MERGER SHE WROTE
Merger She Wrote is a podcast for business owners looking to scale, sell, or transition their companies. Each episode unpacks the strategies behind successful exits, the pitfalls to avoid, and the steps to maximize value. Featuring expert insights and real-world case studies, this podcast helps you navigate the complexities of M&A with confidence. Whether you're planning your next move or just starting to think about the future, Merger She Wrote gives you the knowledge you need to make informed decisions and build a business buyers want.
MERGER SHE WROTE
EP 12 | How Effective Communication Shapes Great Leadership
Why do clear instructions still lead to team missteps? The issue isn’t what you say, it’s what they hear.
In this episode, communication expert Jenn Kaye joins Paloma Goggins to break down why even strong leaders struggle to get their message across.
From the surprising fact that 40% of communication gets lost in translation, to the identity gap where many professionals don’t even see themselves as leaders, Jenn reveals the hidden barriers that derail effective communication.
You’ll learn practical techniques, like swapping “but” for “and” to build trust, connection, and clarity. Plus, Jenn shares how transparent messaging during big transitions, like an exit, protects company value and keeps teams engaged.
Hit play to unlock simple yet powerful strategies that can transform the way your team hears you.
In the world of business, not all deals are what they seem. Fortunes rise, empires crumble, all with the stroke of a pen Mergers, acquisitions, hostile takeovers. Welcome to Mergers, she Wrote, where we examine strategies and stories behind the biggest deals in business, because in M&A, the real risks are the ones you don't take. Welcome to Merger, she Wrote. I'm Paloma Goggins, the owner of Nocturnal Legal and your host. Today we'll be talking about how, even if you think you're communicating in your business, the likelihood is you're probably not. Today with me is Jen Kay, and she's going to talk to you about how to better your communication and become the leader you've always wanted to be in your business. That's a big nut.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for being on today. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So I know we had a conversation before we sat down today and I think it really sparked a great way for us to just have this conversation at all, which was you were saying that there's kind of an epidemic per se that people don't necessarily view themselves as leaders, even though they're in roles where leadership is key. Can you tell us a little bit more about?
Speaker 2:it. I'd be happy to. It's this really interesting thing that happens. And let me start by asking you a question, paloma, when you were a little girl and your parents or people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, what were some of the things that you said?
Speaker 1:I wanted to be an oceanographer for a really long time, but I don't think I had. You know, it was like the little kid responses. I think at one point I wanted to be a judge, which is funny because I ended up becoming a lawyer, so I wasn't too far off. You're at least in the field.
Speaker 2:You're in the industry. Well, being a leader I want to be a leader is generally not a response that most kids have. As a matter of fact, when you think about it, our very first leaders are our parents, so it's very authoritative and hierarchical. Then our next level of leaders that we experience is our teachers and school. Again, there's a structure to that and, much like anything, when you have good teachers that really draw the best out of you, that becomes one thing. But you're looking at it through the lens of a student. So the level is here.
Speaker 2:The first time you actually experience what we might consider some type of self-governance or self-leadership is college, and that could be a little suspect, depending on your training and where exactly you're leading yourself or recovering from where you led yourself the night before. So that's really the first time where you get to make your own choices and you have this self-awareness of where you are going and how you are making decisions. Then you get into the workplace and then it's dependent upon. Do you have some great leaders who have modeled? What leadership is that make you feel seen, that challenge you to grow, or have you had leaders that made you feel diminished, that didn't hear you that were always interrupting, that chose others around you, and so you never really felt seen, and what happens is we model and emulate the leadership that we've experienced. You might take some leadership classes somewhere along the way, or maybe inside of an organization.
Speaker 2:They've got a really great leadership development curriculum right and know the importance of growing leaders, and if you haven't, you're, frankly, just making it up on the fly. You're, frankly, just making it up on the fly, and so if you've had poor leaders, then you have this subconscious belief let alone of what you learned earlier in your life around. Oh, I don't want to be that, so I'm not going to be a leader Not recognizing that at all times, you are, if nothing else, the leader of your life, the leader of your family, even in a relationship, you are co-leaders in the relationship. So I recognize that's not even inside business. That idea of leadership, though, isn't something that's front and center, and so we use the language relatively flippantly. Oh, you need to be a good leader. What does that mean? And at the end of the day, after longer than I care to admit I know after quite some time.
Speaker 2:what I've found is that, one, there is no one way to lead, and that, two, the more you know yourself, the better you are able to create what your unique blend or brand of leadership may be.
Speaker 1:You said so many good things and I was coming up with other things to spin off of that and I honestly my list is too long.
Speaker 1:I was going to say one of the things that I like that you said is that if you are having leaders that are modeling behavior that's poor, you start to disassociate from that leadership role and I think that's a really fascinating idea that you know you look at your leaders that are currently mistreating you or not giving you sort of what you need or want in your role as you're growing in business and you think to yourself I don't want to be like that.
Speaker 1:And to your point, you had said you know a lot of people model what they've learned and it's so crazy to to think that through about. I mean, even in law firms, you a lot of times see partners who have spent their whole lives being kind of mistreated in a lot of ways in toxic work cultures and, unfortunately, because they had to fight and battle their way to their role, a lot of partners tend to utilize the same. I don't it's not hazing, but it's just mistreatment kind of, in a way, of their associates and it's just this kind of perpetuating cycle unfortunately, sure, and that becomes the culture.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the thing about it is they're not, there's not malice in it, they're not being malicious, it's simply what they know.
Speaker 2:I actually worked with a company recently very interesting, and it's a law firm and even the language right partner, senior partner, and so there's this very hierarchical perspective and they wanted them to be more developed as leaders.
Speaker 2:They did not even use the word leader as part of their lexicon in the culture. So here we are working with these leaders who are mentoring others and they're having these wonderful new awarenesses about how they can improve their communication and communicate with greater confidence and presence, and the overthinking and how to do that and to really lead inside of that, and yet the culture is not yet able to meet them with that. So it becomes this interesting tension point and so we only hope that as we learn and grow and find those new patterns for ourselves in our identity as a leader, then we can become better, even in an organization where the culture you can change the culture. One person, marcus Buckingham, who started this whole exploration of strengths, talks about as a leader, you create a microculture. Every leader creates a microculture and there have been studies done around performance inside of retail, inside of research, around performance and engagement, and it all comes back to the leader and the leader recognizing how to help others play to their strengths.
Speaker 1:I love this topic, there's so many things to discuss and so I think, kind of spinning off of what you were saying, which is that a lot of people like the original point of this sort of introduction, which was that a lot of people don't recognize that, even if they're not the president of a large corporation, a lot of times people are in leadership roles. They might not be the key leader of the corporation, but they're potentially leaders of their smaller team or leaders of their life. And I was joking around with you before we sat down to record this podcast, that in hiring people for my business, I was looking for resources on how to manage my people and finding that all of the keywords had to do with leadership. But it was like, oh, ding, ding, ding, I apparently am looking for leadership resources, not management resources, right? So to your point, this idea that leader is this, you know, highly visible, very public individual that we kind of conceptualize in our mind, as, like you know, highly visible, very public individual that we kind of conceptualize in our mind as, like you know, the CEO of Pepsi or you know, the president of the United States.
Speaker 1:You know what this like gigantic leadership role when in many ways. We're a leader at all times, in just different facets. So I love that, and so I think this is a great segue to say that, and so I think this is a great segue to say you are a leader. Take that, absorb it. Now that you know that you're a leader in some capacity, whether it's of your business, of your people in your family I want to ask, jen, what are ways that you've seen people once they've realized that they are the leader, whether that's, you know, in the business or in their life? What are some things that are their biggest pain points? What are what are and I know there's so many things you can discuss. So you, you pick the channel. We'll go down that road.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. Fair enough, I think, first, if you're being really honest, is recognizing your resistance to leadership. You've you've got to know what you're working against in order to work for what you want, that's well said.
Speaker 1:In that so many places to go. I've asked like the most loaded question of Jen right now.
Speaker 2:I appreciate your multi-layered, loaded questions, paloma. So simply going back to then the challenges is, I think first is clarity, is knowing, in any situation, what you want. What's in the way we often jump to a how before the what. How am I going to solve that? How are we going to deal with this? Or, you know, how am I going to say this to that person? And you know, I'm sure you've had those nights where you're up at night spinning over what you're going to say and how am I going to solve that? How are they going to respond? How are they going to do this when often stopping and asking what before? How is the first place of challenge that we need to get to reduce overthinking and get to at least an initial point of clarity. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:I think for anyone listening who doesn't quite understand what like in the real world, asking what versus how looks like, can you give just an example? You know what I might actually be able to think of one I was thinking of. So it's a common issue among attorneys when working on transactions, especially large M&A transactions, that they're sort of I mean by default attorneys communicate all day long, and I think, unfortunately, at the speed at which transactions progress, sometimes communication can become assumptive I think is the best way to put it where people think that they're on the same page but we're really just talking at each other. And so I worked on a transaction in the spring and the firm that was working opposing me was a very sophisticated firm, and so my assumption was that they kind of were doing their side of things right.
Speaker 1:And so what ended up happening was we got to the kind of final stretch of closing and I had been working on a set of documents, and it just so happened that they had been working on the same set of documents that they weren't technically responsible for.
Speaker 1:They were my responsibility because they were like my client's documents, and so we kind of had this aha moment of we were both doing duplicate work on certain things and it really came down to the fact that we had had a bunch of calls about who was responsible for what. But when you went back and looked at the notes, we kind of didn't ask the what, we just knew the how. We knew how we were going to close, we knew how we were going to get from point A to point B, we knew all the documents that needed to be done. We went over a closing checklist, but the what part, which was like okay, you've got X, y and Z, I've got ABC, kind of got glazed over. And so I feel like it's it's kind of a little bit of a glib explanation because I'm trying not to share client information, but I think in essence was, we really had great, if you looked at it, we had great communication, but it really wasn't deep communication.
Speaker 2:It was the surface level. It was here's the transactional, here's what we're doing. When it needs to be done, who's doing what? It wasn't a moment to take a step back and I love the way that you said that of go a little deeper and say, okay, let's take a step back, and that is a challenge. So, from a communication standpoint and a leadership standpoint, when we're on the hamster wheel of a project, of a case, of anything of work, you're going, especially now with all of this increased technology and AI. You're going, especially now with all of this increased technology and AI whole other subject we actually need to pause, slow down, take several steps back and say, okay, what are we actually doing here? What's my role, what's your role? Are we on the same page? Where are we? And taking that time to get to that deeper what, rather than the transactional of what's getting done, what got done, what's what are we doing? It's the wait, a minute. What's happening, what's actually happening and what are we trying to do together?
Speaker 1:I feel like the concept sounds so simple at surface level, but implementing it can be a whole nother ballgame, and I think you know this is kind of a you know me saying a kind of Jen has helped me in sort of streamlining my communication. And so I think, from your perspective, when you work with leaders, regardless of their roles, you know what are you seeing that helps them kind of just turn that wheel just a little bit further to say, okay, this is how you've been communicating, this is how we tweak it so that you're getting better results, you're getting the end of the project gets completed how you anticipated it right. Because, to your point, you know, everybody has a different communication style, and so not only does your inability to maybe communicate clearly enough what you want and need cloud the issue, but, in addition, you're also dealing with someone else whose mind works potentially entirely different than yours.
Speaker 2:Completely. It's human nature to think that if we have a way of communicating or processing information and acting upon it, that other people would do it the exact same way. What's wrong with that? How could they not? And it's just natural human assumption. To your point of it sounds a little bit easier said than done, and when you can keep in front of your mind that the greatest myth is that everybody else sees things the way that I do, they think the way that I do, and that they communicate the way I do, then you can begin to take a step back and translate. So I do believe that when it comes to communicating with confidence and presence, leaders need to be translators, and I believe actually you are. So I'll give you a very simple example. We'll play with your translation a little bit. So I majored in Japanese, I minored in Russian, I speak some Spanish, some French and a little Indonesian or Greek on a good day. I speak dog, cat and the occasional horse. I speak eldest child, which is different than middle or youngest child. Are you have siblings?
Speaker 1:I'm an only child, an only child. But you know what? That I feel like that whole idea of like where you are in your family, birthplace is crazy. That is a whole another conversation. It's, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a whole different layer. I speak dance and the dialects of argentine, tango and salsa. I speak some xbox 360, some sig sour 380. Like you know, we all speak multiple languages. You know you speak the language of dog. You speak the language of merger. You speak the language of acquisitions, by the way, mer of acquisitions. By the way, mergers and acquisitions not the same language, would you agree? Agreed, okay, so you speak the language of law. However, that's very different from other, and you see where I'm going.
Speaker 2:We're constantly in a state of translation and, depending on which hat we're wearing or which role we're playing, we are constantly in a state of translation and when we can think about it from the perspective that other people do not wake up in the morning wondering how to make your life miserable today. That's not. They're not setting out to make things challenging. Like you said earlier. They may simply have a different way of thinking or processing or looking at the information and doing things differently than you do. Your job as a leader is to learn what their language is Now, you don't have to be fluent in it. Let me be clear you can be a bottom line communicator, yet when it comes to pre-exit, you might need to speak the language of details for a while, and that doesn't have to be your strength. You don't have to be fluent in it. That's why you surround yourself with people who are fluent in that.
Speaker 2:There are people who communicate more from a people first and they want everybody to get along and be happy and collaborative, which is great.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you can't be coming from that space and sometimes, especially if you're a bottom line communicator, it's like oh, hold on, let me take a step back, use a few more words and include people in the conversation. It's just recognizing what strategy is going to best serve me in making sure this communication is heard. We go back to the first part of our conversation. Just because you're exchanging words doesn't mean you're communicating. Up to 40% of all communication I would hazard to say it's actually probably more than that can be lost between the transmission of the sender and the receiver, the communicator and the listener. Now, with all of the distractions we have with you know, phones and instant messages and ding-dings and everything coming up, I would suggest that has probably increased. Communication is actually when someone has heard what you intended to communicate in the way that you intended it, even if the words that they used to describe it are different. I feel like I just got on a soapbox, so I'll step back.
Speaker 1:No, I think all the things you're saying, I think, hit home for anybody who's in a leadership position and feeling the pain points of. I can't tell you how many times I've spoken with clients who are the owner-operator of their business or, you know, one of the co-founders, and they're struggling with not being heard right, people not doing the things that they want them to do, and a lot of it stems from communication. It's not necessarily that people are intentionally not doing what that person wants. It's that they can't fully understand or appreciate the level of, you know, performance that they're supposed to have, or whatever it may be, or they just don't know what's being asked of them.
Speaker 2:Yes, that too, it's not more complicated than that. And as leaders, as we grow let me put it this way we evolve and we grow as leaders. It's learning how to not take it personally. It's learning how to not take it personally. They're not understanding doesn't mean we're a bad leader.
Speaker 1:It just means we're learning how to communicate differently and, on the flip side, doesn't mean they're a bad employee. 100, because they just may not understand what you need or want, right? Um? I was reading, uh, bernie brown's book on um, I think it's like braving, braving to leader.
Speaker 1:I can't think of the title actually the wilderness um, it's, it has to do with leading, with vulnerability and and I think you had said it well in a separate conversation we had which is that vulnerability allows you to be honest about what you need and what you want, but it's not to be confused with oversharing, which I feel like maybe that's a more universally female problem to deal with. But I do think the interesting part about what Brene Brown talks about is that if you can't kind of peel back the layers and have some vulnerability in speaking with people and leading, in a way that kind of demystifies, like why we're doing the things that we're doing, right, because a lot of people they're, you know, I'm even seeing this in my own business, you know people will say like I know how to do it because we're working on that, but like, say like I know how to do it because we're working on that, but like why? Like clients will say I understand why you've put this in here because you've kind of told me, but like what's the deeper reasoning for this? And that deeper reasoning part is what really gets them. Because if they can't understand the whole picture, there's, you know, anxiety, there's concerns, there's all these lingering emotions, that kind of follow. So I think, maybe just shifting a little bit into some of the things that I'm seeing and you kind of giving some explanations too, to like round this out.
Speaker 1:You know, when someone is exiting their business and they have key employees whether it's 100, which I've seen and it's a little more impersonal or it's 15, and they've been with the business for 40 years Regardless, at some point during the transaction the owner has to tell them that the business is being sold. Granted, there's a lot of when to do it, whether offers are going to be made and negotiated prior to closing. There are some business owners who opt to wait until the final moment. And then, of course, offers are handed out, like around the closing or immediately on closing, which I think is sort of a whiplash disaster, but that's beside the point.
Speaker 1:You know, thinking about communication and vulnerability and kind of all the things that we've talked about so far, you know what are, what are some ways that someone who's thinking about selling and transitioning their business, how can they approach this and the communication that they're inevitably? I mean these are conversations nobody probably ever wants to really have because they're tough conversations, right they're, they're inevitably. I mean these are conversations nobody probably ever wants to really have, because they're tough conversations, right they're. They're conversations you avoid for as long as you possibly can as an owner.
Speaker 1:So you know what are ways that, when you have those tough conversations, that you can be better about communicating, knowing full and well that at all times, if you're acting as translator, having tough conversations layered on top of having to translate can be even more precarious.
Speaker 2:Multi-layered and wonderful question and exploration. So a few things. One, there are differences between insecurity, so the more insecure we are, the more we tend to overshare male or female, by the way vulnerability and influence. Okay, so there's some interesting dynamics in there. Coming back to what you think of as crucial conversations, or what people think of as I'm going to avoid this conversation as long as possible because I don't like the feeling of dissonance or conflict that it provides within me and what it boils down to is I don't know how to say it there's this magical gap between what we think, what we feel, and the words that come out of our mouth. We're thinking it, and maybe over and over and over and over, because we can't quite align what we're thinking with what we're feeling, let alone figure out the right words to say to the right person who may take it totally out of context. So it becomes a matter of what I think of, in order to be honest, authentic and transparent at all times. Now, there are levels of that, because there might be confidentiality issues. You're not going to go over, share information inappropriately, so it always helps to have advisors, whether they're in your organization and part of your organization, which I do think is important that you have that as well as a completely objective third party that is outside of your organization. That's one of the things that, frankly, I love about coaching is, I don't need to know the ins and outs of your business. What I need to know is what's important to you. Where do you feel aligned? What is it that you're both thinking and feeling, so that then we can craft and create the strategic messages that you can speak that feel like? Oh, that's exactly what I want to be saying. You're just spending so much time thinking about it and feeling about it that the words don't come, and so it becomes this strategy. So think about it. Level one of letting everybody know, regardless of how long they've been with the organization and regardless of how many people they are, there are some changes happening. Here's what we're thinking we don't yet have a timeline and not but and here's how we're going to keep you informed along the way, and that comes down to mid-level manager and so on. That that gets passed down and as a at the C-suite or as the founder you're modeling and letting them know. This is how we're going to communicate and this is how we're going to let others know about our decision-making strategy so that they feel like they're a part of it, because if they don't know to your point, they are going to make stuff up. Do you like that self-editing? I'm going to make shit up. Do you like that self-editing? I make shit up. Man, and we are meaning making machines, and so that's sort of level one.
Speaker 2:Then maybe set a cadence, because the exit starts at least two to three years before actual exit, a hundred percent. And so, as a leader, you've got to be thinking what's beyond exit, both for myself, which that's kind of another subject, as well as for the business and how I communicate that. So, when you think about it through the lens of transparency, here's what's happening, here's the cadence that we're going to communicate that. Whether that's a monthly town hall I'm sorry, that's quite all right. Whether that's a monthly town hall or a bimonthly update not necessarily a status update, but a story update this isn't just about the numbers and transactions.
Speaker 2:Going back to what's the deeper conversation, when you can connect with people as people and think about what might they be thinking and feeling right now, even to the point where, if you know, as an example, that you're going to be laying people off, letting the mid-level managers know hey, here's how we're going to communicate around that, and here's how caring we're going to be, and here's how we're going to language that we don't know what this looks like. We want to make sure that we take care of everyone as best as possible. Thank you for your patience as we navigate this and we will continue to keep you apprised as we learn and grow and make these changes, or we're all going through changes and I'm learning about leadership at a whole new level. Right now. I'm having to think about the business in ways that I haven't before. So again, thank you for your patience as we navigate these challenging times together. Then you humanize yourself as a leader by being vulnerable and authentic without going. Yeah, okay, here's the numbers, folks.
Speaker 1:Whenever Jen goes into like PR mode, I'm always just so impressed because the phrases she comes up with just sounds so great there's such, there's such like professional, corporate, like it. Just when you're saying them, even though I'm not even the intended recipient, I'm like, oh, I feel so much better. I strive to be able to communicate in that that sort of way that provides clarity, comfort, but still at that professional level, and I do think it's just an art form in a lot of ways, and obviously an art form you've crafted over many years of experience.
Speaker 2:It's what I love. I love helping people find the right thing to say at just the right time, first and foremost for them to feel like yes, that feels good for me, because the better you feel about what you say, no matter how challenging it is, when you know that you've said it the right way, no matter how hard it was, and that you set up the circumstances and the conditions, then you can say I felt good about that. Then others will at least hear it. They don't have to like it. People don't have to like what you say, as long as it's honest. When you think about the people that you know. I'd rather have someone be honest with me and lay it down, Even if I'm like, oh, I've got, I've got some mentors in my life that I go to specifically for that, and it's like, oh, oh, that hurt. Okay, you're right, you know you need to hear that, because otherwise we're constantly in a state of self-confirmation bias. So true.
Speaker 1:No, I think one of the risks once you become a leader, truly stepping into that role, is that you don't allow for the space to have even subordinates come to you and say, hey, I have to tell you something that's not working for me, because that's I think you know.
Speaker 1:We're talking kind of high level about all the ways to be a better communicator in a leadership role, but in a lot of ways, making room or space for someone who you are leading is also a part of this conversation. Like you're saying, like maybe the feedback based. You know, I think thinking about back to, like you're saying, college is the first time you self-lead, potentially, and how many times. You know the professor hands out at the end, of course, that you know you fill out the survey survey and you know if you've been kind of a jerk professor, you're probably going to get some pretty bad reviews and you know I always I thought that the professors that were willing to hand those out at the end of the semester were, you know, to me. I looked at it like good for you that you're going to read arguably, probably some of the shittiest messages about yourself in an effort to better yourself, and in a lot of ways, it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's hard to take constructive criticism and also maybe learn that you, as a leader, have a lot of room for improvement.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and to make it a safe place. I'll give you a couple of really practical examples, and you need to check me on time, by the way, because I'm having so much fun in our conversation.
Speaker 1:I think we're okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, okay. So two things. One, when I'm onboarding, let's say, a new vendor and I'm letting them know. Here's how I communicate.
Speaker 2:By the way, sometimes I get so far off in what I'm doing I may not get back to you in a timely manner. If there is anything that I do or don't do that you're like I can't do this, or I say something that doesn't land well, because I can be sometimes like a bull in a china shop, let me know. I need to. I actually I want your input because this is new for me. I'm used to doing things in a certain way, often by myself, so I need you to help guide me here. So, creating the space, as a leader, for people to come to you, and whether it's, you know, in a, rather than waiting for an annual performance review, have a monthly check-in. I like that you know and saying how are things going? What are you loving about what you're doing? What's getting in the way? Are you know? Is there any? Are there any systems or processes that you see that we might be able to improve?
Speaker 1:What if you ask that question, the what do you like and what do you dislike, or what's not working for you, and there's no, there's nothing I don't like as the response. Because I feel like that's a go-to response for someone who's an employee having that conversation with a leader, and I can probably guess that that's a go-to response for someone who's an employee having that conversation with a leader, and I can probably guess that that's not true Usually.
Speaker 2:Often what that does is reflect trust. So, again, the more honest you are and the more vulnerable you are, the more authentic you are, the more you're building trust, the faster the speed of trust authentic you are, the more you're building trust right, the faster the speed of trust. And so, let's, let's take it, let's, let's take a few steps back, kind of like we were chatting about the coffee stop, hold on, let's take a few steps back, say you know, I'd like to start checking in with you once a month, not because I want to micromanage your see, what you're doing, simply because I want to improve the experience of working together. I want to know and if I'm not asking I won't know, and I don't want to let too much time go by. So, setting the stage for what you're doing and why you're doing it, again, that deeper level of beyond the transaction. And then, when we do it, I'm not going to ask simply what you're getting done from a timeline perspective, I want to know what you're loving. So here's the question. This comes through the strengths-based leadership lens of not what do you like or dislike, because most of us are like it's a job, you know. If I tell you what I don't like. You're going to think I don't like doing that. Then you're going you're right, so here's the story. Then you're going to think I don't like doing it. And then you're going to think I'm a bad employee and that I don't want to be here, and then that's going to create all of these stories. So I'm just going to tell you I like everything, because I want to be a pleaser, because I right. So there's that. So, as the leader, it's your job to set it up, and then it might become.
Speaker 2:You might not get an honest answer from them the first time, the second time, maybe the third or fourth time, and yet, over time, as you're holding yourself present with it and saying so, out of all the things that you did just in the last week, forget the last month, the last week, what were taking the big brush stroke of what we call as work out of it and say what were the specificities? What specific things did you do in the last week that you really loved or that energized you? And they might have to think about it. I was like, oh well, okay, I don't know. Oh, I, oh, it was researching. Some people love research. Obviously not something you love, you know spreadsheets not so much, but it's like oh, I got to give this really great presentation to the client about this and there were some really great questions and they asked a question. They didn't know how to answer in the moment but I got to go look it up and so they're starting to make the connections about oh, I actually did love that or I did get energy from that. So by asking a different question or asking different questions, you are giving that employees the opportunity to look at their lens of what they do inside of their world of work differently, right? So it begins to go that way.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to another interesting example. And what did you say? Pr mode? I, I'm, I'm become very strategic and I love, I think, communication and I can clearly geek out about it. I really am. It can be so elegant and strategic and it's so much fun not to persuade but to influence people into hearing themselves and things differently.
Speaker 2:So, as an example, one of my clients she recently moved over to a new company and she's a little nervous. She's been in sales, big financial industry, has managed a huge portfolio and she was going into this new company. She's like, oh, I mean, there were many reasons that she left, and the truth was she left her leader. She didn't leave the company, she loved the company, but she left her leader and so she was going.
Speaker 2:You know what are some things I can say to the team, you know. So they don't. You know, I'm really, you know, cause I'm kind of insecure, but I don't know what to say, I don't know how to make the best use of them. So we actually strategized and spent some time going okay, well, what are your thoughts? What are, what are you feeling? And then let's put the words together. So another example of what before how? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you really uncertain about? What is it you really if, if you took all of the assumptions about what you're afraid of, other people would think, what would you say? You can always refine it from there and so. So we crafted this several different options for her to say I'm because she's like I'm not excited, yet I don't know which is honest to be able to say I appreciate everyone welcoming me so warmly.
Speaker 2:This is a very new experience for me. I would like to ask for everyone's patience as I learn your systems, your processes, your brand. If you're open to it, I'd like to meet with each one of you individually, just to get to know you so we can build a better relationship. I'm used to managing X number of dollars in a portfolio on my own, and so I haven't had the opportunity to work with a team like this before. And just so, again, letting them know it's that vulnerability and going a layer deeper, of still being honest and authentic. And I said you know you could always challenge yourself and say I'm not sure if I'm excited yet or nervous, or just trying to get through the first 30 days. And she said I can say that you don't have to tell them you're excited.
Speaker 1:I like this idea of.
Speaker 1:I think there's like some take-home messages for people who are listening, who are either the owner operator of their business or in a leadership role within a company that's growing exponentially and ultimately the goal at some point, no matter what right.
Speaker 1:I was having a conversation oh man, I'm going to blink on how I was listening to this but it's like the idea that death doesn't spare any of us and, as much as you would love to live forever as the owner operator of your business, inevitably the evolution of life will make the exit of your business an essential part of your life, and so, while you might be 15 years out from exiting, three years from exiting, or you need to exit now because your health has deteriorated, and maybe this wasn't the plan right, but you, you, maybe you're in sort of this, this realm of like at some point if you own a business.
Speaker 1:This is part of your reality. Um, things that I'm hearing from you that are take-home messages that can be utilized no matter where you are on this timeline, is that you're strengthening your business and, realistically, probably in in a roundabout way, increasing revenue by increasing the production and happiness and performance of your employees and the people who rely on you day in and day out to provide directives and provide them with overarching goals of where the company's going and what the plan is, but also this idea of like demystifying also your own communication and and maybe finding some of the things that are your why in the process. Right, because the more you dive into this topic, which I absolutely love, communication Um I well, that was one of my majors in undergrad was communication and psychology and uh, the rhetoric courses were my absolute favorite.
Speaker 1:And so whenever you go into PR mode, I'm always like, oh, that is it, that's the wording, that's amazing. But you know, I think sometimes not sometimes all the time owner operators are so lost in the mess of daily operations that they don't carve out that CEO time to really say okay, how do I make this better for not just me, but for everybody? Because when the machine is well-oiled, not only are you preparing for an exit in a way that is potentially 10 times smoother, right, maybe getting rid of the key man syndrome. We have that all the time in M&A, where you're the sole person who knows what's going on, when and where, and you're kind of the conductor, and exiting your business is practically impossible because you don't have a playbook, you don't have employees that know what to do without your direction, and so as much as like, this communication topic that we've talked about today is sort of overarching, because we were trying to keep it. You know, like there's so many avenues for us to discuss that we were trying to keep it sort of applicable to everyone.
Speaker 1:But I mean, I think that this is such a pivotal place to start for anyone, no matter where you are in your leadership development process, and just listening to you and talking to you has given me so many insights about kind of who I am as a person, and not only the way that I lead and talk to others, but also sort of core traits that you didn't realize underpin your communication defaults. So I want to, before we wrap up, I want, I want to talk about two things. Uh, one was before we started recording. You gave me an awesome analogy over coffee about skyscrapers. Yes, that's one of them I want you to go into. The other is and you said it very briefly, you said and not, but I want, I want you to go over those two things for the listeners because I think they are such powerful tools or thought process or mindset changes.
Speaker 2:Okay, do you have a preference on where you'd like me to start? No, okay. A good way to think about yourself as a leader and your communication, your communication strategies as you grow and evolve as a leader from owner, operator, founder, scaling, exit and so on is through this idea of let's 10, 20 story building. Right At the ground floor there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of people coming and going. You see everything happening all at the same time. There's sounds, there's things to look at. Maybe you've got smells wafting. There's sounds, there's things to look at. Maybe you've got smells wafting. There's a lot of stimulation right, and as a subject matter expert or someone who's an expert, who has this, you've started this business. You're like you're in it. That's all over it.
Speaker 2:Well, as you grow, you start to go up the stories in the building Carolyn Mace talks about this and as you go up each level, you start to the scenery changes. You start to hear different sounds. Maybe there's fewer people you start to lean into. Oh, what systems and processes do I need to create so that the ground level doesn't just stop right, so that there's still all of these things happening? Your vision starts to change. You can see a little bit more, you have greater scope. As you get higher up and you get to that 10th or 20th story, you're at the top Now. Granted, that's also where the lease is the most expensive, right, so you've paid a lot. Maybe you've even separated yourself from people along the way. Nobody really talks about. Leadership can be lonely, right, so you're up there. But you go from this vision to seeing this vision, maybe even 360, right, and so you have a greater standpoint. You have a greater vision of what's possible and the systems and process to support that. So, at the ground level, maybe you start with confidence in yourself and as you get a little bit higher, you lose confidence in yourself, but you start to and you start to grow your confidence in your systems and processes and people. It becomes that.
Speaker 2:And when you think about your evolution as a leader and in your communication, as you're just going up the stories and you're going to need to develop something different at each stage so that when you get to, oh now I'm at the exit strategy, well, you got to sell off all that beautiful furniture, I mean, you're going to live in that penthouse forever, to your point, death comes, so it might be.
Speaker 2:Wow, this has been a really beautiful view and I'm so thankful and I've let everybody at every floor know why this is important and what we're building and how it serves others and what's so meaningful about it. It's that depth that we were talking about. And then you sell things off and the day comes when you are going to step out of the penthouse and take the elevator back down to the first floor and now your identity has completely shifted and you need to be able to answer for yourself who am I without the business? Who am I if I'm not the founder? Who am I? Who is my identity as Paloma Goggins, no matter what? So that the moment you walk out of the business, you walk out those front doors, you say, wow, that's a damn beautiful building and it's running without me.
Speaker 1:I love that analogy without me, I love that analogy. Also. You had said previously and I'm just quoting Jen at this point that when you get to the top floor you know it can be easy to operate in a silo. Yeah, and so I think one thing that's often overlooked by individuals who are owner operators is that when you get to that C-suite, that top level, the penthouse, you have to start looking outside of your organization if you don't have the advisors internally to help kind of navigate and guide you in ways that you don't know 100% in outside advisors. And there's not a single president of a publicly traded company on the stock market that's crushing it that hasn't looked to outside advisors. And this idea that you can do it alone is such a horrible misconception that just permeates the world of business.
Speaker 2:You are not meant to do it alone, and you are not the only one having this experience. The challenge is you've got all of these leaders at the top floor of their penthouse all looking at and not realizing that they're looking at each other, and they should get together for coffee once in a while. I love that.
Speaker 1:Wave at your neighbor, that's across the way. Give them a call Phone, a friend, okay. So in closing I want you to talk just about the and but Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:The single most impactful thing that anyone, any leader, can do is begin to change any but that you say to an and this is not a grammatical debate as to the appropriate use of the word but or however. But creates a disconnect in the brain, so that your brain actually can't recognize what part of the sentence that you're saying is true, so it focuses on whatever was last said. Now there is a strategic way to do this. However, it's for the advanced only, so you're going to have to ask me back for a second time, because I'm not going to introduce it here, because everybody will go oh, I want to do the advanced and I'm like no, I see this every day.
Speaker 2:Butt becomes this filler and we don't recognize that what we're doing is we are creating a disconnect, first and foremost for ourselves and everything we do. Oh, it's like oh, I can't believe. You know, I said well, but here's what we're going to have to do better next time. Or oh, now I'm going to have to do a follow-up, or the old butt sandwich. Well, you know, you did a really good job, but here's where we could see some improvement. What is that Like so and allows for everything possible and means more than one thing can be true at a time and creates connection. But disconnect and connect. I'm trying to make that as simple as possible. So in that, I say, wow, okay, that meeting didn't go so great and here's how I'm going to follow up.
Speaker 2:It's a great way to acknowledge there's disagreement when you find it going back to the authenticity, transparency and honesty piece of asking someone, whether it's a client or you know another law firm. So you know, how do you see this? And they tell you and you're like wow, thank you for telling me. Always lead with gratitude. I think of communication like equations. So you start with gratitude and I'm so glad you let me. I'm so glad you let us know that. And and I'm so glad you let me, I'm so glad you let us know that and and would you agree that we see that completely differently? And would you agree that we are not on the same page with this? The moment they say, yeah, I can totally see that you have buy-in, which now has influence. So it's not a conflict, it's a conversation, an and allows for everything to keep moving forward and creates connection, no matter how challenging the conversation is.
Speaker 1:I love this concept. Jen told me this concept like a few months ago and it made me realize I use, but I'm sure people use, but all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1:But it's just such a, it's such a natural part of my conversation that once I had this conversation with Jen where she's using the and versus, but I realized it is such default programming that it does. It does shift your mindset. I think your example of you did great, but here are some ways you can improve. Certainly, as an employee hearing that throughout the years, the good job part is meaningless after the butt, because there were things that I could have improved upon and the butt makes it sound like the good stuff doesn't really count. So to your point. I think your homework for today, listeners, is to go home. Don't even try it in the workplace because that's advanced and you should talk to Jen, but you should and you should go home and try it out with your spouse, with your kids, with your siblings, whoever is your connection in this world. Try and use and in your dialogue and try and expand that into the way that you communicate, because I think it is exceptionally powerful.
Speaker 2:I know it's a small thing and it seems so silly, and you did exactly the right thing. Communication is a habit. We don't even realize what we're doing out of default. So when you say it, immediately just change it. Correct it, correct it in the moment and then people will start looking at you, going what are you? Are you not saying but why are you? And then tell them you can enroll your kids, make it a quarter or a buck every time you say, but have a fun with it. I love that, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that idea. Well, we could talk forever. I really appreciate all of your insights today. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being your wonderful self. I love our conversations and I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in today. Oh, the name of that book did come to me, by the way, while we were talking. It's Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, in case you wanted to read it. But thank you for listening today. Thank you, and thank you for listening today. Look how terrible my butts are. Thank you for listening today. Please like, comment and share, and listen in again next time. In the world of business, not all deals are what they seem. Fortunes rise, empires crumble, all with the stroke of a pen Mergers, acquisitions, hostile takeovers Welcome to Mergers. She Wrote where we examine strategies and stories behind the biggest deals in business, because in M&A, the real risks are the ones you don't take.