Michael O’Brien, Chief Shift Officer at Peloton Executive Coaching shares his insights and observations of how leaders can navigate uncertainty and change. He shares his powerful story of a devastating bike accident and how it transformed his relationship with the unknown.
Michael O’Brien, Chief Shift Officer at Peloton Executive Coaching, and author of “Shift. Creating Better Tomorrows: Winning at Work and Life”, joins us on this episode to share his insights and observations around how leaders can navigate change and uncertainty. We discuss topics like the importance of being intentional in times of crisis, how to adapt to working online and create new, healthy, habits that align with that, what leaders can do to develop a new perspective on productivity and team work, and why we need to shift how we prioritize when dealing with the unknown.
A cycling accident several years ago was the catalyst to the seminal shift that changed Michael's perspective, mindset, and actions. This put him on a path to create better tomorrows at work and in life and sparked his executive career progression, and passion for business leadership development. Now Michael O'Brien helps leaders prevent bad moments from turning into bad days. He has shared his personal transformational Last Bad Day story and leadership advice on the TEDx stage, with Fortune 500 companies, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Real Simple, ABC, and NBC. To find more about Michael and his work, check him out online: https://www.michaelobrienshift.com/
Find him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/michaelspeloton
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/michaelobrienpelotoncoaching
Instagram: www.instragram.com/michaelobrienshift
- Welcome to Leading Through Crisis, a conversation series exploring the idea of leadership in challenging times. Hi, and welcome to Leading Through Crisis, I'm Celine Williams, and I'm here with Michael O'Brien, who's the Chief Shift Officer for Peloton and Executive Coaching. And he helps to prevent bad moments from turning into bad days. So, this conversation is starting in a little bit strange place 'cause we were just talking about something that I actually wanna go back to, and I hit record at this time on purpose, because you were saying that there's this, it's almost like overconnecting is happening right now as a result of crisis. Can you, you know kind of talk about, tell me a little bit about what that is and talk about what we were talking about, 'cause I love your perspective and also, hi Michael.
- Yes, hello, Celine, so good to see you. I'm down in New Jersey right outside of New York City. So like the US epicenter of all this. So I consider like as we're talking today, like the end of the second week, and what I saw last week, like that first weekend in the States was a lot of hoarding, a lot of news about the hoarding, and then people were like, okay, we gotta connect, we gotta connect with like the isolation, connect, connect, connect, the intent is pure, the intent is, hey, we're isolated we got the social distancing thing happening, but there's also a line where like, any great strength when you double down on it becomes a weakness. And I think in some circles, and in some companies, you know, that they put everyone off, out to work from home, and they went from like a normal cadence of office life to like everything's on Zoom, and they have conference calls for eight hours a day and that is draining, especially when we all have some level of anxiety and worry from all this, even the most Zen of us. Like we're all chill, we're all good, this is all like, this is your lemonade moment and all that, like which, I've said all that. But I know, too, that I have my own level of worry and anxiety and stress because, you know, I'm a provider for family, my daughters are home, like, the rhythm of life is different. And I know this 'cause I'm eating differently, like I, you know, when I get stressed, there's, if it's salty or sweet, I love it. So I think there's a fine line here of like just doing too much too soon, without an eye towards hey, this is gonna be a long term thing, and we gotta maintain our energy for the long haul. So let's be really smart about what we're connecting about and giving the people in our lives whether they work for us or not enough time to just like release, renew, and then return to the work, just for the the mental energy that's gonna take to get through something that really no one's ever been through.
- And there's a lot of unknowns, right? We don't know how long it's gonna last. You know, I think there's so many people right now who are like, "Oh, things are gonna go back to normal." But first of all, that is a big assumption to make, right, that they'll go back to normal, but also what is normal? And instead of thinking that way, you know, inside of what I, inside of what you're saying, one of the things I hear is that idea of how can we be intentional with what we're doing now, not just immediately replacing and, you know, oh we did that in an office, we're gonna do this this way now. But how can we be intentional about where we're putting our energy, what we're doing with our time, how we're supporting people, and seeing the different needs that people are gonna have inside of them.
- Yeah, the whole concept of intentionality, I think is beautiful, 'cause I have heard from business leaders, or maybe I've heard from their employees, through a couple webinars I've done where the message has been business as usual, like this usual we're just gonna go to Zoom, and this is anything but business as usual, this is very unusual business. And we know this and you know this through the great work that you do, that when we're stressed we don't process things the same way, we don't listen and connect. So yeah, you could schedule all the Zooms and teleconferences you want, but that doesn't mean people are absorbing the content and the information like you want them to. So we have to acknowledge that part of it. And yeah, to be intentional about where we're going and to the point of normalcy, I got asked that question a lot when I started came out of my recovery from my accident, people were like, "well, are you back to normal? " And I'm like, "I don't know why, like, I'm, there's, "I'm never going back to normal." Like something major happened in my life. It was a big pause button, just like this is something major in all of our lives. It's a big pause button. So yeah, we're never gonna go back to normal like how it was. We have Sado in creating the new normal,
- Right.
- And so do you want, hey, do you wanna join me in creating that new normal? Because new normal's comin'. So we have call it agency, call it choice or decision making rights to say, okay, how do we wanna talk about this moment when we get to say, December 2020? When we're getting ready for New Year's, right, and we're reflecting on the year and we're like, "Oh I can't wait for 2020 to be over" and like, "I can't wait to tie one on for New Year's Eve." We'll talk about this moment. And here's the, here's our opportunity. How do we wanna talk about it? In what, eight months, seven months? So we get some choice in that and that's, that gets back to the intentionality piece, so how do we wanna show up today?
- One of the reasons I want to talk to you about this is because you do have the perspective of creating your own new normal. And that perspective is really valuable in a situation like this because a lot of people don't know what to do with it or where to start or what that means.
- I was talking to someone via Facebook Messenger about an hour ago, and she was like, we should get on Zoom and do something around unexpected change, 'cause she went through a big unexpected change. And hey, we didn't get, what one could say with coronavirus, there was a little bit of expectation that it's coming. But in the States we just computed and ignored it. In other countries, they were a little bit more savvy, you know like, "Hey, you know, whatever is over there, "it's eventually gonna come to us." But my change when that SUV hit me on a bike ride, I didn't get any memo. There wasn't any change management program, I was going through is unexpected, and then you have this, you know, you go through all the different emotions. And so last week, when I was hearing from people, hearing from my clients the emotions that they were feeling with this whole sense of uncertainty, were very similar to what I was feeling in the early stages of my recovery 'cause I've had a whole bunch of uncertainty as well, like, who was I going to become? Like, they were like, "You're lucky to be alive. "It's a miracle that you're still here. "And you're gonna have a lifetime of dependency." And I was like, "Oh, wow, like, I can't go back to normal?" They're like, "No." And I was like, "Well, what's the path forward?" They're like, "We don't know, that's up to you." And it's so similar to where we are now. So it brought, in a lot of ways it brought it all back. And that's why like in this moment, this is why I love what you're doing something with this, is that I wanna be in a position like you to sort of like give back and help people through what is a moment, a bad moment, that this too shall pass, and it doesn't have to become a bad day or a bad year. And we can come out of this stronger together, but we have to choose to do that, and ripple that as opposed to ripple the anxiety and worry and fear that unfortunately, there's a good part of the US population doing that. So we have to really look at where we see some goodness like through our healthcare professionals and people on the frontlines who are all so courageous in facing this. So it's better to look at that than some of the worry, and anxiety that's being tossed about.
- Because it's almost like the choice. There's one of the choices, not the only choice, I don't wanna, by any means minimize that. But we can either be crippled by what's happening and crippled by the information and crippled by the situation we're in and stop. Or we can be enabled and empowered in some way, and it doesn't mean, you know, by no means am I saying that everyone who feels empowered or enabled is gonna come out, you know, at the top of their game in three months, but there is a choice in terms of how we approach the day to day and our lens on things and how we wanna live and serve and lead through this.
- Yeah, and I know you feel this way too, like human beings are remarkable because we can hold more than one thought in our head at the same time. You know, it doesn't have to be binary, though when we're stressed, it does become very binary.
- Right.
- So we can acknowledge the pain and suffering that's happening right now and the loss of life. And we can also see, hey, there's opportunity when things get disrupted. And things are disrupted, we're in a period of disruption. So I think that framing is helpful. And then we decided, okay, well, what we're gonna do about it. Down here, I've recommended people like stop watching the news, like to turn the TV, if you need to, pick up the news, read the news, 'cause that puts you more in control, and you don't pick up on the energy of the commentators or the hosts of your favorite news program. But so many people down here in the States, I'm not sure up in your neck of the woods, but they have the TV on, the news on in background all the time. So they're working from home, they're on their couch, they got their laptop going on, and they're like, "Oh no, no, no, it's just on in the background. "I'm not paying attention to it." I'm like, "Oh, really, you're not." Like you're watching the like little ticker. There's like, big increasing new cases, or this is happening here or that's happening there, and it's jacking us up and we don't even realize it. And unfortunately, we're not probably doing a good enough job of releasing the stress. I know, a lot of folks are just trying to numb it, you know, through how we eat. I'm a little guilty of that myself or, you know, maybe it's an extra glass of wine or what have you, but that's not the healthiest way to process all this.
- You're right it's interesting how many people I've seen whether it's Instagram or Facebook, where they're posting photos of working from home and it's like, the laptop photo and the television in the background is CNN or whatever it is that that's your, that's your noise, that's your you would never have that much access to the news, if you were at work or if you were doing anything else and it's not helpful or healthy. And I think for some people, same goes for social media, right? They're filling their time by looking at their phone and like scrolling. But if your social media is filled with all the like bad news bears that's happening out there, you know, and I recognize there is that, there is negativity out there, but if all you're seeing is that or the constant loop and feed of that, it's that much harder to step out of it or see the positivity or make the choice to acknowledge it and still lead and serve in a human way.
- Such a great point, I think, you know, with sports being shut down, as well as Hollywood and movies, there's not, you know, there's not a lot of diversion, right? Like, the temporal thing, like, you know, someone would turn on, you know, a ballgame, you know, Major League Baseball, I'm like the USA's biggest Toronto Blue Jays fan. So, you know, we're supposed to be opening day, you know, and so I don't have my Blue Jays to watch.
- Yeah.
- And even though they haven't been that successful over the last few years, they're still, is still a good chance for me to just like started watching. We talked a little bit, but we don't have that. So when you look at the the ratings, cable news, network news, the ratings are like off the charts. And Facebook, I think Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, their readership, I guess, or scrolling data stats have, they're on the upswing too. So we're spending a lot of time consuming, media that may not be helpful to us in this moment in time. So to your point, I think which is a great one, if you can get to the point where you can consume it and then separate and go back onto leading in the way that you wanna lead and in cascading, the type of energy you want, that's good, but if you can't get there, then it's probably good to put down the phone and turn off the TV and just you know, really focusing not only your physical health, but your mental health just to get through this.
- I agree, I'm wondering if you're seeing any trends or anything that people are doing that's really working and serving them well in this time. Because we've just talked about some of the things that probably are not serving a lot of people well. But are you seeing anything, or do you have any suggestions of what leaders can do or what would be helpful right now, more than ever, and I recognize that, you know, generally speaking, these are probably not bad things to do anyways, but especially in this time of crisis, let's be intentional about what we're doing and what we can do.
- The things I've heard from leaders, you know, one of my clients along with your clients, too, is they're giving some space for their employees to get comfortable with this new change because certainly you have the kiddies at home, if you have children, and the whole rhythm you know, I have you know, a senior VP that I coach who is like, "I'm doing all this work plus have to do like "kindergarten worksheets. " So they're, so the good bosses are like "Hey, listen, let's prioritize. "Let's get clear on what we need to do. "Let's put some of this other stuff on the back burner. "Let's spend a few days here up front, you get into your rhythm." You know, obviously, the worksheet of a kindergarten probably is not gonna make or break college entrance exams. So we also have to put that in perspective. So good leaders are leading with compassion, and like sort of doubling down on that say, "Hey, I hear you, I see you, we are all going through this. "Let's try to practice this together." And so that's a big one. Good leaders too will like, hey, like, are you having a like a given mindfulness practice and they're trying to bring gratitude into conversations through their Zoom. They may try to start their Zoom with a maybe a personal note or topic other than COVID like 'cause I think there's like, you know, coronavirus, overload like every story out there is like not another story and they're also trying to bring in appropriate amount of laughter knowing that what we've already talked about, there's pain and suffering going on. But there's also a chance to laugh at some things just to release some dopamine and serotonin and try to get into a mood where we can see some of the goodness that can come out of all that. So I'd say the good leaders really making sure that people you know spend some time on their mental health, their ability to just pause, breathe, reflect on what they want to do next, renew, come back to it. Those are good things. But and I would say the last thing just emphasize, they're doing a really good job of prioritizing and communicating in a clear way where there's so much uncertainty. They're trying to bring as much clarity to the situation as they possibly can, knowing that they don't have, you know, awesome sauce clarity. And they're prioritizing, say okay, here are our priorities, daily, weekly, 'cause that's what people wanna know, like they're going to the boss, like, what do I do? And the boss does need to decide, okay, from a strategic or tactical perspective, here's our priority right now. And let's have some agility because next week, it could be completely, it could be something completely different.
- I think right now more than ever, and I'm one of those people that I'm always like you, I really don't think you could communicate too much in most situations. So right now more than ever, I'm like, I keep talking to people, you, the more you communicate, the better you are. Even if you're saying to your point, I don't have all the answers 'cause there's so many unknowns. But for right now, this is what we're focusing on. For right now this is the situation and I will do my best to keep you informed as we move forward. That is better than not communicating or not giving direction or like hiding under whatever you would hide under, blanket
- Blanket, yeah, probably a blanket in this case. I love that point and in it, for any business leaders that know anything about marketing, we market our message over and over again because we know that it takes multiple impressions. We also know this, when we're stressed, it takes even more impressions for our message to get through. So to your point, Celine for a leader is to, you know, be mindful of their own message fatigue, 'cause sometimes we're like, well, we don't need to say it again they already know it. I've already told them that. You may have told them that but they may not have processed that. So doing, being repetitive having some frequency doing it, you know, communicating in the right way with clarity, you can't over communicate that way. The people who are communicating wants business as usual and being highly directive, I would recommend to them communicate maybe a little bit less. I say that sort of tongue in cheek. But yeah, and clarity we're gonna figure it out, agility piece, as you just mentioned, over communicate that. 'Cause we know just from marketing, marketing statistics, frequency does matter in order to make a connection with our customers, and in this case, our employees.
- I'm gonna ask a really specific question that just popped into mind with something that you said earlier. And that is I'm I think a lot of, you know, for better for worse, I think that there's still a lot of companies and leaders and teams, where you know, you're butt being in this seat from 8 am to 6 pm was the thing that mattered two weeks ago.
- Yes.
- And now, that can't matter because no one is there to see your butt in the seat and you're at home with your kids or with distress or whatever is happening. And I'm wondering how you know, how you see people reacting to that or what is, where that shifting or what you know, your sort of perspective on that is?
- Well, I definitely see it with a sort of spirit of kindness. Those leaders grew up with only one way. They're like, alright, we come into a office, it's brick and mortar, see you I know what you're doing. Now, for anybody who's managing sales team out there, then they know like, well, I don't see my sales reps every day, if I have a team, like in my corporate life before this, I had a team of 1,000 from Hawaii. So I never saw my folks, but I had to believe that they were waking up every day on time, and doing what's good for our company's mission and our values. And so, I grew up with a different type of job in corporate America, but there are a lot of corporate leaders like well, that's all I know. And so this is now a fundamental shift in their operating models. So this is gonna take some time and like, I can't see you. So even though we all know that, even though you could see them, doesn't mean that they were being productive because we all know people are shopping on their work computer and scrolling Facebook or Insta or Twitter or what have you, and there's a lot of like inefficiency. So that's definitely happening and what I see happening with some companies not every company, but some companies that have that believe, they're scheduling their work from home people from eight to five or nine to five, from Zoom to conference hall to Zoom. And, you know, we're still having gotten off this whole hour meeting thing, which I'm like, just driving me bananas, like a meeting doesn't have to be an hour. So make it 45 minutes. But in the office, here's what's really different in the office meeting to meeting to meeting you at least had some commuting time between conference room A and conference room B, what people are facing now or is that we're going from Zoom to Zoom without a break.
- Right.
- And I'm still on my couch with my laptop, I don't have a chance to process anything. So when I get to the end of the day, I'm exhausted. And they're not putting in the best effort, because if you work at that pace, your 9 am is gonna be so much better than your 4 pm.
- Yes.
- So you might be doing it, but again, they may not be processing it. So you can feel good that you're putting them through all this activity, that they're earning their pay, but in this case, I would rather see companies say, okay, three to four hours of priority work. You'll do some other things, but use the other time to take care of your family. Make sure you're taking care of your energy. Maybe you're working on your craft, you're doing some other things in this moment, because when we do come back, when we do get the green flag, we're gonna wanna go. And I wanna make sure that as a team member, you have a full tank of gas in you. I don't want this moment to burn you out, and you're low on fuel because when we do come back, everyone's gonna make this mad dash to the close of the year to try to save the year. So this is, gets back into energy management, over the long haul. This isn't just like, how do we get through this work from home thing? This is gonna be like what we do now or seeds we plant that will come to harvest in the fall, we just got to be mindful of what seeds we wanna plant.
- I really hope that we see less of a focus on with the leaders that have that old paradigm 'cause I agree it's a very specific paradigm. It's not everyone, but I really hope that we see less of a focus on you know, the number of hours you're in this place equals how productive you are and that this actually allows us to shift the conversation to be, you know more about people working in the best way that works for them so that they are their most productive self. And that this allows, so you, I don't know that, you might have used this word, but the thing that kept coming into my mind as you were talking was this idea of trust. So this allows leaders to figure out a way to trust their people to trust their teams, the way you had to trust your salespeople, thousand salespeople that you didn't see all the time.
- Yeah, I think that's gonna be a big thing. And it's gonna be wonky and choppy at first 'cause we're trying to change a worldview or a perspective or a paradigm, whatever word we wanna use. So yeah, so like, I know this, I'm a morning person, so like, yeah, you want the best of me, get me at 9 am versus 9 pm. But there's a whole bunch of people that they rock it out at 9 pm. So if they wanna get their work done at 9 pm, then okay, let's do it. They may be like not so good because they're not a morning person at 9 am, but corporate life suggested they have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed, at 9 am with their caffeine or latte to get through it, but they're not necessarily putting out the best work. So I think this, there's so many wonderful things that can come out of this moment. So what I recommend to leaders, because there's so much going on, is have a notebook, have a journal, write down all these things that pop into your head, like, oh, oh, that yeah. I never thought about that, write it down. And then maybe not tomorrow or the next week, as we get into April, and May we come back to the team and say, "Hey, a lot of good things came out of this. "Here's what I wrote down. "Hey King, what did you write down?" Let's think about how we can incorporate some of this stuff going forward, to change how we work together. I think that can be a really cool byproduct of all this.
- It's setting that new normal, right?
- Yeah, also like, that's the stuff that gets me jazzed up because most people are still in working in corporations. If we can can change how we work in the corporate setting, we can change how we live together, 'cause we spend so much time at work. So imagine if work radically changed or just maybe modestly changed because of this, then I think it has a cascading impact into how we live together. And that then sort of like reverbs back into work. So this can be a really great spark, to help us all be better together. 'Cause, you know, we're all on the same planet, whether we like it or not, we gotta figure out a way to make this work for as many people as possible hopefully everyone. Hopefully I have to go where most people have.
- I could not agree more. I know you have a workbook, the "Better Life" workbook that--
- Yes.
- That I can link to, but if you have a website that you wanna shout out.
- So we'll give you the, we'll give everyone the link in the show notes. But the website for people to learn a little bit more about my backstory, My Last Bad Day, as I call it, and the whole genesis of preventing bad moments from turning to bad days is michaelobrienshift.com, and they can get the workbook and see my other books and all that jazz. It's one stop discovery, if you will, about my story and corporate career and what I do now.
- Everything will be linked up, but I just wanted to you know, Michael, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. You are, I love your perspective on things. And I love how open and willing to share you are. And I know that this will be greatly appreciated, because it is, it's a different conversation than a lot of what's happening right now. And I think it's a different conversation than a lot of what happens in any time of crisis. We have a specific one right now. But in any time of crisis, people get really focused on the crisis and the human side of it gets lost, right? We, not the loss of life, but the actual interacting with human side of it tends to get a bit lost. So, especially from a leadership perspective, it can really a long way. So I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me and share your perspective and your wisdom 'cause it's really valuable.
- Well, no problem Celine I really, when you posted that you're doing this, I was like, "Oh, that's, that is perfect." It's awesome sauce, as I would say and hey, if whatever I can do to help your listeners, and really, I think this is that moment, you know, there's some moments where you're like, okay, you know, you're sort of living for this moment. I think I survived my accident in a lot of ways for this moment to help people through it. That we can have very successful corporations, as I've had in my past, but we can get through this moment in a very human way, where we build stronger teams, stronger companies, stronger society. So the fact that you had me join you in this quest that you're doing I think, I'm honored and grateful and I wish you nothing but safety and health as we go through all in this together.
- Right back at you, thank you.
- No problem
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