Creating Inclusive Conversations and Stronger Teams with Jonathan Cinelli

Unlock the power of authentic communication and leadership with Jonathan, a performance coach and transformational speaker. In this episode, Jonathan shares his journey and the three key principles that have shaped his approach: being fully present, leading with curiosity, and prioritizing others. Learn how to manage distractions and make every interaction meaningful by genuinely engaging with those around you.

Jonathan also explores how to build authentic connections, even in challenging settings like networking events. He reveals how tools like humor, observation, and thoughtful questions can help break biases and create lasting relationships. Finally, discover how putting people first in leadership fosters trust, drives growth, and builds stronger teams. Tune in for actionable insights to enhance your communication and leadership skills.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"We live in a world of titles and titles are empty, meaningless, except when we associate a meaning to them." – Jonathan
"Our phones are tools, yet sometimes we lean into them as vices." – Jonathan
"If I'm talking to you, it's not about me, it's about you." – Jonathan
"Most calls, most texts, most emails they are not urgent." – Philip
"When somebody actually remembers information about me and becomes curious, you know how important I feel?" – Jonathan
"I believe in powers bigger than you and I that people are in the same space for a reason and a season." – Jonathan
"When we lead with curiosity, we drop our biases and transferences." – Jonathan
“You're not going to drop [you’re] biases, not in an instant. It takes work and it takes a lot of self-awareness" – Jonathan
"The guys that know what they were doing are actually the most willing and generous to help other people out." – Philip
"When you approach people as human beings first, everything else changes." – Jonathan
"When we endure things, hardships, time spent on something for a long period of time we learn from that." – Philip
"Trust is the currency, and when you have trust with folks, everything else organically forms." – Jonathan
"When you look after the people first, the people organically look after the business." – Jonathan
"Without connection there is no trust, and without trust, there's no culture." – Jonathan
"Seemingly inefficient things create a lot of efficiency." – Philip
"Build the trust, because trust is the currency of the future. That's what leads to great, robust cultures." – Jonathan
"If you, as a leader, are selfish, you're not going to have a good team." – Philip
"If it weren't for my team, we couldn't be here right now" – Philip

RESOURCES
Jonathan
Website: https://www.jonathancinelli.com 
Telephone Number: 416-717-4139
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanacinelli 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cinelli-pmp-acc-103b841ba 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathancinellipm 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCccF91phol1N8i0JpmlBOuw 

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. I've got Jonathan here and he is a dynamic performance coach, transformational speaker, author and remarkable media host. Jonathan unleashes a new kind of leadership, a leadership style that is radically focused on human-centric connection, empowering others to create unprecedented success through confidence and resilience, making significant contributions to the world and fully altered in what was previously thought as being possible. Jonathan illuminates what he defines is to be the human being by injecting integrity, accountability and responsibility, carving a path which is unaltered by emotions, circumstances and external factors. This creates engagement, reciprocal respect and the destruction of pre-existing barriers, and today we're going to dive into having deep, meaningful conversations. But before we get into that, jonathan, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 1:08

Thank you, philip. I'm honored and humbled. Different when you read that out loud, what it sounds like it's about connections man. So thank you for doing that. Honored to be here.

Jonathan's 3 key principles

Speaker 1 1:22

Of course, and I know every time I'm on a podcast and somebody reads my bio, I'm like, oh, that sounds different. Or there's all these titles like father, husband, business owner, this speaker, author. There's all these titles we have and while a lot of them are amazing, like the father and husband title those are probably my favorites Christian as well in that mix but at the end of the day, they're just titles. And a lot of times we talk about titles and we hang our hats on these titles and I'd almost say more so as men being the senior vice president or regional vice president, ceo, business owner, all sorts of titles that we have and we want to hang our head on that. And we almost give this respect to people with a bigger title or more titles, rather than the people that don't have those same titles or maybe they just don't care to share those.

Speaker 1 2:17

And I think in our world as well, it's all about the vanity, the metrics showing that you are somebody, but how and this is going to be super broad but how do you separate that? Because every conversation we've had, it always feels like it's just you and I, and of course, we're virtual, so it helps with that a little bit, I feel like, but even then, I still feel like you're there, focused on me, you're not thinking about what you need to have for lunch later, what's your next meeting? It's like we are here in this conversation and so I really want to open it up to that. How did Jonathan become this communicator that was able to be able to just be focused in on the individual that he's speaking to rather than everything that's going on in life?

Speaker 2 3:10

Yeah, I love that and thank you. There's no short answer to how I became who I am today is from a boatload of great people around me, a boatload of great coaches, a boatload of great mentors. Failures along the way, right, you know, 42 years of navigating life. So the how do we and I love what you talk about, by the way, right, because we live in a world of titles and titles are empty, meaningless, except when we associate a meaning to them. So how do we connect with people? I mean, for me it gets down to three fundamental principles, right, like? The first one is absolute presence. Absolute presence is acknowledging the space you're in. If I'm here talking to Philip, then you're the guy that matters to me. I'm not looking over the shoulder, waving and like, hey Bob, good to see you, I'll be with you a minute. That doesn't. That doesn't mean anything. It's not attending to the dings and bings and buzzes of my phone. It's wholehearted presence. That's a starting point.

Speaker 1 4:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:21

Right yeah.

Speaker 1 4:22

Being present is so important.

Speaker 2 4:24

Right. Yet how many times have we been in conversations where this pulls on all the heartstrings and every nerve I have in my body? It's like when I'm talking to somebody and all of a sudden they pick up their phone. Wow, Well, organically, you just sent the message to me that what I'm about to say doesn't matter and I'm not important and I'm not important.

Speaker 2 4:43

So you know, first thing I say to folks is our phones are tools, yet sometimes we lean into them as vices. And what shifts when you put it in your pocket on. Do not disturb to be wholeheartedly present, because if we have competing priorities pulling at our time, I can't give you all of me. And if I can't give you all of me, then how do I connect with you? I mean, so it starts with presence and then it's, you know, from there it's leading with curiosity, and and then the biggest thing I think is to realize if I'm talking to you, it's not about me, it's about you. So I'm going to listen, to learn and extrapolate what I can extrapolate. I'm not here Valling. Oh, philip, you know you're going to tell me a story about a horse that you went horseback right. I'm not going to jump in and say, yeah, you know, I went to. I once I went horseback right and I jumped from horse to horse. Nobody gives a shit, man.

Mastering absolute presence and managing distractions

Speaker 1 5:41

So there's no short answer, but there's.

Speaker 1 5:42

There's a couple of things yeah, yeah, and I resonate with you on the phone thing and sometimes I'm guilty because I hate having things in my pockets and the phone is probably the worst one, like the wallet.

Speaker 1 5:54

Sometimes it depends on the shorts I might take it out and put it on the table, but the phone I always try and put it face down to, like show, like I'm not trying to look at it, or I'll even put on the bench, like next to me, sometimes just depending on the situation, if I'm on a bench versus a chair, to not have it, the uncomfortableness into my pocket. But yeah, it bothers me whenever people continue to look at their phone or they've got their apple watch and they look at it and they're like oh, if, like, really what? What's so important that we can't just have a conversation right here, right, or at least for me it's like hey, I'm expecting a call, like I can understand if somebody's like look, I've been waiting for, let's say, the plumber to call me back and everything. They're going to come out and tell me a time or whatever. It's like okay, totally get that Having your phone out, because you're waiting on that.

Speaker 2 6:45

And we know how that stuff goes. It's never when you want it. Let's just pump the brakes for a second, because that's very different, right?

Speaker 2 6:49

So, there's something there when you're fully transparent and say, philip, I'm here with you for the next 35 minutes and know that I'm expecting a call from a doctor or whatever, it is right. So I have things in my life. I say to people implement a call code. Well, what's a call code, jonathan? My call code, and I'll share it with the world. Please don't take advantage of it. It's three times right. Call hang up, call, hang up, call, hang up a third time. If my phone's in my pocket and I feel a ring, I let people know. Excuse me, philip, that's my call me. Guess what? Now you're understand. Yeah, right, but I'm not. I'm, that's it. Excuse me, philip, let me just check. Oh, it's not him, okay, thank you, right, yeah. And then reciprocity occurs because the folks that you're in the same space with you know, or like-minded, and they want to, they want to do the same thing you're doing, right Does that make sense.

Speaker 1 7:50

Yeah, exactly so it's. Uh, yeah, I like that call code. I never thought about that. I know, when I put my phone on do not disturb the only person that can get through is my wife, and typically it's not because that's urgent stuff, but just in case I want to have it there, and so when she comes through I'm going to check it real quick. Hey, hold on a second, that's my wife. And most people tend to understand that Like, yeah, you need to check. You never know what it is, so you want to check on that because, you're right, most calls, most texts, most emails they are not urgent, but having something like that call code is such an important thing that you can implement. So thank you for sharing that and I'll make sure, if I call you ever, that I'll just call you three times, no matter what. So you answer.

Speaker 2 8:37

I'm just kidding, but you touched something else. The other thing, folks, is like mitigate all the other distractions. Do I need a ding and a buzz and a beep every time I get an email? Hey, the dopamine hits. Feels great. Oh, yeah, cool, I'm important. No, it's empty, meaningless man. Shut it all down. So you know my phone again. I can only show you what works for me and what I've done over the decades. It's two things telephone calls and text messages. Decades, it's two things telephone calls and text messages. So I will always say to somebody is like I don't check. I check emails purposefully at certain times, right? So if you need something, don't send me an email, call me, because I'm a human to human, I like human to human connection, like the chat. Call me and I'll call you if I miss it, because I'm with somebody. Most people in my world know that if I'm with somebody I'm absolutely present.

Speaker 1 9:29

Yeah, and I can definitely tell that from you and yeah, I've done that myself. So it's calls text and actually Facebook Messenger. I allow that one just because some people don't have my number and that's the way they get in touch with me. But other than that, like emails, all my other notifications are turned off because, especially facebook, I found myself where I'd have it randomly tell me I have a notification. I'm one of those. I have to get rid of notifications and it just gets really annoying going and checking and it's nothing, and I found myself constantly on there. Of course, then I go through the doom scroll for a little bit, then I get back off so what should have only taken 10 seconds, especially a notification, was like so-and-so liked this.

Curiosity: Engage meaningfully

Speaker 1 10:12

That's nothing to do with my post, that I didn't even really need to see. Thanks, facebook. Now I'm doom scrolling, but of course that's what they've set up, so I've had to set up that system. So I like that you're setting up those systems also so you can stay in the moment. But you mentioned curiosity, and this is definitely something that I struggle with, dependent on the person, and I can give my thoughts on why that is in a minute. But I would love to see how you create curiosity with people, because I think I know why you said that. But to stay intentional, in that conversation you mentioned about being curious. So what does that mean and how do you create that curiosity when you're in a one-on-one conversation? Well, wonderful question.

Speaker 2 10:59

I think that there's an abundance of different tips, tricks and hacks. The reality is, when you're absolutely present with somebody, you see what happens is, physiologically and psychologically, your body morphs right, like you sort of like lean in a little bit, your head tilts. You actually become part of the other person's world so that, organically and naturally, you're becoming curious. You might say something that's going to trigger a response like oh, philip mentioned he had a dog. Well, naturally, now I want to be okay, tell me more about this dog. What type of dog? How old is the dog? Male or female? Name of the dog right, so you listen to learn little See, human beings, we squeak out information all the time.

Speaker 2 11:45

It naturally happens it's up to the person who you know. If you're listening, you'll be able to capture some of those nuggets of gold and volley them back, and then you know what happens is. Think of it for a second. I'll just use myself. When somebody actually remembers information about me and becomes curious, you know, important, I feel like, wow, this, this person actually cares about me and they're not just talking about the next widget toy thing they saw. None of that matters. They're like hey, man, how are your kids? What are they up to? I remember you know your daughter broke her arm. How's she doing those sort of things? You become, you become curious, right? You know you never Okay, and so I want to augment this for a second. It's kind of a stacked response here. So after you become curious, then you actually give a damn and you kind of lean in like, well, philip, tell me more, right, tell me more about that. And then you just peel back and shut up and listen for a response does that make sense?

Speaker 1 12:50

oh, that makes perfect sense. I mean really just asking questions to hear more about them, hear more about what they're doing. And for me, where that struggle comes in is when you don't necessarily have that commonality. So one for, like you and I, would be how are the kids doing? And of course you can ask me that back. But then if we can bond over that because, oh yeah, I've had a similar experience with my kids or at least in my head I can say that and not oh yeah, well, hey, let me one up you on your interesting thing that happened with your kids and tell you a story about mine, which you mentioned in the third part, not doing that.

Speaker 1 13:24

But how do you find ways to create that curiosity or ask questions, to continue to engage with the person? Especially, I would say this is probably gonna be more like hey, first time networking with somebody I don't really know anything about them, or maybe you thought they were one way, but then they're not, and there's just not this commonality. Yeah, how do you find ways to craft an engaging conversation with that kind of person?

Speaker 2 13:53

okay, okay, okay, I'm jumping inside to answer this. So, uh, overarching context, folks there, we have to realize too that there's, there's, there's time and space and we're not I use it purposely always going to connect with every single human being in that moment, and I believe in powers bigger than you and I that people are in the same space for a reason and a season. To answer your question. So if I don't know somebody and I'm at a networking event, how do I connect? I become tremendously I'm going to use the word hyper-observant. Hey, I noticed you're wearing a watch. How do I? How do I become tremendously I'm going to use the word hyper observant? Hey, I noticed you're wearing a watch. What do you think of the Apple watch? Right, oh, you know what? Like um, or, or. I've always been good and and sometimes you've got to just stretch a little bit Well, I've always want to make people right or wrong.

Speaker 2 14:51

Here I want to say, when we ask thought provoking questions like you know what's been exciting, that's occurred today, or what are you planning? Are you, are you, you know, are you planning any vacations? Coming up Sort of like generic questions can oftentimes lead to more hey, philip, you planning on going on a vacation at all. Yeah, we're planning on going camping. Oh, well, now I know you camp, okay. So how long have you been camping for? What type of camping Is tent camping, rv camping, trailer camping, like? What's the scoop? And all of a sudden, now we've organically created connection, right, and what normally happens, normally, right. And then we, we volley that that vomit of like oh, here's who I am professionally, as a title, none of that matters. The only person that that title matters to is the person who's sharing that. Do you know? I'm the executive vice president of eastern and western canada and you know the north and south america is cool. You know who. You know what that means to me, everything. What it means to the guy across the table Nothing.

Speaker 1 15:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:56

So when you connect at a human-to-human level and you just look at somebody like, whew, it looks like you had a rough day. Am I reading into the situation, like sometimes a little bit of humor? So there's no easy answer, except it's a learned trait. And when you become observant as a human being, right, or I could tell you, this too is sometimes this is fun too. Depends on the situation. If you notice tattoos on somebody's body, there's an easy way in. I do this all the time. I like your tattoo. What's the origin? And I'm not a tattoo guy. But there's a conversation like oh, I'm not a tattoo person, I don't have any body art. I can appreciate it, so tell me about your stories. So there's a few ways in.

Speaker 1 16:37

Nice. So make sure you don't insult them on that, Like why would you get tattoos? You know, nobody puts a bumper sticker on a Ferrari, right?

Overcoming biases by staying open-minded

Speaker 2 16:44

Well, no, you see, you brought up a very, very important thing, right. And this gets back to the curiosity. When we lead with curiosity, we drop our biases and transferences, right, because the opposite holds true. So many times you go walk in like, well, why would you get that stupid tattoo, jonathan? Wow, well, you know what I don't want to do right now have a conversation with you because that tattoo is meaningful to me, right? Rather than it's very different when you're like, oh, I noticed the tattoo on your arm. How did that feel? Because it looks rather large. Right, it must have hurt. Whether I like tattoos or not, that doesn't matter. That's the difference, folks. I love that because, more times than not, human beings enter with ego. Oh, why would you put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari? Well, maybe there's something meaningful behind that. Maybe the Ferrari means nothing and the bumper sticker means everything to that person. You see, we're all wired slightly different.

Speaker 1 17:40

Yeah, and along those same lines, how do we get rid of those pre-existing biases? Because that's what they are at the end of the day, because I've met some of the most friendly people that are super tattooed up. Actually, there's one guy that I've worked with, that super intelligent guy got tattoos all over him. Does not look like a guy that would be that smart from the looks. And again, that's a bias that I've created. Other people would not say that that I've created. Other people would not say that, but we create these and there's obviously some innate thing that, as humans, it's a way for us to be able to create a bias, perhaps to keep us safe and things of that nature. But how do we drop those biases, those barriers when we're going into a conversation with a person, to really get to know that person for who they are and not necessarily how they look?

Speaker 2 18:38

Yeah, beautiful question and I've lived this firsthand, great, great experience, right? Maybe the way I can unpack this is with a story. Gentleman, his name was Grant and I was working on a project called Shangri-La in Toronto and I remember sitting across the table from him and broad, muscular gentleman, short cut hair, facial hair. I remember looking at him and what illuminated for me was he had tattoos right on his fingers, like all the way down. So he was tattooed, his entire body was full of body art.

Speaker 2 19:13

And right away, you're right, transference is biases. You know your brain is associating meaning to that, right. So what happens next is you're not going to drop those biases, right, not in an instant. It takes work and it takes a lot of self-awareness, but the key there is the self-awareness to acknowledge them. Like, okay, you know what's my brain doing, where am I coming with that? And then it's like, okay, let me introduce myself to this gentleman, grant, and he was, he is, I haven't seen him for years, but you know such a wonderful human being that in all other situations, fear, right, our brains are wired to keep us safe, so fear should.

Speaker 2 19:54

I'm not going to go talk to this guy. Look at him. He's all tattooed up and he looks like a guy that I don't want to mess with. Well, look at how things can be different. So we're not going to magically overnight rewire our brains to drop those biases. What we are, what we can do is with a lot of reflection and journaling and self-work, um, and you know, help from from coaches and experts and those who have gone through it. You say like it starts with self-awareness, because when there's self-awareness now I have the choice to rewire what happens next. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 20:29

yeah, no, that does really like just thinking of them as a person and not based on the things that they're, they're wearing or they have on their body or anything. And I know an example that I have is when I was more in the bodybuilding world and everything being in the gym lifting the weights, being around other guys are like big and bulky. I know there's a lot of people that were intimidated by these people as they thought they were just the meanest people. Apparently, more muscles means more meanness or something, and so there was a lot of people that felt like they couldn't. I guess maybe it was in the gym. They were just super serious, focused on the gym. They felt like they couldn't approach these more muscular guys to ask for advice, to ask for assistance or whatever it may have been, because it looked like they took the gym very seriously, which they did the most, willing and generous to help other people out, especially those that were willing to accept the answers and accept that help, and especially those that were just getting started.

Speaker 1 21:42

I know one of the things that I always admire, still this day when I go to the gym, is seeing that person that is extremely overweight, but they're there at the gym and the sad reality is that I mean, there are people, of course, that are going to judge them for being overweight and going to the gym. But a lot of the people that have been at the gym for a long time and have a respect for the gym and what it is, respect those people and are really cheering them on silently. But too many people put that automatic bias that oh, they're really serious about the gym, I can't talk to them and stuff like that. But we can't have that bias and that's just something we just as a human it's. It is an innate ability. I think it goes back to our days of trying self preservation and everything. But we still need to try and drop those as much as possible. But I do feel like you answered that question for us, but let me just go ahead. Thank, you.

Speaker 2 22:42

We'll put that just to conclude that, exactly see what you just said. I mean, that's where stereotypes start, right, because oh, I can't approach that bodybuilder. Except that if you flip the script on that and think of yourself, um, you know, when somebody approaches you and says, philip, you look like you've put in a lot of hard work, first of all it's nice, it's a good fluff to your ego, it makes you feel good, cool. But then it's like hey, tell me a little bit, how did you get your? What do you do? Your arms look huge. Know, how did you get your? What do you do with your arms look huge, what did you get there? Right, because people become curious, that's all it is.

Speaker 2 23:18

But instead the stereotypes associated like oh, that guy's just a meathead, he's a human being first. Anyhow, I can talk about this all day, so I want to. You know you had a question, I interrupted you there and and, and you know there's the opposite of connection there for a second. But that's the whole thing is, when you approach people as human beings first, everything else changes. Like that person in that gym has worked his or her butt off to get to that point. It's not easy, there's no magic pill. It's not like the matrix. Hey, take the blue pill or the red pill and your life changes. It doesn't work that way, folks.

Leadership: Connecting with people

Speaker 1 23:51

Yeah well, it's funny. Even in my head right now I'm saying I wish it was that way, but at the same time I don't wish it was that way, because we don't truly learn until we have to endure. When we endure things, hardships, time spent on something for a long period of time we we learn from that and we can't learn from just taking some magic pill. We can't learn from instantaneously having everything we wanted. We're not going to be happy if we just. I mean we'll probably be somewhat happy, but in the grand scheme of life, if somebody just gave us a million dollars, we wouldn't be happy because, like I mean, it'd be awesome in the moment but you'd probably spend it away and you're back to your same life. Think about the lottery winners. But I wanted to transition us to.

Speaker 1 24:41

We're talking about the human centricness. That's what you talk about with leadership Like you're. You're developing leaders to be human centric and especially corporate America, corporate anywhere. Really, we've gotten away from the human side of things. We're only focused on the bottom dollar. We're only focused on myself preserving myself as a leader to make sure I keep my job. So, whether that's throwing people under the bus or just giving everybody threes on a performance review or just doing the bare minimum to keep everybody happy. Leadership is suffering right now, and I love that you're focused on human-centric leadership, because that is a key, in my mind, for us to breed the next generation of leaders and really transform the business world. So talk to us a little bit about what got you started with doing this style of leadership and what exactly that means to you and the clients that you work with.

Speaker 2 25:48

What exactly got me started was there's no short answer to that a whole bunch of different things. I've always had a love for, for human beings and and everything I've ever done in every project I've been a part of whether it's been people, projects, departments. What I learned is that everything comes down to the people. See, I I never completed a task or stepped on a job site and and directed traffic and told people how to do things. I started with connection. Hey, man, tell me about you. I want to learn everything I can about you, because once I establish trust, trust is the currency, and when you have trust with folks, everything else organically forms. So this is what I talk about when I talk about human-centric leadership. It's exactly what we're talking about right now. It's putting people first, is looking out for the people as human beings, to connect with them, because there's always something else going on.

Speaker 2 26:44

The old adage of like and I'm going to talk construction for a second, but it's no, it's no different than any other industry I'm going to yell at this person and and and tear a them and great. So I'm not saying that that's right nor wrong, good nor bad, it's. How well does that serve and does it drive you closer to or further from connection? Do people comply? Sure, out of fear. Is it sustainable? Absolutely not. Did you miss an opportunity to connect and learn something from that person? For sure, you see, the behavior is an expression of something deeper. There's always something else going on.

Speaker 2 27:19

But in corporate America we think let's drive profit, and okay, listen, I'm not going to be stereotypical here, because there's some great organizations out there but more times than not, let's drive profit, let's drive profit, let's drive profit, and then we'll look after the people. And I say no silly when profit, and then we'll go. You know, we'll look after the people. And I say no silly, when you look after the people first, the people organically look after the business. It's like any franchise. Look, it's like any franchise. Sports teams and and I don't know I mean the only thing that comes to mind. I think of hockey world. I'm gonna say toronto maple leafs, because I'm in toronto and the leafs are terrible. They haven't won a stanley cup in decades. Right, does that turn a fan base off? No, it doesn't, because there's trust that one day it's going to occur. I don't know when, but there's a culture around that and culture is such a misunderstood thing.

Speaker 2 28:15

So when you work with leadership, it starts. You know we talk about three different things. We talk about connection, which you and I have sort of tapped into a little bit, right and when and and see, without connection there is no trust, and without trust there's no culture. And then you're spiraling out of control. So then what are we doing? We're pushing widgets along in hopes that we get it right. How well does that go? It doesn't. People leave. It's not sustainable. Folks burn out. Leaders smash their heads on tables and say what am I doing this for? So it's very different, right, and I'm not coming in here ripping apart standard operating procedures, telling you this is how you should do it. You do it the way that you see fit, you know. Can I give you operational guidelines along the way? Sure, except that when we first connect with the folks doing the work, the folks are going to tell us what's working and what's not working.

Speaker 1 29:07

Yeah, and that's something that I've seen in the manufacturing environment that leadership or even engineering, which obviously isn't leadership, but they'll decide, this is what we need to do and a lot of times they don't even talk to the person actually doing the work.

Trust: Building strong teams

Speaker 1 29:23

They're like, oh, we need to make this change, this isn't working, we're going to make this change. Well, did you even talk to the person that actually has to now live with that change, that they're the one doing that new change and they're doing the current process? Maybe they could have given you some insights of why maybe what you thought wouldn't work, or why it's actually not going to improve it, or they could have given you a million dollar idea of what would actually make it great. Yet we just want to decide on our own and not talk to that, associate that person and get their buy-in, which I think is part of how we build trust as a leader with the team we're leading and the people around us. But what would you say would be some other things or tactics, however you want to say it, that we could do to build trust with our team.

Speaker 2 30:17

To simplify it get to know the human being in front of you, get out there. There's something even magical of shaking somebody's hand, good morning, putting your hand on their shoulder, hey, good to see you. Right, philip, I know you like a coffee, so I was driving by and I thought I brought you a coffee. Just simple, small gestures, right? A text message, like text messages, can be wonderful when they're used appropriately. It's it's to follow information. But, hey, checking in on you, thinking about you, call you in a couple hours, or something like it's. It's, it's actual connection, rather than the adage of and I'm going to use this. You know, like corporate america, you know, walk in the office, close the door, walk, work behind closed doors. That doesn't serve anybody. Well, hey, man, how is it different?

Speaker 2 31:04

I think of the show I don't know if you ever watched the show Undercover Boss, and it was where the executives of organizations actually went and were boots on the ground, connecting with in this case it was fast food change or whatever it was the folks doing the work. That's building trust, man. That's like working alongside to say the work that's building trust, man. That's like working alongside to say I've got your back, that's all, that's what it is. It's like doing something and supporting, supporting somebody because once we establish trust, then I'm going to know that it doesn't matter. You're going to organically form psychological safety and I'm going to know that I have the, the, the bandwidth, and I'm safe in this space to share my opinion with Philip without being judged and assessed Right.

Speaker 1 31:48

Yeah, I completely agree, and I think that just going around saying hey, those little things like that and I like to say those are the inefficient things, but they become efficient things Like it feels inefficient in the moment because, yes, you are not leading, you are not in a meeting to talk about the direction of the company or X, y, z, you're not doing your actual job per se, based on your job function. But by going and saying hey, doing this, what is seemingly inefficient in the moment is actually more efficient in the long run. And I think this goes along the lines of what we talked about, like going and talking to an associate. What's your thoughts on this?

Speaker 1 32:32

Yes, it's kind of inefficient in the moment because you had to go out of your way to go talk to this associate, or maybe you had to pull them off the line, put somebody else in their place, talk to this associate. Or maybe you had to pull them off the line, put somebody else in their place. But in the long run it's efficient because you're getting their buy-in, you're getting trust from them and then also, if they give you a better idea than you, the leadership or engineering team had, that's more efficient too, because now you didn't waste time on something that you thought would work well. You got some actual good information that could do well for, let's say, a process improvement or something like that. And so it's those in those seemingly inefficient things create a lot of efficiency, for sure, sure can I add some insight?

Speaker 2 33:16

something just just showed up because I want to address um the folks I've done jonathan, I don't have time for this.

Speaker 2 33:22

Right, I got two. My schedule is too busy to connect with people. Well, so I'm going to challenge you to flip the script on that. And for those, for those who are, who are highly efficient, I'm going to assume that you live and die by your calendar, right? Your calendar tells you everything's going on if it's in your calendar you actually do it. Block off 15 minutes once a week, I don't know. Whatever, whatever, whatever you can do to connect with folks, but here's the, here's the trick, here's the, here's the. You guys want the hack, here's the hack. Make a note. So for, for instance, if the executive team is tremendously busy and say, like, you're going to do 15 minutes monday morning, you're going to do a 15-minute Monday morning, you're going to chat with four people, four new people, I don't know who the hell, it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter whoever the heck you want to chat with, right, but the takeaway is, after you chat with them, use whatever platform you want to use Evernote, onenote, whatever note-taking software. You would make a note.

Speaker 2 34:22

Jonathan, two children does not like animals. You know, doesn't dislike animals. That has no pets. You know, like you just see, when you ask questions, you extrapolate. And so now, if this, if Philip knows that Jonathan has two children, christian and Cassandra, you know, 10 and eight years old. Well, now, guess what? You've just opened a window to trust. Hey, jonathan, how's Christian? He's 10 years old, right? Oh yeah, oh well, now I was like well, philip actually remembers my name and remembers my kids names, right? It's not that you created space in your brain for that. You put that information somewhere to review and then. So then you're going to go talk to jonathan again. What did I say? Oh yeah, he's got two kids. Well, cool now. So now you see how you organically. It's small, micro steps along the way that create trust.

Cultures that improve the workplace

Speaker 1 35:04

Yeah, I like that Doing those small little things yeah, does really build up that trust. And then the last thing here I want to be very tactful. I feel like culture. We always talk about culture, how we build up the culture, and so I want to know maybe like three things that we as leaders, we as business owners can do to start building a better culture. Like start doing today Like we've just listened to this podcast and we can take action on now to start building a better culture within our organization, or an organization that we're just a part of, organization, or an organization that we're just a part of.

Speaker 2 35:46

Um, I'm going to summarize sort of the three simple things we talked about, because there's you, you do those three things, you're, you're transforming your culture instantaneously. One is presence, absolute presence, right, going back to what we talked about phone away, present, observation, aware, find one thing to connect with that person about, right, and then it's, you know, dig for what's not being said, become hyper, curious and aware that the behavior is an expression of the problem. So, if Jonathan is lashing out and complaining about something that's going on, rather than dismissing it or validating or saying I hear you, I see you. No, that's where you dig in to learn more. Tell me more about what you're talking about, jonathan. So you've got presence. You're going to dig for the gold and dig for what's not being said. And the fundamental thing if you do one thing, folks, it's not about you, it never has been, it never will be. Build the trust, because trust is the currency of the future. That's what leads to great, robust cultures.

Speaker 1 36:59

Yeah, it's not about you. I think the only time that we can truly get away with that and even then it's not that great is when we're a kid. As a kid, kids are very selfish and you know, as a parent, your kids are very selfish, they're only focused on them, and that's acceptable at a very young age and even then it's somewhat not acceptable. But we understand it as adults, because they haven't built up the mental faculties to understand what being selfish and not selfish is, and that's something as parents, as leaders, we should be teaching them. But as an adult, yes, we need to stop being selfish, and especially as a leader, and I think that's the hardest, that's probably one of the harder transitions.

Speaker 1 37:45

As a leader, you go from being you're able to be selfish, because all you have to think about is your job, what you're doing, the task you're working on, and then, as a leader, now you have to focus on your team, because it's not about your individual performance anymore, it's now about your team's performance as well.

Speaker 1 38:03

I mean, your individual performance as a leader still has merit, still has weight in your performance overall, but it comes down to how is your team performing, and if you, as a leader, are selfish, you're not going to have a good team. I mean, there's no way possible, unless if everybody happens to be super self-driven and they don't worry about you, they just get things done and somehow everything aligns for that, which I have not seen yet in my working career. But if it happens for you, you need to stick there because you have an amazing team. But as a leader especially, we cannot be selfish, because we're not going to be able to lead very well if we are selfish. Yeah, 100% agree with you on what you said can we pump the brakes here for a second?

Speaker 2 38:55

I don't know how much time we got, but I like what you said there and I want to for the folks out there. I like to associate things to sports because sometimes we we can assimilate a little bit better with sports. So I love what you're talking about, where I think of this. For a second right, tom Brady and I don't know whatever your philosophies are on Tom Brady I think the guy's a pretty cool guy. Right, there is arguably one of the best quarterbacks that exist in today's age. Right, he wins all the championships there are. It's not like he says, you know, he never made it about him. Right, he's accepting the MVP trophies and the championships. And what do you say? I'd like to thank the boys and the coaches and everyone who got us here today.

Speaker 2 39:35

So for the leaders out there, sports is no different than corporate culture. It's the exact same thing. It's packaged differently. So look at what the superstars do. That guy like Tom Brady. Does he work hard? Yeah, does he outwork everybody else? Probably. Does he put a lot of time and effort into working on himself? Does he have a bunch of great coaches around him? Yes, yes, yes, yes, he's checking all the boxes and when he's on top of the mountain and he's on the podium, you never see. Yeah, I'm really grateful that I've put in all the hard work. It never makes it about him. The instantaneously volleys it to everybody else. Use that as a beacon of light, folks. Thank you, philip, for letting me go there for a moment.

Speaker 1 40:18

Of course, of course, and you're exactly right about that, and I don't know if it was him or some other like major athlete or at least one that I remember hearing a story about. They, they took a pay cut because the franchise didn't have the money to get certain players on the team so the team could be a better team. And I want to say it was him, and I'm sure there's probably been other athletes too that were like you know what, I'll take a pay cut because I know you're paying me. You know, essentially, in a nutshell, you're paying me a lot. I want the team to win. It's not about me getting paid tons of money, I want to make sure the team wins. So I'm willing to take this salary cut. So if we have more money to bring on the best of the best for the team and I think it was him and maybe some other players as well but you're right, the best leaders, it's not about them.

How to connect with Jonathan

Speaker 1 41:13

Even when the glory happens, even when success happens in the team, the team, the business, they're lifting up and praising this leader. They point back and say it's my team. If it weren't for my team, we couldn't be here right now and they use that we and not the I on that as well. So it's such an important thing to make sure that we stay selfless, and that goes back to the trust and the culture. If you, as the leader, start being that selfless leader and you start pointing out and saying it was the team, it wasn't me, it's not an I, it's a we, you're building more trust in the team and then you're creating a better culture and it's just this whole circle, this feedback loop, that continues to grow and grow and grow. Yes, I agree. Well, jonathan man, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I love the insights that you have. You're very insightful. We talked about leadership, mainly about connection and everything, but if people want to connect with you, where is the best place for them to do?

Speaker 2 42:18

that Straight up folks. I'm a human to human connection. I welcome every telephone call all the time. I'm going to share my telephone number, which is 416-717-4139. I'm Toronto-based. I share my phone number. First Call me, send. My website is Jonathan's wwwJonathanSinellicom. You know you can track me down on Instagram. Social media is everywhere. Call me seriously. That's what it is, folks. So thanks, philip.

Speaker 1 42:57

Awesome. Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing the tremendous value that you have. I appreciate it. You're welcome.