A TedX speaker, executive and team coach, and proud dog-dad of a three-legged Wheaten Terrier, Alan Samuel Cohen has been called The Team Wizard after leading the successful publicity launch of the Harry Potter series. In this episode, we discuss the power of shared purpose in navigating through unimaginable, chaotic times. Alan talks about his own experiences and observations about making impossible things possible when teams and communities begin to align around common goals.
Alan Samuel Cohen is an expert in human connection and in helping leaders be the best they can be. He is certified in Emotional Intelligence, Myers Briggs, and the Energy Leadership Systems. He has coached executives and teams within organizations, including American Express, Tiffany’s, MetLife, and Bloomberg, as well as countless nonprofits and small businesses.
He is the author of the book, “The Connection Challenge, How Executives Create Power and Possibility in the Age of Distraction,” and "Those Difficult Talks for PR Pros."
In this episode, he explains how to run a business and live into one’s purpose at the same time while also contributing to the greater good of humanity. He shares his thoughts on the importance of empathy in leadership and explains how it helps to create loyalty and unity, and encourages team members to strive for a common goal.
Alan emphasizes the need for companies to allow more time in building trust with their clients and teammates, listening to their fears and concerns, and giving them a sense of security and stability.
If you’re interested in knowing more about adaptive leadership and how shared purpose can be a powerful means to navigate your team through chaotic times, this episode is for you!
You can learn more about Alan on his website: https://www.alansamuelcohen.com/
Connect with Alan on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alansamuelcohen/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alansamuelcohen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alansamuelcohen/
- 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 have the pleasure of speaking with Alan Samuel Cohen today. Alan is an executive and team coach, a TEDx speaker and author. He is an expert in emotional intelligence and the power of human connection. His TEDx talk, which is out now, is called The Magical Power of Shared Purpose and in that talk, amongst other things, he speaks about his experience working on the "Harry Potter" book launch. So Alan, thank you for joining me, today.
- Thank you Celine, thank you for having me.
- It is an absolute pleasure, and I, actually, would love to talk a little bit about shared purpose, your experience with it and why it matters so much in times of crisis or chaos or where things feel more uncertain than usual.
- Yeah, I feel like it was kind of divine intervention that it took six months for my TED talk to actually go live and it went live this week. It's like the universe was saying, "Wait for the perfect time for this talk because it's what people need to hear." And so, interestingly, the theme of the TED that I participated in was chaos and looking at all the different ways we manage through chaos. And I spoke specifically about the power of shared purpose to help us navigate through even the most turbulent times and used examples from my life and from my clients and just kind of what I've seem in the world. And so I think that when we can come together around something that is greater than any one of us and when we have that conversation when we are connected to that sense of purpose, in a lot of ways, I feel, that the impossible becomes possible, that the unimaginable becomes realized. And that's what I feel is needed now more than ever because we are living in such a ridiculously difficult, unimaginable period in our lives. But what I've seen, and I live here in Manhattan right in the heart of the pandemic and some of the beautiful things that I've seen with communities coming together and being creative has just elevated people's spirit and optimism and is really helping our brains be calmer amidst something that just feels so out of control. We're not eradicating the virus right now, but in a lot of ways mindset matters as much as science just to help us to get through it. So the examples that I used in my talk and you referenced the "Harry Potter" experience, so over 20 years ago I led the publicity team that was responsible for launching the "Harry Potter" books. So we were the first people in North America, actually, to touch those books and bring them into the world.
- Amazing!
- Hashtag no big deal, my friend Eduardo always likes to say, obviously a great book and it didn't need all that much to make it the phenomenon that it was, but in truth the chaos that we experienced was doing something that was so vast for the first time. And we were a team that was not really that functional and so the chaos was largely the chaos that humans bring to a situation when they're a little bit out of their element and our humanness that has us competing with each other and sometimes being awful to one another. But what we were able to accomplish was because we were all moved by the books and by a common purpose which was to get young kids to read great books of fiction, particularly boys who were not readers at the time. In my talk I also spoke about 9/11, and I live here, just blocks away from the World Trade Center and seeing what happened days after 9/11 with first responders, air traffic controllers bringing down all those planes safely and quickly. There was no handbook for how to do that but it was like this sort of energetic force field and strong connection and communication that, around something that was so important which was to make us safe, that they were successful. And I see this time and time and time. And I'm not talking about my individual purpose. We all have a reason why we're here and we're figuring that out as we go. But when teams or communities can align around something that they all share it has a kind of momentum that, as I said, makes the impossible possible and realized. So we need that now, Celine, we need it now.
- I agree with you, so I'm curious because I have seen, so with a lot of the conversations that I have had, people are struggling to align around the vision or purpose that they had prior to the pandemic, right? Because things are shifting and it feels uncertain, right? So saying that we're doing the same thing we were doing six months ago for these reasons feels, often times, I'm not saying always, but a lot of the conversations I've had it doesn't feel right or appropriate, or people aren't gathering around that purpose in the same way and leaders are struggling with that. So the question that comes up for me is how do you, how can people shift their purpose, how can they shift that vision now, because it is more important than ever to have something to gather around but it can be a struggle for people and teams to know how do I do that?
- Absolutely, absolutely. So I think that our purpose doesn't change, but we may reprioritize or pivot in a moment of crisis or chaos. And so I believe that our purpose is largely tied to also what our innate talents and gifts are. But those things don't change just because we're putting our focus elsewhere. I am still great at X, Y, and Z, this is still my essence, if you will. So this is a great conversation, too, because I see a lot of tone deafness out there in the marketplace where people are selling services without being mindful of what people are going through. So I think as leaders what we need to do is look at what our core strengths are, what this team does really well, how can we use that in service, what's really, what the marketplace really needs right now without being oil salesman-y and disgusting, right? So what are those services that we can offer right now that are gonna help people through a difficult time and how can we bring the best of who we are and the products and the services that we offer to address the most compelling needs? And sometimes that also means, like if you in a service business, that you need to just kind of just wait it out a little bit. It might not be the best time to launch that product or, it's like if we're, and you spoke of, I do a lot of work around emotional intelligence, and social responsibility is a key aspect of emotional intelligence. And so how are we being socially responsible and responsive to what the market needs? How can we become part of that greater good and bring our own set of skills into the mix? I realize, too, that people need to stay in business but there are, I think that there are ways to stay in business, while also, and express one's purpose, while also contributing to the greater good.
- And I think it sounds to me like in many cases it's almost a messaging shift rather than anything else, right? So making sure that whatever language, whatever messaging you're putting out there is respectful and aware of the current situation so that people can align around that. Because if things haven't changed, if you're not acknowledging the reality of what many people are dealing with there's nothing for them to align around. It doesn't feel right, anymore, it doesn't feel appropriate. And I'm sort of talking in a team context, right, rather than--
- Right, right.
- A personal context.
- Right, right. So I've reframed it to saying it's not about selling, it's about serving and I also know that I, teams, businesses, we need to stay in business, right? But make sure that you're serving in a way that is actually useful to people right now. Which means that every single leader, every single team member, every single business needs to be on the phone getting deeply curious about what people need and make sure that you're being responsive to that.
- Yep, I think that's a really interesting point and so, Tod Herman who is an author also based in Manhattan, he has been putting out, he has been putting out studies that he's done, research that he's gathered during this crisis because he was sick and he was in quarantine weeks ago because he had COVID and so what he did is he started talking to CEOs and executives that were on his client list to gather data about how people were responding and what they were dealing with things and in doing so got a really great understanding of the different ways that people are responding. And whether or not his original intention was to gather the research, that's what it turns into. It turns into actually understanding what people are going through and actually understanding what his clients, current or former or potential future may need because he's been in conversation with them.
- Right!
- There's a lot of people who are not doing that. They're almost like, I forget what the word is, when you pull away from something as opposed to stepping into it.
- Right, right, and I work with a lot of coaches. I've had a lot of conversations with other coaches about whether it's okay to be marketing in this environment and I'm like, "Well, it's all about serving, and so, why would you stop? Why would you stop sharing your gifts?" Not that anything's normal right now, right? But to the extent that we can at least make people feel some sense of certainty and some sense of stability, that's serving. It's like if all of us in business just stopped doing business not only will we go out of business, but we're just adding to that notion that everything is unstable. It's controlling that which we can control, influencing that which we can influence, and creating some semblance of normalcy amidst this sea of cuckooness.
- And I think, so my experience has been, I'm not saying this is the truth, but my experience has been that if you are in a service based industry, right? So you are a coach, you are social media marketing, you are that sort of, in that space, and the smaller you are the easier it is to step into the mindset of service, the easier it is to shift that messaging, to shift that way of showing up. The larger, some of the larger organizations that I work with, especially if they're more product based, especially, depending what they're doing, that is a much bigger struggle for, even if the executives are there, it doesn't necessarily filter down as well. And I'm curious, because while we are all leaders ourselves, regardless of title, there are different responsibilities in different size of organizations and different industries. So do you have any thoughts around how people can manage that or what they can do inside of organizations or situation like that?
- Well I think, I could take this a couple of different ways but I would say the leaders that I coach, some of them are C-suite in some very big companies, they're really having to pivot in terms of how they're focused on keeping the business running, which is to devote a lot more time building trust, communicating more openly, honestly, sharing fears and concerns, really understanding what people's fears are, helping normalize some of these things that are just different ways of doing business, virtual teams, things of that nature, so keeping the engine running to the extent that, if they're in a certain product, business, if their supply chain, they're affected, then there's all sorts of disruption. But if it's actually, if they're still selling in this environment, a lot of my clients do an online retail that's still working, they're not experiencing a financial hit just yet, but it's really about helping people adjust, helping their teams adjust to a different way of doing business. And I'd say empathy is probably the most important skill right now for any leader to step into because things are gonna get better at some point. Your team members, your staff, they're gonna remember you as that leader who cared a great deal about how they were adjusting to having their kids homeschooling now and all their anxiety, they're gonna remember that leader and be loyal to that leader versus the leader who's like, "I don't wanna hear about anything that's going on. I don't care, you're worried about your parents being sick, whatever, just head down, we have a job to do."
- Right.
- Nobody is gonna work well under that environment and it's not gonna create loyalty. So I don't know if I answered your question but it's been on my mind a lot that I think the companies that are gonna be successful coming out of this are gonna be the ones that really engaged their employees and helped assuage a lot of their anxiety and fear. And my clients, right now, are pivoting in terms of how they're roiling up their sleeves and getting more involved in the work themselves. So it's that opportunity of really understanding more of sort of what people's day to day is, being decisive in terms of how they make decisions, being open and honest and with a great deal of empathy, humility and self awareness. It's like nobody has all the answers. But I'm ever optimistic that we'll get through it and some good things will come out of this. We'll learn some different ways of how to treat each other in the workplace and how to get things done and not burn out our staff. The number on thing that I'm seeing, though, among all my clients is just the incredible level of stress that's coming from just constant, because they're home, everybody thinks available 24/7, so they're stressed out because there's constant meetings, just constant, I don't know how many Zoom burn out is kind of happening, so leaders need to be mindful of that and create new norms around like, it's okay to unplug for two hours and love your kids, you know? Go take a walk if you can, you know? Take a shower!
- Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really important thing. It's interesting, so I have, I've spoken and done a lot of work around remote work just simply because I was involved in teams doing it seventeen years ago, which was a whole different ball game of remote work at that point, so I talk about it a lot. And the one thing that I keep seeing coming up, and I love what you've spoken about because what I keep seeing coming out is the tech side of things, this is how you use Zoom, this is why it's important to move to this platform, this is why, it's very tech oriented and I'm actually doing a webinar, it'll be way before this comes out around the leadership when it comes to remote workplaces because you can't, the misconception is that you can take what you were doing at work and apply it into a home position and it's just gonna magically work. And it doesn't, that's not true, that's not real, right? So I love what you're talking about which is the awareness to shift it.
- Yeah, and we have to make it normal for people, that their kids are jumping on their lap during a business call, you know? That's a whole new way of interacting.
- Yeah, it really is and I appreciate that. I think it's a really important thing to mention. So I do wanna be mindful of time and I wanna thank you for coming and speaking to me, but also ask you is there anything before we sign off and before we wrap this up that you wanna leave people with or something you wanna sort of summarize for people who might be watching or listening to this?
- Yeah, so I think that this is an incredible moment for leaders to really step up and step into what I call adaptive leadership. I think, in addition to empathy, flexibility is probably gonna be one of the greatest strengths that's gonna help us get through this. And I think that in order to be a really effective leader during times like this, self leadership has to be first and foremost. So we need to be working on ourselves everyday to make sure that we're not projecting things onto our team members, to our staff, to our customers, to our clients. So whatever it takes, whether it's just a couple of hour, couple of hours, couple of minutes a day of centering, watching what we put into our bodies, making sure that we're being creative. The other day I walked my dog and I just let out a huge primal scream in the middle of the street, whatever we need to do to just keep our energy moving is gonna really pay back big time.
- I think that's the best place we could possibly leave it 'cause I could not agree more and I think it's a powerful reminder to wrap this up that it starts with self leadership and it's the first thing that people neglect when they are focused on everything else in a time like this, so that's perfect. Thank you so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me and to come on and have this discussion. It's been lovely.
- Thank you.
- [Celine] Thanks for listening to us talk around leadership in challenging times. If you would like to learn more about us or any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingrhroughcrisis.ca. If you like the show please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from.