Have you ever witnessed the transformation of a 'bulldozer' leader into a beacon of empathy and understanding? Join us as we journey through the layers of impactful leadership with our guest, Grant 'Upbeat' Bosnick, sharing personal stories from the trenches of team management to the heights of conscious leadership. We'll unpack the balance between driving results and nurturing the human element, highlighting how self-awareness can not only change the way we lead but also the way we live.
Embark on an odyssey where authenticity meets high performance, and drumming meets leadership strategy. We trace the rhythm of Grant's evolution from a professional drummer to a leadership coach, discussing the Upbeat method that marries neuroscience and rhythm to prime leaders for innovation. We also tackle the challenge of sharing sensitive information as 'soft bulldozers,' navigating the fine line between truth-telling and empathy in an era where authenticity and sensitivity often collide.
Creating safe, inclusive workplace cultures, championing belonging over fitting in, and aligning with those who share our vision is at the heart of our discourse. We explore how understanding organizational culture is key to fostering innovation, particularly during times of change. By the end of our talk, you'll be inspired to intentionally craft your leadership narrative and make a positive impact on your world.
Have you ever witnessed the transformation of a 'bulldozer' leader into a beacon of empathy and understanding? Join us as we journey through the layers of impactful leadership with our guest, Grant 'Upbeat' Bosnick, sharing personal stories from the trenches of team management to the heights of conscious leadership. We'll unpack the balance between driving results and nurturing the human element, highlighting how self-awareness can not only change the way we lead but also the way we live.
Embark on an odyssey where authenticity meets high performance, and drumming meets leadership strategy. We trace the rhythm of Grant's evolution from a professional drummer to a leadership coach, discussing the Upbeat method that marries neuroscience and rhythm to prime leaders for innovation. We also tackle the challenge of sharing sensitive information as 'soft bulldozers,' navigating the fine line between truth-telling and empathy in an era where authenticity and sensitivity often collide.
Creating safe, inclusive workplace cultures, championing belonging over fitting in, and aligning with those who share our vision is at the heart of our discourse. We explore how understanding organizational culture is key to fostering innovation, particularly during times of change. By the end of our talk, you'll be inspired to intentionally craft your leadership narrative and make a positive impact on your world.
First of all, thank you for coming. I know we've been threatening to do this for a while now and I'm glad that we've managed to make it happen and you've taken the time to join me in our studio, so really looking forward to an enriching chat and to learn all about the amazing work you're doing. Uh, you jet setting all over the place. So, yeah, thank you, thank you, and uh, where does Grant upbeat Bosnia come from? Let's start with that.
Speaker 2:Let's start with the upbeat story. Um, I, I, I. I'm going to go back, actually, first of all, to a couple leaders that I had in my history, and three leaders in particular for different companies I work for. One of them said to me I can do the work of 10 of you. I had another leader say to us, pointing to himself this is majority rules, and get this. I had another one say to us, pointing to himself this is majority rules and get this. I had another one third leader he's like. He says to us if you don't like it, you can answer with your feet, you know.
Speaker 1:I think you're using the word leadership generously, right?
Speaker 2:Well, that's just it. It made me think that there's got to be a better way to lead people, right? Yeah, you know, rather than this here, and I'll tell you. Before we get into the upbeat piece of this, I'll tell you my first leadership experience that I had when I was in I think it was 27, 28 years old maybe, and I had this team to lead.
Speaker 2:I used to be in the professional entertainment, I used to be a professional musician before, and so I was producing this large event. We had I think there's 24 people involved in it. We had dancers, musicians, visual artists those three areas also video and film dancers and musicians. I was in Japan at that time, so we had quite a large team. I was so excited. We had funding for, we had sponsors for, we had a big venue for, we had media coming out. It was pretty big, impressive thing that we were doing and I was so stoked to do this. You know we're going to exceed expectation. We're going to do this well, right, and we did. You know the audience loved it, the sponsors loved it, the reviews were great. We exceeded everybody's expectations. So here I'm thinking, leading my first project. I think I succeeded. Right, I'm pretty stoked, pretty happy about it, right.
Speaker 2:And then a month later I hear from one of my team members. He said, grant, you're like a bulldozer, you just push through anything and anyone to get to that goal. And I had no idea that he or anyone else ever felt this about what I thought we were doing together to reach this goal right. And I thought, well, on one level, yeah, I did succeed in the project. On another level, I think I failed as a leader. I failed right. So that was in my late 20s, 27, 28 years old, skip, 20 years later now, plus or so. I failed right so that was in my you know, late 20s 27, 28 years old, you know, skip 20 years later now, plus or so.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that that single event changed the way I want to approach leaders, leadership and how I can help other leaders to have greater impact on others. And that's where now everything I center around is on the impact that leaders have on others. You know we might come in with the greatest intention in our mind, in our heart, and it might have a different impact than what we expected. You know I came in there really energetic, passionate let's hit this goal, let's do it, let's make an amazing thing, and we did do that. But, as one person told me, I came in like a bulldozer. And what kind of harder impact can you imagine than a bulldozer coming in and crushing, leveling everything that's in its path right To get to the objective?
Speaker 1:To get to the objective.
Speaker 2:And I mean maybe some of your listeners out there might be either experienced that themselves or know leaders that have done that and it's common, I think that it is common, that have done that you know, and you know that these you know, it's common, you know, I think that it is common that people get their eyes on the prize and I have that problem.
Speaker 1:I used to have that problem. I might still have that. Yeah, I think this version of me is a lot more conscious of that. I remember having a conversation it was a previous company that I was brought in to build a team around and I remember one of the leaders pulling me over to the side and saying to me I could sense he was trying to tiptoe and very diplomatically address something that was clearly a bigger issue that I was ignorantly unaware of. And I remember his exact words. He was, like you know, some of the people find you a little bit abrasive. You know in, in, in how you approaching the work that needs to be done.
Speaker 1:And at that stage I remember my mentality was quite clear. We were dealing with complicated projects with tight timelines and for me it was about what is the mission, what do we need to do to get done? I need a high performance team around me. No time for feelings or softness. It's about like get that right team around you, achieve the impossible, make it happen.
Speaker 1:And it stuck with me and I always refer back to that because I remember there would often be times I'd come across an individual that I just knew wouldn't cut it in my team. It doesn't mean that I was leading right, and I think this is the kind of what I'm seeing in your opening line. So I'm quite excited to explore this a bit more. If you take yourself back to that time, just maybe elaborate a little bit more on, because you've had the benefit of someone at least bringing it to your attention, going backwards and reflecting, and that that changed your trajectory as a human. But can you go back and explain? When they say you're bulldozing, do you believe that you were and how? How do you perceive it?
Speaker 2:or retrospectively, uh, yeah, I mean I I like what did that feel like? Or look like? I mean this is the kind of person's not going to say things, just to to say things. You know it was something clearly on his mind, it clearly, um, you know, he felt impacted in in a negative way of like just bringing everybody towards this goal and we're going to do this and no matter what it takes.
Speaker 2:Um, I, I and looking at, yourself even in my, put myself back in that moment that that um, I mean I, I, I didn't deny it at that moment, that that, um, I mean I, I, I, I didn't deny it at that moment. I said, no way you're full of shit or whatever. You know, it was like um, I didn't, you know, look at it as um, I mean it was. It was hard to hear, you know, it was hard to hear from somebody that we work closely. It was an eight month. We worked closely, it was an eight month. We work on this project to do this big music and dance and visual event and we work together, the team. So it was, you know, quite, I guess, humbling to hear.
Speaker 1:Did you achieve the objective?
Speaker 2:of the project. We did for sure, yeah, I mean, we did and exceeded what we were aiming to do, and it was really great, amazing, what we did, you know. I think, though, that if that's the, the, the, what it, if that's how people, one person felt, I don't know if other people felt I didn't pulse check with others. I mean, one was enough, one was enough. You know, I didn't want to like, can I just hear from everybody here Did everybody else feel the same, as, like, if they all put their hand up, I'm gonna, you know, feel worse than I did at that moment. Right, so, one was enough. And if others felt something similar and I have reflected on it over the past 20 years, to when, when, since that event happened and how other things may come up I even came up with this concept. I call it like the soft bulldozer. This was a hard bulldozer, you know. The soft bulldozer is when things, you, you do something, intention is really positive, but it has an unintentional, negative outcome.
Speaker 1:I like that Hard bulldozer. Explain to me a hard bulldozing methodology.
Speaker 2:Well, that was it. When I've got that wouldn't say probably it was we're going to reach that goal in the best way, in the fastest way and get the greatest results possible. What's wrong with that? Well, that's what I would think you know and I did use the word best in there, but I mean best might have a missing, some element of the human element into it. You know it's. It's. To me it's not just about getting results, but it's about getting results with and through others, and you know we can.
Speaker 2:You know I'm paraphrasing and maybe I'll try to get the quote here. It was the guy that wrote the little prince there. Um, john was a John Etienne, and, uh, I can't remember John, john, john, john, john, paul Etienne Exupéry or something, something I can't remember, jean-paul Etienne Exupéry or something. I can't remember his name, the French guy that wrote the Little Prince. I can't remember his name offhand. He did say that you know, if you want to build a ship, don't just gather the people material and give orders, but teach them to dream for the open sea, teach them to yearn for the open sea. And I think you know and this was a hundred of years ago, whatever he wrote that you know that quote itself here.
Speaker 2:It's an old quote and it's still possible now. It's still relevant now that if we want to really have a high performing team, work well together, everybody's got to be that same vision, that same dream. You know, we're going out to sea, we're going to build the best ship possible, because that's where we're going. It's beautiful out there and I think that if we can create an environment where people can perform at that level, it's not. We need to focus on the goal, we need to focus on the result, we need to focus on efficiency and getting there and exceeding the expectations.
Speaker 2:We want to do all of that Now. We can get there by pushing. We can also get there by everybody collaborating, and that synergistic movement is going to propel us to get these results and we're all going to come out and feel better. It's not just making people feel good when we work together because we're human and want better as a right. It's not just making people feel good when we work together because we're human and want to do. It's not fluffy at all, you know it's not fluffy. It's about really getting people to feel respect, that they feel respected, valued. They want to give extra effort, they want to be committed and that they're just. All this is collective synergy, just pushing towards and achieving it together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's such an interesting topic and I want to kind of come at it from different angles because you can see the power of what a small team can achieve if they are united in a vision and a purpose, and how they can disrupt a conglomerate.
Speaker 1:You can see that in today's disruptive world right, when you have a team of A-team players I'm being very specific with my wording here because it normally at a smaller scale the B and C-team players tend to fall off the bus quite quickly. They you find that startups or companies that really have this J curve arc of success have the right team because they were just about a product. And this applies even within a bigger company. But the bigger company tends to have a lot of dead weight that filters in and B and C team players that that filter in and change the dynamics of a company. But for the sake of this point I want to make, when you see a team of A team players that are united around a vision and a leader or leadership, they can achieve the impossible. They can create and move in an agile way that no one can really compete with and they can disrupt well-established companies, and I've had the privilege of running my own team like that.
Speaker 1:I've had the privilege of working for a company that was doing that. I've also had the privilege of seeing what happens when you dilute that culture, that essence, with the wrong hires, the wrong team members, and how you can go through an identity crisis when you scale your business and you forget where you came from and what made you famous. I am always reflecting on the soft and hard signals I get back from the people that I work with. I've never been, I've been told I'm not the easiest to work with.
Speaker 1:I still get told that sometimes, because I drive quite a high standard and I find myself often getting frustrated or impatient with a process or a person to try and hit what I perceive to be greatness, and I often look in the market for guidance on how to do it better.
Speaker 1:And I'm very interested to unpack this with you in detail, because we live in a world where, on the one hand, you've got this uber fragile, snowflakey mentality that has crept in and it's so interesting to see the contrast between that and the Elon Musk of the world that comes in and rips out the kitchen sink and cuts back 70% of the staff and generates more innovations in one year than Twitter did in its lifetime, with a much more hard bulldozer approach, I would say. So I would really like to straw man, steel man this concept with you and flesh it out, because that is the contrast is, you can pander and you can, I think, go too far into the softer side at the cost of something, or you can go really strong, really hard leadership, hard bulldozer approach approach, achieve amazing results, but is it sustainable? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And how many? How far can you go with that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I find the topic fascinating. It was, um, my, my book, which, um, if you're watching the video version of it, you can see the video out here. The books in the, on the cover, on the on the table here, uh, it came out last year tailored approaches to self, to Self-Leadership. I focused most what's the title of the book, sorry, tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership. So published by Rutledge Marshall Goldsmith did a forward for it, and I had spent most of my career as a consultant, coach and keynote speaker working with leaders mid-level to up to seniors mainly senior leaders, executives on how we can create the high-performing teams, how we can have an environment where people feel they feel valued and want to have that internal motivation.
Speaker 2:And then they asked me can you create something for everybody? So I wrote a book on self-leadership and I defined self-leadership as the practice of understanding ourselves and our impact on others, and I think that the first part we do quite well Understanding ourselves. What are my goals? What are my values? Am I passionate about getting into our purpose as well too, which a lot of people haven't thought of? But I do encourage everybody to deeply deep, dive into what is your purpose. Why are you here? And I think, though, that the other piece is that around the impact on others, and that's where we have this intention of doing great, but the impact might fall short. You know that we don't realize a hundred percent of how we impact other people. You know we get fast moving towards the goals, the shiny object, you know, generative AI. Who's going to be the first to do things?
Speaker 2:I was on a panel discussion, as I did a keynote talk and then the panel discussion a couple of months ago about global sustainability, and when we're going after those shiny objects to be the first to do something, we could cut corners, we could do unethical behavior to lead to that. I want to encourage people to take a step back before we take three steps forward. You know, I think of it as going to the balcony, going up to the balcony, we're on the dance floor. That's where all the action happens, and it's fun, it's exciting and, excuse me, and so we're on the dance floor, it's fun, it's exciting no-transcript about reaching what we want to do, but the process of getting there and this is not I'm not fluffy stuff about. You know, love, love, love and have empathy and all of this we need, but there's real economic benefit for it. There's a real payoff for it. You know, it's not just about being a better leader, it's about that, the space. I mean.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about this today as I was coming in here and I think that there's a lot of unintentional negative impact, and these are three specific words that I've chosen. It's unintentional. We're not trying to create things to be uncomfortable or to trigger people. It might trigger a memory they had or a trigger another person that comes into their mind at that moment. We're not intentionally doing this. It's unintentional. But if we focus more on and this is one of the missions I want to work on over the next few years is, how can we create more intentional positive impact? Right? So if I can create more intentional positive impact with all the people in my life, that's just a little bit more positive impact in the world. Now, if everybody is doing this, creating more intentional positive impact for all the people around them, that's a huge amount of positive impact that we're creating.
Speaker 1:Love that. You know, I'm starting to see where the upbeat is coming from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I didn't answer your question about that either. You know, I gave you the preamble about what got me first interested in helping leaders to be better leaders and helping myself to be a better leader. I've taken it now. It's not even just about becoming a better leader, but becoming a better person. Right, because leaders are people. They're not just I'm a leader, therefore I act as a leader. Although they do that, they get in that mindset I'm a leader. Therefore I must do this, but at the heart of it we are people, and if we can become better people and I'm a leader, therefore I must do this. But at the heart of it we are people, and if we can become better people and I'm using that phrase in creating intentional positive impact. So there are specific mindsets and behaviors we're going to be doing and as we get better at it, they become habits and we just will then create, as a habit, intentional positive impact, and I think that would be a great way to live the life and live the world that we're in here.
Speaker 2:The upbeat piece here Okay, you know maybe it sounds pretty upbeat when I talk about this stuff. That was part of it, you know. It kind of describes my personality being upbeat. I think that the other piece of it is that I used to be a professional drummer and I spent probably about 10 years of my life recorded 13 albums. So 13 albums over 15 years really, but 10 of those years were more pro than semi-pro touring. I'm from North America, I'm from Toronto, canada, originally, myself so touring across US Canada, and I originally had hidden the fact that I played drums for 20 years of my professional life, you know, when I was a consultant and a coach mainly, and I thought it wasn't professional. So I hid the fact that I was a drummer and played music because I didn't think I looked professional. And then it was like, well, four years ago, maybe five years ago, just at the start of COVID right, and maybe four years ago, and I read an article by Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, and at that time everybody's working from home, and he took everybody on a tour of his house, his wife, his children, his kitchen, his living room, the garden and his pets, and just to show that he's human as well, and I thought that was just an amazing thing to do. So I decided I'm going to put my bongos behind me in the camera when everybody's working from home, and to show a little bit about myself, to bring my whole self to work and not just part of me. And it really helped me to be more authentic, be my whole self and connect better with other people. And it's now become a talking point with clients when I'm on Zoom calls or team calls with them and they see the drums behind there, you know, and it just becomes part of who I am and a talking point with them as well. But it also allowed me to be more holistic and so I got a registered trademark about five I'll say put about five years ago now for Upbeat.
Speaker 2:And originally the original iteration of Upbeat was using the neuroscience of drumming to help leaders at off sites to get their brain into a higher level of thinking. Because I wrote some drum exercises that can balance the right and the left hemispheres so they vibrate at different frequencies. So I wrote drum exercise that can help bring the vibration at the same frequency and then we got faster transfer of information across the left and right hemispheres, which leads us to more ideas, connecting, more aha moments, more insight, right, so I'm priming their brain to have higher level ideas and then we get into whatever future oriented discussion they're going to be having at the offsite, whether that's around you know the strategy for the next three years, or the you know the future of the organization, or around innovation, or whatever they might be focused, future focused, then future facing, and then the ideas are popping in their brain Right. And then as a collective since they're the senior leadership team we've done drumming together and creating a world-class, high-performing world drum ensemble together. And then they've got more alignment and collaboration Right.
Speaker 2:So that was the original iteration of UPbeat and now I blend that with keynote talks and workshops with clients as well. And so, since I got that registered trademark, then when I was looking for a new moniker for my name originally it was Grant, the Beat Bosnick, ron Kaufman, who talks about customer experience and customer service. I mean customer service and he said, grant, you should keep everything upbeat because you've got the branding, you've got the registered trademark and congrats on the registered trademark. That's a good thing to have. So then everything became upbeat right and I just thought that it just matched who I am. You know my personality being upbeat and you know being a former pro musician, pro drummer, and then combining the science of drumming and my passion for drumming with leadership and high performing teams and effectiveness.
Speaker 1:I'm definitely feeling that vibe and that energy from you guys 100% think you are upbeat. So that's an awesome story. Man, I think that's fantastic and I'm surprised you're able to get that trademark. Yeah, that's quite a win there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:In fact, at first they did actually say no to it and I appealed it on and I found the grounds to appeal it and they said well, good for you to appeal it because you're right, you got it.
Speaker 1:Never give up people yeah. There's a good lesson. You yeah, there's a good lesson you never give up obviously impacted you quite a bit and made you introspect. And introspection is a wonderful thing, because often we are blind or ignorant to who we are, how we unintentionally negatively impact people.
Speaker 2:So it seems like this was a pivotal moment for you to just pause, reflect.
Speaker 2:I want to understand what did you do next to change or introduce new thinking or a different style of hitting the mission or objective? To say that I took immediate action, but I didn't. You know I I heard this. I was still reveling in the success of the event that we did and that, which is fair. You know the reviews were great, the sponsors loved it, you know there was a success in it, so I didn't want to, you know, get rid of that, that we did actually have a successful event that we did. Um, I.
Speaker 1:I think probably person that gave you feedback. Sorry to interrupt you, but this person that gave you feedback was a team member he wasn't a leader in a leadership position.
Speaker 2:No, no, it wasn't a leadership position, no, but one of the team members, one of the musicians with us on stage. You know, yeah, yeah, I, I, I would probably say that, um, immediately after that, did I do anything specifically intentional to to change, other than take this on board as all right? There's got to be a better way of leading, and I don't know what that was. At this moment, I probably read every single leadership book on the planet. You know that Marshall Goldsmith wrote, that Dr Stephen Covey wrote, that Ken Blanchard wrote, and you named the list, and I've read them all, did you?
Speaker 1:think of yourself as a leader at that point? Or was it just you had to lead the team at that point?
Speaker 2:Well, I did think of myself as a leader. Okay, you know, I did think of myself as a leader, and so I read everything that I possibly could have. I think that and what's coming back into my head, because that story itself was probably about 20 plus years ago when it happened and I'm looking at, you know, from now, reflecting back in some pivotal moments that might have been other turning points that help lead me into a more conscious leader, and maybe that's a great word for it.
Speaker 2:Maybe conscious leadership might be a good good word for this is that we are being not only intentional of what we are doing, but we are clearly understanding the impact of what we are doing, not just the intention that we feel inside, but what is the impact that it's having on other people. And to understand that, you know you have to have empathy. You need to. You know, put yourself in their shoes One of the greatest things I think about. You know people say put yourself in their shoes. Right, I said, and I used to joke, that when I was coaching executives, I used to coach a lot of um, aggressive men leaders and probably, from what you're listening to, my story now is probably not a surprise, because I used to be like that so I can understand more what that they might be going through and I used to say I used to help men leaders take their shoes off so they could put other people's shoes on, because the only way to walk in someone else's shoes you got to take yours off first. Get out of your ego, get out of your own head, get out of your frame of reference, right? So I think that, as leaders, then, it's about having empathy. It's about having an understanding on other people as well too, I think the most pivotal moment, I think, cause I'm I'm coming back to one story that I did a 360 assessment once.
Speaker 2:I thought that I so I thought it was a horrible listener along about, you know, say, 12 years ago, right, and I, I, I used to joke because I, I used to tell people I used to listen with my mouth open. This is really true story, right, you know, I used to listen with my mouth open and what this meant was that I really wasn't listening to what the person was saying. I was just waiting for them to finally stop talking so that I could say something that I thought was clearly more important than whatever they were saying. You know, but I really wasn't listening at all, I was just.
Speaker 1:I've always been told two ears, one mouth.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it, yeah, yeah. Then my mentor told me that, too, you know two ears, one mouth. You should be listening twice as much as you're talking, right? And when I realized that I used to listen to people with my mouth open, I started listening to people open my mouth until the very last drop, and then I would say something, and I really felt it opened up my ears to listen more. So I thought that I was a pretty good listener, right? So when I did this six years ago, I did this 360 assessment right, and I'm marking some of my strengths. One of them I thought I'm a good listener. Out of 14 people who did the anonymous piece of that 360, 11 of them felt that they weren't heard Right, and it took me two years to realize that we were both correct.
Speaker 1:So hang on. Sorry, I went in my head there as you were explaining that story. The 11 people were part of your 360 assessment on yourself, so 11 people gave you feedback that they weren't being heard by you. Yes, interesting. That's quite a strong signal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought that, you know, I didn't understand it at first because I thought I was really listening to them Right, and I took a concerted effort to build up my listening ability so that I really listened to what people are saying and not just wait for them to stop talking, right. But I realized two years later, after that assessment, we were both correct. I was listening to them and they weren't feeling hurt because it's not the same thing. So this was a paradigm shift for me, where my paradigm originally was I'm going to listen to people. It's shifted to. I'm going to, I want them to feel heard.
Speaker 1:Explain the difference.
Speaker 2:And if we can, we can graph it linear right. So when you're speaking to me, if I'm listening to you, once I understand what you're saying, then I can stop because I have listened to you. But you may not know that or you may not feel heard because I might just impulsively reply to you, and we often do this. You know, when we get caught up in the moment of a conversation and you know there might be lots of people sharing ideas where you know everybody wants to share their ideas quickly. So we tend to speak sometimes in different cultures or around the world, you might overlap and at the same time people might be speaking in other cultures. You might wait until someone finishes. I mean some of this grammatically. In Japanese culture the end of the sentence is the most important part. You can't interrupt someone and say, oh yeah, I disagree, because you don't even know whether it's yes or no until the end of the sentence, right, so you got to wait until the end. So some cultures inherently have that, but other languages where we put the most important part of the beginning of our sentences, like the English language that we're speaking or other Roman languages, that you can easily overlap because you already know what people are saying before they finish right.
Speaker 2:But I think that for someone to feel that they're heard, they have to have that acknowledgement that they know, or that you know I understand you, not just my own acknowledgement in my head that I understand you, but that you know that. So I could be playing back for you. You earlier you had said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and this is most important for you, because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm playing back for you what I heard you say, and if I'm right, then you say yes, and then you feel heard, you feel valued. For that. I was giving you that space to feel heard and feel valued for what you say. Or if I'm not correct, it's well, I didn't quite mean, I meant this. It gives you that space then to you know, correct me and then, oh, now I get it, you know, and then we get that clarity point and in either case, you feel that you've been heard right.
Speaker 2:Whereas if we are impulsive, we're impulsive when we reply to people that's people.
Speaker 1:That's when I think people don't feel heard, even if I feel that, even if I know I listen to them. You know what I mean. I do know what you mean. I make that mistake often. Yeah, I'm reflecting as you're speaking to me because, uh, I always try and be honest with myself in these discussions and that's such a important point that you're making.
Speaker 2:to listen to someone is not to, is not the same as hearing them, or them being there, or them feeling hurt yeah exactly because, even like I listen, I hear I am the subject of that sentence I'm the agent.
Speaker 1:Don't listen to respond, listen to understand.
Speaker 2:That's it, yeah yeah, but even listen so that they feel understood, so that they are now the subject of it, you know.
Speaker 1:And that verbalizing back to them what you think you've heard helps them to feel that yeah, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that requires people just to take a breath and pause. Yeah, you know, we always feel I can't remember where I was, either on a podcast or some piece of material I consumed is how many, or how most people just don't feel heard. You know often if you just let someone speak, just let them go and with the intent to actually just hear them, how much of an impact you will see in your relationship with that person, because throughout people's lives, from childhood upwards, they just do not feel heard and it's something that we don't really take note of. I think a lot of us run around the world unconsciously not realizing the impact that's had on us as individuals, which is why we probably overpower or maybe fail so dismally at hearing people, because we feel like we have to respond or be heard more than the other person.
Speaker 1:It's simple stuff when you look at it, yeah, to incorporate it and practice. It is the challenge yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I was going to add one other point into this was I think might even I don't know if everybody, if, if, if, if other people listening have had this experience before, or if it's um, um, I can people can relate to this as well. So I found also that and maybe this isn't with every leader, every person, but maybe some people out there that if people have a whether it's an unconscious need or a conscious need to control and maybe it needs not even the word, I shouldn't say it's a need, you know, um for some people it is for some people it could be a need.
Speaker 2:I think for some people maybe for me was, it was a default mode and it might also become my defense mechanism when I feel under pressure. You know, and all of us have our defense mechanisms when we, when we're under pressure, when we're under stress, you got, you know, looming deadlines. You've got you know somebody who just complained about something and now you gotta. You know somebody just complained about something and now you got to, you know, apologize, or you got to create new value for them to overcome what they complained about. Or maybe there's some trouble, some issue, something, whatever the stress that's coming up around us. You know that when we're under stress and pressure, then we might, you know, lose kind of, where we kind of focus more on ourselves at those points as well too, um, and I'm thinking here that, um, what we need to do is, um, I think I just lost my thought just now what I was doing, where I was going with this here.
Speaker 1:It's, it's, it's, it's. I think you're trying to elaborate on. You know it was. What we were conversing about is whether or not.
Speaker 2:It's about control. That's the word Control. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because I had felt this myself and I remember, you know, I told the story when I started listening better to people and what I had realized. I use the analogy of snowboarding, because I had just started snowboarding a couple years before that, and when I first started snowboarding I got to really control the edge of the blade, and every time I'm snowboarding I've always have to make sure the edge of my blade is in the edge of the board, is in the snow. So I'm in control of this. Then, when I got better at it, then I would, you know, play with gravity and allow gravity to pull me down the hill. I'm in control of this. Then, when I got better at it, then I would you know, play with gravity and allow gravity to meet gravity to pull me down the hill. I'm not in control, but gravity is. But then when I get, you know, too much speed, okay, let's just make a little bit of a turn, slow it down a bit, make some big, wide turns. You know and enjoy that.
Speaker 2:You know, um, and I don't know if I needed to have control or if it was unconscious or um, I I think I do admit that I did feel, unconsciously, I guess I needed to feel in control of the conversation, where it's going. You know, therefore, I it's in my comfort zone of how this conversation can unfold. You know, when I got into really listening to people and you know, as you just said, you know you're quoting Stephen Covey. You know, listen first, understand, then to be or maybe it wasn't that but listen first to be understood, listen first to understand, then be understood was a Covey had put it that way right. When I really and you said listen for um, rather than listen to respond, you said listen to be understood, listen, listen to under, listen to understand rather than to respond. That's it as well to them.
Speaker 2:Also, dr Covey said that and and and said if we really allow ourselves to listen, I think we're putting ourselves in a vulnerable place because we don't know where they're going to take that conversation Right. So we have lost control or we have given up control of the conversation because they're having control Right, and I think that's a scary place to be, and it was for me when I was letting go of this conversation and it became more free flow or became they're taking it somewhere, and at first I would be trying to lock it into my own autobiographical responses how I can relate to it. You know then, eventually, just like getting better at snowboarding, I'd allow gravity just to pull me and just enjoy what that force is bringing me into it. And I think that that's what listening really is. Once we get to a high level of listening is it's allowing the force that the other person is sharing to take us somewhere you know, agreed, agreed.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you have that first piece of feedback. You have the 360 review 11 people saying that they don't feel heard by you. That's quite a profound signal. Take me through the next steps in your journey. Where did you go to from there and what made you do the 360 degree assessment? Was that an internal work assessment?
Speaker 2:um, so I was using the same assessment with my leaders in my session, okay, so I wanted to do it myself first so that I could, you know, disclose my takeaway from it, because it was confidential for them, but I could disclose some of my takeaways from it and share my stories to help inspire them to. Okay, now, what value are you getting out of this yourself? So that's the reason I took that one myself here. I think that one of the things I'm exploring now and it's a new term that I came up with just kind of recently around the soft bulldozer you know, I mentioned earlier at the beginning, right, and I think that these are the ones that I think are more common than a hard bulldozer. They're subtle and they might seem to have a mild impact, a mild negative impact, but because it's mild, possibly, then maybe a lot of it gets passed through, or maybe people just like it's not worth my time to do this, to consider this, or, you know, and some of them might have more of an impact than that. I can share two stories with you specifically that popped into my head Now. One was mine and one was something that I was in the audience when this happened, and I think that's one of the areas I want to focus on for myself as well, too is around what these soft bulldozers look like when you come in in a conversation with somebody or relationship, business or or personal, either way it could be and that somehow you know it's just not having the greatest positive impact that you can and it's in a soft way, you're not just pushing hard like you might be consciously reaching that goal.
Speaker 2:Like in the earlier one and I'll give this that there was this one story that I heard someone tell, and it was to praise this one person for a heroic act that he did. So he was a high level leader in the organization that was hosting this event and he helped save somebody's life, who was someone who was in a woman in a dangerous situation that he locked her in her car safely, so the person who was trying to get her wouldn't be able to get her. And just because of what happened, I'm going to say that if this is a trigger warning situation, then please, for anyone listening, it was a domestic, um violent situation that had occurred and this guy helped to um protect that woman so that this man didn't do the worst that he probably wanted to, so very risky getting involved in that, yeah, and, and after this story, it was told really to in to that this person, um, did a heroic act and it was to praise him. That was the intention of this now. Now, we had somebody stand up in the audience there and we had a couple of people leave the audience, a couple of women left the audience there, and somebody stood up and said I just want to address this issue.
Speaker 2:In this country and this is not Singapore, where I'm right now, but in Australia at that time in this country, one in six women have experienced domestic violence and that this kind of story that somebody was telling, with the intention was to praise this guy for his heroic act, ended up having, you know, a trigger for some people. And I think that if we can help ourselves to and I don't think we're not going to do this overnight, I mean, and we're all in this together I'm not I don't have all the answers, you know I'm exploring these. I'm exploring with myself, I'm exploring with leaders I work with in my own personal life, with people I talk to for lunch or coffee or drinks or dinner to hear other people's thoughts around this, and I'm calling this is a new word I invented here around this soft bulldozer because it's something that it's subtle and we may not notice it here. I was working on a project a few years ago.
Speaker 1:I just wanted before you, yeah, yeah, so, so that story. What are you saying? That? He was the guy that told the story. What was the point of that? That he triggered people in the audience to leave. Because you're sharing a story about a, a heroic act.
Speaker 2:I think possibly the way, maybe possibly the way it could have been told in. You know, I don't know in less detail.
Speaker 1:possibly Are you saying that it unintentionally triggered people.
Speaker 2:It unintentionally triggered people yeah, so what does? That make him. Well, it was unintentional, so the intention was to recognize him as this hero that did a heroic act. Okay, you know some other people in the audience had a less than positive impact because of that.
Speaker 1:But I mean, that's not something. Are you saying he should have been more conscious that that might have been a result of him sharing?
Speaker 2:that story.
Speaker 1:Yes, but does that mean that he shouldn't share the story?
Speaker 2:I think that being conscious of it and maybe giving a trigger warning possibly in this conversation, maybe recognizing and maybe less detail about what might have happened and just kind of so, was he going into explicit details. Well, there was a little bit, you know. Maybe some of it, yeah, Maybe some of it might've been a little too much. Why was he sharing the story? Was he involved? Uh, he was, he was. He was the guy that protected this woman in his car.
Speaker 1:Got you and what was his motivation for sharing the story to a group of people?
Speaker 2:Because someone else was sharing, telling him or telling us that he was a hero, so he was being recognized at this event for being a lifetime member of this organization, and so then it was just a story about him that we wouldn't know.
Speaker 1:So in his defense, it innocently came up without him. It's not like he planned to give a keynote on that.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:He was just asked to share what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because this other person must recognize him as his hero, and it was a great thing that he did, a brave thing that he did. It was courageous.
Speaker 1:I'm still struggling to see the that, whether or not he should or shouldn't have shared the story, because I understand that that might trigger, and there's always this is the point of this discussion, I think is that how conscious must you be, do you? Do you not share a story because some people may be triggered? Do you share the story because everyone it was kind of a authentic moment and you know? Do you shy away from revealing the truth because you're going to trigger people?
Speaker 1:You know we live in this extremely sensitive world and the pendulum, I think, has swung really hard to being overly sensitive. In my humble opinion, um and I'm talking general, broad strokes here, everyone's a winner. You know, there's no first, second, third, okay, there's all of these ideologies around sensitivities that are being introduced. Uh, that has created a very interesting world that we live in, where people are scared to even speak about the truth because people might be triggered or it might be hurtful, which is resulting in a very interesting thing happening that we're avoiding the truth and that we we creating realities that don't exist. Just because something's true doesn't mean it shouldn't be spoken. So, and I feel like the pendulum is going to swing hard in the other direction soon, because the world that we're creating because of this oversensitization is one that is flawed in many respects.
Speaker 1:So it's an interesting example that you raise, because what is your perspective? Should he have not shared the story, or maybe just have shared it?
Speaker 2:I don't think he should not have shared the story, the story, or maybe just have shared it. You know, I don't think you should not have shared the story.
Speaker 2:I think you know that, um, you know, uh, I think that you know, and you're just going to be, and I agree with you, maybe you know if there has been. You know, people are, are very sensitive to, to things and that, um, you know, we, we have people can more easily get triggered. I think you know that this, these are realities, you know. It's that that I think that the feelings, the issues of psychological feelings that people are going through now were not the same. They were 10 years or 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:I know it's vastly different.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, COVID has changed everything forever and I think that you know that, the more people reflect on themselves, and that they might be more sensitive and can be.
Speaker 2:I think, though, that, you see, one of the things I'm trying to help people to do and is if we can create more intentional positive impact rather than apologize for unintentional negative impact. You know, and I don't have all the answer, but I'm through this conversation with hopefully, we can explore some, and I want other people to share their thoughts as well what can we do to create more positive, intentional, positive impact? Right, so, possibly it could have been like, even in this situation, being knowing the facts, the statistics of this and raising that as an issue that more people need to be aware of this. You know that one in six women in this country have felt this here, and this is something we need to stop. You know that this is something not only just I did this because this woman needed protection in my car, but also then taking it to the bigger perspective, you know, and that raising that he had a broader audience, consciously thinking.
Speaker 1:We consciously create it into a positive impact into an intentional, positive impact.
Speaker 2:So what is it that we're trying to aim as a result of this story or this scenario, this action, this behavior that we're doing? What are we trying to achieve from this? That's going to add value to the people listening, or value to the people listening, you know? Or value to other people, other stakeholders outside of those people that are immediately listening? I'll share another example here. This was my own personal one.
Speaker 2:It was a project that I was working on and I had one small part of this very large global project, and there were several other people globally involved in it as well. Now the person who was the project manager of this gave me my part of this, and then I wanted to find out more about this project from the bigger scope of everything and therefore allow me to be able to position what I'm doing to have the most value within this bigger scope of this project. Now, I seem to be asking a lot of questions without giving the background of what I just told you now, and then I got this feeling from her, from this project manager, that I was hounding her and she said I've given you enough information for what you need to do, right, and I was like I kind of felt that, okay, I obviously did not come across in a way that's having a positive impact for you, because your response back to me was that you feel I've got enough information to do the job that I need to do, you know. In other words, stop hounding me, grant, and just do your part, you know. So I picked up the phone and I had a talk.
Speaker 2:Was it on email that you? That was through email, that was through email, right, yeah. So she was in New York, I was here in Singapore, and so then I got on the phone with her to have a call. Because it was the first time working on a project with her. It's like, okay, I don't want this kind of negative feeling happening. There was some misunderstanding of my intention, which was to understand more of the bigger picture so that I could. Did she start?
Speaker 1:the emails with as per my previous email, you know what that is. I've already told you this, you know. Yeah, you know what that is.
Speaker 2:That's like an undercut. I've already told you this, you know. Yeah, you know. I think just the way my questioning to her sounded like more like an interrogation or hounding her, you know, to get these answers without providing the context why I was doing this, you know, and she was probably assuming then okay, are you not happy with the way I'm managing this project? Are you looking for a bigger piece of the pie that you're not getting but other people are getting somewhere else in the world?
Speaker 2:Or whatever you she might be guessing my intentions were, but they weren't, and my intention was to understand more of the bigger picture. How does my piece fit in so that I can deliver the most value as that one piece that I'm doing for this bigger project? Right, but then that's why I picked up the phone to have that call with her and then get this straightened out and let her know. That was the only reason I was asking for this. It was just helped me to position what I'm doing in the best possible way, Right? But I mean, that's another example where the intention is positive but it might have a negative impact on someone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want to be Grant Hound, bosnian. No, that would be a horrible thing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is interesting that we don't get taught more of these soft skills. I want to say, at a school level it doesn't exist. But even entering the workforce, I'm not sure. I haven't been. I haven't been in a company. That's normally like quite a very clinical onboarding process. The companies that do it well have a really good onboarding process and culture alignment, but you don't really get taught this. Right, we all fumbling our way through this alignment but you don't really get taught this right, no.
Speaker 1:We're all fumbling our way through this world and how to engage with other humans and somehow we get it mostly right. But definitely, I think there's levels of consciousness, there's levels of toxicity that exist. We've all worked for a terrible leader, or I wouldn't call it a leader. Some people think they're leaders, but they're actually just managers. There's a difference, right? So it is interesting to hear your examples and I think, kudos to you for picking up the phone. I'm assuming, after you picked up the phone, all was well. It was yeah, because that was your intent right To pick up the phone. I'm assuming, after you picked up the phone, always well, it was connected with yeah, because that was your intent right to pick up the phone, connect with her and then, uh, I suppose that's a great, a great strategy, because what do we always say?
Speaker 1:I think, was it in this current role, where I have to? I had to adjust to this culture, coming and working in a new country, a new company with a completely different culture. I think someone told me understand what the KPIs are, to be able to really get what you need. But I think it's more than that. There's a really strong emphasis on it's difficult to connect at work. It's very transactional at work, but there are opportunities after work where there's specific cultural activities and functions that I purposely immerse myself into, such as singing karaoke and having a nice dinner to connect. I think once you connect with a human or a person, it's much easier to navigate the complexities of the pressure cooker.
Speaker 2:That is a day job, yeah yeah, and I think that the more pressure that we're under that, the more we tend to grow, go into ourselves. I was thinking, as I was listening to you speak here and and I wanted to talk here about, because I work with successful leaders that leaders are successful because of certain things that they have done. Because of certain things that they have done. Now, this often relates probably to more the technical parts of their jobs. You know, they brought in the most revenue. They streamlined operational efficiencies, they excelled in innovation and product development, coding, if it's tech or whatever it might be. It was the technical part of their job that they did very well and that's what led them up into the ranks, into the C-suite or senior level positions. Nobody got promoted because of how well they treated people right.
Speaker 2:Good point, you know, and I think that if people are very successful, that they've got a lot to be proud of. You know they achieved a lot, they got great results, whether it's a P&L, whether it's the revenue, whether it's the innovation, the operational efficiencies, whatever it was that they excelled at, they did well and they have good reasons to be proud of that. Now, leaders are also successful in spite of certain parts of themselves as well, too, you know, and those are the areas where it might be hard to look at yourself in the mirror to say, well, you know, I'm great, but I'm also this and that's not as good, you know, and it's hard for us to look at that, to admit these things here. Right, you use the word stumbling and I like that. You know I'm had said we're all stumbling forwards.
Speaker 2:I don't know where that came from. I didn't create that. Someone else created that. I read it somewhere or heard someone say that it was like we're stumbling forwards, we don't have the answers, we're not going to get it right all the time. If we don't get it right the first time, do it again, get it right, or the next time that was AG Liffley.
Speaker 1:He said that once AG Liffley is a former CEO of Procter Gamble.
Speaker 2:You know, if you don't get it right the first time, do it again, get it right the next time, fail hard, fail fast.
Speaker 2:If your intention is to have really great relationships with people in business and in work and you've really got this conscious effort I'm using the phrase here to create intentional, positive impact for people and, whether people use a different word for that or whatever, if they're trying to create value, trying to make people feel respected, heard, whatever it is that they're doing that's adding value to others that if we are all trying to do that, even we don't get it right, we know.
Speaker 2:We know that we're trying what people know that we're trying to do. That you know, I mean back in the old days in mathematics, before you know you're doing everything on paper, pen and paper. You write out your calculations because even if you don't get the right answer, you can still get points for trying and how you got there. You know. I think that if we are all trying to do this, you know whether it's just about being a little bit more sensitive to the people that are in our audience, maybe being a little bit more aware of that. There's more needs. There's five generations in the workplace now.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:You know, we've got more diversity than we've ever had. We've got more interconnectivity globally, you know, with working from home and people who can work from anywhere, really that you know remote working, dispersed teams, More cultures, More cultures, More religions.
Speaker 2:Because the amount of differences are increasing. It therefore just allows us, you know, more, just more awareness of who we're working with. You know, and we may not get it right every time, you know. Maybe just finding out a little bit more about the people we work with, you know, having lunches and dinners with them and drinks or coffee or whatever, just to get to know who are these people better, just not because we want to use it in any particular way, but just to help us in being more aware of how we can then create positive impact for others. You know, and I said, if we don't get it right the first time, you know people give us points for them get it right, or the next time make it better and better, and we're all stumbling forwards, you know.
Speaker 1:I want to pull it back to you, grant. So you know you've had this journey that's led you to a point where you you helping coach uh leaders within organizations to to be more conscious, to be more aware, to to create more positive impact. What is the? The work that you did on yourself? Because it comes down to work. So I I agree that stumbling forward, uh, at least taking the signals and introspecting is good steps, but I suspect it takes more work than just that, and what would be the tangible things that you did that led you to this better version of yourself that is now actually helping other people with this?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, I, I, um. I mean, my background is in psychology and neuroscience, so there's a chapter in the book on mindfulness, and I don't want to underestimate how powerful mindfulness really is. It's not something that's fluffy and oh, look at us, we can feel what's going on around us here. But on a much more deeper, neuroscientific level, it's about how we can have control of our brain and where we are going to then deploy our attention. You know, and there's a couple exercises that we can do here. One of them is PQ reps. I didn't create this. It was a Sherzad Sermain that created this here, and we just do circles with our fingers. He's tested this with MRI scanners and it does amazing. You can try it yourself here if you want and if people are listening here. Just take your index finger and your thumb and rub them together in circles and feel what it does to your brain. And what it does is you're focusing in on a single sense, in this case, the sense of touch, and you can do this anywhere, anytime, under your desk, even if you're in a meeting or something, or wherever you are on the train or something. Anywhere you are, you can do this any moment and it just helps to center yourself and focus your brain and therefore this is the starting point of getting into flow, which is then being able to 5X your productivity because you're so immersed in what you're doing it seems effortless or to get insights where you got two weaker signals popping in your brain. They connect together.
Speaker 2:Drumming is another great way to do it here. You know, can we do some drumming here or not in this podcast? Here, of course you can. We could do some drumming here, okay, so this is an exercise and I kick off my keynotes with this. I've done it one-on-one coaching with someone. I'm coaching a couple of C-suite leaders now and I did it with one of my coaches. He said to me Grant, I can so much think much clearer, and it's like we did it probably about two minutes, three minutes of drumming together. And I did it with SunTech Convention Center. We had about 400 people in the audience. Everybody's drumming on their table. I've done it off-sites for clients before and they said Grant, that's such a great way to kick off this offside, to help get everybody locked in together. So this is the first exercise I get everybody to do so we can do it together and if everybody's listening at home, or as well too.
Speaker 2:You can do it yourself. It's called eight on each hand. Okay, so you do eight strokes with the right hand, then eight with the left, then eight with the right, then eight with the left, okay, so. So 1, 2, 3, 4, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and left, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and right, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, left, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, right, left, right faster left right, left, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and right, 2, 3, 4, 5, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and right, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and left, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Right, two, three, four, left, right, left, right, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and left two, three, four, six, seven, eight.
Speaker 2:I kick off all my keynotes like that, and it helps people get their brain into a higher level of thinking, and the first step is concentration and focus. Right, so the pq reps these upbeat drumming. That's the first step is to get their brain into a higher level of thinking. Later, once we start using the right and left hands together because the right brain controls your left hand and left brain controls your right hand. I've created specific exercises to help bring that balance, that frequency together so you get more ideas popping because, um, the other thing, I was worried that you're gonna um shut up my lack of code because it doesn't even matter if people get it right or not right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the fact is and I was as I'm watching you doing it I can see that your brain is focused on doing it. Your brain is focused and that's the point of it is to get the brain focused in on doing something. Because once we get the brain focused, we get out of the front part of our brain, which is the prefrontal cortex, we get more into the deeper stuff, which is where the weaker signals are and that's where we can get all of the different signals weaker signals connecting together to create better ideas here. So I think that's a starting point for anybody, you know. And there's other ways that we can get ourselves into that you know. Going for a walk, going, you know, just going to the gym to work out can do this for people as well too. But those are things that are extra tasks to do. You have to go somewhere. The ones I just showed you with the PQ reps, rubbing your fingers together or just drumming this here these are things you can do anytime, anywhere, and I encourage people to do these things. That's as a starting point.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say another one here is around the concept of reframing and what reframing does. First of all, I'll backtrack. I believe in the see, do get model, which means how we see the world, or mindsets, leads to the behavior that we do, which then leads to the results that we get. So if you want to make small changes in your life, focus on your behavior, what you do. However, if you want to make quantum leaps, focus on your mindset, how you see the world. So if we can change our mindsets, reframing it into a more positive way or into a more effective way, it's going to then lead to more effective behaviors and, ultimately, more effective results here. So I gave one example already before where I reframe my thought. I'm going to listen to people, to, I want people to feel heard, and that's like a five degree reframe. You know it's not like you're oh, it's completely different than anything I've ever done before. It's just slightly moving the camera slightly to the right and you get a different reframe on there. I find it often.
Speaker 1:I'm a big believer in reframe thinking and I often, often, I'm a big believer in reframe thinking and I often I'm always a glass half full kind of guy Quite tenacious in my approach to life despite the most difficult circumstances. I think that's one of my superpowers, yeah, and often I'll find myself dealing in different situations where people are blocked in my team, within my development team, whatever it may be, and they're like we can't do it because of this. I'm like reframe your thinking.
Speaker 1:So, I want to spend a bit of time on this and I really want you to flesh this out, because I think it's an extremely powerful skill, and more often, I get really frustrated and I'm the first to tell someone if they keep using the word can't. It's actually a trigger for me. I'm like, please, don. I'm actually ask people stop using the word can't. Yeah, like, think about it differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I believe that we can do anything. You just have to reframe your thinking to see how you come at it from a different angle. Yeah, so maybe you can spend a bit of time unpacking this reframing concept and and how can people practically apply it? Because it's very easy in today's world to get bogged down in all the negativity. Yeah, whether it's at a macro level or macro level, yeah, there's so much pressure and so many new um, uh, uh negative things that can enter your stream of consciousness that you can either let it consume you and overwhelm you, or you can, um, reframe and start taking control of the things that are in your control and taking a different approach to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, please elaborate yeah, and the first thing I'm going to say about this is that if we go through like I said, we go through a challenge or a change and it's affected us in less than ideal ways, then we have to look at reframing most positive, most effective way and that's going to lead us into more effective behaviors and actions. So it's not only something that we do when we're going through an adverse situation or a particular challenge confronted us or a change is going on whether it's a reorg or any other kind of changes going on. Generative AI or any kind of changes might be going on.
Speaker 2:It's not just in those situations, but even when things are going smooth and well, we can apply this for that and what I think or dealing with a toxic boss, yeah, badly yeah, and I think what the first thing we want to do is to label the emotions that we've got, and the reason why labeling is such an important step is and I joke is like, how can you reframe something if you haven't framed it first? You know. So if you don't understand the exact feeling that you're having, you know I'm upset about this. Well, what is it exactly you're feeling? Well, I feel frustrated and I feel powerless and I feel, um, disrespected in this situation. That happened. So the reason why this is so important to label the emotions that we've got is that it takes very little cognitive resources to label the emotions. It takes much more cognitive resources to reframe. So if we can label the emotions first, it then has compartmentalized the emotions with a name, and that's going to allow us to reframe in a much more effective way after that. And the other thing that we want to do when we get into reframing is to have a bit of creative play with it. I call it framestorming, which combines framing and brainstorming together. So you're going to framestorm in as many possible ways as you can and then select the ones that you think are best or most effective and some of the creative ways we can do that you can think of.
Speaker 2:You know, distancing yourself from this. You know what would be, what advice would you give your friend if they were in the same situation? Or you know, thinking of a fictional character. You know what would Captain Kirk do in this situation? Or what would Harry Potter do in this situation? Or what would Harry Potter do in this situation? Or maybe you're going to distance yourself time-wise from it. You know you're thinking about this two years from now, looking back. How do you see this situation? Right? So you're distancing yourself from it. And these are kind of ways to be able to tap into some of the weaker signals in your brain, to have more insight and get new ideas. If you're trying to analyze the problem what happened, what went wrong, what is the root cause of this If we're taking a logical I used to teach logical thinking in business school at one point in my life, you know and if we're taking a logical process to this, we're going to be analyzing with the front part of our brain and then the weaker, which is very dominant, signals very strong, and the weaker signals won't come up. So we're not going to have new ideas. We want to get into those weaker ones in a more of a creative way. You know one of the ones I like. You know, if it's like, if it were a song title, what would it be? Or a newspaper headline, I like this. A song title, what would it be? Or a newspaper headline, I like this.
Speaker 2:Or for you to use a metaphor for this, here I give one example about having a disagreement with your boss or colleague. You know, and this is kind of fairly common, these happen fairly often. And what are some of the different ways that we can reframe this here? You know, and one of them I thought was that, you know, if you know, we want to be, if somebody is disagreeing with my boss and I'm like, oh, you know, this is so unfair and this is frustrating, and you know why is this happening to me.
Speaker 2:If I get stuck in that kind of thinking, I'm not going to have any positive way forward. So, if I can reframe my labeling, my feelings and, okay, I feel frustrated, I feel disrespected, you know, okay, how can I reframe this? And if there's brainstorming different ways, you know, for example, I came up with one that's like, you know, I want to be. As a metaphor, I want to be a luxury car that looks and performs on a high level, that looks great and performs on a high level, you know. So if I've got that as my mindset, then I'm going to come into this conversation with you know, even though there's a disagreement or something that I'm going to look at this more holistically. I'm going to see that, okay, I need to perform at a high level and therefore, if these little disagreements come up, it's not really going to be a major impact, because I've got a bigger vision in mind, right? Or maybe another one.
Speaker 1:I came up with a phrase you know what if someone doesn't have a bigger vision?
Speaker 2:because that's what that's reframing does it helps you to do that you need?
Speaker 2:to do that, right, yeah you know, um, I mean I think people should have a bigger vision and I mean they can create a purpose statement is one thing you know and go through an icky guy or some other way that's going to help you to narrow down what is your real purpose here. Um, I just, I mean I've been working on my purpose for years and years and I think I just you, having gone through a conference just this past weekend in Australia, I came back and I had more clarity around where I think what my real purpose is, and I mean I just came up with that phrase, you know, intentional positive impact, and that's what I want to kind of focus things around Like. My personal purpose now is to create intentional positive impact through using our brain more effectively. Nice, right, and I think that so, reframing I can't underestimate the power that this can have for us here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, because that's a mindset, and once we can reframe things in a very positive way, it's going to lead to more intentional behavior and, ultimately, more effective results as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, more effective results as well. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I by no means. It's never always kumbaya for me, and I I'm reflecting, as you're speaking, that there's been some dark times in the last two years where I'm just dealing with a set of circumstances that feels really out of my control and, uh, that's like quicksand, and I don't think by any means it's always uh easy in the moment to zoom out and apply this level of consciousness and thinking right yeah, yeah, yeah and um.
Speaker 1:some of the things that worked for me was to to to kind of a when I'm dealing with difficult situations, to try and not respond in that moment to those situations.
Speaker 1:I find I've picked up that every time I do do that, it always has a much worse consequence because you're coming from a place of emotion that is uh, bent or um, skewed in a way that's not going to serve you well. I find that if I pause, wait and even sleep on it, that it gives me the opportunity to then start reframing not only my thinking about the situation but, more importantly, trying to understand what's in my control, what's not in my control, and then focusing on the things that are in my control to change the situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes you know that exercise has really started serving me well when I've put myself out of a comfort zone and try to kind of build and create new things in a new land. It hasn't been peaches and cream. It's been quite difficult at times and there's something I always gravitate towards that serves me well, it's when Michael Jordan was being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2:Have you ever seen that speech? I didn't see it.
Speaker 1:No, you should watch it. I would encourage anyone to watch it and take what you want from it. And he talks about. He goes up onto the stage and he says you know I wasn't planning to do a long speech, but sitting here and obviously being caught in the moment, he goes into thanking all the people that put wood on his fire. And you listen to that speech and he starts going back to the beginning and naming people through his journey and put wood on his fire and how they did it Right.
Speaker 1:And the takeaway for me from that was I think life is not meant to be easy. It's meant to be complicated, it's meant to have these ups, these downs. It's the journey of life and you need to enjoy the journey. And it's easy when it's up. When it's down, it's really difficult and you need to kind of develop.
Speaker 1:And it does develop you if you do the work, if you do introspection, if you use the tools that you develop, either internally or from people such as yourself that provide reading material on how to deal with difficult situations.
Speaker 1:But you're going to enter these situations where you're going to have a situation that's going to test you, that's going to try and hold you back that's going to try and inhibit or block or degrade you, and you should see that as someone putting wood on your fire to be better. And the question is, how Right? And that has served me well, because when I find, when I reframe my thinking and when I look what is in my control, then I focus that energy that I'm getting from that trigger, that event, that scenario, and I push it into the part that is within my control and I develop that it could be a new innovation. It could be developing something that doesn't exist within the business, that's fundamentally changed how we do what we do, and it yields a result that comes out a few months later that becomes pivotal in the strategy that we didn't have at that point in time. So, yeah, I appreciate you sharing that as a mechanism for people to deal with.
Speaker 2:The other thing on that, when we look at what's in our control and what's not in our control, is that if we focus on what's not in our control, it makes our sphere of control smaller because we're paying more attention to the things outside of our control. It's actually making that circle of control smaller work because we're worried about things. There's a new strain of COVID coming out or you know. It's like generative AI is going to, you know, take over the world and you know there's going to be fewer jobs for me or other people or whatever these things might happen to things that are out of our controls. Right, and the more that we focus there, the less, the more we feel like we're a victim of our life, whereas if we focus in the sphere of what we can control, it actually gives us more control. It actually expands that area of control.
Speaker 2:We look in that space Well, what is in here that I can control? And we start to then put more into that and therefore it makes that sphere of control bigger for ourselves. And there are things that we cannot control. It doesn't mean that we're going to ignore those or like they're not important. They still exist out there. No, you've got to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:It's there, right, it's not like it's going anywhere. And the more you become a victim to it, to your point, the less you're putting energy into the things you can control. And more often than not, I find, when you look back, more often than not, it's actually a blessing in disguise, whatever that trigger was, because it pushed you in a direction that you needed to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm even thinking, even some of the where we started this conversation, that unintentional negative impact is not in my control. It's out of my control. It just happened. I didn't intend that it was unintentional negative impact. That's out of my control. I couldn't control that. But intentional positive impact I can control right, and that's what I really want to explore and discussing with other people and I'll probably create a new keynote talk around this around intentional positive control, intentional positive impact and what can we do to really be more aware of this.
Speaker 1:Let's zoom into that, because what I really like about what you just shared is you've gone on this retreat and you reframed or have relooked at your purpose and what that is, and I think people should really think about that more. I'm a firm believer that you can shape your reality. I really, really believe that, with enough focus and intent, you can manifest and you can completely shape the reality you want, and I think what you've just presented as a purpose is very altruistic and extremely powerful, and I'm really grateful to actually share this moment with you, to explore it and to share it with the broader audience that we have, because I would like to see how I can have an intentional, positive impact on everyone around me. So let's zoom into that. And how can we be more of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was thinking about this quite a bit recently, both in work and personal life, because it's not about as I said, I've come to the realization not about being a better leader, it's about being a better person, you know, in every aspect of our, of our, of our life, in our personal life, in our, in our work life, as a family life, as a, as a, as a father or mother out there, or whatever we might be.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I realized and I you know, because I think some of the first answers that come to mind is we need to have empathy, we need to understand other people, we need to be listening to them, and I think that one of the things that I might have even failed to do, which must come before even listening or having empathy for people, is to create a space, hold space for them, they say, to hold space for them to feel safe and comfortable to express themselves. If we do not create a space where people feel safe and comfortable to express themselves, there's nothing to listen to, there's nothing to be empathic about because they're not sharing, there's nothing to acknowledge because they haven't shared with us, they haven't felt safe and comfortable to be able to share. So I think that is the number one starting point, or maybe not the number one starting point, but it's something right now that I want to focus on is how can we, from the very environment that we have with every person we interact with, that we are always creating a space that they feel comfortable to be able to express, express themselves because that's going to be the starting point, I think to have more positive, intentional, positive impact on others. Right, we have to be able to have a mindset that we're coming to that interaction with them that is providing a space for them to feel comfortable and safe to share, and that's doable in the workplace. It's doable in the workplace. How do you do that? How do we do that in the workplace? It's doable in the workplace.
Speaker 2:How do you do that? How do we do that in the workplace?
Speaker 1:In a way, that's still because I think there's a balance right, and I agree with you. I think it is important to provide that within your team, whether you're a small whatever you're managing, whether it's a person next to you, a team, a few hundred people, a region, whatever it is you can create that culture where there's a safe space to express yourself. So what does that look like? Is that a culture that comes from the top down? And is that a mechanism to encourage dialogue in your daily standups, your weekly, monthly one-on-ones? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we have to. You know, um, communication is a method of us to be able to interact with people, so we have to be able to, uh, encourage people to be able to share their thoughts and perspectives and actually act on those. So it's not just everybody's got a voice but we don't do anything with those voices. Everybody's got a voice and we're going to use those ideas to implement. You don't have to implement everything, but create a strategy using other people's ideas that they've given. Then they're going to reinforce it. Okay, there is value in me speaking up and sharing my thoughts because it has an impact. It's going to help us to change things. Could that be?
Speaker 1:tethered to a innovation culture.
Speaker 2:I think for sure, absolutely. I think that you know I've done work with clients around the DEI space the diversity, equity and inclusion and I think that which is quite a controversial space, the diversity, equity and inclusion and I think that, which is quite a controversial space at the moment.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and I think that one of the things that I mean, I thought this two-by-two matrix right Because I asked the question to people are you inclusive, are you an inclusive leader? And very few people are going to say no to that, right, are you inclusive, are you an inclusive leader? Of course, yes, I am, because they think that is a binary opposite with exclusive. If you're not inclusive, that means you're exclusive. Whereas I put this two by two matrix right, one of them is about the vertical axis is around people feeling value for the diversity, their uniqueness, their unique skills or knowledge or viewpoint that they bring, whatever uniqueness they bring to the table. And then the other, the horizontal axis, is around belonging. How well do you fit in, belong I'm going to use the word fit, belong is a better word how much do you feel that you belong in this team?
Speaker 2:And I think that in the top right corner of that, you've got inclusion, which means people feel valued for their uniqueness and they feel that they belong. That's what real inclusiveness is. Down in the bottom left corner is where the exclusive is, which means they don't feel valued for the uniqueness and they don't feel that they belong. That's exclusive. But you've got these two other categories in this two by two matrix, where you've got down to the bottom right corner. There you've got the assimilation. They feel that they belong, but the uniqueness is not valued Right. So you've got to fit in and I think a lot of teams, a lot of organizations gravitate towards this. You know, mostly unconsciously, gravitate towards this, that we want this team culture and this is what it means to be a player on this team or to be part of this team and everybody's going to feel like you're part of a team.
Speaker 1:You know sometimes you could have multiple people working with you, but it doesn't feel like a team.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's the opposite side too right when you you've got. If there's more of an emphasis on the uniqueness that each person has, but there's no team identity, then you've got this. You know, ad hoc, scattered group of people right and each person may feel valued for their uniqueness, but we don't have that cohesion as a team some of the companies.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting what you're saying because some of the companies I have studied that, especially through the innovation lens that have really catapulted from a success perspective and market dominance perspective are companies that have introduced an innovation culture from the top down when they put a clear incentive program in place where you know you can either win a lot of money or whatever the benefit is. That's architected for that company but it's encouraging the people in the company. Again, set mission objectives across the different verticals or holistically for the company, so they'll give them different missions to come up with innovations and you can either do it as an individual or a team within the company. And then what happens is no one understands the DNA of an organization better than the people that are grinding every day dealing with the customer, dealing with the processes, the technology. All of a sudden, all these amazing ideas are being birthed from these individuals at different layers, through different lenses, and you got this like movement that starts happening within the company and this recognition and it touches on everything that you just mentioned because all of a sudden people feel like they're part of a team, people feel like they're being heard, there's a uniqueness that they're bringing to it with the idea, either individually or within the team.
Speaker 1:I think that there's something there to what you're saying. Yeah, about coupling this, this, this um, innovation culture. Yeah, with the work that you do yeah, and and and.
Speaker 2:The story popped into my head a few uh minutes ago when, when you were sharing, sharing something else, and then it popped out and then just re-popped into my head, so I wanted to share this. I can't say who the client was. They're a major tech company and I worked with them for three years this is I'm, not I, they I was an external consultant for them and I came in to deliver a series of leadership workshops for their, all the way from a mid up to to the senior level leaders across the organization, and there was a at that moment. This is, let's say, I'll say that put this back about 10 years ago. At that time, there was compensation was awarded based only on individual accomplishments, and so there were even incidents of people working in the same team that would withhold information from each other, because you know, if I give you information, you might get part of my bonus and I don't want that to happen. So I know this information might help you in your project, but if I do that and you succeed, then I might get less bonus and you might get more bonus, right? So it became quite toxic actually, you know, and there may be other organizations that have felt something similar to that.
Speaker 2:So this was an initiative over three years that we're going to help to build more collaboration within the organization. The compensation structure was restructured for that, and leaders were now more into coaching their team members rather than just giving numbers and calibration coaching their team members rather than just giving numbers and calibration and so one of the key things that we did there was this was within, globally, in the organization. These guys are massive. You know, they're one of the largest tech companies on the planet and it was no longer being graded based on your individual accomplishments, but it's being and they use the word impact as well, which is ironic. It was like, when I was thinking, it's like they were using the word impact how much impact are you having on others and how is their work? How much impact is the other people's work having on you? So you know, if I had information that can help you with your project and I share it with you, then that gets documented and that becomes part of my you know performance review at the end of the year, which determines my bonus. It's like, okay, well, I helped you with your project and I helped with that project and helped them with this project, and then I was able to leverage this knowledge and that knowledge to help me with my project. And they add all of this up and it's all about how we can leverage the impact on other people and how other people's knowledge and results or data can help with the project that I'm on, and it just became this.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, I didn't have the word at that time there, but you know this positive what do they call it now? Intentional positive impact, right, but because they are now being evaluated based on how much impact are you creating for others and how are you leveraging other people's data, knowledge or research to help you with your innovation. And this then just spurred huge amounts of collaboration, innovation across the organization, like they were, you know, charting this stuff in terms of what was the sentiment around collaboration before? Now, what is it? And it was just, you know, and, and the products that this company then launched after that were quite remarkable, you know, and it was just spurred this collaborative, innovative culture there, right, but it was around, I mean, having more for this, greater impact, and how you know I can use your knowledge to help me and how you can use my knowledge to help you and we're being rewarded based on that. You know, and it was brilliant. It was really worked really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the example I was thinking of was a bank in South Africa. This was just pre-digital banking and they actually created a lot of the digital banking innovations and were recognized as a world leader for quite a while. It started with a specific leader in the bank I think it's Michael Jordan for F&B and that bank was four years ahead of every other bank at that stage. Because that culture that they had ingrained from the top down and it was very well known in the industry. Everyone would talk about it.
Speaker 1:I think it had a million rand cash prize at that stage. It was a lot of money it still is a lot of money today for the winning team or person and there was a second and third prize. But this whole culture changed and they were producing otp. They were producing all sorts of innovations that the banking world had never seen. They eventually became the biggest. What was interesting is they out of their bank that you would think bank, bank, do banking. But because of this culture and this innovation spark over the period, you saw them all of a sudden becoming the biggest retailer of iPhones in South Africa.
Speaker 1:Bigger than Apple Store, which is crazy because they created a e-commerce platform linked to e-books and then start offering all these other VAPs to their customer base and commoditizing that data, the customer base, the access to the base, the financing of the products. So, yeah, I really think there's something there and it's interesting that we've we've come to that, that that conclusion, as a potential mechanism for companies. So I think there's an easier path to this and I would like to understand, as we get near to the end of the the the conversation, how do people engage with you and what is your methodology when you go into a company to understand the lay of the land and to do the work that you do? Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if the first thing that I would end up doing when I work with clients is after we've agreed on what we're going to be doing with them, whether it's an offsite for the senior leaders coming, or if it's going to be a longer term journey, whether it's a one-to-one coaching, I do as well, but if it's going to be like a cohort, that we're going to take them through over a few months, and what I want to do first, up front, is to interview several of the leaders, the top leaders or the people who are involved, the stakeholders involved in it as well too, and originally I was just looking at the top layer of leaders to do this, but then someone said Grant, interview everybody at every level. I can't, obviously, interview everybody at every level, but I do take a wide range of people, because the new recruits that they just hired, the thoughts that they've got on what is important is also relevant because they're bringing in some fresh ideas. How do you see the situation in the organization right now?
Speaker 1:They're actually the best people. Maybe you know the ones on the ground Because they're not biased. And that onboarding process I've seen this in a company that got it horribly wrong is we went from having the secret sauce raising a whole stack of money a billion plus and then rapidly growing, but the onboarding process was horrific. Yeah, yeah, plus and then rapidly growing, but the onboarding process was horrific. And if you spoke to the people that had come into the business, that had been there for sub six months, they would give you a very salty view of the business, to say that this is an absolute shambles. And this is why which is a nice kind of litmus test, you know, because a lot of people are biased in the ivory tower, you know so. So it's interesting that you come in and consult from the top all the way down. What is your intention when you come into? Uh, to do these interviews, and is it the same interview for everyone? Or explain?
Speaker 2:um, it could be the same interview for for everyone. The same same questions around around what their thoughts are and what's important to them personally and, uh, what, what they think could be done differently?
Speaker 1:are you trying to baseline the culture or what it's?
Speaker 2:to understand more of the culture, where the culture is right now yeah, yeah and and how people are responding to it. So my background is in psychology and neuroscience, so I want to understand what is the impact that is having on people psychologically. I've got a model of the psychological needs and if these needs are all being rewarded then we can get into peak work experiences that are the most satisfying that we've ever had, because internally we're getting these psychological needs rewarded and gained. If we're going through any kind of challenge or change then they could be threatened, and a threat response is much, much more salient than a reward response. So even if four of these needs are being positively met, quite well, if one of them is being threatened, that's going to really where our focus is going to be here Now.
Speaker 2:Our human survival depended on that. You know, when there's a, you know hear a sound in the forest behind you and it's like it could be an animal to kill you, that's much more significant than the beautiful smell of the flowers and the birds singing you know, which are nice but not going to kill you, for example. So I think that you know. Understanding where things might be threatened is also important for us too.
Speaker 1:So you map the organization top to bottom.
Speaker 2:We map the organization. Yeah to that, because then once we get a picture of where the threats and the rewards might be, then creating strategies to move forward to get those rewards and minimize threats that may be occurring as well. I think change is a big thing that organizations do go through. That one's coming to my head because I've done three of them this year already.
Speaker 1:What are you seeing generally? I mean, I can tell you what I'm seeing and there's a lot of panic in that C-suite. Right, because there's the legacy technology stack. I call it the Franken stack because you've got these islands of digitization, analog, digital, all of it's mish-mashed together. It should be serving the strategy. It dictates the strategy, because you're just trying to manage it. There's all these new emerging technologies. There's emerging threats, cybersecurity threats, there's this upskilling, there's AI. It's like panic at the disco, really at the top there, and I think it's extremely difficult for a lot of these executives or teams of executives to understand how to stabilize the ship, prevent leakage and then find a charted way forward that is focused innovation and growth. So what are you seeing on your side of the fence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that, so I won't answer to the technology. No, you don't have piece of this. Um, there's probably other experts that can share more around that piece. What I will touch on, though, is I think I'm more interested in what.
Speaker 1:When you're mapping an organization, what are you finding?
Speaker 2:okay. So, neuroscientifically, if our brain is, is like stressed, or if we feel things are threatened, our ability to think creatively decreases significantly. You know, part of it is that we might be focusing too much here on the logical part of analyzing what's happening, um, and, and so part of it might be that, um, when we are under pressure of any kind, we do become less empathic, um, and so I think that on a psychological, neuroscientific level, that, helping people to get into more of what we call an um, a towards state rather than an away state. So a towards state means some people might call it a growth mindset, some people might call it, you know, open-minded, whatever words you want to use for it that we're in this kind of open way of our brain operating right. And when I call it a towards state rather than a way state, way state, we're going to be more defensive and closed in right. But this is going to help us to get into more of this open state here, and the more that we can get that, that then frees up the brain for more creative thinking. There's innovation that's going to flourish from that, you know. So it happens within individual brains, but then also if we get the collectively, everybody's in that space there, then they'll be able to all have more innovation.
Speaker 2:So I'm more into the human brain and how we can get each individual brain into that space. Then as a team, how can we have more alignment and collaboration there? But if each individual is feeling pressure and stress, then their creativity has diminished. I mean, even when I wrote the chapter on flow in my book, there was one study someone did around creativity and it was like something like 475% more creative when people get into flow, five times more productive. Mckinsey did that study and then we can five times more easily solve problems.
Speaker 2:Right, but to get into that state of flow we need to have our brain into this kind of towards state or this open state where we are allowing all the weaker signals to be able to kind of dance around and form different ways. You know, kind of like when you're dreaming, when you're asleep. It's that same kind of dream state that we're in but was kind of more of a conscious state where we are allowing those ideas to connect together. So I mean I can't underestimate that getting people out of a threat state, getting people out of any kind of defensive feeling that they might have, is an essential pathway to innovation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed, and I suppose that starts with the top down right. If there's panic in your leadership, yeah it's gonna, you're gonna feel it and it's gonna create this uneasy feeling and I've experienced that and uh, seen how you can shut down when it comes down to survival.
Speaker 2:But yeah, what hairy yeah, I remember the start of the pandemic when, uh I his name was Andrew Campbell. At that time he was um head of talent development, for I believe it was IBM and um he's. He know there's a lot of, you know, the neurochemicals in our brain, like we need to have the adrenaline in our brain and the dopamine to get the really exciting things about what we want in the business right and that pushing out new products, new innovations, new technologies. But when there's fires that we need to put out or when there's a pandemic or any kind of crisis or technical shock that hits the world, that's going to increase the cortisol level in our brain, which is the part that makes us stressed. So equally important is to maintain those cortisol levels, which means that we need to be able to keep that calm, you know, because then we can, you know, go into the fire and, you know, lead people through a fire and get people out on the other side effectively important work and so needed right now in this chaotic world that we're in.
Speaker 1:So you know, I would like to encourage anyone listening to to engage with you, and maybe that's a good point to just quickly do a shout out. If people want to reach you, uh, or learn more about your work, where can they go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, go to my own personal website. You know, grantbosnickcom. That's where you can find out more about me. There's a links to the videos there, the showreel, the promo video there's. You know, testimonials out there as well too, so you can find out more there. So go to that. You know, grantbosnickcom.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you, if you do want to find out more about how you can improve your self-leadership, I'll give you another website which I created a self-leadership assessment, which is selfleadershipassessmentcom, and if you go there, there's a free tool there that you can then, um, it's, it takes two and a half minutes to go through the assessment and then it'll give you an 18 page report around different areas that you might want to focus on for yourself, to, um, become more self-aware and more um uh areas to focus on for your self-leadership.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:I'll definitely check that out myself and recommend it to some people that I think should also use it.
Speaker 1:But it's making me think one of the things we did in another company that I work for and it ties into your 360 degree assessment. It helps to understand the lay of the land. I think that we did, I remember, personality tests to understand the different personality types within our team and it was quite an interesting exercise because once we understood and there's different tests that determine what color you are or letter you are or whatever the point being that once we understood the different personalities, we could see why a person would react a certain way or you know, it helped empathize and and shape how the team would orchestrate the ask better, because it comes down to asks and a list of things that need to be done to hit the mission and how to do that in a more fluid, empathetic way. So I would encourage people to look at that and to also do that leadership assessment. I think that's a fantastic idea and, most importantly, to reach out to you, Grant, and get some upbeat in the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, please do so. Check out grantbosnickcom and hopefully we can help out anyone who needs help out there as well too. To sharpen your thinking more alignment, more collaboration and greater positive impact intentional positive impact on people amazing and amazing purpose that you have grants and it's a pleasure to know you.
Speaker 1:I look forward to developing a deep friendship with you and thank you for your time today and wishing you all the best in in your journey ahead wonderful.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. My pleasure to be here. Thank you, bye.