Lens of Leadership: A Ted Lasso Rewatch Podcast

Courageous Conversations | S1 Ep7

• Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio • Season 1 • Episode 8

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This week Marnie and Nick discuss the episode "Make Rebecca Great Again." We will discuss the power and need to embrace courageous conversations, reflecting on Nate's pep talk with the team as they strived to beat Everton for the first time in years.  Together, we discuss the impact of emotional intelligence and how it is your secret weapon in navigating tough conversations and feedback. 

In the been there, done that world of challenging conversations, Marnie and Nick have some stories to share. We tackle the art of matching emotional energy with rational responses, ensuring that even the toughest conversations can lead to growth and stronger connections. This conversation is filled with insights for anyone looking to enhance their leadership skills, improve family dynamics, or elevate their emotional intelligence. 

Marnie Stockman:

Welcome to Lens of Leadership, our Ted Lasso rewatch podcast.

Speaker 2:

Go on, say what you're going to say. Okay, Don't read it say it to my face the great Roy Kent.

Speaker 2:

You're old now, the great Roy Kent. You're old now and slow and your focus drifts. But your speed and your smarts were never what made you who you are. It's your anger, that's your superpower, that's what made you one of the best midfielders in the history of this league. But I haven't seen it on the pitch at all this season, roy. I mean, you used to run like you were angry at the grass. You'd kick the ball like you'd got it, fucking your wife, christ's sake. But that anger doesn't come out anymore when you play. But it's still in there and I'm afraid of what it's going to do to you if you just keep it all for yourself.

Speaker 3:

Before we dive into this episode's leadership lessons, let's watch a quick recap. Before we dive into this episode's leadership lessons, let's watch a quick recap, but instead choose out Nate, who decided to give Ted an envelope with his ideas. Keeley's ad is everywhere. Ted apologizes to Nate and has him give the pregame talk. While surprising it is exactly what they needed to hear. Roy channels his superpower anger. The team celebrates a win with karaoke. Rebecca apologizes to Sassy before singing Frozen. Ted has a panic attack and Rebecca comforts him. Ted finally signs his divorce papers. Roy and Kely share a goodnight kiss.

Marnie Stockman:

Make Rebecca Great Again. Ends with Sassy entering Ted's hotel room. I am Nick Caniglio and I'm Marnie Stockman, and this is Lens of Leadership, our Ted Lasso rewatch podcast. We're the co-authors of Lead it Like Lasso, a leadership book for life your life.

Nick Coniglio:

Or, as we like to say, the ultimate cheat code to help you level up in life. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, we take a different approach by deep diving into some of the leadership principles drawn from the episode.

Marnie Stockman:

And this week, as we watch, make Rebecca Great Again, we're taking a deep dive into the principle of courageous conversations.

Nick Coniglio:

So, before we get into courageous conversations, what'd you think about the episode?

Marnie Stockman:

Oh, first, I'm not a karaoke girl myself, but I could watch Rebecca karaoke all day yeah. I uh, that is a favorite. And my favorite part of all of that was having Roy lip sync quietly while he watched. Yeah, how about you?

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, I well, I think when last we ended Rebecca, we weren't feeling really good about Rebecca and I think this whole episode was kind of setting her up. A little change in life.

Speaker 5:

To Rebecca yeah, that's not Rebecca, how do you mean? No, real rebecca is silly, strong, yeah, but not cold. You ever heard her sing? Oh, oh, beautiful voice her and nora would sing through the door for hours. Do you want to build a snowman? Who's Noah, my daughter? Oh, yeah, yeah, if you like that woman, you are going to love Rebecca, which is good.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, I have to ask Stockmans, are you guys movie night people or pillow fight people?

Marnie Stockman:

Well, we're not opposed to a pillow fight, although the kids are older, so we haven't done that in years. If it was pillow fight or I mean movie night or Keep it Up with the balloon we would probably still pick Keep it Up Night. How about at your house?

Nick Coniglio:

I think Movie Night for sure, or binge watching something on Netflix.

Speaker 5:

But I have to say I think.

Nick Coniglio:

Have you ever seen the Iron Giant?

Marnie Stockman:

I have not.

Nick Coniglio:

You need to. It's a must watch. I'm going to say one of the best animated films ever made and I think it's saying something. This was made back in the nineties, like they showed in the. In this episode you got to bring a box of tissues Cause it's kind of sad. It's funny, though, and you've never seen the movie, but the theme of the movie sad. It's funny, though, and you've never seen the movie, but the theme of the movie again, brilliance of the writers is you are who you choose to be right. So the story is a robot and he's saving a town, and he had conversation with another character in the show who said you know, you are who you choose to be. And he chose to be Superman and he flew up in the sky and blocked incoming nuclear weapons from and saved the towns Fitting, because, I think we find out, rebecca is about to be who she chooses to be Right. So, again, the writers just absolutely brilliant.

Marnie Stockman:

You know what? I should have known that, because they chose to play that movie, that it of course tied in more than just a bonding moment.

Nick Coniglio:

So boo on me for not having I was pretty proud of myself and I'm sure it's been talked about somewhere, but there are so many Easter eggs in this show and I haven't seen that one talked about very much. But again, I'm I'm a fan of the movies, so I was all good with it. So, courageous conversations. Why did we choose that topic?

Marnie Stockman:

Well, I think there are lots of them, right. I think that, um, that a couple that come to mind are sassy, telling Keely that, uh, this isn't the real stinky right. The real, the real rebecca, who she calls stinky, is um, is funny and and playful, etc.

Nick Coniglio:

And she has the conversation with rebecca about um being her biggest offender, but she has to own up to the the part she played and missing out and staying away from sassy and Nora for for six years, Right.

Marnie Stockman:

You don't get to play the victim. You played a part in this too, I think that comes to mind. And then Ted having to. First, I thought Nate's, I call it the give a mouse, a cookie conversation. Do you remember the book? If you give a mouse, I do Okay.

Marnie Stockman:

So that is, if you give a mouse a cookie, then he's going to do this and do this and do this and do this and by the end you're watching a movie. So if you give a mouse a cookie, surely you're going to go to the movies this afternoon and Nate's? You give a mouse a cookie, like Nate. What are you afraid of? If, when Ted asked him about what they thought they should talk about in the locker room, pep talk and Nate went down and I believe me, I get it because I've been down these paths Well, if I tell you my ideas and you don't like them, you're going to hate me. And then you're going to, you know, fire me and then I'm going to have to move in with my parents and I'm going to be a disgrace. I'm going to like whoa Nateate. You took that down the path.

Speaker 2:

I'm not what are you afraid to go ahead and tell me that you won't like my idea and it makes you hate me. Then you find me. Then I have to move back in with my parents and they'll be ashamed of me. And then everyone finds out back home and laughs at me until my face melts off. Excuse me right.

Marnie Stockman:

But um, so ted saying to to nate to get him to come out of his shell to have the courage to give the pep talk. I don't know that a roast is a pep talk, but anyway, the locker room talk. I think it took courage First. Ted does it so easily. You wouldn't even call it courage when he has the honest conversation with Nate. That, no, he's going to do right, that's just my effortless for him. But it takes Nate a lot of courage, especially when Roy gets nose to nose with him to say what he knows they need to hear.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah. So overcoming the embarrassment, the fear of failure, not bringing good ideas, just with his coaching staff, but then to have the courage right I mean just like you said to actually speak those words to people that he's quite honestly intimidated by in the AFC Richmond team, that was a big deal. So, marnie, I get the sense that you came out of the womb as a leader, right. Talk about just the whole idea of having courageous conversations. Is that something that came natural to you? Where do you feel like that falls on the spectrum of leadership?

Nick Coniglio:

And how important is it?

Marnie Stockman:

First, I did come out like a shot. I don't know if that makes you a leader, but I did come out pretty quickly and I would not say that I've always loved I don't love courageous conversations, but I do feel like it is a skill I have developed in the spectrum of leadership. You know we've talked before about emotional intelligence, emotional quotient EQ, and many leadership programs, leadership books, leadership podcasts talk about that mysterious emotional intelligence and many people think you know it when you see it. But there are actual skills that can make you better at understanding other humans and relating, communicating with other humans, and learning to have courageous conversations is absolutely one of those skills. So if you're thinking, how do I get better at emotional intelligence? Learn to have courageous conversations is the answer. So that's how in my mind. I think communication is just key in building relationships, et cetera, and emotional intelligence fits right into that.

Nick Coniglio:

I absolutely agree with that. I think from my perspective that was probably the hardest thing as I kind of transitioned in leadership, because I did not like having those types of conversations, I don't know. And I felt just like you had mentioned earlier with Nate right, I had all sorts of issues with it. Number one I didn't like confrontation. That was not my favorite experience in the world, I just wasn't big on confrontation. But number two I was really concerned about what other people thought of me.

Nick Coniglio:

I think we've talked about that on previous podcast episodes and I didn't want to embarrass myself by taking a leap and saying something that you know was a little bit new and different. And I think most of the time, courageous conversations come from feedback right, and delivering feedback, and that was always a challenge to me. I think it's funny you mentioned emotional intelligence, because I think if you talk about how you have those direct conversations and the feedback which is what Nate was delivering, I don't necessarily think he delivered it in the textbook, kind of way, like I said at the beginning, I would not make a roast into a pep talk, right, which is what he did.

Marnie Stockman:

But it is a television show and boy did that play well, but that's 100% not the way to go about it.

Nick Coniglio:

You say that, though, and I agree with you, and I agree that that's not the textbook way to do it, but for some people, that is a start right. Just the direct, blunt honesty you know, not considering empathy or active listening. You know those different levels and types of emotional intelligence, traits of emotional intelligence that you talked about. For some people, they just need to rip, rip the cover off the bed Right and that's fair.

Marnie Stockman:

But Ed used his political capital to allow Nate to do that. So had Nate not had Ted say to the team Nate's doing the pep talk If Ted hadn't built up the trust in the political capital, nate never would have survived. He would have gone after Isaac and next thing he would have known Isaac would have had him pinned to the ground. That's my take, agree or disagree.

Nick Coniglio:

I agree. I agree 100%. I think he was also helped by the fact that the team recognized they hadn't beaten Everton in 60 years, right. They were desperate and grasping for something new. We know the team's open to new ideas. I mean, they just got through the ritual from the two aces episode, so I think that was also working in the favor of Nate in specifically that he. You know the team was looking for new ideas to try to beat Everton, but I do think, being direct is a very good skill to learn.

Marnie Stockman:

It's interesting. You said you're always worried about what people think, and I still do. But there's this saying when you're 20, worry about what everybody thinks of you, and when you're 30, you don't care about what everybody thinks of you, and when you're 40, you realize nobody was thinking about you anyway.

Marnie Stockman:

So, you get to have a directness to it. So there is a maturity in learning to have those conversations. It was kind of funny at the company where you and I first started working together One of my performance evaluations that they wanted to say that they felt one of my strengths was I wish everybody would deal with confrontation the way that you do. I told my mom that and she snorted and said deal with it. You refuse to have it. You don't like conflict at all, so you're going to cut that off at the pass. If you can be proactive, if you can, or, more to the point, you'll address it right away, cause I just don't like the drama and I don't even know that you would remember.

Marnie Stockman:

But many times you you definitely had built that skill well before you met me, because you have helped me have courageous conversations in places where I am impulsive or would want to respond back, sometimes just by asking me so what would happen if you don't respond to that, which I think that is an interesting piece to think about of. When you think of courageous conversations, you think like, oh, I always have to do the hard thing and have the hard conversation and be blunt and direct. Sometimes maybe your role is to be a courageous listener, which is not my strength, right? We talked yesterday about how many words do you think we've cumulatively gotten out of our mouths in our lives? And while I'm only half a year older than you, I've talked probably half my life more, and so you've taught me that sometimes listening is the key in a courageous conversation.

Nick Coniglio:

I will say that I agree with everything that you just said. I think that, from my perspective, it wasn't until I realized that having the direct conversations which, again, you had mentioned earlier, it's critical not only in your professional life but also in your personal life when you go on your personal leadership journey. And I realized that, right, but it wasn't until I realized that it really aligned with one of my core values, which is problem solving. Right, how do you deliver a message in a direct way, but in a way so that somebody receives it? Well, and I think, from my perspective, when I have those types of conversations, I always go into problem solving mode, right, and it's not only active listening, but it's putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. Right To understand. Okay, how do they process information?

Nick Coniglio:

that's delivered to them, and I think when we start talking about emotional intelligence, you know understanding what triggers other people and what motivates them is really critical, especially when you start talking about having to deliver feedback to somebody else. I agree or disagree.

Marnie Stockman:

A thousand percent, I would. I would have said some of that, and just not as well, and I think this is insanely relevant for parents. So I think it's obvious when you're thinking feedback, you know in a business setting, in education, they've done studies where teachers provide feedback something like 200 times an hour or whatever. You know you're giving feedback all of the time in different ways, but parenting to understand what your child can hear and know that, that changes and it's often why, when they're teenagers, there's a ton of angst because you're used to parenting a certain way, because the children can't make the decisions for themselves, and then suddenly they're becoming little grownups and you have to realize that they have a part in it. As we were preparing for this, I remember I took a training when I was in education called Courageous Conversations by Pacific Education Group and they had four steps of when you're having a courageous conversation. These are the four things you need to bring to the party. So I actually wrote them down because I wanted to share and get your feedback on it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Marnie Stockman:

Yeah. So the first one we've already mentioned it's stay engaged, listen and be present. So if you're having a courageous conversation, this is not the time to have your phone out to be Slack, messaging somebody else, et cetera, to speak your your truth, because that's only what you know. So you know, there's the whole, there's what you said, what she, what I said, and then what really happened. So only speak from your perspective. Keeping it personal, local and immediate was the other way. They said that. Three allow yourself to experience discomfort. And four, which I think is interesting, and this is what you've taught me is to expect and accept non-closure. You don't have to resolve the issue. You can live in that awkward for a bit. So with those four, does that sound like yeah, I already knew that because I'm a master at this or do you like those steps? I am?

Nick Coniglio:

far from a master. I love it and I would, you know, accepting the fact that you might not have closure, I think, is kind of similar to another tenant that I would, I would speak to, which is finding common ground. Right, you know, and, and so you don't. You, you might not always get to the exact end point that you're looking to get to, but you should at least leave with common ground, in some level of common ground. And then the other thing I would add, and I think this is this lesson that I need to remind myself when you get into those really kind of tense level conversations Hopefully it doesn't get into that point, but the ability to always stay calm and composed, I think is critical to delivering the message. I think if you get too emotional and gosh knows we've gotten, we've had situations and scenarios where we've had to have these types of conversations that are very emotional I think you have to strip the emotions out of it at times to not get completely sidetracked and, off course, with the message that you're trying to deliver.

Marnie Stockman:

It's interesting you say that because I suspect we both have in the back of the mind a conversation that you and I both know I had with someone else, which got heated because we had done the work ahead of time.

Marnie Stockman:

Knowing that the conversation was coming, that I felt like although you could ask my daughter, who had to witness it, I managed to. While it got it escalated and it got louder, I didn't get emotional, so I didn't lose it. Where I wasn't rational, intentionally matched their tenor because I did not think that they were going to hear me and as a matter of fact, I matched it to the point where I got hung up on, which is not nearly as satisfying when you just click a button on a touchpad. But it got the message that I was not going to be spoken to like that. So I called back and then we were able to bring it down a notch, but again I didn't lose it. I was intentionally leveling their energy until they got that that wasn't how it was going to be. I don't know if it was a good example of what I should have done, but I know I didn't lose control.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's a hard thing to do, right? I mean, especially when it does get personal and emotional like that, it's really hard to not lose control. But at the end of the day you have to keep remembering that. You know, once it gets to that level, there's, there's, there's rarely a good outcome that you have to do something to deescalate it to get to an outcome.

Marnie Stockman:

It reminds me of two books one, the Daily Stoic Right, you can't always change what happens to you, but you can work on how you respond to it. And then the other one is Bring Yourself by Maury Tahirapur, which is how to negotiate. The subtitle is Something Along Negotiating Fearlessly, but it's really to your point of like. Finding the common ground is a really important point in there.

Nick Coniglio:

Love it. So let me ask a A question, just, you know, similar to what we've been talking about, just a little bit of a different way. But in terms of delivering feedback, I think a lot of times when we, when anybody delivers constructive feedback to anybody else, it's it's received in a very defense, with a very defensive posture. Any ideas and strategies to kind of get past that and overcome that?

Marnie Stockman:

Well, one strategy you'll certainly hear about is the, you know, say something positive, say some critical feedback, say something positive, although there have been recently some leaders saying that that's not the best way to do it, because sometimes the actions they need to take get lost in there. So it more comes down to something you said earlier, which is how do you get ahead of it to help them think about it themselves, and then how can you say it so they can hear it right, how can they question themselves? I think the show is brilliant in showing people how to not get defensive and keep your ego out of the way when you're listening, but I don't always think that's easy. Have you had situations where you've presented something and someone did get defensive, and what do you do to fix it? Because it's one thing if you can be proactive, but sometimes it doesn't always work.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned earlier, you know, about parenting and having to have those direct conversations with your children.

Nick Coniglio:

You know, we're at the age where you know you just get past your past, your children growing up, and then all of a sudden you realize that you have parents where you start having to have these tough types of conversations.

Nick Coniglio:

And I'll never forget and I'm getting to your question, bear with me on this but you know, we got to a point with my parents where they really should not have been driving anymore and that was something that they were very reluctant to give up and they were very defensive whenever we my siblings and I we had confronted them about it and it really was just a very hard situation to get past. You know, and I think the strategy to whatever degree of success it had but ultimately we got them to stop driving was to try to get them to see it from another perspective. Right, we of course were worried about them driving and hurting themselves, but we framed it from the perspective of you could also hurt somebody else, right? And from that perspective we couldn't forgive ourselves for not letting you drive any longer. Right, if something happened, god forbid something happened to them, but if something happened to somebody else that that would have just we wouldn't have been able to.

Marnie Stockman:

That was a motivator for you to have the conversation and then have it in a way that they could hear it then.

Nick Coniglio:

Exactly right, and it pulled back the defensive nature that they kind of reacted with just a bit. Not that it completely worked right. At some point we just had to take the keys away, right, but. But you asked about strategies. Right, it's again it's. It's OK, deliver the message, but have them, you know, deliver it in such a way and come up with a strategy where they can also see it from a different perspective. I think is is one approach that I would. I would try to go down in terms of dealing with somebody who's very defensive about things.

Marnie Stockman:

Well, I think the other piece of that is having the conversation that way, versus very respectful, and they you also had the relationship right when they knew that it was best interest at heart, and I think that is how Sassy was able to have the conversation with Rebecca. Rebecca knew that. I mean Sassy showed up because she knew it was their first anniversary and she was going to be there for her friend who she had not spoken to in years. And that gave you know, it was that political capital that she had built the relationship to, where Rebecca could hear and not be defensive. So sometimes when you lose yourself, like Rebecca had, you need a true friend, a critical friend that can give you the honest feedback like a family member.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, and it circling back to the very beginning of this episode when Ted was, he was being questioned by some reporters, right, and they were talking about the wins and losses or something to that effect, and Ted actually made the statement he said it's all about the connections with my players. I could care less what happens on this patch of grass.

Marnie Stockman:

You didn't know what relegation was right.

Speaker 6:

Yeah Well, Lloyd, right now I'm mostly concerned with the definition of relegation. What you got for me, Marcus.

Speaker 2:

Just wanted to know how you're feeling about the departure of Jamie Tartt.

Speaker 6:

Yeah Well, if I'm being honest, it breaks my heart a little. I think one of the neatest things about being a coach is the connection you get to make with your players. You know that's a loss that hits me a lot harder and it's going to stay with me a lot longer than anything that happens while playing a game on a patch of grass.

Marnie Stockman:

Yeah, exactly why Jamie was yeah.

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, and we talk about Ted Lasso in so many regards and I often talk about you being Ted Lasso, right but the fact that he is establishing the connections and the relationships with his players gives him such a head start in terms of being able to have those conversations you mentioned earlier. He used his political capital with the relationship with his team to allow Nate to present his ideas to the team and to grow, but also to allow him to present the ideas and the feedback to the team. So, as a precursor to having those direct conversations, you obviously have to have a relationship with somebody and, as as a leader, whether you're a parent, a coach, in a business environment, having the tough conversation is almost impossible without the relationship.

Marnie Stockman:

So think about when someone that maybe you're not close with gives you feedback that's probably accurate, but you don't want to hear it. So much harder to hear from the coach that you don't like, who's busted your chops about something, or a teacher that you don't respect, or you know somebody at work that you don't like, who's busted your chops about something, or a teacher that you don't respect, or somebody at work that you don't agree with. It's hard to hear probably legitimate feedback from them versus someone that you have built a relationship with.

Nick Coniglio:

No doubt. Well, this has been awesome Good stuff.

Marnie Stockman:

Yeah, Important stuff. Again, building EQ is top of the list. Right For leading yourself, leading others, for sure.

Nick Coniglio:

Perfect, all right. Well, I think that's all we got this time around.

Marnie Stockman:

Perfect, see you next time?

Nick Coniglio:

Yeah, absolutely Talk to you soon.

Marnie Stockman:

While you like, comment and share. We're going to wrap up with John Wooden's Pyramid of Success. We're going to rate Rebecca with John Wooden's Pyramid of Success. We're going to rate Rebecca, nate and Ted. And if you want to see all the characters, as usual you can go to leaditlikelassocom and check out our resources page. Today we're taking a look at self-control, confidence and honesty. So when it comes to honesty, that's just being honest in terms of thoughts and actions. Confidence is respect without fear may come from being prepared and keeping all things in the proper perspective I think that's the one that's really relevant to today's lesson. And self-control practicing self-discipline and keeping emotions under control. Good judgment and common sense are essential, although, we have said before, common sense ain't all that common, so we'll see about that. So, for honesty, this was a good episode for Rebecca, ted and Nate. They really did all find ways to be honest with themselves, so they all scored a 10. In particular, draw out that Nate was able to be honest with encouragement from Ted.

Marnie Stockman:

Maybe, a little too honest, but that's another point In terms of confidence. Too honest, but that's another point In terms of confidence. This episode was titled Make Rebecca Great Again, so she really displayed confidence in everything that she did. Ted loses confidence when he is stressed and, of course, concerned about the fact that his marriage is breaking up. He never loses confidence in his work, but for that reason we gave him a seven. And Nate this is something Nate really struggles with. We scored him from a zero to an eight. I don't think he ever really gains confidence, although certainly Ted, having him give the pep talk gave him a boost In terms of self-control. Again, good episode for Rebecca with a 10. With Ted, you rarely see Ted lose it, but he did lose it on Nate Again, stress does funny things to you. So we gave him a five and we gave Nate a seven. He was able to identify why he lacked confidence, but he still needed someone else to help move him and push him in the right direction. But he did finally get his act together and actually acknowledge you know, hand Ted the note about what he wanted to give a pep talk about. So we gave him a seven.

Marnie Stockman:

Hope you have a great week and see you on the next episode. Again, like, comment and share. We love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much. Bye, hope you have a great week and see you on the next episode. Again, like, comment and share. We love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much.

Nick Coniglio:

Bye.

Speaker 6:

All right, listen up, fellas. As of late I feel like y'all have heard enough of my jibber jabber, so I asked Nate the Great here to jot down a few of his thoughts and ideas about you guys and today's game. Let's focus up All yours, Nate.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

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Marnie Stockman

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Nick Coniglio

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