Explore the world of innovation through discomfort with renowned author and team consultant, Liane Davey. Known for her bestselling books and contributions to Harvard Business Review, Liane brings a wealth of experience in leadership and team effectiveness.
Discover the concept of 'conflict debt' and the value of addressing tough conversations head-on. Learn how incorporating regular 'conflict hygiene' can strengthen team dynamics and prevent breakdowns. Liane emphasizes the importance of embracing manageable conflicts to foster a cohesive team environment.
Key takeaways:
Liane Davey's links:
Hi, I'm your podcast host Keita Demming: Author, Advisor, Thought Partner & Coach.
I'm an award-winning educator and coach with a PhD in Adult Education and Workplace Learning who works to transform companies into places that are idea-driven and people-centered.
At The Covenant Group, I design training programs and coach entrepreneurs and business leaders to meet their strategic goals and build their businesses.
In my book, Strategy to Action: Run Your Business Without It Running You, I introduce an effective and straightforward tool to elevate your skills as a business professional and navigate the corporate world. The book offers practical insights on transforming strategies into tangible results.
Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and subscribe to my Newsletter.
Explore the world of innovation through discomfort with renowned author and team consultant, Liane Davey. Known for her bestselling books and contributions to Harvard Business Review, Liane brings a wealth of experience in leadership and team effectiveness.
Discover the concept of 'conflict debt' and the value of addressing tough conversations head-on. Learn how incorporating regular 'conflict hygiene' can strengthen team dynamics and prevent breakdowns. Liane emphasizes the importance of embracing manageable conflicts to foster a cohesive team environment.
Key takeaways:
Liane Davey's links:
Hi, I'm your podcast host Keita Demming: Author, Advisor, Thought Partner & Coach.
I'm an award-winning educator and coach with a PhD in Adult Education and Workplace Learning who works to transform companies into places that are idea-driven and people-centered.
At The Covenant Group, I design training programs and coach entrepreneurs and business leaders to meet their strategic goals and build their businesses.
In my book, Strategy to Action: Run Your Business Without It Running You, I introduce an effective and straightforward tool to elevate your skills as a business professional and navigate the corporate world. The book offers practical insights on transforming strategies into tangible results.
Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and subscribe to my Newsletter.
And when we understand what and whom we're fighting for in a room and we understand what and whom everybody else in the room is fighting for and we empathize with that and we understand it, then we have a productive conflict conversation that doesn't feel like root canal at all.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Conversations with Keita Deming, where I explore how do we become better people in business and better business people. Today's guest is the author, Elianne Davy. She's the best selling author, speaker and team whisperer. We had a great conversation today and I think you're going to enjoy this episode. If you love this podcast and you want to learn more, please join my mailing list, keitademingcom, or support my new book, Strategy to Action. Hope you enjoy today's conversation. Welcome to the podcast Conversations with Keita Deming. Leanne, for people who have no idea who you are and what you do, Do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself before we get into it?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I would love to Keita, so I am. By way of background, I have a PhD in organizational psychology and now I spend my time focused on executive team effectiveness and take those lessons that I learned in that space to helping people in all different teams achieve amazing things together.
Speaker 2:What's an example of an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:Well, coming up with a strategy for an organization, figuring out how to collaborate effectively on a cross-departmental thing. One of the most amazing things I help people do is to use conflict as a productive force in their organizations. That's amazing when people learn to have conflict well. So anything that a team needs to do in an organization to accomplish something bigger than they can accomplish on their own, that's where you're going to find me helping them do that.
Speaker 2:And I think I'm going to put a stick, a pin in that learn to have conflict better piece, because I want to revisit that in a bit. The purpose of this podcast is to explore two questions how do we become better people in business and how do we become better business people? So how might you answer that first question, how do we become better people in business?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would say, as you can imagine, I'm sure this podcast could go on forever and you'd still be getting novel answers to that question, because there are so many, and for me, what I've been working on for many years now is they can become better people by refusing to get into what I call conflict debt, refusing to bite their tongue, stay silent, put up with things that aren't working, and instead learn the mindset and the skills of how to advocate effectively, how to disagree effectively, how to bring diverse perspectives to the table and there are many skills that just come along with that, probably first and foremost of which is becoming a much better listener.
Speaker 1:So all of those skills that are about how do we trust each other more so that we can be more candid, take the risk of having uncomfortable conversations and then have those conversations in a way that's constructive and moves us forward. Those are all the things. I'm going to comment that, because that's how I need to make myself a better person in business. I grew up very, very poor at having conflict, and so I've had to really make myself better in business by getting better at those skills.
Speaker 2:So we won't be saving that for later. We got right into that conversation, awesome. So, let's double click on that piece and I'll just reference your book as well, because I love the idea of conflict debt, and one of the things that you talk about in your book is you say people have to have more conflict, not less. Sometimes Talk to us about that what I would call a continuity to Well, let me talk about it.
Speaker 1:Let me reason through analogy here. So when I was about eight years old, I fell down a flight of concrete stairs and smashed my teeth, and I had to have my teeth, my front tooth, fixed, and it was extremely painful. What I learned many years later is that freezing takes a long time to take effect on me, so it wasn't frozen when the dentist started to drill and so I was crying and he hit me and it created this sort of lifelong fear of dentists. So all through my 20s, once I didn't live at home and didn't have my mom taking me to the dentist, I was in control and I could choose not to go to the dentist. Except, you can imagine what happens after a few years of not going to the dentist. When you go to the dentist, it's going to be a very unpleasant visit that's going to have needles and all sorts of yuckiness.
Speaker 2:It reinforces your fear.
Speaker 1:It reinforces your fear. And so in my 30s I've found a dentist willing to help me work through the fear and kind of move through it, and then I became very disciplined about brushing and flossing and going to those six months checkups. And so what I tell people is, if you don't like the dentist, go often, because those cleanings, those checkups, they can maybe, you know, put a little sealant on something that may be starting to have a cavity. Well, the same is true of conflict. If you don't like conflict, trying to suppress it, ignoring it, putting up with maltreatment, pretending there's not a risk in somebody's plan, all of those things that are like avoiding the dentist, lead to the root canal version of conflict, something very explosive, something very painful, something that can do permanent damage, whereas if we think about conflict more like flossing.
Speaker 1:So what can I do in this meeting? What little bit of hygiene can I do in this meeting to express my perspective, put a little bit of tension on somebody's idea, advocate for a stakeholder? What are the little flossing versions I can do so that I don't get into conflict debt, so that I don't end up, you know, with that root canal version? So it was the dentist that helped me realize that if you don't like something, it tends to be a better strategy to do it frequently, with low impact, rather than putting it off and therefore having something really aversive that just reinforces your fear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and somebody once told me that's going to see exposure.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's a great term, I hadn't heard that term. Yes, exactly, and we can have safe exposure to conflict in ways that builds our psychological safety, builds our tolerance, and that's what really strong folks and organizations do and what strong teams do.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to take this on a slightly different angle, but there's something you said that really stood out to me, and it's about habit change. So my dad decided you're either a flosso or you're not. How did you become a flosso?
Speaker 1:So my dentist used a line and many, many, many years of not being a flosser, being like a you know a good day flosser, like, oh, I'm not so tired today I'll floss, but becoming a daily flosser was. My dentist just said something very simple, because it's interesting there is research that says it is better to change habits by talking about identity and I don't want to grant talk about it in terms of voting, to talk about somebody as be a voter, so it's better to be a flosser. But if a dentist told me you're either a flosser or not, I might have thought, well, like yeah, not. So my dentist said only floss the teeth you want to keep. And I'm like, okay, that this guy deserves a PhD in psychology, not just a DDS. Right, that's brilliant. And so now I only floss the teeth I want to keep. So you know, if I'm really tired I might not do the very back ones, because who's going to notice, but the other ones I really want to keep those. So I thought that was a great line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I do think that habit changes really hard. So that's why when you said you went from being like not flossed into somebody who flosses religiously. I'm like that in its surface.
Speaker 1:Well, again, fear was a great motive, right? So did I want to have to go back and have more cavities filled, or did I want to do this very simple, innocuous thing? That? And so you know, like with all good habits, I anchored it. Brushing my teeth was a very anchored habit. It was easy. And then the other thing I thought about is I'm one of those people who's really not good at night. So what I do now is I finish my dinner, have a cup of tea, and then I go brush my teeth right then when I'm not tired. But even doing that like I'm already tired enough, I don't feel like flossing. So I had to anchor the habit to my morning brushing of my teeth because that's where I had more energy.
Speaker 1:So I feel the same with conflict. I look at teams and I say what are you doing, having this meeting at four o'clock on a Thursday? This is a really contentious topic. This is going to be really challenging. And you're doing it when people are. You know there's no gas left in the tank. I wouldn't be flossing then either. I'd be trying to get through that meeting as easily as possible. So do yourself a favor. Put you know, put those kinds of discussions earlier in the day, earlier in the week. You know that sort of thing Always be smart about when you, when you put those things as you're trying to establish a new behavior.
Speaker 2:How does your work then connect to people becoming better business people? I know we've talked about flossing, we've talked about conflict, so for listeners this might seem a little bit odd, but it connects it connects Absolutely does right.
Speaker 1:So when we get into conflict, that it affects our business in many ways. So the most prominent or prevalent issue that comes up when we're not good at conflict is we fail to prioritize. So most people have lost sight of the sense that the term prioritize comes from the Latin priority. That means first. It doesn't mean sevenths. And so we've really we've come to interpret the word priority to mean importance as opposed to like temporarily, what comes first. And so if you say, well, I can't do seven, which of them is the priority, you often hear leaders say back to you like well, they're all important. Well, we don't need to be arguing about whether they're important or not. We need to be really having productive conflict about which needs to be done first. And when we're really conflict diverse or we don't like it we tend not to have the hard conversations about trade-offs. We don't want to deal with the risk of of and have the courage to say we're going to try some things and not others, because we're trying to spread our resources like peanut butter and and like never be the company or the department that didn't do something and gets in trouble because that was the thing that worked. We instead try and do a little bit of everything, so in such a diluted way, none of them is actually going to have a big payoff. So I would say the number one business implication of being poor at conflict is failure to prioritize. We get little return on investment, we burn our people out.
Speaker 1:But there are others as well. If you're afraid of conflict, what afraid of what it might spark, you're likely inhibiting innovation. So siloed organizations is often a result of conflict debt. I'm going to keep talking to my engineering friends because they think like I think, but I'm not going to actually talk to sales because they're just going to say things that aggravate me. They lose that peanut butter cup, chocolate and peanut butter collision that gives us the chance to innovate. So that's another business implication. A third would be risk mitigation. So when we have conflict avoidant individuals or even a conflict avoidant culture, we don't like to say things like you know, hey, this, you know, this plan has an assumption in it and I'm not sure it's a good assumption. And if we do this, this could blow up. Or have we considered this scenario? So effective risk mitigation also requires people willing to have those contentious, uncomfortable conversations. So there's a lot of reasons that conflict debt inhibits good business. Those are just a few examples.
Speaker 2:I mean, those are some good ones. No-transcript. Thinking about your, this notion of conflict, that which, when you talked about having more conflict, I really enjoyed that, because I'm a bit of a conversation nerd. I love Study of conversation. How do you have better conversations? That's my jam. What I'm curious about what's, what's one of the best lessons you've learned? It introducing this idea of, hey, you need to have more conflict and not less conflict. Mm-hmm, two organizations or leaders, because I could see this being a Very content, just so very content. Who to we're thinking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, team arm and you have working together, it's like hey, let's have more conflict.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I tell a silly story. One of the problems, I think, is that you know, a lot of our language and metaphor around teamwork draws on the imagery of Rowers. I don't know why, I don't know how rowers became the thing but we talk about we're all in the same boat, don't rock the boat. We all need to be pulling in the same direction, and all of those Ideas are really counter to having conflict. So I talk about a different story, which is a story from my own life, where my husband and I took our two kids camping and there was a big rainstorm coming and we had to take this tiny little plastic tarp that wasn't really big enough and stretch it as as big as we could possibly get it to kind of cover our tent and protect it from the rain, and and the rain was coming in at a real angle, so we had to kind of give and take with one another to get the tarp position to provide the most protection. And this story Actually provides a much better image and a visceral sense of what it feels like to be on a team. We're not pulling in the same direction. In fact, we're trying to take scarce resources, like this tiny little plastic tarp and we're pulling in our own directions because we have different Priorities, we have different things that we bring to the table and we're trying to each make sure that we're kind of taking putting tension on the deliberation from our own perspective and then to kind of land on what's the Optimal spot to land to this decision so that everybody in the tent stays dry. So when we tell this story then we turn it into an exercise. That's really an exercise in. The goal of the exercise is to understand why conflict and productive tensions important. But the actual process of the exercise is kind of coming to empathize with the other People who are part of your team. So we simply ask three questions what's the unique value of each of the people pulling a rope in our team? And they are very different, different roles, are paying attention to different things. They're bringing different talents and superpowers. So there are very different answers to that. The the salesperson is really thinking about the marketplace, thinking about Differentiating the story of your product or service for your customer. They're very customer centric. But the operations person is thinking about Consistency and efficiency, not differentiation. Differentiation is expensive to an ops person. They're like yeah there. So we ask that question.
Speaker 1:Second question who that's not in the room is Counting on you to advocate for them. So in the sales and operations example, the salesperson, all of those customers and buyers, are really counting on the salesperson to say this is what we need, this is what we're looking for, how do we make it cheaper, how? That's what that salesperson needs to bring into the conversation. That's completely different from who is counting on the operations person. So the operations person is in there doing battle for, in many cases, the shareholder to be more efficient with use of resources. Sometimes the employees, the supply chain folks, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:So second question who that's not in the room is counting on you to have that productive conflict. And the third question is kind of the summary, which is therefore what is it your obligation to fight for? And when we understand what and whom we're fighting for in a room and we understand what in whom everybody else in the room is fighting for and we empathize with that and we understand it, then we have a productive conflict conversation that doesn't feel like root canal at all. It just feels very much like okay, I need to understand this decision from these different perspectives and we can make a decision that's optimal for the business, even if it's not exactly what I would have wanted from my sales role or from my operations role. So that story and that exercise really create breakthroughs that help people understand.
Speaker 1:Oh, if I let go of this rope, which is, you know, when we went camping that the story played out that my husband was pulling way too hard on his rope Against my daughter, who at the time was five, and left her face down in the mud. That's not good. But my other daughter at some point got fed up and let go and and the corner of the tarp kind of went flying up and the tent was getting soaked. And that's what happens when we don't like conflict. We decide to kind of let go of the rope, we go quiet, we give up. Is that somebody is left exposed because nobody else has your expertise, nobody else is fighting for that stakeholder you're fighting for. So going through this exercise can really help teams to get a handle On what healthy conflict should feel like so that, so that that's why your book might be called a good fight.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:What is your obligation to fight for?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, because we do have a conflict obligation. When we're a part of a team, there are people counting on us to fight for them, and they're usually. It was interesting I was talking yesterday, I was giving a speech to the leaders of a big municipality and they were all in the public works team and so we were doing the exercise and I said, okay, what? What's another part of the organization You're often in conflict with, and pretty much every table picked procurement as the example and At first, you know, getting them to empathize and think about what's the unique value the procurement brings and who are they fighting for? You know, at first they just started saying, well, they like Process and they like a lot, and they couldn't, they couldn't get it. And then we pushed on it a little longer. We said well, you know how did?
Speaker 1:Contracts used to be awarded for big infrastructure projects. You know used to be awarded to your buddies or to Ineptism or whatever, and and those projects were often Total total weight elephants that cost more than they should. That, you know, created crumbling infrastructure. So you know what is procurement's unique value and somebody immediately was like well, a fair and transparent process. Yes, exactly, they're fighting for something. Who are they fighting for, well, the taxpayers? Yes, and somebody else said well, they're also fighting for all the other businesses who used to be shut out and they need somebody making sure that the procurement process is fair. Yes, and by the end of a 20-minute exercise, we had them really understanding.
Speaker 1:Procurement is not getting up in the morning to be a pain in your butt, they just aren't. But they are there to protect people, to protect a fair and transparent process, to protect, you know, members of the community who probably haven't even been born yet, who will still be using the infrastructure that is built and just was so powerful when they figured out oh Well, that's really important, yes, but they can't the procurement. People can't do what the public works people do, yeah. So it's not. It's not an or it's. We're each pulling a rope at the same time and and we can find the right answer. It's not going to be perfect, but hopefully we get that tarp spread out as far as we can and Hopefully we make sure that everybody's heads stay dry and maybe your toes get wet, because there's never enough resources, but together you've made the best call and that's productive conflict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what, what I? First of all, I like that you made procurement seem valuable.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is very.
Speaker 2:I have a very particular soft spot for procurement because I used to work in that space for a very short time. Yeah, but what I love about what you talk about is the importance of a reframe or a frame. Yeah, and what you did is you put a frame around procurement and say, okay, here's the value in what they're doing and here's why they might be being a stick in the mud from your perspective Right, but they're not. They're really in. This stick in the mud is holding up something really important. It's and I love that reframe. What's the best advice you've ever received, any work as it pertains to how people become better people in business and be better business people, with some advice you want to share.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good question. Hmm, well, I guess it's really all the people who, along my career, have encouraged me to advocate for things Right, and that's what I didn't used to be very good at. I was good at intellectually arguing for something. I had gone to grad school. He had a lot of practice, didn't we do in the past school? You have a lot of practice doing that. But when things got heated, when it started to feel personal, I would tend to walk away, and you know some of the mentors in my life who really encouraged me not to be silent, not to walk away. They're the ones who probably inspired, you know, two decades of my career now in trying to get better at this and help other people get better at it.
Speaker 2:So can we just double click on our word advocate? So yeah, I think sometimes when people think of the word advocate or you think about Activist, or they think about those kinds of words they think of a very particular kind of person. It sounds to me like you're referring to something slightly different, is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's unfortunate. I think we might use activist or advocate to describe somebody hard headed in a direction other than the one we want to go. If it was somebody being similarly stubborn and hard headed in something we believe in, we wouldn't use those terms, would we?
Speaker 2:They're a hero.
Speaker 1:They're a leader, and so I think that being an advocate, being an activist, being somebody who is loud and proud about the things you're fighting for and the things you represent, is wonderful. What I think is less helpful on a team is when you do that in a way that denies that there are other realities that need to be taken into account. So if procurement is not thinking about you know the optimal way to build a new subway line and they're only care about who bid the lowest price on the project or something like that, that's going too far, that somebody who is not going to achieve amazing things together. So I think sometimes we see activism and advocacy come in a way that's really deaf to other perspectives. So that's that is a negative thing. But when it's so it was interesting I was.
Speaker 1:I put out a piece of work a while ago about what I call Level 3 listening, and at Level 1 of listening I used to use something from the Chinese character for the word.
Speaker 1:Listen is made up of the character for the ear, the eye and the heart, and so it's sort of connoting that you only truly listen to someone when you listen not only with your ear but your eyes and your heart, and I used to use this all the time.
Speaker 1:I thought it was very, very powerful and after I posted it, I I got some pushback from people in the neurodiversity community about how I was advocating for eye contact, and there are lots of people who can't have eye contact. What was really interesting is some of the people came to the conversation in a way is like hey, leanne, I wonder if you know how challenging this is for some people. It was like I'm going to advocate and pull on my rope, but I understand that you have yours and let's actually get in some kind of a dialogue and go back and forth with each other. Other people chose to just yank that rope so hard. I had people on LinkedIn, you know, calling me like a nasty woman and I'm glad no one I know or care for has to work for you and like really nasty stuff, and it was just interesting to see when we fight for things in a way that is blind to other people's realities, other people's context, I think we're less effective in many ways.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we need those advocates, who who want to educate and form and know that there are only one rope on that whole tar.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I'm very personally interested in is the. I think it's. I think it's very problematic how social media polarizes in a way that that medium encourages loosely conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need air quotes about that conversation.
Speaker 2:The conversation, and because of that I've become very interested in how do we have better conversations, not just online, but in general. So how might you answer that today? Not a lot of thought time to think about it, how might you?
Speaker 1:answer that question. Yeah, a couple things come to mind. So the one that I use as just a general rule is try and speak the other person's truth before speaking your own. So if you go into a conversation so say it's somebody who doesn't believe in vaccines, that's a hot one these days, right? Oh yeah, yeah, I think we want to go into that saying you know, here's all this.
Speaker 1:So from my perspective, I am someone who believes in vaccines. You know, I might want to go in saying you know, do you know the evidence that we have for vaccines and do you know how you're putting your children at risk Like I may want to go in ramming my truth down their throat. That's a you know guarantee pretty much that they will dig in, retrench and push back even harder If I go in going. That's so interesting to me that you, that you don't vaccinate your kids, you know, tell me a little bit about how you arrived at that decision. What, what's on the line for you here? What do you believe is at stake? If I actually spend time trying to understand where they're coming from, first of all, the other thing I'm going to realize in that is both of us want the best for our kids. So I'm going to have some common ground to talk about. Oh I, so I can really hear how important it is to you to protect your kids, instead of me claiming that they don't want to protect their kids. They're they're leaving their kids at risk. No, they've just come to believe that vaccinations are more dangerous and risky to their children than the risk of getting the measles or anything else. And so you know, if I can get to the point of saying OK, so for you, this is really about protecting your kids and you don't feel confident in what you're putting into their bodies when you choose to vaccinate. Ok, then I can share my truth. That's so interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about protecting my kids too. Here's how I'm thinking about it, and I picked vaccination just as something very contentious, but it could be something innocuous Like. So you think that we should put on a customer event in the fourth quarter. That seems like a big waste of money to me, but if I, ok, what's making you advocate for that? What you know so that's a huge part is making sure that you really push to get their truth out of your mouth before you worry about your own. The second thing I would say is we were given bad advice as little baby employees as we grew up in companies, because we used to be told don't come with a problem, come with a solution. And I get. What did you get? Were you ever told that?
Speaker 1:I've gone and lectures on this before, so lecture on so it's just, we'll see if our lectures the same, and so that makes sense to me. If your manager says it to you, right Like, take some initiative, think about the problem, come to me with potential options, yes, but unfortunately we do that in cross functional teams and we we often miss the mark. We walk in and we say I think we need to do this and first of all, we often are stepping on people's toes because it may be that it's something in their remit that we're commenting on. When we're commenting on a potential solution in someone else's area, we're usually not very informed.
Speaker 1:So sometimes it's really bad idea and some people will interpret that as what you think I can't do my job. They'll see it as condescending and we trigger a fight. So if we want to dialogue, if we're really trying to create a better conversation, I really encourage people to come into the room with. I've been thinking about this issue. This is how I'm perceiving the problem. You know anybody else? How are you thinking about this and really come to agree on what problem you're trying to solve Before you come in guns a blazing with a solution, and that's another really important way to have better conversations at work.
Speaker 2:Awesome, my slightly different.
Speaker 2:But he told me in addition to everything you said. I agree with everything you said, but the number one thing is what happens when I don't have a solution? So yeah, whether it's manager or whatever level and I get the point of that is to get people to take initiative but if I don't have a solution, that means I'm. There's a problem I'm very aware of. I'm not bringing it to you because I'm following your instruction of don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions. So now you are in the dark about a problem.
Speaker 1:Now you're going to come to me with an emergency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly it's not good.
Speaker 1:It's not good.
Speaker 2:And I used to think that was a weekly Caribbean thing because I did a lot of work in the Caribbean and I've come to realize now working in North America. I just crossed the boat, so it's very.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's all be done with don't come to me with a problem, come to me with a solution. But I think, first of all, come to me with problems. I think that should be a strong, definitive statement Come to me with problems. And when you do, I'd love if you could come with some information, with some options, that sort of thing. But we want that first sentence to be the stronger sentence Come to me with problems.
Speaker 2:Or just come to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, true, exactly. Just put out the sentence there. Just come to me fear it.
Speaker 2:Let's be, open and discuss things. Yeah, one of the things I wrote down is call, create. Like really to learn how to call, create and join. Problem solving is a massive piece of that. Yeah, as we start to think about how we wrap up this conversation, what is most challenging for you in your work at the moment?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the big thing I'm spending a lot of time on right now is hybrid teams. So pretty much all of the teams I'm working with save one and that's maybe one of the reasons I realize it Most of the teams I'm working with have some people who are physically together and some people who are remote, and it's really hard to achieve amazing things together in that mode. There's such asymmetry. The people who are physically together have so much more on which to build trust and to support kind of rich communication, and then the people who are remote are kind of at this different level, having quite a different experience, missing things, both content and context and not knowing how missing that information is affecting their ability to contribute.
Speaker 1:Hybrid teams is something that it's great to have the organizational psychology background because there's a lot of psychology of the asymmetry of hybrid teams that's really important. I just gave a speech on it last week and I got so many comments from people saying I never thought about that. I never thought about it that way. So that's something that I'm really trying to bring my toolkit to bear to help people trying to cope with these hybrid teams. So lots of energy going to that right now.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and one of the questions I've been asking my guests is a bit of a question from my lines, which is where are you seeking comfort when you should be seeking discomfort?
Speaker 1:Oh, Well, that is such a great question. I would love to have a vulnerable, open answer for you. I guess the one that has sort of been true throughout my career that I'm always working on is I seek comfort by moving to kind of telling someone what they should do. I seek certainty and control and a sense of competence, and the discomfort is like putting something out there and letting the client kind of come to it themselves, and it's uncomfortable because it's slower, it's less certain, it doesn't put me in the spotlight, it puts them in the spotlight. So I think the journey that I'm on as somebody who is very assertive and knowledgeable, and my comfort is okay. Let me just tell you the right answer here. And that's great when you're writing books, but when you're trying to facilitate a team process, so much of it is letting them get there and sometimes I just keep trying to grab them by the nose.
Speaker 2:So I think that, like I think as facilitators, we can have a whole workshop on that, like when do you do that? But where that shows up to me the most is in parenting. So how much, okay, you're going to fall and hurt yourself? Do I save you or do I let you fall? And that's how I summarize parenting.
Speaker 1:I love it, do I?
Speaker 2:save you or do I let you fall? And knowing when to do that and how many times to do that is like a constantly changing target.
Speaker 1:So and I think the big, deep thing is as a parent, do I save you by letting you fall Right? I'm very, very worried about how many kids have never fallen.
Speaker 2:So the one thing I know for sure is the minute you fall, I'm there to connect.
Speaker 1:Yes, For sure.
Speaker 2:I have one thing I know for sure but I like, as you grow older, I find that when you're young guys like, okay, you don't know any better, so I got to save you. Like, don't walk with that. I'm like, yes, staircase, that's not what I love, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's not a good risk.
Speaker 2:That line. I feel that line becomes harder, but as a facility that I have struggled with our nine of clients, I'm in time again, so I love that. What's your favorite quote, if you have one?
Speaker 1:Oh, my favorite quote Well, so I don't know if it's my favorite, but one that's salient for me right now is I've been doing a lot of work on trust, and there is an Asian proverb that goes don't wait until you're thirsty to dig a well. And that really is, I think, where we're at with trust a lot these days, like we wait until we have some emergency that you need to help us with, to establish a relationship, and then the reaction is like who are you and why should I interrupt my life too? Right, so start digging the well before you're thirsty. When it comes to trust on teams, that one's kind of salient for me right now.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, do you have an idea that's inspiring you at the moment?
Speaker 1:I think the idea that's been inspiring me for several years now is that some things are worth fighting for, and anytime I want to back away from conflict or go quiet or whatever else, I just say this is worth fighting for. It's not going to be comfortable, it's not supposed to be comfortable, but it's worth it. So that line has helped me profoundly in my life.
Speaker 2:Before we go, what would you like to say to the audience? And guess where they find me? Where can they learn more about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the best place is just be leandabeycom, the blog on there. I've been blogging every week for 11 years now, so there are hundreds of searchable free resources, tools and guides that you can download, exercises you can do with your team, and my monthly newsletter every month has videos and tools and on certain things this month it was about how can we be better than just being a bystander on our team, so subscribe there, and that's probably the best place to find me or on my YouTube channel, dr Leanne Davy on YouTube, so that's where you can find all there is to find that I'm putting out about helping people achieve amazing things together.
Speaker 2:And all listeners. Thank you again for joining me on yet another episode of Conversations with Keeta Deming, where I explore two main questions how do we become better people and how do we become better people in business? Have a wonderful time and see you next time when I interview yet another guest where we explore those two questions. Thank you for listening to Conversations with Keeta Deming. Over the years, I've learned that few things will impact or improve your life more than improving your strategies and having better conversations with the people you wish to serve. If you like today's guest and the idea is shared, please like, follow and provide a review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also visit my website to sign up for my newsletter and learn about the release of my upcoming book. I look forward to the next episode, where we'll be in conversation with someone who will help you become a better business person and a better person in business. See you next time.