The Better Leadership Team Show
The Better Leadership Team Show
Dealing with Uncertainty with Kathryn Landis
In this episode of The Better Leadership Team Show, I talk with executive coach and keynote speaker Kathryn Landis about leading through uncertainty and overcoming decision paralysis. We explore why indecision costs organizations millions, how leaders can manage up and down effectively, and how to identify personal “tells” of stress that undermine leadership effectiveness. Kathryn also shares how shared purpose, delegation, and vulnerability can transform team performance.
Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach
When all else fails, focus on the customer. So what is the customer impact? So if you can quantify or explain what the impact is on the customer by delaying the decision, no one can argue with the customer. Well, they can, but they're not gonna be that effective. And so if you can really explain why this matters to the customer, and also how you can lower the stakes so that the customer can see an incremental benefit without maybe moving toward the type one irreversible decision. You're more likely to see traction, otherwise people don't necessarily realize what's costing them for not making that decision.
Mike Goldman:You made it to the better leadership team show, the place where you learn how to surround yourself with the right people, doing the right things. So you can grow your business without losing your mind. I'm your host and leadership team coach, Mike Goldman. I'm going to show you how to improve top and bottom line growth, fulfillment, and the value your company adds to the world by building a better leadership team. All right, let's go.
Mike:Katherine Landis helps go to market leaders, maximize revenue and team performance. A sought after executive coach and keynote speaker. Her insights have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. She also teaches executive education at New York University. Katherine holds an MBA from Northwestern University and Advanced Coaching credentials from Columbia University and the International Coaching Federation. That's a whole lot of university education and educating. Today we're gonna talk all about dealing with uncertainty. Katherine, welcome to the show.
Kathryn:Thank you. Thank you for having me. And it's a whole bunch of money spent on those certificates that are, you know, hanging in my closet right now.
Mike:Well worth it. Well get'em out of the closet, put'em on the wall. It's well worth it.
Kathryn:Somebody's gotta see him.
Mike:Katherine, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Kathryn:Yeah. I would actually, instead of characteristics, say condition, and I think the most important condition is they know what their shared purpose is. As a team coach, I see so many executive leadership teams that are running like little fiefdoms, right? I'm in charge of sales, I'm in charge of marketing, you know, I'm the CFO, and they don't actually think of themselves as a team that is driving the enterprise forward. So knowing what is that shared purpose? Can really help make or break the executive leadership team? How do you make decisions? How do you engage and support each other? It is a huge differentiator and one that can be solved, but a lot of organizations do it.
Mike:and somehow I think in our conversation we're gonna loop back around to the importance of that and, you know, a lot of, what we talked about in, in preparing, for this when we first met. And, a great. I think it was an HBR article you sent me that you co-wrote. You know what, what struck me that I think would be most useful again, is this whole idea of dealing with uncertainty as a leader, as a leadership team. So I guess I'll start with what. Before we figure out what, how to deal with that uncertainty, what drives the uncertainty? Do you find uncertainty is driven by external factors as we'd most think about like the economy or, global trade or COVID, or is it, is the uncertainty typically driven by external factors or more internal factors like a leader who just. Lack some confidence in making the tough decisions.
Kathryn:That, and perhaps there's not a clear opportunity cost of not making the decision. So I think it's hard to make a blanket statement if it's external or internal factors, but the challenge really is not making a decision. Is a decision. And so for folks that have ever been, you know, in a sales role, they know that almost 60% of your deals lead to no decision, right? They just don't make a change. And that's the same thing that happens in the boardroom and which is why my co-author Jenny and I wrote an article about what do you do when you're C-Suites not making a strategic decision? Because if you're that department head or that business unit head. You're stuck trying to continue rallying the troops, motivating people, getting things done when your executives are not making that decision that's needed.
Mike:One of the interesting things I found that I'm interested in your take on it and if you've seen it, and it's kind of why I separated between the external and the internal. And of course the answer's a little bit of both, right. But the internal part I see a lot are. Leaders who believe they have to get the decision right. Now as simple as that, of course we have to get the decision right, but when I say that it's leaders who feel like they need to analyze something to death to make the decision, to make the right decision, versus saying, Hey, we've gotta move forward. What's the best decision we could make with the information we currently have? And then we'll tweak and we'll pivot and zig and zag along the way. But I see that a lot as it, it causes this paralysis of just, you know, analyzing and still not feeling that like there's enough information to make a decision. Do you see that a lot in your work as well?
Kathryn:No, absolutely not. Of course I do. Yes, it happens all the time. And I think part of that is that this decision is. Feels like everything's at stake. And so what I tell clients and folks I'm working with is how do you lower the stakes? you've probably heard of, you know, type one, type two decisions. Type one are irreversible. There's really not that many irreversible decisions. Most decisions are type two, meaning they are reversible. So if they're reversible, then move forward. Maybe you start with that minimum viable product and put something out in the marketplace. Do a pilot to test and learn. And so as a leader, right, if you're the one making a decision, or if you're the one hoping that your leaders will make a decision, think about ways that you can lower the stake so it doesn't feel like it's the end all be all. So that analysis that anxiety isn't setting in.
Mike:What's the impact? and we're gonna come back and spend a whole lot of time on how to break these patterns of indecisions or slow decisions. But just to be really clear with this, what's the impact? What's the impact of uncertainty leading to slow decisions or no decisions?
Kathryn:So. Hard dollar cost. McKinsey estimates that in the Fortune 500 alone, 500,000 manager days are wasted annually, which is$250 million just by lack of decision and all the implications that come with that. Also unclear, you know, expectations. No decisions is a major driver of employee disengagement. It does not feel good when no one knows. I know myself, I used to work for a large Fortune 500 company and we would just go around presenting the same ideas over and over to and over, not really knowing who the decision maker was, what the decision making timeline, and who actually could make the call. It was incredibly frustrating. So I spent most of my time telling people what my team did and what my team was gonna do, but we didn't actually talk about what can we do now to move the business forward.
Mike:Yeah, the HBR article that, that we referred to earlier called Managing Your Team when the C-Suite isn't providing strategic direction. So go find that, you know, after this, it's a. A great read and a pretty quick read, but you know, you talk about four. Strategies to deal with and it's an interesting take and check me here if I understand it right, it's not necessarily four strategies here to make quicker decisions, and we may get back to that. It's kind of, if you are a leader and kind, leadership above you is not making decisions or they're making decisions too slowly, here's the way you can best. Handle that. Do I have that framed right?
Kathryn:Exactly. And part of that is how you manage up, how do you, reframe or lower the stakes for the executives that you're waiting for the decision on. The other thing is explaining to them what the cost is of inaction. So maybe it's because there's not a decision. You're not gonna be able to go to market, you know, for three more weeks. What does that cost? You know, what's the customer impact? There's always a opportunity cost to indecision and being able to explain that can also help you. Also gotta help keep your team motivated. And so as a leader who's not the ultimate decision maker, how can you think of and identify what are the small wins that you can help your team identify and rally behind? what can you share to be transparent about why things are delayed and why? Right, because people wanna know, they wanna see the transparency and then also what can be done now. So, when I've been leading teams and what I work with other people. On is what are some shovel ready projects you can have when things do change? So how can you really seize that momentum and have strategies ready to go when the tide does shift?
Mike:So I wanna hit on two things that you just said because they cause potentially difficult discussions going up or, you know, and or going down and going up is the idea of. Letting your leader know of the opportunity, cost of indecision, how do you. How do you approach that conversation knowing it's your leader, the person you report to that you've gotta have that discussion with? They are not always willing to admit that they're being indecisive or they're making a slow decision. They've got a whole bunch of reasons why they haven't. Made a decision yet, but your suggestion is help them understand the opportunity cost. Give us, is there some nuance to doing that without, you know, without sticking your foot in your mouth and saying some, something you shouldn't, when you're managing up.
Kathryn:When all else fails, focus on the customer. So what is the customer impact? So if you can quantify or explain what the impact is on the customer by delaying the decision, no one can argue with the customer. Well, they can, but they're not gonna be that effective. And so if you can really explain why this matters to the customer, and also how you can lower the stakes so that the customer can see an incremental benefit without maybe moving toward the type one irreversible decision. You're more likely to see traction, otherwise people don't necessarily realize what's costing them for not making that decision.
Mike:Yeah, and don't assume your leader sees that. You may have to show it to them.
Kathryn:no. I mean, there are many companies I will not name names. You know, when's the last time that CEOs actually talk to a customer? It's been a while. Right, and so one of the benefits is that you are on the front lines. You're having those conversations and you can bring that up and you can share in a neutral third party way of, Hey, this is what we are learning from the customers, or Here's what the data tells us. So if is, if you can do it in a way that's not emotional tied to the customer, then the decision slowly becomes a little bit clearer for the executive team.
Mike:I like that.'cause one of the things I always coach my clients on, and it's written about in dozens of books, so when you're having a difficult conversations, you kind of start with the facts. And if you start with the idea of, you know, why are you so slow in making decisions, that's probably not a good place to start. And that's not the fact. But to your point, if you could start with the facts on. Here's what's going on with our customers. While, you know, no, we haven't made this decision yet, but while we're waiting, here's what's happening down at the client level, that's a fact, and that's a way to do that. So I love that. But now that discussion going down, which could also be difficult, where you talked about being transparent, letting your team know, how do you. What's the nuance in being transparent that a decision hasn't been made, and here's what we've gotta do in the meantime. How do you do that without throwing your boss under the bus and saying, yeah, she hasn't made a decision again, or what? Like, and what's the nuance there to make sure that you're not hurting company culture and throwing your boss under the bus?
Kathryn:Well, I think the role of a leader in no matter what instance, is to define reality and give hope. Okay, so defining the reality could be these are the trade offs that, that are at hand. You know, helping the team members to understand perhaps what the pressure the boss is facing, if it's appropriate. but knowing that there's other things at play that perhaps they don't have the opportunity to see. Then also giving hope through those small wins. You know, thinking about what can still be done, and putting a plan together to say, okay, what can we get done this quarter, this year? And so folks feel like there's still momentum even though that decision may not be being made. I do wanna go back to something you said earlier about having that conversation grounded in fact. I would go a little bit further and say, here's the facts, here's the implications. Here's, let's have a conversation of how we can interpret that, right? And then how can we make a decision to drive action? And I, oh, by the way, it becomes even better when you can form a coalition with your peers to then go to the boss and say, Hey, we all have come to this conclusion and would and agree with this decision and present it as a unified voice versus you going at it alone.
Mike:So very, let's go from the managing up and managing down and talk directly to the leaders in managing themselves there you talk about, you know, the uncertainty. and the slow decision making often either comes from stress or causes a level of stress in the leader. And I know you talk a lot about patterns or indicators of stress these tells that might not be noticed, but what are those tells and how can we start noticing them in ourselves?
Kathryn:Yeah, great point. So I take, I call them, tells from poker, you know, in poker you have certain things that you do that the other player will notice and pick up when you're bluffing. Well, I think of our indicators of overwhelm, our indicators of stress, as tells as well. But tells for how we're feeling. So for me, my tell is eating Nutella sandwiches, so getting out some Nutella, putting it on two slices of bread when I start eating Nutella, which I don't do when I'm not stressed. It actually doesn't sound that appealing to me. But there is something about being overwhelmed that makes me wanna have a Nutella sandwich. Other people, you know, I had one client who would get really angry when people started sending him emails. It wasn't the content of the email, it was the fact that he was so overwhelmed. How dare they send that email? So people have different tells. And so what I thought was fascinating is, you know, looking at some research by, the Hogan assessment is that, you know, 94% of people have these derailers or these tells. But when I did some informal research on LinkedIn, most people didn't think they had one. And so what I would encourage you to say is if you are one of those folks that thinks that you don't have a tell or something that you do or habitual habit that you think to yourself when you're becoming overwhelmed, ask a friend, ask your spouse, you know, ask your kids. They're gonna know. They're gonna say, yeah, you do this, and it might be an opportunity for you to learn something about yourself. So the way I really focus on these new talent tells is I actually had the unfortunate experience of being on stage in front of 500 people and collapsing. So I was drinking too much coffee, you know, eating protein bars and having protein shakes. It was a couple years ago, I had to go to the hospital and it was really just dehydration and that was a wake up call for me to say I gotta take better care of myself. And the way I've noticed is through my Nutella sandwiches. So that's what works for me. But I encourage you to think about what's gonna work for you so you don't get to that level of overwhelm or stress, and certainly not to the point where you're collapsing on stage.'cause that was no fun.
Mike:Yeah. Wow. I know for me, it's, I get, I'm kind of quick to anger at home. I'm usually pretty good with clients or people I'm working with. I have a level of professionalism where I'm not gonna snap at anybody. You know, typically, I can't remember a time when I did from a business standpoint, but when I'm home and something little might go wrong and my wife will look at me like, okay,
Kathryn:Yeah.
Mike:something must be going on.'cause what the hell's wrong with you right now? So you find that, and to your point, it, it may be home. Now when we find that. What do we do about it? Like, like I may know that when I am overwhelmed, when I'm stressed, that I could snap at people in my personal life. How do I, or you may know it's a Nutella sandwich, or you're eating really badly, you get dehydrated and you're down and out on stage. how do we break those patterns?
Kathryn:So the goal is not to get to the Nutella sandwich, right? It's to not get to the point that you are snapping at your wife. But that's not always realistic. These are the, you know, stop cat indicators that something's off, that your body's telling you that something's happening. So for me, and I think everyone is a little bit different is, you know, what's possible in this moment. So perhaps it's taking a walk, right? And just walking around the block for a, you know, 20 minutes. It's getting some fresh air, you know, maybe it's canceling a few meetings. The next day. Something has to give because truth be told, you know, this is a podcast on leadership team effectiveness. You're not gonna show up as an effective leader if you're in that. I would say rage machine, mindset, right? you're not doing yourself or your team any good. If you're not able to make good decisions, have great interactions and show up as the leader your organization needs. Sometimes actually taking a step back and going slower to then go faster is the best move there.
Mike:Yeah, and that's tough for people. I know for me, and you just said it, there are times I just need a couple walks around the block or a walk in nature or listening to certain kinds of music. Could kind of snap me out of things. what do you find, you know, and this kind of goes back to the beginning of the conversation about, you know, external or, you know, whether it comes externally or internally, but when leaders feel overwhelmed and we're kind of, we're putting two things together that may not always go together, this feeling of stress and overwhelm and uncertainty and slow to make. Decision, you know, slow to make, decisions. Then I guess let's try to tie those together. Do those always, you know, does being overwhelmed in stress, I, is that typically what impacts our decision making and making a slow to decide is that the major influencer.
Kathryn:Anecdotally, I would say yes. I also think it depends on your incentives, so you know, if you're not incentivized to make a decision. You probably won't. So one of my clients was super frustrated, you know, I would say majority of the C-suite was going to retire in the next year or so, and they didn't wanna rock the boat. They just wanted to keep the status quo. Ride out the next couple of years. But that was incredibly frustrating to my client who was trying to make some changes that she felt very strongly that the company needed to make. So I think it also has to do with what, how you're incentivized and what your motivations are. Right? What's a win looks like for you?
Mike:What do we do? So, so taking stress and overwhelm out of it for the moment when we are having a difficult time as a leader, we're having a difficult time making a decision. It is, I mean, these are complicated times that we're living in, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. So when we are. Really struggling to make decisions and we're smart enough, most of us are smart enough to know how it impacts our teams and our companies. When we do that, how do we break out of that? is there a process or a better way to make decisions that, that leaders need to be aware of?
Kathryn:I wish I had a magic answer for you. what I would advise people is to have something called a kitchen cabinet of people, folks that, that have diverse perspectives that you can draw upon. You know, it's really lonely at the top. That's why you and I have a job. Because leaders and leadership teams often don't have a neutral third party that they can talk to, to bounce ideas off of and expand their perspective. So I would say get your kitchen cabinet together and see what insight you can get from them. Also, trying to identify why you're stuck, why you're feeling those feelings of anxiety and what those concerns are, and trying to really get to the root of what's the next step forward. Even if it's, you know, dipping. A small, you know, a small little pinky toe. You know, a 5% change is likely better than doing absolutely nothing.
Mike:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I also learned. Early on in my career and it's got this big, very, important sounding name, but someone, told me every morning you do something called executive creation and decision making.
Kathryn:That does sound fancy and important.
Mike:and really what it is for me, and I don't normally call it that, I just call it journaling in the morning, and I journal two things. Number one, what are the outcomes I'm committed to achieve that day? It's not a long to-do list. It may be three major outcomes, but it's also a time for me to say, what decisions do I need to make? and it's a way to make,'cause we make it sound like there's one decision someone needs to make and they're being indecisive. But as a leader, we, you know, we have dozens of decisions we're making, you know, every day, every week. and for me, I find it's helpful to keep track of the big ones and in the morning, before the day start, the, before the day starts saying, here's the decision I need to make and I will. Make that decision as opposed to letting it drag out. And I wonder if there's other tips that you've seen for leaders and just making sure they're not buried in dozens of decisions every day. I.
Kathryn:Yeah, as you were saying that, it reminded me of a client that I spoke with yesterday. He's a chief revenue officer, and he was, you know, talking about the fact that when it gets to his desk, it's not good. Like he's never asked, make decisions that are easy. All decisions that reach his desk are gonna be hard and they're gonna be difficult, and it takes endurance to do that. To your point, you journal, so that gives you the right frame of mind to be able to make decisions. This person, he meditates and does juujitsu. You know, something else I would think about is how do you delegate those decisions that you don't necessarily need to make? So, what one of my clients did was, and this is very. Simple in practice is have her EA look at her calendar and say, what are the meetings in which my directors or my direct reports are gonna be in? Remove me from that. Right? I'm going to. Automatically delegate, to those directors so I can free up my mental capacity to make more decisions.'cause decision fatigue is real. You only have so much like great brain power in a day. And so can you store that and work on the things that only you can do to drive things forward and let other things that maybe a, b plus is okay? And allow your team to run with those things.
Mike:How do we, you bring up such a great point. I wanna drill into it. How do we drive the right behavior in our direct reports?'cause sometimes the reason why we have 57 decisions to make is because 56 of them should have been made by our direct reports, but they're, you know, knocking on our door, you know. Hey, Katherine, do you have a minute? I have a question for you. I am not sure. How to deal with this. I need to figure this out. How, you know, and it's so easy for a leader to put the superhero cape on and answer all those questions. And then what we're doing is we're training them to come back again and ask us the next time, so how do we drive the right behavior? So, you know, in addition to that, you know, formally delegating certain things, how do we drive behavior so that our direct reports are. Making their own decisions, figuring it out themselves. What's the alternative to giving advice and answering their questions all the time.
Kathryn:Well, I think at first you have to really understand is it a skill or a will gap, right? Because when someone first. Takes on a task, they might just not know. And so in that case, you're going to have to guide them and be a more involved, you know, directive coach. You know, sometimes it's a will or a lack of confidence or to what you said. It's a behavioral habit. I'm just used to knocking on Sandra's door and she tells me what the answer is. It's also safer for me just to knock on Sandra's door and get that answer because then I don't have to put my neck out. Right. That's the habitual habit. So what I suggest to folks out there is to make agreements with your team, share with them. These are the top three to five things that I'm working on. You know, these are the things that only I can do to help move our office or our team forward. And here's what I need from you to help support that. Can you, can we make agreements where. When you kick off a project, you're gonna be asking, you know, these three questions. So you're getting the information you need. Can you make an, can you make an agreement that you're gonna write it down, or at least not, you know, ask the same question again in the next meeting. and of course I'm giving this advice, but make it your own, you know, making agreements for what those key milestones will be and when you'll give proactive updates. For me so that I know how things are progressing and are keeping me in the loop. And also before you immediately ask me the question, consider who else on the team may know the answer, right? And also, what do you think we should do? And consider coming to me with a suggestion rather than just a blanket ask. And I think. Now that's, I said a lot. It's not gonna happen overnight, right? You're, no one's gonna go from zero to 180 in after one conversation. It takes at least seven times. You have to say something and reinforce it. Positive reinforcement to get people to change their behavior. I once had a client say that she feels like she's the chief repeater officer. Be the Chief Repeater officer and just keep repeating it. And reinforcing that behavior, and eventually people will get it. Or if they don't, you have to think about other, another direction, right? Maybe they don't have the skill or maybe they don't have the will, and maybe they never will.
Mike:Yeah, you've gotta make sure your people are coachable or maybe they don't, maybe they don't belong. You mentioned something when we talked about how to build a great leadership team and you talked about, one of the conditions being shared purpose. I wanna come back to that because so often when we don't have that shared purpose. Any answer will do. Right? It's like, what's that Alice in Wonderland thing? it's like, oh, I'm missing the quote. Is it? I don't remember the quote, but it's kinda like, you know, if, which way do I go if you don't know where you're going, like any eternal work, if you don't know where you're going. So what I find very often is when there's no shared. Purpose, then everybody's unclear as to what decision to make because you're making that decision in order to accomplish what we have no shared purpose. So when you say shared purpose, what should help you as a leader and others make those decisions, use that shared purpose as your North star? What, when you say purpose, what does it. Mean to you?'cause I know when I talk to my clients about purpose and big, hairy, audacious goal and three year strategy, and it's a whole lot of different ways to think about vision of a company. But when you say shared purpose,
Kathryn:I meant shared purpose of the team, and for me that means why does this team exist? This team exists to. X, Y, Z, whatever that is. And what are the top three to five priorities that this team is gonna be laser focused on, and what's the impact of that on the customer? And so if you're saying, Hey, I'm not an executive leader, you know, I'm in accounting. You know, I don't have an impact on the customer. Your customer may be the sales team, it could be an internal customer, but what is the shared purpose or reason for this team to exist? Because in most organizations, there's an organizational purpose and everybody knows their job description, but they don't know why they need to come together and work Interdependently. Why do our rules cross over? I was talking to a CHRO a couple weeks ago and she was sharing how frustrated she is because no one else on the C-suite provides input or challenges or ideas and. This is a huge shift for her where she's always used to getting input and feedback, having a collaborative process so that they can get better ideas. So she was asking me how can we create an experience where the team feels more comfortable to do that and actually sees it as their role to get a little bit messy, to ask marketing those questions, to ask head of manufacturing those, you know, questions to actually come to a better outcome versus just assuming that everyone stays in their own swim lane. We're all happy.
Mike:So what, so I'm, what was the answer? how, what was the, what was your advice to get the teams kind of interacting and questioning each other and holding each other accountable versus more of a siloed feel.
Kathryn:Yeah. We have a whole day planned in November to talk about this and part of it is just thinking back of what are the. Worst teams you've been a part of, and what's the best teams you've been a part of, and how can we make this team a little bit closer to that best team with the idea of having these, you know, shared, reason why this team exists. We shared working norms of how we wanna work together and really coming to strong agreements. I don't use the word expectations because people bristle at expectations. They hate expectations. They like to be bought in. You know, this is what I wanna happen. Okay? Yes, I agree to that. That is a commitment. So agreeing to how they wanna work together.
Mike:Yeah. One of the things I found works really well, you know, part of this is getting a leadership team to really have what's termed vulnerability based trust. With each other. And this comes back to stress and overwhelm and decision making. If you have a team that can't really speak to each other honestly, or challenge each other, all that crap's gonna bottle up over a long period of time. And you're gonna fear making the wrong decision.'cause no one is providing the right input for you on that decision. But if you create a vulnerability based trust kind of environment where it's okay to say, I don't know how to do that. I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I have a question. I need help give them, receive feedback without fear of retribution. One of the exercises I do with my clients is I call it the peer accountability exercise, and they go around the room and each of them, everybody gives and gets feedback on what's one thing you do that helps the team that I want to thank you for. And I hope you keep doing it. And what's one thing you do that hurts the team? And I'd love for you to work on that and fix that. And that scares teams to death, especially giving the CEO feedback. But they always find it incredibly useful. And the whole point of it is not just the feedback they get in the moment, although that's great, but it helps build their muscles around being brutally honest with each other, giving and receiving feedback and realizing. They're actually being helpful and it's not gonna cause a fist fight. People are gonna be thankful for it.
Kathryn:And I think it that also depends on where someone is, where the team is in their vulnerability, you know, in the curve of vulnerability. So the team that I was mentioning before, it's a new team coming together. There's four new players, they're not there yet. So with that exercise, I would say. What do you think you can contribute? What's your strength or superpower and where might you need areas of help? And putting that on the table so it's self-directed versus getting feedback from other people, which could be a little bit, it actually could have negative consequences. So, as you know, as a coach, the bottom line is do no harm. And I certainly would want to not do any harm by making folks feel overly vulnerable when they're not ready for it yet.
Mike:Yeah, it's a great point. I'm normally working with a client for about nine months before I will hit them with that exercise. so, so, great point. Katherine, in, in your practice as a coach, give us a sense of, you know, we're focusing this conversation on dealing with uncertainty, but talk a little bit about what kind of clients you help and what kind of work you do with them.
Kathryn:Thank for asking. Well. My background's in marketing and sales. So naturally I am jazzed up to help companies grow or figure out how they can grow because things are shifting. So typically I'm working with the chief revenue officer, the chief marketing officer, the CEO, and their team. As they think about how can they go to market differently, how do they, work more effectively together and how do they put the. Client in the center of everything they do. And that really just jazzes me up. I could talk about it all day long. I could do it all day long till I have 10 Nutella sandwiches because I'm gonna drop. no, don't wanna do that. But you know, I think. I had the fortune experience of having a really bad boss in my career, which made me think I wanna go back to school and study executive and organizational coaching because I wanna help leaders be better. I want leadership teams to reach their full potential. So I get the opportunity to do that every day, and that is just an honor and a privilege.
Mike:Beautiful. Beautiful. if, someone wants to find out more about you and your coaching, where should they go?
Kathryn:Yeah, please come to my website, Katherinelandisconsulting.com. I'm sure you can put those in the show notes. also connect with me on LinkedIn. and I would, you know, love to, stay in touch. I'll also, have a. A toolkit that talks about how do you recognize those tells we talked about. Perhaps we can put that in the show notes as well so you can uncover what your tells may be and figure out what are you gonna do about it.
Mike:That would be great. If you haven't, you may have sent that to me already. If you didn't send me that, we'll
Kathryn:I will
Mike:the, show notes. well, I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Katherine, thanks for helping us get there today.
Kathryn:thank you. My pleasure.📍So it doesn't kick on and we Go to it Go to it You know miraculously um we are having unseasonably cool weather right now so it's been great Yeah Where where are you again I'm in Florida I'm in Florida so it's uh you've already had that change I li I lived in Jersey for a number of years and I remember it was like Labor Day Somebody just turned the AC on and it was like this is now beautiful out you know and we don't quite we don't quite get that till maybe mid-November but uh we got it a little bit early this year Where in Florida are you Uh Orlando smack dab in the middle Got it Got it Yeah we are uh we've had it pretty hot but we we've got we've got sort of a what they call yeah Well if you're a jersey you know this term we've got a nor'easter going on today but it's not that bad It's like 20 mile per hour wind some rain But but yeah I'd rather be in Florida today Um do you have any questions for me before I read your intro and kick us off I'm good I'm good If you're good Beautiful All good Okay Scott Millson is a mostly retired executive who has dedicated the second half of his career to helping people find their frequency of excellence and grow their careers He has held many titles along the way including founder president partner owner chief operating officer and before all those Petty Officer Second class US Navy Scott has worked with and for wor world class organizations and leaders Now as an author keynote speaker and dedicated encourager he spends his days helping others tune into their everyday but not always obvious crucial lessons of life and leadership And today we're gonna talk about his book And for those of you watching this on video you'll see I'm holding it up His book the Frequency of Excellence Scott welcome to the show Thank you so much for having me on Mike I really appreciate the opportunity to be here Yeah Looking forward to to diving in um from all of your experience Scott obviously from your intro a whole lot of experience What do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team Yeah so I have been fortunate and that's probably the best way for me to say it I've been fortunate to work with just some unbelievable with some unbelievable organizations and within some unbelievable uh leadership teams And I would say the number one thing that I've found that I keep coming back to and I've tried to Replicate and emulate you know throughout my career is is alignment Kind of having that shared that shared vision where everybody's on the boat and everybody's rowing in the same direction cause when you got that the opportunities for excellence are are limitless You know when you get everybody together that's kind of thinking similarly et cetera is just unbelievable The opportunities that are there and and they present themselves Uh so yeah it's it's uh I'd say alignment is probably the number one thing for me Excellent and and what I see very often is The CEO or the leader of a team believes believes there's alignment but they need to hear from the rest of the team in order to really determine whether there's alignment or not So so so so important What what Scott what inspired you to write frequency of excellence You said you're you're mostly retired so it sounds like you didn't have to do this What was the inspiration for it Yeah So for me I uh so I read a great book towards the end of my career as I was thinking about retirement I read this great book by Arthur Brooks and I don't know if you know Arthur Brooks Brilliant man Harvard professor social scientist just brilliant guy Something I would never have in terms of that brain power But he wrote this great book called From Strength to Strength And in that book he talks about We we have two curves of our lives or at least he encourages us to have two curves of our lives in the first curve we are striving to be the best that we can And every CEO or any president you've ever worked with any leadership team they're all striving to be the best at whatever it is that they do And we're working on our resume virtues in that first curve But there comes a point at which you start to drop off You know whether you're losing motivation losing focus maybe it's your intellect whatever it is you begin to kind of drop And if you don't find a second curve you can kind of drive yourself into the ground And so his encouragement is to find that second curve And so as I was considering okay I'm coming towards the end of this first curve What is my second curve Um so I I I found it And so for me what he talks about in the book is he talks about these you know the resume virtues that you're working on in in uh that first curve In the second curve you're working on sounds morbid but your eulogy virtues And so for me I just said what is it that I want to give back And uh you know I was fortunate again because of all those wonderful organizations with whom I worked and and the people with whom I worked I just wanted to share the lessons that were shared with me I wanted to share em with others And so that really became the the driver for me with the book was I spent that first curve of my life being a sponge and I just collected everything when I was when I was around excellence I just I I tuned into their frequency and I just I gathered all that information It's time for me to now squeeze the sponge and share back with other with others what I was uh so fortunate to receive in the first curve So what is what is the big overriding message of of frequency of excellence Yeah it's really a growth mindset to kind of boil it all down It is really is a growth mindset And so you know what the if you remember car stereos in the 19 hundreds you and I might be of similar age so you remember that right hand knob right Yeah You didn't have presets you didn't have a digital readout and so my My favorite radio station growing up was Rock 104 outta Gainesville Florida which was 103.7 on the radio dial And you had a hundred and you had a 104 You didn't have a 103.7 so you had to play with that knob in order to dial it in to get onto the right frequency And I think you know a mentor shared that with me This this this metaphor this kind of uh idea is Excellence surrounds us and we just have to be dialed into the right frequency in order to hear It's like that radio wave If you don't have that tuner you're missing it All you're getting is static And so you know really the message that I'm conveying and trying to tell people is when you've got a growth mindset when you're a constant learner trying to figure out what you can do to better yourself today than you were yesterday or that you were last year I think you've got that growth mindset And so if you can have the ability to enter into any situation saying what am I gonna learn from this person or from this situation And then have the ability to kind of add that into your being you know again the the opportunity to to witness excellence is is there when you got it down in that right frequency and then you're able to store that for downstream use It just the opportunities are limitless then I love that So the idea is is opportunities are everywhere We just need thank you. My pleasure.