 3:

And the book is called A Practical Guide. That's because there are these memorable success formulas and I've taken all that I learned when I went to graduate school. So you know, debbie and I went to Pepperdine MSOD program. It's one of the world's best programs. I would just say it is the world's best program in organizational development. We learned all of these methods but they were so kind of complicated, sometimes academic, sometimes aspirational and idealistic, and I want to take all that good stuff and boil it down into these simple, memorable formulas for leaders who don't have the time and the luxury to go off and study these things. Like the geeks we are that love all of this culture. You know organizational development stuff we get to spend all this awesome time doing it.

Speaker 3:

But most of the leaders that I work with are super busy and they want to be inclusive, they want to get buy-in, they want to engage others. But how do they do it? They need those tools and techniques. So try to make it as simple as possible in this book. That's of interest to any of the people listening. You know how do you get people in a room. I like to say the methods in my book can help you get any group of any size in your room and get them to agree and commit. That is not easy to do and also get them to do it in much less time than you would have ever imagined. So that's the promise that if you read that book you can walk away with that.

Speaker 2:

I can imagine, patty, that this came from your practical experience. Are there any stories you can tell us about, like using what you are writing about here and having the success by using the tools?

Speaker 3:

Yes. So in one of the foundational pieces of this model is called the 3-4-5 alignment toolkit. There's three principles, four steps and five C's. I put it together like that 3-4-5. Everything's memorable. So that you have this simple structure you can use a roadmap.

Speaker 3:

And how I came by this roadmap was because I was often called in to do facilitation in meetings and I had learned lots of tips and techniques. You know there, take all your stickies and put them in. You know on the board and everybody do that, move them into groups and do all this stuff. So there's lots and lots of tools that help people to brainstorm and come up with lots of ideas, lots of ideas. But what I found was that when we got done with all of those sticky exercises and we all went off and did stuff, was that you'd get come up with this great idea and you go, okay, who wants to do that? All of a sudden they're really like we don't know right. You know they would feel like, okay, all of our aspirational ideas are up there, but did we ever stand back and say, okay, given the fact that 90% of our time is doing tax returns, do we really have time to do all these other things that's going to help us to deliver more tax returns next year. If we only had one day a week, could we actually do that? So it's the alignment part, the getting people all their ideas out there, and then how do we get it down to the few doable things that we can do that are the most strategic, will have the most impact. So it actually happens after we had that beautiful, all day long, huge, you know, highly expensive facilitated session.

Speaker 3:

So I took everything that I was doing and tried to put it into a very simple guide. And also it's because I got hired to help an organization do an organizational restructuring. They should have hired about three facilitators, but they only had me right and they had a. And also it's because I got hired to help an organization do an organizational restructuring. They should have hired about three facilitators, but they only had me right and they had a limited amount of time. And when I get called in to do something, it's like, by God, I'm going to get you what you want. That's the sandwich.

Speaker 3:

So I developed this method and at the beginning of the thing, I taught them how to use a method. We're all in separate rooms, they thing. I taught them how to use a method. We're all in separate rooms. They were all using the method. We come in, then we're consolidating, consolidating, consolidating, until we had 24 people that came up with a whole organizational restructuring for a government agency.

Speaker 3:

I mean, we did make tough decisions like where were they going to close offices and consolidate? How were they going to change people's titles? What were they going to do around consolidating software platforms? Because everybody had their software they liked, but they were all doing the same thing. They didn't talk to each other and these had always been contentious, round-around-the-tree conversations where nothing got decided right.

Speaker 3:

So, on the heels of the success of this experience of like wow, they're all leading in all those other rooms. You know, I've been trying to teach people about leadership, but they're not doing it here, they're all doing it. And they all walked out of those rooms that we were doing those sessions in and did alignments in their area of accountability. So by the time that we got all of that into restructuring proposal, almost everybody in the organization had been consulted. It was very, very inclusive and then when they went to roll it out, it was just easy. They even used that alignment process. They used to roll it out.

Speaker 3:

So I was like, wow, okay, I need to make sure that gets written down and shared with more people. And also because, even though it was the facilitative techniques, I do believe that good leadership is a facilitated art. Right, you have your ideas, you want to put them on the table, but you need to facilitate that. You need to let go of your ideas not any good. You need to hear what people have to say. And so I baked all of that into this four-step and five-seat process and it has worked in so many very contentious issues.

Speaker 3:

It was used, for example, to help the federal government and the Navajo Nation talk about what they needed to do about nuclear contamination on Navajo land from uranium mining. You know that is a contentious topic. You know the Navajo have lots of reason not to trust the federal government. And it worked really well. And what I was really proud of was that the Navajos involved in the project said a lot of the things in this method are similar to what we learn in Navajo Council, when we go around a table and we honor and we give space, you know. So that felt really good. I really knew I was on to something. Anyway, that's a long answer, but that gives you some sense of it. It's being used with some really amazing, huge projects that I'm extremely proud of and excited to be a part of.

Speaker 1:

Patty what that brings up for me, because that's fascinating and it's amazing that it works so well on those super contentious issues. If we've got listeners who are, say, a first line manager or team leader just getting into this, is it? I think I know the answer to this already, but I want our listeners to hear it. It's equally applicable at that level.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I have to give you one really, really great example, because my company is growing a lot. Ever since I wrote my book, I've been adding new staff members etc. And we're having to stay aligned because there's all of these ideas, what we could be doing right. There's always, like I said, unlimited demand on our time, money and energy, and all of us are generative. We have great ideas and it's painful every time we have to let go of an idea to make one thing that we really want to have happen and move forward. So at the beginning of this year I used to like to say eat our own dog food. But one of my team members says we're not eating our own dog food, we're eating our own caviar.

Speaker 3:

I really love that we use the four steps and the five C's of alignment. I laid out there my my kind of vision for what I wanted to see happen in 2024. And it was a high level vision. We used an alignment around that and then every team member brought forward their plan for how they were going to contribute to that vision. And we're all aligned. We all heard it all and so we're all clear marketing's doing this, you know training's doing this, our accounting's doing this, you know training's doing this, our accounting's doing this, et cetera. How they're all fit together. We can see all of those knitting factors. And now our staff meetings. We used to have staff meetings run over every time. Now we can do them 40 minutes and people are bringing forward really consolidated ideas. We're getting so much momentum and it's because we have alignment and our organization is not that large.

Speaker 3:

I only have six people working for me, but we're on fire and we're making a lot of progress because we eat our own caviar. We do the four steps and five C's for what we're, what it is that we're focused on and what we're not going to do, which is really key and we put the not doing like okay for later. We have our wonderful ideas for later, you know. But to really stay focused, what we can do within our resources, and that's what alignment is about. All parts of the system, whether that system is a small team or two nations in this case federal and the Navajo Nation right, I mean, was you know the members of the teams working on that in those two institutions? But no matter what size of the system is, it works Like I can actually even use. I say there's personal alignment, like there's Patty and my evil twin who can barely agree on what we need to do.

Speaker 3:

Right, I can actually use it there interpersonally between me and one person I'm trying to work with. Agree, what is it that we're going to do together? A team between teams? You know organizations, like it's been. You know we work with a part of the organization working on the artemis mission. They're going to do um man's face and rocket, you know, and all that. We did it with them just within the little area. It's just doing the rockets and they go. We need to do this with ourselves and NASA, you know. So every time you do alignment, if you're in a bigger organization, it kind of goes up or down or sideways. Yeah, maybe you're on a board or maybe you're. You just got a couple of people working for you. It even works to get your teenagers to do chores.

Speaker 3:

We're going to do a grandmother, because we're trying to decide, you know which whether we're going to sell our house or rent it. You know stuff like that. Um, it can be used at any scale wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 1:

I love it, and that proof is really in the pudding. If it gets a teenager to do their chores, that's for sure. We've all experienced that.

Speaker 2:

Well I'm curious to Patty, what I really liked is they? Let me say it is chapter 20, dealing with disruptors. The way you describe disruptors I think was really helpful, and can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So when we're trying to come to alignment, there's a dialogue. We've got a great little process in there. If you follow the process, you are more likely to reach alignment. However, even when you follow a process, sometimes somebody will crop up that they're trying to get their needs met in a way that's unproductive to reaching agreement. That's what I call disruptors, and I want to be really clear. A dissenter, someone who does not agree in what's being discussed, is not necessarily a disruptor, because a dissenter is bringing their voice in the room and they're being honest about how they feel, and I do not believe in pressuring dissenters to change their point of view to reach alignment.

Speaker 3:

Whenever we reach alignment, we could have nine people in a room and eight of them can agree and one person can disagree. You can decide to go forward with that and that's not a, that's not a disruptor. What a disruptor is is someone that when you're in the conversation they're. They have all of these little kind of weird ways of getting their needs met. That is not productive to the group and it usually destroys alignment in one of two ways. One is if they crowd it, like you maybe have someone who's grandstanding, they're just talking all the time, or they have their point of view and they won't let go. They cycle and repeat it over and over again, even though we heard it. So they're crowding it so that not everyone has an opportunity to bring their voice to their table. When we reach alignment, everyone has been able to express themselves honestly.

Speaker 3:

The other form of disrupting is where you withhold your information. You sit on the sidelines and you're thinking this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, and nobody hears about it until you leave the meeting and then you go talk to everyone else about it. That's what I call conspiratorial person, that they're just they're too afraid to bring it up in the room, so they go work it out in the background. So those are disruptors to alignment. Because you have the opportunity. If you would have just said something in the meeting, you know, maybe you have something important to say here. So that kind of political thing that happens is an example of a disruptor.

Speaker 3:

So in my book I have this chapter where I describe these different types of disruptors. There's 10 of them, but I can tell you there are more, like a million different kinds of disruptors. Of course, these are just 10, and then you boil it down to two things Either you're withholding information or you're crowding right. And how do you, as a leader or the facilitator, prevent that from destroying the trust and the knowing that every voice matters in this room, because that's where you're going to reach alignment over and over again. When the trust is there, you have the psychological safety to speak.

Speaker 3:

So in my book I write about specific strategies for specific disruptors, specific strategies for specific disruptors. But there's also kind of one generic strategy which is never shame a person in public or point out these weird behaviors. Go and talk to them privately and share with them the behavior you're seeing, without like a punitive or a shaming voice. Just tell the truth without any kind of blame or judgment, and just see what's going on there and talk about other ways they might get their needs met and um, so that that doesn't go on too long, because one disruptor can really wreck the dynamic in a group. Right, I, I love it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, go ahead I love the distinction you made between dissent and disrupting. I think that's really important.

Speaker 1:

So that's where I was going to go to, because Patty did have a story in there, if you remember when we read it, about how the power of listening or having letting the dissenters be heard and how it can flip an entire decision. So maybe you want to share a little bit about that story, patty.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know, I was in a room where we were trying to discuss whether we were going to close down an office in a particular area and move the office from Colorado. I was working with a federal agency and there are a lot of Colorado federal agencies here in this area. That's kind of like the mid-continent associated with, you know, over Washington. So they're going to say we're going to close the office in Colorado, move to Washington. In this particular case, everybody seemed to be in favor of it for a number of really great reasons, but one person who hadn't said anything through most of the dialogue was not in favor of it.

Speaker 3:

And at the end of our process. We have a way of people kind of showing where they're at. So everybody was at a four or five and he was at a one, and so I invited him to share. You know why was he at a one? As it turned out, the workforce that he had finally assembled in Colorado were not going to move to that Washington area and they're going to start all over again with. They had spent five years just finally getting a team in place to be able to do the very difficult thing that only that team can do. You know, sometimes you have these technical people that you know good luck finding another one. So once they realized that they would have to start pretty much from scratch again assembling this very highly technical team, then you know, they decided, okay, we're just going to keep this Colorado office open.

Speaker 3:

And I think that also, he knew that they weren't going to move because he talked to them about it. That was part of the inclusive leadership he'd been down talking about. You know? So if we're to move our office to another location, how likely would we be to get you to move from? You know, and they were like, oh no, okay, oh, you know they weren't going to go, so that would turn it around, and fortunately the rest of the people heard him.

Speaker 3:

Now he might just as well brought up a point and they might have said, hey, eight of us are still in favor. You know, we hear you. You know what I've learned is that when people feel like they honestly have a chance to express themselves without fear any kind of punitive thing, that if the decision doesn't go their way, they're generally okay with it, it's just when they feel like they were shut down, they never got a chance to say something with it. It's just when they feel like they were shut down, they never got a chance to say something. Something important didn't get discussed. That you know. People feel very disgruntled after that.

Speaker 1:

They want to avoid that One of your three principles of alignment was really resonating with me, and that's SHUVA, if I'm saying it correctly. So could you talk a little bit about that, because you just alluded to it in that explanation and I think our listeners could benefit from hearing about SHUVA.

Speaker 3:

The SHUVA is an acronym that I created and it stands for five words. Well, actually it stands for five universal needs that everyone has. We all need to be seen, heard, understood, valued and appreciated. You know we all need to be seen, heard, understood, valued and appreciated, and the cool thing about that is it also stands for five actions anyone can do to meet those needs. I can see you, like we can have our screens on in the Zoom calls, that little black square there. I can hear you Make sure you've got a turn to talk. I can understand you, I can listen for what you really mean when you're saying something. I can value what you have to say, I can let what you say inform my thinking and I can appreciate you, even if we disagree. I can appreciate that you're here bringing your point of view to the table, and so when shuva is given and reciprocated, that's when teams can really find the best solutions Instead of like okay, there's my idea versus your idea and there's the pro here and the con there, and you know all of that stuff.

Speaker 3:

The way that, um, the alignment process works. Shuva is this fundamental principle. It stands on shuva if we shuva one another as an idea comes up or is deliberated, debated, um, and then we have we stand a chance at really tapping into our collective wisdom and we stand a chance at not marginalizing people. We stand a chance at eliminating those bad ideas that no one's, everyone's afraid to say. Why are we really doing this? You know, and so shuva really is. If you just practice shuva, you don't have to learn all the four steps, five c's, alignment, like it's absolutely conducive to reaching alignment. People, um, but uh, the four steps, five c's, are designed with the shuva principle in mind. Um, I also was going to say I I came up with a shuva principle because I was trying to help the leaders that I coach to listen. I would teach them about empathetic listening and, you know, listening with compassion, and give them all of these like flowery ways, but some of them just needed to know okay, do this, do this, this, this this and this.

Speaker 3:

So I like to say that it's love through the logic door. Like I can end up with a more empathetic leader. They just practice shuva and it has resonated with so many people, so many people working in an environment that is a shuvaless environment. They're not getting shuva. They know their ideas are just falling on dry ground Like they can bring it up, yes, but yes, but nothing gets heard. So you know, I feel like it's been a really rich thing. That's really helped a lot of leaders I've worked with and it's also helped people who have heard this to think oh God, I so desperately want that.

Speaker 3:

It is soul killing to go to work where you don't get shiva from your boss or your peers, your colleagues. Um, I actually was one time working with this person who was a hr person and her ceo was not giving her any shiva and I said, well. She said, well, I wish my leader would read your book and I said, well, why don't you give it to him? So she gave him a copy of my book and he was offended that she gave him a copy of my book. So I said, well, that should be a litmus test. You're working for the wrong. She left that company and she is rocking it out now in her new company because she was just up. She was up against dry ground and I feel bad for her and I feel bad for her CEO. That didn't get her great ideas. She had such a heart for that company and that just happens over and over again. Shuba could just do so much, honestly.

Speaker 2:

I think our world needs more of that, everywhere it. I'm kind of curious when you're talking about that, where some leaders just need how did you say it? Love through logic, just do this, this and this. Have you found that those leaders that maybe are struggling the most, and if they say, just tell me what to do, and they start going through the Shuba and they just start practicing it, do they actually kind of maybe open up and become more empathetic just because they're practicing before, even if they don't understand it?

Speaker 3:

I actually do and I have to tell you something kind of interesting. Um, I've touched several very senior leaders with asperger's and that's an example of a leader that's just very like linear. They love formulas, you know, logical, and I have a lot with Asperger's Light, you know leaders working, you see them a lot in engineering and tech and finance etc. Because they kind of lean more to that way. They like to have a formula, something logical, et cetera. And what I found with those leaders is that if you say hey, like just you know, open your hearts and start with love, it doesn't feel safe to them right? So Shuba is so safe and it makes a lot of sense that if I see you, hear you, understand, you value and appreciate you, it's going to be conducive to us reaching alignment because I'm not jumping in front of you etc. So it makes all this logical sense. And you do find that when they practice, this alignment just kind of pops out naturally and it's actually being used to help adults with autism learn dating.

Speaker 3:

I mean, you know I didn't write the book to mean, you know, I didn't write the book to do that, I didn't write shiva to do that. But I kind of hear stories all the time about how people are using it with their kids and with teachers, and you know it's going all over the place. Um, I did a ted talk about it and about 60 000 people have seen that talk, so it's just kind of getting going. But I I do believe that if we had a shuva environment especially right now we're facing an election year where there's so much political division we can hardly stay in the same room together how are we going to figure this out if we can't continue talking to each other and staying connected? Shuva is a path to alignment, to healing of divisions that we have, for what reasons they may be. Um, we need more agreement and less division, otherwise we'll never solve the problems we need to solve. Everything we're solving right now is very complicated and we need each other. We gotta stick with it absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I think we can all agree on that, on this call um so patty our listeners. We always promise our listeners that we will give them actionable advice that they can apply to their own leadership. People, if you were to tell our listeners somewhere to start something to with some actionable advice for them today, what would that?

Speaker 3:

be Okay. So I'm sure many of your listeners out there have great ideas and they want their ideas to be heard, so I highly recommend that they start anytime they want to bring an idea to the table, then instead of asking for one shot to bring that idea forward, to use two shots and start with. I'd like to make a proposal and share, gather your thinking and then have another opportunity to come back with a revision based on what I've heard. And that simple little shift from it just being one shot this is the first principle of iterative co-creation right To two shots will give you so much more likelihood that people will actually hear your idea, that your idea will be strengthened by theirs, they'll feel a part of it and it's much more likely to take hold. So that's my little that's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful and very easy for someone to follow right To start out with baby steps. That's great.

Speaker 2:

That's great. Well, patty, as we get to the end, where can people get a hold of you? You know, what else do we need to know to to reach out to you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so my website is leadershipsmartscom and that's leadershipsmarts S-M-A-R-T-S, as in multiple leadership intelligence, because sometimes I forget the S at the end. Leadershipsmartscom We've got all kinds of free webinars. They can sign up for a publication where they're going to be getting lots of information about how to address some of the challenges that leaders are facing using alignment practices. And you know, there's also LinkedIn, Patty Beach, Connect with me on that on LinkedIn, because that's where we can really get dialogue going.

Speaker 1:

Great, love it. And so, if they want to find your TED Talk, what do they look for?

Speaker 3:

They look for Shuba. The secret to inclusive leadership Should just be on the YouTube channel on TED out there, and I hope I sent you a link. When they have a podcast, they can find it there. Well we'll put it in our show notes.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Thank you for joining us today, and I'd like to close this out by saying I shoopy you, patti, and I shoopy you Susan.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, it's great advice. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, double down on shoopa. Everybody. Go out and double down on shoopa today. You see, it'll change your life.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. We hope that you were inspired by this conversation.

Speaker 2:

And we invite you to join our community on Patreon See the link below. There you will find more resources to help you on your leadership journey.

Speaker 1:

Make sure to join us next time for more conversation about leadership excellence.

Inclusive Leadership and Alignment
Achieving Alignment in Organizations
Navigating Disruptors to Alignment
The Power of Shuva in Leadership