We all experience fear at some point in our leadership journey, and this week I dive into the topic with my guest Jennifer Thornton, Founder and CEO of 304 Coaching. In this episode, we speak about understanding fear and how it impacts our responses as leaders. Jennifer discusses how we can step out of that fear state in order to move from crisis management towards collaboration and innovation.
Jennifer Thornton is a sought-after business strategist, specializing in startups and large value-based organizations who assists her clients in building talent that complements their business strategies to ensure exponential growth. Her unconventional approach in creating innovative workforce development solutions for companies has driven her consulting firm into rapid growth with its Conversational Intelligence® training, Executive Coaching and Leadership Academies.
For more than 20 years Jennifer has been developing her expertise in Talent Strategy and Leadership Professional Development throughout her career as an HR Professional. She’s led international teams across Greater China, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, expanding into new markets, managing franchise retailers, and developing key strategic partnerships.
In this episode, we talk about understanding fear and how it impacts our responses as leaders. Jennifer shares how we can step out of that fear state in order to move from crisis management towards collaboration and innovation.
Jennifer also emphasizes the importance for leaders inviting their teams into the conversation, letting their voices be heard and talking about finding solutions. Effective leadership starts with the ability to know that you might not have all the answers – but together in teams, there's a chance to build knowledge and capability to move forward collectively.
We dive into the Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership, and Jennifer gives some very interesting examples of how they show up when we are dealing with change. You definitely don’t want to miss this!
Find out more about Jennifer on her website: www.304coaching.com
Connect with her through LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferrthornton/
- I'm Celine Williams, and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Jennifer Thornton, founder of 304 Coaching. Jennifer developed her expertise and talent, strategy and leadership professional development over an exciting 20 plus year career as an HR professional. She has an unconventional approach to building innovative workforce development solutions for companies who are facing breakthrough growth and accelerated hiring patterns. Thank you for joining me today, Jennifer.
- Thanks for having me. It's going to be a good time.
- I’m really excited. I love when people have worked in these kind of cutting edge breakthrough type spaces and we get to have conversations around leadership. So very excited for this. I always like to start with the big broad question, which is when you hear the idea of leading through crisis or leading in challenging times, what does that mean for you or what? What's your experience with that been?
- I think what comes up for me is fear and understanding how fear impacts our our language, our responses, and really understanding that fear is just a chemical reaction that our brain is required to do. It's what it does to keep us alive. It creates fear so we don't do things that hurt us. But unfortunately, fear comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. So for me, I think what comes up is, is fear.
- So tell me. Tell me more about that because when I hear that, I think fear is what prevents us from leading effectively through change and that it's sort of inevitable with change or crisis at the same time. But I want you to know, I'm assuming that even beyond that is kind of what you're referring to.
- Absolutely. So you think what happens when we're in crisis in a crisis management... You know, when you think of what crisis management is, it's highly directive, right? It's the building is on fire. You need to get out. We don't talk about it. We don't collaborate. We get like we are in crisis. So we all stand up and we do what we're told. And it's highly directive. And I think that when crisis hits, leaders go into that mode and they should, you know, buildings on fire get out. That's appropriate. But what happens, I think, is because, you know, when those things happen, we have an initial response that's just, you know, this is what we have to do right here in a second. But then fear starts to settle into leadership. And so then it's like, well, what's going to happen next? Or how am I going to make payroll this quarter? Like all of these questions start to come in and I think what then happens what I see a lot of times happening is then we start to stay in that crisis mode because it's very comfortable. Right? You know, do what I say. I don't want to talk about it, because if I talk about it, someone might not someone might realize I don't know what I'm doing. And so people start to stay in crisis mode. And I think we saw that a lot in 2020 you know, COVID hit, you know, go home, everyone get out. Like, stop talking, stop touching each other. You know, we had this initial, like, movement, but then we stayed in that crisis mode because we didn't know what was going to come next. And that's what I think we started to see team start to really break down, you know, people who weren't used to maybe working remotely. That seemed really scary. They didn't know what to do. And so they did crazy things like, you know, don't leave your computer. You have to always have your computer on. So I know you're right there, you know, like really crazy stuff. And so I think that's what happens when we're in crisis mode. We we make some initial decisions. But then when that fear starts to settle in, that starts to snowball and starts to create a habit of crisis managing. And once we get into that habit, we're not leaders anymore. We're just, you know, we're just directors and we're just directing and telling people what to do. And we've lost all sense of actually leading people and influencing them.
- I love that concept. I talk a lot about how I hate the term manager because managers manage things and leaders lead people, and what I hear inside what you're saying is that it becomes a matter of managing things which then results in telling people what to do as opposed to really leading.
- Yeah, absolutely. It's exactly what happens. And, you know, when we are in fear, the way our brain is wired to work is we then go into our primitive brain, the part of our brain that keeps us alive. But what we need to know about that is it actually when that piece of our brain is turned on and turned on like you are in fear, like am I is my company going to make it through this economic crisis? When you're in that much fear, your prefrontal cortex starts to shut down. And when that shuts down, you're you're you're you're a little bit of a pickle, I guess, because that's where good things happen, like collaboration and ideas and emotions, our ability to control our emotions and really to stay calm. All that happens and that part of our brain. But when we sit in fear and we don't recognize it being fear and we just let it happen to us, then the stuff, the part of our brain that we really need to actually lead through crisis is actually turned off. And that starts to cause all kinds of problems because and that's the only place you can lead from is fear, because that other part of your brain is no longer working properly.
- So when someone is in that state of fear, like if someone is actually aware enough to say, oh, hold on, that's what I've been operating from someone who thinks and says, oh, yeah, I, I recognize myself in that. What can they do to step out of that fear response, especially if they've been in it for what is it, 10 months at this point in time? Right? And I guarantee we both know people who have been in that for the last ten months.
- Yeah, I always say 2020 was the shortest and longest year all at the same time. Right? So if you're in that place where you do feel like, you know, you have been being really short with people, maybe you haven't learned anything new. I think that's always one of my big things. I look at people when they're in crisis management, like, what did you learn from your team today? Well, nothing, because I had to tell them then I'm like, OK, you're working out of fear. You're working out of a place of not being able to collaborate. And so if you're feeling some of that in you right now, the first thing to do is to stop and just start to think about where is that coming from? You know, it is it is a chemical response. And I think a lot of times when we start to recognize it is just a chemical response.There's no truth to that fear. You know, when you walk up to a cliff and you look over and your body, does that somersault like your stomach's like, oh, like when you look over, you're not falling. Your body's just telling you hey take a step back. That's too close to the edge.
- Right.
- And I think when we're leading and we're in fear and we are worried about all of these things and yes. Am I going to make payroll or am I going to be able to make my investors happy? Those are all things to be concerned about. But when your body is chemically reacting to it, just remember, it's just your body stepping into fear. You can step back from that and, you know, start to just accept that it's a chemical reaction and then start to really say, all right, if I wasn't in fear or if I didn't have to worry about this, you know, if if it's maybe it's I'm trying to make my investors happy. But I also have to worry about the budgets this month. If I did not have to worry about X, what would I do with Y? Because whether you can step away from either side of those, it allows your brain to start to problem solve. And then as your problem solving, you're starting to use that other piece of your brain that can then start to take back over and reduce your fear. Any time you're starting to just think about moving forward, you will reduce fear.
- That's so. I think of people who don't see a path forward because they're so used to listen, we all like the illusion of certainty, right? To some extent, everyone likes the illusion of certainty. And here's what my five-year plan is and here's where it's going to look like. Right? And I'm guessing from your laugh you, like me, don't really love the idea of a five-year plan because nothing is an impossible certainty to try and guess. So for people who are used to that way of operating and struggle to plan for the future without that illusion of certainty, because it is an illusion, how can they are there questions they can ask themselves or how can they sort of shift into that problem solving for a future when they're struggling to see a future?
- Right. I'm so glad you brought that up. I think one of the future skills that are going to still be paramount to successful leaders is leading in unpredictability.
- Yes,
- It's going to be a core competency. You know, we get our little core competencies and can you communicate and can you do this? I think leading in unpredictable times, that's one of the most important core competencies. And so if you are in that place where you have experienced certainty, but going forward, you know, news flash, you will not know no one is going forward in the world you know, starting to look at when you're looking at your day, where can you learn, where can you be flexible in, you know, it's not that whole like have plan A,B,C, like that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, making decisions for what, you know, today, but being very futuristic. And, you know, today here's what we know and here's the direction we go in. And I think leaders who talk that way start to have this open dialogue about growth and uncertainty. So if I say to my team, you know, 2021, you know, there's going to be some surprises. We don't know what those are yet based on our predictions, here's what we're thinking and here's how we're going forward. But at any time, things don't look like that, we want you to come to us and we're going to come to you and we're going to want you to be open to us, being flexible to ensuring the viability of this business in the future.
- Right.
- Just by going out and saying that opens your brain up to it being OK, because you've kind of said it to people and you've said it out loud. And saying it to your team creates this environment where other people then go, it's OK not to lead in predictability, like my leaders say this is how it's going to roll and then they're doing great. So I can roll that way too. But I think you just have to start to think that, you know, and learning is so important. And the other big competency that I think that we'll see in the future is really not hiring experts to lead that are experts in a topic. I think what we're looking for now in the future are leaders who can bring in really smart people and know how to deploy them.
- Hmmm
- And that's really different on how we've looked at people like you were the best I.T. programmer. So then you were the manager of I.T. programmers and then you were the best manager so that you were the director. But along that way, if you did not learn how to leverage talent and leverage knowledge from other people and learn from other people, then you're probably going to stall your career out because the further you go up, the more important that is. But I really think in the future, even early managers, they're going to have to learn how to understand the strengths of everyone on their team, be OK not knowing things, and be very good at knowing what people do know and deploying them.
-I think that's so important. I think we many people, not everyone by any stretch, but there's a lot of people who feel very threatened when people have a deep knowledge of something that is not their deep knowledge of something. And I see that a lot in new leaders where they feel like they have to try and learn everything and and, you know, be the holder of all the information as opposed to trusting that Billy in the corner is the expert in that thing, and I don't need to know that thing, I need to know how to let Billy do his thing. I need to trust that he is the expert or she is the expert. And it's OK that I am not.
- You know, it's interesting, what I find is as people start to progress in their career, they don't reattach success. And what I mean by that is when you're an individual contributor, your success is attached to physically checking off the to-do list and you get told you're doing a great job. You got your projects done early and you're like, check, check, check, look at me. I'm really good at what I do and that's what I've got. That's what success looks like unconsciously to me. Then you get promoted to a manager, maybe you only have one person. So you're still in those trenches, right? And so you're still attaching success to what you're physically doing. And I think that's the biggest, one of the biggest things we have to do as we move up, we have to reattach what success looks like. And at some point, if you've got a larger team or even a team of two, your success is just like you talked about. It's knowing how to deploy people. And if you can reattach what success looks like, then that allows you to lean into it because you're going to want to be successful. But you really have to stop and say, what do I what does success mean to me and what do I want to be known for and how do I actually go and do that? And it can no longer be individual contributor. Check the box stuff.
- I think it's also I think organizations need to redefine what success is for those leaders as well, because I think some of the and tell me this is your I'm very comfortable with you saying that's not been my experience. Céline, you're way off base. My experience has been that organizations, the way they're defining success for leaders of a lot of levels, still involves the checklist. It still involves a lot of that. What to your point, is really individual contributor success as opposed to great deployment of individual contributors. And I think leaders, a lot of them are probably feeling that tension between here's what the company is saying, defines success. And that holds me back. If they are so inclined to deploy people from actually doing it the way they would otherwise.
- Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think it makes sense, because if you have gone through your entire career and you've always attached success to that individual contributor, check the list and now you're a vice president, guess what you're going to expect from all your directors. So we've created this monster by always looking at it that way. And I think that it's a generation I always look at leadership and companies as generation, you know, and if you have promoted people, you know, someone start out an individual contributor today, their vice president, every every level underneath that person as a generation of leaders. And if you have great development of leadership and every time someone gets promoted, they actually get better than the generations behind them are going to be better and stronger. But if you have poor leadership at the top, then you promote promote people under poor leadership and then you create more generations underneath that. You're actually getting worse the further you go down and the further you know, those generations start to build, you're actually creating a worse situation. And that's the same thing that happens. You know, whatever you attach success to as you go up, if you don't change it in your mind, how can you change it for anyone else?
- I love that. I think that's a really it's it's all it's I mean, it's all systemic change, right? It's not just all the systems together have to start to shift and change in order for it to be successful and in order to redefine success.
- Absolutely. I'm working with this organization right now and they do I.T. consulting and they implement software. So it is highly, highly check the box. Right? If you're implementing software, there is a process, you check those boxes, you test all that stuff. And so they're doing incredibly well and they're growing. But what's happening is their directors and managers are really struggling because they don't know like they can't step away from the individual contributor work because it's all they've ever not only known, but it's like who they are. It's like what their ego is attached to. And it's really interesting working with the CEO and talking to her about what does she want to define success at at a manager level, a director and a vice president. And we have done that work. And what does success look like? And then we've talked about how do they notice that? How do they reward that? Because it's one thing to say it, but you also have to figure out how to reward it. And then how do you help educate people, especially in environments that are highly technical, like software implementation, super technical. But it's great when companies to step back and actually do that work, you know, to think about where her team will be in the next five to ten years, again, creating generations of knowledge. You know, who knows where she could be. She could, you know, own the universe if by that point.
- I’d be quite the job title. That was what you know.
- Yeah.
- Owner of the universe.
- Yeah. I think JLO already has that title.
- Yes. That's that's a fair, fair point. So. Let's hope that in 2021, we will start to step out of the crisis that we have been in in 2020. The change is constant. That who I'm not saying it's not, but this crisis, extreme change and uncertainty that has happened, assuming that that starts to shift in this year that we've just started. How would you suggest that any leaders, I mean, actually want to change that slightly. What would you advise any leaders stepping into this year hoping that these things change, hoping that this crisis becomes less crisis and more we have a sense of how we can roll forward? What would you advise them to do with their approach to 2021?
- Great question. I think what I advise them to do is to spend time with their teams and talking to their teams. And that sounds simplistic, but talking to them in a different way. You know what ... Asking people because you know the person closest to your service or your customer or your product, they really usually have the answers are just afraid to tell you the truth. And so really talking to people about where their head is and what are they seeing and look for common themes. And I think that's what we don't do either. We talked to one person and they say something like, oh, well, that must be the truth. But, you know, if we have a team of 20 people and we sit down collectively and we talk about what do we think this year is going to look like, what could it look like? What's the what's the craziest option? What's the best possible option? And no matter what the options are, no matter how it rolls out, the you know, what's with the you know, the unpredictable, you know, stuff that will show up because it will. What are our core basics no matter this is how we're going to work? And I think it's about not necessarily having like this business plan. And we're going to check these things. It's about finding the ability to be agile and ability to let people's voices be heard and knowing that you do not have the answers, but collectively in the room, there's a chance that together you and your team could find all the answers or most of them or know someone who knows them. And I think that's a big piece of it, too. You know, we've been talking about all the different new skill sets that I think will be important in the future. And I think learning how to not have the answers and to leverage your team to build capability and knowledge of how to move forward and moving forward through a team, not just by dragging a team with you, I think that's going to be a big piece of it. And that's what I would suggest for.
- You know, what I hear inside of that is the idea of getting, you know, instead of being right, getting it right.
- I love that. Yes.
- Right? So it doesn't make a difference if I have the quote right. And no, like, listen, I don't really believe that there's right or wrong. I think they're sort of best for the moment. Best. This is the best answer for now rather than there's a one singular right answer. But it's that detaching from I have to be the one with the answer and having an answer that is going to work best with the information we have right now is really more important.
- Yeah. And what we also have to know is that we can actually get addicted chemically to being right. And when we're right, we get a dopamine hit just like we get a dopamine head. If we get our sugar or we go shopping or whatever, whatever we like our dopamine hit from. And so if you're someone who's really enjoyed being right over the years, what we know about addiction is the more you get, the more you need for that same level of high. And I think we see that a lot with leaders where, you know, earlier in their career, they're collaborative, they learn things, but they're smart and they're doing great and they're kind of a rising star. And then later on, you look at them and you're like, I don't even know this person anymore. Like, they're you know, they won't listen to anyone. They're yelling at people. They, you know, you can't tell them the truth. You'll get in trouble, like all of those types of things. And likely that person's really gotten to a place where they're so addicted to their own viewpoint and being right, no matter if it's harmful to the company or not. They've just gotten to that place. And it's going to be really challenging for organizations if they have leaders who have that addiction to that dopamine hit and they have to be right and no one else in the room can be.
- Well. And what it makes me think of is I love that. By the way, I think that's a great. I appreciate you saying all of that because I think it's really important to say and it makes me think of the fact that we we value leaders who solve problems. And when we value leaders who for their problem-solving abilities, we're basically saying we're giving them a license to be right as often as possible. And so we're not. We don't always organizations don't always society doesn't always value leaders for the there are. Let's put it this way. There are better things to value leaders for than problem solving and being right. And I think that we have created this monster as a you know, as a the working world.
- Yeah, we absolutely have. And the other thing that I think we should value more is failure. Because.
- Yes, you are speaking my language. Yes.
- The other side of failure is innovation, and so I talk to people all the time and they'll call and they're like, you know, my company, they just don't innovate. They don't come with me with new ideas. And chances are the reason why and actually the only reason why is because they haven't been able to fail. And if you cannot innovate without a path of failure, not, you know, killing your career. And I think people don't understand that. They want people to be innovative, but yet perfect the first time they try to fly the plane and that doesn't work. So that's a big piece of it, I think, too.
- I totally agree. I last week I was running a workshop and I was to I literally was like, we have to stop thinking about failures, failure, because people we're not it's so hard for people to make that mind shift. Failures practice. And you know what practice gets you? Practice gets you moving forward. Practice makes things better. I hate practice makes perfect. But how do you become a better piano player? How do you become a better singer? How do you become a better anything? You practice. You know what that is? Failure over and over and over and over again. But when we call it practice, we're all OK with it. So that's it has to be part of I agree with you, innovation, leadership, continuous improvement. You want to be an organization that gets better over time and doesn't remain stagnant. Failure has to be a piece of that.
- It has to be a piece and it has to be OK to get better every day.
- Yes.
- And I always say as an executive, make growth cool.
- Yeah.
- So if you walk in and you are, you know, at the you know, you tell everyone you're the smartest person and everything you know is right. And like, you're just you've just learned, I guess, everything in the world you ever needed to learn. And you were that's that your bucket's full of knowledge. And so many people lead that way out of fear. They don't want people to think they don't know what they're doing. But what that does, it says no one gets to grow like where you are is where you are. But when leaders talk about, you know, I grew or, you know, I thought this way, but I've changed my mind or I could do it this way, but I found this faster way to do it or I did that and it blew up in my face. But I'm glad it did, because now I know not to do this and I know to do this. All that conversation tells people it's OK to innovate, it's OK to grow, it's OK to learn. And I think those are the organizations that will do the best in the future, because, again, if you're willing to do all of that, unpredictability won't be scary because, you know, you'll have options to figure it out.
- Yes, I 100 percent could not agree with that more. I get very frustrated with how we often and we as like the societal we not you know, it's very broad generalization. I fully acknowledge that. But how we often value confidence as certainty. Right? It means that you say one thing and then you do that thing no matter what. That's not, confidence to me is being able to admit mistakes and admit when you there's a better way to do things and actually change when you have better information. And the more leaders can lean into that idea of confidence, in my opinion, the more successful they can be in the more successful organizations can be, because it really is about getting better information, learning from that, leaning into what the next step of it is. And not just because I said that I was this way when I mean think I was this the joke that I always say, imagine all the things that you said you were when you were 17 or 20 years old. Do you still what do you want to do? You want to die on that hill? Is that the hill you want to die? Because I certainly do not.
- I do. I definitely do not.
- But it's basically like what you're basically saying is whoever you can't change, like, that's that's the implication. Or it has to be so glacially slow that, you know, the change is minor over 20 years. Isn't it much more fun to grow, to be constantly growing and evolving and transforming?
- Yeah. And get excited about where you're at. And I think that, you know, when I am working with the executives or someone that's working in their career, they just they think there's some finish line out there and they cross that finish line and everyone's going to say, you made it. And I'm like, no, life is practice. Like it's like yoga or martial arts. Like it is a practice and that's life. There's no finish lines. And if you want to be a kind of person who has a finish line with your personal growth or your personal journey, well, unfortunately, the finish line isn't very fun because there's not much left after that. It's I think that, you know, wherever I am today, you know, good, bad or indifferent is just where I am. I'm just on my journey. And when you start to accept that, it's really freeing and again, removing that fear and then predicted unpredictability becomes so much easier because I'm just where I am and the situations just where it is and we'll just all keep moving and figuring this out. And it's just such a different way to approach it than this perfectionism. The first time we do something, it needs to be one hundred percent perfect or everyone's losing their job. Like it's just it's not reality.
- It's a process, not an event. Right? It's not a it's not a one time. I've done I have evolved to where I know it's a problem. That's just not that's not real. But it's very hard for people to recognize that, especially because we value in school. We value in so many things this idea of getting off, of being right, of it being this one time checkbox, right or wrong, we create this idea that it is a it is an event. Everything is an event. Full stop.
- Full stop.
- I love I love that, so I want to ask you, I know you have some you've done some work on the seven deadly sins of leadership and things like that. And I want to ask you, what are the things that when especially when it comes to change and crisis, but I mean, generally because leadership in general is interesting to me. But what are a few of the really terrible things that hold leaders back in times of change and crisis and, you know, 2020 and 2020 type years?
- And whatever or whatever, 23 and 24 will bring us because it'll be something interesting. I can guarantee that's the one thing I can guarantee. So I think that when you think about the seven deadly sins are like pride and greed and all that. So one of the ones that you start to see first when people are in crisis is wrath. And that is if you do not do exactly what I say, exactly how I say it, you're in trouble. If you want to be different than me, you're in trouble. If you want to do your job in a way that works for you, but I do it a different way than, by gosh, you're in trouble. And this wrath of like if you don't think like I do, if you don't work like I do, if you're not exactly like me and you're not thinking exactly like me, then you are in trouble. You will be judged and you job is in jeopardy. And I think that one so dangerous for a thousand reasons, that other person in fear. So now they are struggling. So you what you want, you've just turned off. And any time we start to think that everyone has to think just like us or be just like us, then why do you need to hire people? Like, why don't you just run the company by yourself? You know, we have to hire people to do things that we don't do and we have to let them go into it. Hire experts, let them be experts, don't get in their way. I think wrath is one of the biggest ones I started to see. Gluttony is one of the ones. And I think about gluttony. It's really that gluttony for that dopamine hit. I have to be right. I'm the smartest person in the room. I save the company or I made this decision. And just this is just gluttony for me, me, me, me, me. I think that's one of the big ones and then one of my favorite ones that I always see is sloth. And those are those people who are not willing to do anyone else's job or help anyone else, but they are more than willing to judge and tell. And they just sat back in their chair and tell everyone else what they should be doing. But they haven't lifted a finger all day long. So those are some of the ones I see probably most often.
- So is another way of and again, feel free to tell me that I'm way off base on this, but is an aspect of or another way of saying wrath, that idea of sort of the the directive command and control type of leadership is would that be a way of framing it? Potentially?
- Yes, it is definitely that direct and control. But it's also you will be in trouble if you do not think and act as I will think and act. I don't need any I don't need any variance of opinions and have a variance of opinion. Then that direct control will come out and come out very strong.
- It's so interesting to me because it immediately makes me think immediately I go, OK, I can totally see why that comes out in times of crisis or change, because it's the illusion of control. It comes back to if you are agreeing with me, if you're doing what I say, I'm creating an illusion of control in a time where there's no control, no control, and it's just an illusion.
- It's just an illusion. And a leaders need for that illusion will crash a company.
- So. Do you often do you find that these three manifest themselves, if you like, in the same person, or do you find it's different types of leaders who show up with each of these sins as their sort of primary driver in challenging times?
- I think everyone has a little bit of some of them, you know, you know, envy's one of them, it's kind of a flip on envy. Some people want to be envied and that's how they build their confidence or their illusion of confidence. If everyone sees me with a fancy car and everyone sees me with a fancy house and everyone's envying me, then clearly I've arrived and I've done everything correct. And so you see that often, I think with leaders. I always love the leader who's like, you know, in like a sweat shirt and a beat up car. But they're like, you know, brilliant, but they just don't like that's just not something that gets in their way is envy. They don't need people to envy them. But I see a little bit of any of these and people. And then there are times where I there's one executive I've worked with for years and he's got all seven of them all day, every day. And he's he's tough and he knows it and he works on it daily. And he does better some days than others. But the good part of it is he recognizes it, but he recognized it only like all addictions. Right? If you're addicted to being right and you're addicted to all of those dopamine hits, the only time you're going to change with any addiction is when the pain of not changing is greater, the pain of change. And he got into a place where the pain of not changing was going to be greater than the pain of change. And so he's been working really hard on himself, his company, his relationships inside work, outside work. And but he's had to because his whole entire world was coming down around him.
- So it's interesting because I the I'm not going to get this quote right, there is a quote that basically the gist of it is that awareness is the open door to easy, right? Once you have awareness, that's when you can start to make a change. But what I hear you saying is that's great. And when it comes down to a dopamine hit, when it comes down to some of these really the negative behaviors of the negative that you're getting, they're serving you because of the dopamine hit. It's not just about awareness. It really is there has to be the benefits have to or the costs have to outweigh the benefits, i.e. the benefits being the dopamine hit.
- You're absolutely right. And that's with all addictions. Right? If you have a shopping addiction or gambling addiction, like we've seen people tear down their entire life over those. And we've seen people tear down entire companies, one of the great examples of the world is Kodak. You know, Kodak actually had the first digital camera and the gentleman, Steve Sesson, who created it, he's done it. He did a ton of interviews over the years. And I love reading them because it's such an example of this. And he talks about going in and pitching this idea of digital camera. And Kodak executives thought he had lost his mind. No one would anymore in the interviews that no one would want to watch their pictures on a TV screen, because that's only, you know, the only magic they can see. Like, where would how would you see your pictures? You know, you plug it into the TV screen, but no one would ever want to do that. And then when he was talking to marketing they were like we could probably sell it, but we're afraid it's going to hurt our film sales. So let's not let's not do it.
- Right.
- And so Kodak owned the patent on the digital camera up until 2010-11. Well, when that patent ran out, they were no longer getting royalties. So they filed bankruptcy in 2012 and they had everything they needed to be a leader in the industry. But they were so stuck in what their way was and they were so stuck in what they knew was right. And nothing could ever, ever change for them that they took down an entire global organization over that.
- It's that, yeah, Kodak is a great story of an opportunity to learn a lesson from what from how they ended up going in the end.
- Right. I know it's just really interesting, but, you know, you think about these crazy ideas that come to you and people are like, you know, maybe they are crazy, maybe they are impossible. But what's in there? And one of the things I always like to say when people bring me an idea, I tell executives, when someone brings you an idea that outlandish, like I know we've been selling cameras with film since the beginning of time, but let's do this digital thing that seemed impossible. But instead of just say no, say I don't get it, change my mind. Because when you say change my mind and you're open to hearing it, you're going to learn something. You're going to allow that person to feel confident that they continue to innovate. Because if you say, no, I don't like your ideas and I really don't want any more ideas, even though I hired you to be an idea person, please don't have them. You know, when you start to say that, you start to crush the innovation and organization and so saying things like just change my mind. I don't see it or, you know, let's think about a future place. How would this actually work and what kind of person would want to use this but just be more inquisitive because inside of all really wacky ideas, there's probably something in there that's usable or something in there that could help you with what you do have and make it better.
- I love I don't get it. Change my mind. I love that as a response to something that seems completely farfetched in the moment rather than shutting it down.
- And we do that to people all the time in the workplace, and then you and I get calls like my team doesn't innovate, I don't know why.
- Mm hmm. Yeah.
- I’ve got an idea of why.
- Yeah, I think it's such a it's such an easy sentence to take to add to your vocabulary as a leader that takes very little effort to remember. I don't get it. Change my mind. It's an invitation. And I love that it's an invitation.
- Absolutely. And I think that just imagine if you as a leader start saying that to people and then, you know, people underneath you, you know, you have two directors trying to problem solve. And one of them's like, I don't get it. I don't want to hear it. My team is not playing with this. And then your director all of a sudden said says, I don't get it, my team doesn't get it, but help us figure out why it's important to you. Just imagine over time what your company could do if you were just open, like you said, have gave that invitation to everyone to say what they truly needed to say and to say the truth. And, you know, I think that managing and fear is one of the ways to decrease it is being willing to tell the truth sooner. And when you say I don't get it, but change my mind, you tell them right away I don't get it. But then you open up the opportunity for you to learn and to hear them out.
- Yeah. I think that's extraordinarily powerful and important for people to be and leaders to be mindful of doing, inviting that, inviting them into the conversation, inviting that understanding, it reminds me of Brene Brown's stance on rumbling. Right? Which is stepping in with an open heart and an open mind. And it's not about having to agree and but it's about being open to another perspective and open to a different way of thinking way of operating. And this is another way of doing that. Right? Of really just stepping into a quote, rumble, whateve whatever the language is. I'm not saying you have to use Brene Brown's language, but it's inviting that opportunity for understanding.
- It is. And it's it signals to that person's brain and their chemical response is I'm not being judged. I'm in a conversation. And as soon as you're being judged, then you do shut down. And because your brains and fear of being in trouble at work. And so it's just a great opportunity to allow someone to build trust around you and take the next time, probably bring bring you maybe even the more crazy idea, maybe even more ridiculous. But again, there's probably something in there.
- Yeah. I could talk to you for the next three hours and I'm going to be mindful of you have other things to do as well. So before we wrap up, I just want to I want to ask, do you have anything that you want to add to this or you want to emphasize inside of what you've already said?
- What I want to emphasize is that fear is only a chemical reaction. There's no truth to to what your brain tells you could happen. There's zero truth to it, because even if it's happened yet and think about how to lead in unpredictable time, because that's just life now. And think about some of these new competencies that we talked about, attaching your success to your team, not you, thinking about deploying as one of the most important things you can do as a leader. And really, you know, just understand that any time you're starting to change and lean into this, your fear will go off because it will be new. And just remind yourself, it's just it's just a chemical reaction. I'm feeling new things as I'm trying new things. And as soon as I get used to them, they'll no longer be scary. My brain will not react and I will have grown as a human.
- I love it. Our listeners and viewers can find you online at 304coaching.com. Did I get that right?
- You did. Yep. 304coaching.com.
- We’ll have all the links in the show notes. And, you know, you can find Jennifer on LinkedIn. We'll put it all there for you to reach out to her and connect with her if this resonated. Jennifer, I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me and having this conversation. It was super interesting and I think really valuable for leaders in this interesting day and age we're in right now.
- Well, thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. I enjoy talking to you. And again, I could talk to you all day, but your listeners might get tired of us just enjoying ourselves now.
- Well, I guarantee you that's not going to happen. I appreciate you very much. Thank you.
- Thank you. Have a good one.
- Thanks for joining me today on the leading through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.