179: Always Be Curious, with Chris March

Your first move as a leader is probably not what you think. 

Before the strategy deck, before the new plan, the faster path to trust and better results is to be genuinely curious and listen like you mean it. I’m joined by executive advisor Chris March, who helps founder-led companies scale beyond the founder without losing operational control, and we dig into what resilient leadership looks like when things get real. 

Chris shares a defining leadership test from the COVID era, when travel shut down and leaders had to deliver heartbreaking news. We talk about why transparency and directness can be more humane, how to prepare for uncomfortable conversations, and a simple question that changes everything: What outcome do we want from this talk? 

Then we get practical: Chris lays out a listening tour you can run when you take over a role, including the exact questions that surface what’s working, what’s broken, and why people show up every day. We challenge the idea that the only reward is a management title, and we close with Chris’s essentials for modern leadership: keep learning, protect your health, and build communication skills (yes, Toastmasters counts). 

Website: https://chrismarchcoaching.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherrmarch/

If this helped you rethink how you lead, subscribe, share it with a manager or founder, and leave a review so more people can find the show. 

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Transcript

Listening Tour Before Changing Anything

Chris March 0:01

Is whenever you take over a role, before you start pulling out the strategy deck and telling them how you're going to change things, go on a listening tour and understand your people. Sit down with every single person on your team and ask a simple set of questions around what do you think I should be focusing on? What do we do well? What don't we do well? Why do you turn up to work every day? Simple questions coming back to being curious around what's working, what's not. How can I work with you? What can I do to better support your goals, our goals?

Welcome And Meet Chris March

Manya Chylinski 0:35

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Chris March. He's an executive advisor and he helps founder-led companies scale beyond the founder without losing operational control. We had a wonderful topic about curiosity and resilience and leadership. I hope you would enjoy it as much as I did.

Being Liked Versus Being Respected

Manya Chylinski 1:03

Chris, I'm so glad to be talking to you today. Thanks for making time.

Chris March 1:07

Thanks for having me.

Manya Chylinski 1:08

To get us started, what would the title of a book be about you if your worst enemy wrote it?

Chris March 1:16

You're probably not as cool as you think would be the title. Okay. Uh why is that? Why aren't you as cool as you think? Well, if they're my worst enemy, they probably had some thoughts about me being a certain way. I remember hearing feedback in Canada where I previously lived, and I was in a leadership role, and it was very important for me to be liked. And I remember vividly someone telling me that they didn't like me. And that really hurt me at it at the time. But I quickly understood as I evolved and grew as a leader, it's not about being liked, it's about being respected. So that's where I naturally went with that because I probably thought I was super cool. But if my worst enemy was writing that, they probably didn't think I was cool. It it's hard to have someone either tell you directly that they don't like you or to somehow find out that they really don't like you, even though intellectually we know not everybody can or will like us. Statistically, it's impossible, right? If you look at the numbers on that, it's it's not possible. And I think we spend so much time worrying about what other people think. And then as you become older, you realize no one was just thinking about you that would just focus on themselves. So the earlier you can get yourself into that mindset and focus on the controllables, the quicker you will get ahead.

Manya Chylinski 2:46

Yes. And on the off chance that person was actually thinking about you, mostly doesn't matter what they were thinking.

Chris March 2:55

No, not at all. Everyone has a different perspective in the world, and their view shapes that perspective that they have. So that's okay. You can respect it, understand it, be curious about it, ask the right questions. It's just their perspective at the end of the day.

Manya Chylinski 3:13

Yes. You used one of my favorite words, which is curious. Um, I think that is that plays such a role from my own perspective, that plays such a role in good relationships, whatever level they may be.

Chris March 3:26

I agree. You have to ask curiosity comes from asking better questions. And if you're naturally a curious person, you're going to find out better outcomes. And I think a lot of people in life, in in business, rather than be curious, you assume. And if you assume, you're not always gonna know exactly what's right. So by asking better questions, you're just gonna be more productive in in life. And I I have a mantra that I've used is if you remember many, many years ago, maybe aging myself here, always be closing. The ABCs of it was a sales mantra, right? Always be closing. My mantra, coming from a coaching background and sport background, always be curious. If you're being curious about life, you're gonna find yourself having better conversations and you're gonna have better becomes personally and professionally. So always curious.

Manya Chylinski 4:32

Oh, I love that. That's so much better than the original, which I also remember.

Chris March 4:38

Absolutely. Yes.

Pandemic Leadership And Layoff Calls

Manya Chylinski 4:40

Everyone has had a moment or more than one moment in their life that changes how they think about being a leader or how they think about taking care of other people. What was one moment like that for you?

Chris March 4:54

Beautiful thing about leadership is I don't think you can truly master it. I'm someone who speaks about leadership, I write about leadership. It's a continual process that you never really stop learning. And for me, one of the most profound times for leadership was during the pandemic. At the time in 2020, I was a senior leader working in Canada at the time, in the travel industry in Canada. And for anyone who remembers going back, I think it's it's been six and a half years now, thereabouts, whole world shut down. And with the borders being shut down, travel pretty much came to a halt. And we thought the pandemic was gonna go a couple of months. We decided to make some very tough decisions, and we started laying off our staff. And as things progressed, we ended up laying off 90% of our staff. And during that time, you probably remember there was all these different clips, different outcomes of CEOs jumping on Zoom calls and having different conversations, letting staff go. We took a different approach where we called every single person to let them know. And as one of the senior leaders on the team, I was part of that group where we had to make those phone calls, and I will never forget some of those phone calls that I had to make to people. Never forget those conversations. And some were very quick, as you can imagine. Just letting you know, we had a script, we were given a script from from from HI. We had to follow on. I was like, I can't follow the script, but some of those calls would be really quick. Some of them I remember one specifically that that will always resonate or stick with me is a lady, she was just about to go on Mat Leave, and she was literally begging to keep her job, and I had to walk her through the process of what was actually happening and why we actually had to do what we were doing. And that time taught me so much about leadership because you never think you're gonna be in those type of scenarios ever, ever. And that was only really the start of the pandemic. And yeah, it just continued to to to go throughout the that tough period of opening up borders, restrictions closing, can't travel, get excited, things would change. It was just such a a roller coaster of emotion. So leadership was really tested and also thrived in those tough times.

Manya Chylinski 7:34

Right. And you got a real world test of having difficult conversations.

Chris March 7:42

Oh, my role wasn't leadership. I was chatting with people like this on Zoom, having a lot of conversations because we we we weren't allowed in the office. It was just checking in on people to make sure that they were okay. It was really breaking it down to the absolute human level of this simple conversation and checking in on people, making sure they're the first functionally able to turn up and be part of something. That was it.

Manya Chylinski 8:14

Well, and you said the other thing that I really like, which is human conversations. And I feel that sometimes we think that leadership, and here we're thinking about workplace leadership or is different than somehow simply being a human.

Chris March 8:35

I know there's that old style thought of you leave your your personal life at home and you come to work and it's work, but that is hardly genuinely possible. No, because in reverse, and when you think about that analogy or saying you bring that person home with you as well, and that interconnection between work and business, work and home life is so, so important. So you can't have a successful life at home without having a successful life in business. I feel very strongly of that. You have you have to have those interwoven, otherwise, one is going to be weaker than the other.

Manya Chylinski 9:16

Oh, absolutely. And when things go wrong, I mean, thinking about COVID now, it's on my

Direct Talks And Clear Outcomes

Manya Chylinski 9:23

mind. In other instances, you know, people often mean well, but say something or do something that actually makes it harder for people. And what have you seen get in the way when someone's trying to help or they're or you know, their recovery?

Chris March 9:40

A lot of things you learned through the pandemic and just through through leadership as well, is the best way is to be, even if it's gonna be a tough conversation, is to be direct and transparent. A lot of times in general, we can avoid a conversation because coming back, we assume something. We shouldn't say this, or we should wait to a perfect moment. There's not going to be a perfect moment to have a hard conversation. So I think it's important to have hard conversations and be transparent around something that's going to be a little bit uncomfortable and get comfortable in those uncomfortable conversations. That is really, really key. And that's something that takes a little bit of practice. I remember having a lot of hard conversations when I was first a leader, and it was bad, really bad. But then you get to learn how to be more comfortable with it. So I think the key thing is just to be transparent, even when it's when it's tough. And people will respect you more rather than you delaying something and saying, I just want it to be nice and wanted to wait two or three months. What's the what's the cost to you and that business and that person by delaying that? And as humans, it feels natural that we want to avoid being uncomfortable and having those hard conversations. So you really do have to practice or train yourself or somehow get ready. It's not a simple thing for most people. Not at all. And I think one of the things that I always advise people on or companies on now is every conversation or meeting, what's the outcome that you want to get to it? If you're just going up into a meeting, we use the the uncomfortable conversation as an example. What's the outcome that you want? A lot of times we just go into a conversation and hope for the best. What would be a good conversation? What would be a good outcome of this tough conversation we're going to have? Is it X, Y, or Z? That will help be your test of yes, we got to the root of what we wanted to achieve in this conversation, just versus let's let's just have a feel-good conversation that will help drive the right outcomes.

Manya Chylinski 11:49

You know, I've actually said that to someone who started a conversation with me that was clearly difficult for both of us. And I didn't understand why they were bringing it up. And I said, Well, what's the purpose of this conversation? What are we hoping to decide? If you just want to tell me I sucked, okay. But if there's a if there's an outcome we're planning for, let me know.

Chris March 12:13

Yeah, and you framed it up well, right? I think a lot of times you you can walk into a conversation without any understanding, but your emotional intelligence allowed you to push for an outcome-driven thought process throughout it, where may they they may have not been ready to come with that at all.

Manya Chylinski 12:32

Right. Well, Chris, I realized many years ago I was in a meeting with a supervisor who was telling me some uncomfortable things. It wasn't a horrible conversation, but definitely telling me some uncomfortable things. And in that moment, I realized I will tell a joke to get everybody relaxed so that it's not as painful.

Chris March 12:58

That's a good skill. Let me firstly interrupt for you, but that is a great skill to have. You're automatically bringing everyone down a little bit so they feel safe.

Manya Chylinski 13:06

I hope so,

Using Humor To Lower The Heat

Manya Chylinski 13:07

because at the time when I realized it, I thought, am I just not able to hear hard things?

Chris March 13:13

Well, it depends on the level of the joke, potentially, as well, that you're you're you're you're bringing to the conversation, but you're naturally bringing by starting with a jovial tone, that definitely brings everyone to be a little bit more comfortable versus let's get down to business. Yeah. What are we talking about?

Manya Chylinski 13:29

It does depend on the joke, right? Horse walks into a bar.

Chris March 13:34

Yeah. It beats talking about the weather.

Manya Chylinski 13:37

Yes. Although I never talked about the weather much when I lived in California, but now that I live in Massachusetts, it comes up more than I would have expected. And and I do it myself now too. So, you know, with your work advising executives and and your leadership experience, what question about leadership do you think we are still not asking?

Chris March 14:03

In a lot of different ways, I think we've over-engineered leadership. And what I mean by that is, and I think this is also due to the boom that we've had online. We've got so many different people telling you you need these different frameworks, you you need all these different hacks. And uh leadership is just and this is the same goes in in business. We we want hacks, we want all these different things, we're looking for the next big thing. Simplistic. It needs to be simple and effective.

Stop Overengineering Leadership

Chris March 14:37

Leadership is about moving people from A to B. This is leadership. Don't overcomplicate it. It's about being of service to people. You as a leader, you work for your team, not the other way around. What are you doing to help each of those people you're responsible for to grow as employees and as humans? It's a responsibility that a lot of people don't take seriously enough. And I think that is the disconnect.

Manya Chylinski 15:07

And what you said is so important that the leader works for the team, not the other way around. And my experience as a team member has been I'm working for them. My job is to help them look good, to do all of these things. And um just didn't have very many leaders who I felt like were what I think you're describing.

Chris March 15:30

Absolutely. And a lot of people weren't set up for success if they're moved into leadership. A lot of people are put into leadership, for example, because they thrive in individual contributor roles. Have we tested that they're good as leaders? Because you're an excellent salesperson doesn't mean you're an excellent people person. Those are two completely different skills. And I think we get them confused a lot. So just because you're a great individual contributor doesn't mean you're gonna be a great leader. And I respect people and I know a few people that have been in that opportunity and they said, No, I just want to focus on myself and thrive.

Manya Chylinski 16:07

Yes. And I sometimes think we have this specific path. This is how you get rewarded for your achievement, and it's going higher up the chain and getting management responsibility versus there being a track of people who are interested, wanting to get into management, and people like the one you're just talking about, who you want to reward them, perhaps promote them, but continue to be an individual contributor because that is their strength.

Chris March 16:39

Absolutely. And I think when you're younger, at least for myself, talking from my own personal experience, I wanted to move up the corporate ladder as quickly as possible and get to the absolute top. And then as you get older, you understand what's important to you. It doesn't always have to be a title. It could be more freedom or flexibility, it could be just to focus on your family, the different priorities that you have in time. And it's all really dependent on what's important to you. And as you evolve your own responsibility and align with your own personal goals, it's always evolving.

Manya Chylinski 17:15

Right. And then we get back to that curiosity we were talking about at the beginning. As a leader, you've got all these different people on your team. And for some of them, maybe it's more time with their family they want. For others, it might be the more money that they want. Others, it might be that that climb up the corporate ladder. And it's being able to understand that at least at a certain level.

Chris March 17:41

Yes. And thinking about that, this is something that I've always done effectively and I always recommend to my clients as well. Is whenever you take over a role, before you start pulling out the strategy deck and telling them how you're going to change things, go on a listening tour and understand your people. Sit down with every single person on your team and ask a simple set of questions around what do you think I should be focusing on? What do we do well? What don't we do well? Why do you turn up to work every day? Simple questions coming back to being curious around

The Listening Tour Questions That Work

Chris March 18:16

what's working, what's not. How can I work with you? What can I do to better support your goals, our goals? Why do you think people don't do that as often as maybe would be beneficial? I don't think they care enough. I don't think they care. In a lot of ways, you may avoid that. You don't think it's ne you don't think it's necessary. I'm here to do my role. I'm gonna lay out what we need. Versus let's take it a layer below and let's look at what was previously in this role, and let's look at the people and hear from the people that are doing the the work from a day-to-day perspective. You're gonna get some incredible data and insights by having those conversations and hearing what they do and what's not working. You can unlock a lot of good things by having those conversations. I just think people overlook it because it seems so simple.

Manya Chylinski 19:11

There was a show a while ago called Undercover Boss. And you know the premise a boss would make sure they didn't look like the CEO and come to work with someone at the lower level. And I always found it so disheartening that it was fabulous because this one person often got promotion or more money or some benefit. But it was always so disappointing to me to realize that the person in charge didn't even understand what they were going through. And that that they weren't thinking about this as how do we help everyone at this level? It was, you know, TV show, but how do I help this one person? It was so disheartening about American business.

Chris March 19:56

Absolutely. And it's more about profitability at the end of the day. How can I make more profits so I earn more money? Potentially our shareholders earn more money. Yet, understanding to your point around the show is what are the day-to-day people doing to support this business? And what can we hear from them to help me do a better job? That's what they're missing. Yeah, absolutely.

Manya Chylinski 20:24

Okay, well, we are getting close to the end of our time. So what's one thing that you've learned in your own life or your own work that you would want someone to do first to become a better leader?

Chris March 20:41

The beautiful thing, as I said, about leadership is it's a skill that you can never truly master. And if you look at this AI rush right now, this is a great example. You can't even keep up. Things are evolving so quickly. We've got open AI,

Keep Learning Protect Health Communicate

Chris March 20:58

we've got Claude, two behemoth companies coming to the forefront. Leadership is the same. You need to upgrade your skills because what was relevant five years ago is no longer relevant today. You need to keep upgrading your playbook. And two things that definitely support that is the learning aspect and also to take care of your health. If you can't turn up as yourself and as the best version of yourself, how can you expect to lead others? So master the skill of leadership by continually learning. One key thing that I would say, in addition to your health, is communication is everything in leadership. You need to be a strong communicator. So take some type of education or support. You can do Toastmasters. That is a skill that is going to help you lead to a better life personally and professionally. So continue learning, take care of yourself, learn how to communicate better. Those would be the top three things that I'd recommend.

Manya Chylinski 22:03

I like it. Simple and yet not simple. Well, Chris, thank you so much. Before we log off here, please tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and your work and how they can reach you.

Chris March 22:17

So, firstly, I'm an executive advisor to service-based business in Australia and the US, typically spending between 5 million to 20 million. So I help reduce founder dependency so they can scale beyond themselves without losing control on momentum. And if people want to get in touch with me, there's two ways. I post regular content

Where To Find Chris Online

Chris March 22:43

on LinkedIn. So reach out to me there or my website at Chris Marchcoaching.com.

Manya Chylinski 22:48

Excellent. And we'll put those links in the show notes to make it easier for people. And Chris, thank you again. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you.

Chris March 22:56

Thank you for having me.

Manya Chylinski 22:57

And thank you to our listeners. We will catch you on the next episode.