Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. When you're a leader, there's different things that we have to navigate throughout the day. And one of the things that we have to navigate is our behavior. So today we're going to be talking about behavior change. And I'm so happy to have as my guest today to help us navigate through that. Jordana Cole, welcome to the show. Jordana, I am so thrilled, pumped, and excited to have you on here today.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Thanks, Andrew. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm looking forward to us having a great conversation about one of my favorite topics.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Yes, we all have these things that we like to talk about. Anything that has to do with leadership or the workplace, I can talk about till the cows come home. So I'm excited about it as well. How are things with you, though? What's new with you? What's. What's going on in your world? Give us the tea, the deets, Give us it all.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I spent the last decade of my career as kind of a leading learning and development initiatives, programs, strategy with a focus on leadership development within different companies and different industries. And in the last year and a half, I've. I've branched out on my own. I've started my own business. I'm working with lots of different types of organizations of all different sizes. Nonprofit for profit, public sector, trade associations, volunteer organizations, which I'm loving because rather than really focusing just in the four metaphorical walls of one organization, I get to work with leaders all across the globe, really at all different levels, going through all different experiences. And it's been. It's been. Been really a blast in bringing in different techniques of coaching, training, consulting to help leaders be better. And I love leadership so much because in my mind, you know, leadership is all about people. And a lot of the skills that we learn in leadership development don't just extend to the workplace. They also go into life. I equate learning how to be a better leader is actually learning how to be a better human. And I believe that leaders are our nexus point for really creating wellbeing in the world. And wellbeing is something not only I'm passionate about, I have an academic background in, so that that kind of Mixture of the psychology of how we help people thrive, how we help ourselves thrive, how we help organizations thrive, is a lot of what I've been focusing on. And it's really exciting to see more and more people and organizations being focused on this, particularly on the outskirts of the pandemic. So that's. Professionally and personally, I've. I've. I have a band, and my band has been having a great time. We've been performing more and more together, and it's just been a wonderful journey with two women who I adore and respect just having a lot of fun and. And putting some creative music into the world. So that's kind of what's going on in my world. I. How about your world? How are you doing?
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Things are going well.
This podcast continues to grow at a rapid pace every day. But it's kind of a little bit scary because at the same time, you're like, okay, what do we do to kind of keep this rolling? And if I want to extend it or branch off on certain things, when do I do that? So that's kind of where my mindset is right now. But, yes, it's kind of like the nervous and exciting. And you kind of used the word before we started, and I forget it now already because of my age. But what was that word that you used today?
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I call it nervous sighted. And it's funny, because the reason I use that word is I've learned from psychology that nervous, like anxiety and excitement are actually two sides of the same coin. There's a wonderful book by a researcher named Kelly McGonagall called the upside of Stress, and she actually talks about how you can reframe of I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm nervous into. I'm excited about the potential for this. That's nervous sighted. They're two sides of the same coin.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, for sure. Every year people have their own things that they start the year, so they're like the resolutions. I started last year. I'd say last three years. I don't have a New Year's resolution, but I've come up with a word every year.
2024 was possibilities. What are the possibilities going into, you know, a second year of doing the podcast when it's just amazing where it has gone and the possibilities of how far it can go, like I said before, are super, super exciting. So I do love that word. It was kind of pretty cool to hear it. So I. I do love it. So before we begin and before we get into none and bolts of this conversation. I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today, Jonna?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: I'm ready. I'm gonna stretch, stretch it out, stretch the brain. I'm ready to go.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: So your question is, if you could be any food, what food would you be and why?
[00:05:11] Speaker A: This is a good one.
So I'm immediately going to a specific answer and I'm going to throw the caveat, though, that I don't want to be eaten. And I'm sure, and I'm concerned because the food that I'm going to choose is the one I love to eat the most. But I think it's right and it speaks to me. So my food would be cake, and there's a couple reasons for it. One, cake just creates happiness, right? Like, I actually have joked a little bit with people and I'm known to bring cakes with me, places to celebrate with people and create and create fun moments. And I make the joke, if I were ever to write the book how to Win Friends and Influence People 2.0, that the title of it would be Everybody likes the person who brings free cake. So that's part of it. But I think on a deeper level, cake is just celebratory fun. And also there's a million different varieties. So, you know, every person is unique. Every person has their own favorite type of cake. You can also make cakes that are gluten free, that are dairy free, to hit on different dietary needs. You can make vegan cakes, cakes. So I think it's just the perfect food.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: I love that answer. I was not expecting that answer, I'm gonna admit. But yes, I was kind of looking forward to see what answer you were gonna give to this one, especially when I was putting the episode together. And I just love that answer. And you were absolutely right. I think we need a little bit of, a little bit more happiness in our, in our lives. And cake absolutely does that. And I could see where you're coming from, where you're saying, I don't want to be literally eaten. But cake is something that you kind of look at and you go, wow, that's so cool. And I even used to watch the show the Cake Boss and some of the cakes that he used to make were just so, like, joyful. And that's what they would say in the shows are like, oh, my God, this looks so good. I don't even know if I want to eat it. Like, I just want to just look at it. So I could definitely see where you're coming from on that because when he would come in with his big tray of these cakes, people will be like, oh, my God. And the smile and the laughter and the fun and. And everything that would bring was. Was super cool. So I do love your answer.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: It also creates community a bit. I think, when you think about why people have cake, right. It's usually a birthday or a celebration or a special occasion. You're rarely eat birthday cake alone, although I've. I have been known to buy cake by the slice and eat it alone. But, you know, that's the thing. It's. It's also something that is. Is usually bringing community and people together and they're sharing it together. So I think that's. That's another magic of it, which is pretty unique to that. Which isn't the case with all foods.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: No, for sure. Well, I love your answer. Thank you so much for having fun with us. That's the probably the funnest thing I would say about every episode for me is asking questions and hearing the answers. So I really enjoy that. I know you kind of dabbled a little bit in your business there, but I wanted you to tell us a little about yourself and your why. So you talked about your. Your professional life and a little bit of your band, but I want to know a little bit more about you.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I like to think of myself as an igniter and thinking about that. Why I'm somebody who likes to help make an impact on the world and helps to create change. So my kind of mission is to help spark positive transformation, whether that's within people, whether that's within communities that I'm a part of, whether that's myself. And to me, it's not just about, you know, positive transformation. I think happens through inspiration. I'm somebody who likes to have fun. I'm somebody who likes to be inspirational. I like to talk, I like to share knowledge, but I don't like to just leave it at that. I really want to help people become the better versions of themselves and whatever that way looks like to them, so that together we can create a better world. And I think a couple of things about me that in order for me to do that, I have to be, you know, a better version of myself. And when I feel most fulfilled and when I feel most capable is when I can be authentic. I can be creative. I could be playful and I could be kind. So that's a little bit about me and what I do. But I'm also a big geek. I love to read. I Love learning new things. I love sharing, learning.
So. So, yeah, that's. That's. That's who I am in a nutshell. I'm an igniter who likes to spark transformation.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: I love that line. Super powerful. We talked about cake just before. That answer just puts a smile, and I think would put a smile on most people's faces to hear that. And I think it's where we're going to delve into this a little bit further. But I feel like this is where leaders need to kind of develop their minds and mindset and to help not themselves grow, but helping their teams grow. And I think thinking that way is. Is super powerful. So I just love that answer.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Well, thanks, Andrew.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Let's get into this. I'm expecting you to bring a little bit of the heat today. So let's get into this. How does behavior affect leadership?
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Okay, so first off, leadership is all about behavior. And I think that one of the things with leadership that's a challenge is leadership isn't about what you say. Leadership is what you do. I tell people that leadership isn't a title. Leadership is in a position. Leadership isn't a piece of pa. Leadership's in action. It's the stuff that we do every single day that helps inspire other people to follow us, to do things, to build relationships with us. And because of that, it's all about the behaviors. And I think a lot of times leaders rely on the words and just telling people what to do. But at the end of the day, what they model is actually going to impact the behaviors. Now, the other thing that I think is hard about leadership is all of us behave right now as a leader, you're focusing on your own behaviors, but you also have to think about how you're trying to create behavioral change in the people that you lead and how your behaviors that you're modeling are either impacting that behavioral change in a positive way, impacting in a negative way, or keeping things at a status quo. So it's really, really complex. And even the smallest things can have big impacts over time. It's hard for us to be aware of that. So when I think about leadership, leadership is behaviors. Leadership is actions. Plain and simple. That's what it is.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Love your explanation of that. What you told me makes me think of way. But now we're going way, way back here. It's going to. I'm going to age myself, but we're going way, way back. I was working for a small company, and one of the leaders were having a team meeting.
We had a Lot of stuff going on.
There was some positive things. There was some not so positive things that were happening, but this leader at the end of the meeting basically just kind of took the time to. To thank everybody for their. For their hard work. And I know that they were trying to hold it back, but the. The emotion started coming out of them, and they're starting to be. They're starting to be vulnerable, and they weren't normally like that, but the vulnerability started to come out, and you could kind of see, like, the tears start to come down from their face. A and everyone was kind of, like, looking and looking at each other, and then they kind of were looking at him and wondering, what's happening? And is everything okay? And then he just kind of continued to go on. And at the end, there was this sense of, like, my God, like, wow, he's. He's real. He showed himself today. And I would say when I think of, like, a Grinch door Christmas where they say his heart grew 10 sizes that day, well, I feel like a team grew that day, and it just was so much better. And not that it was bad, but I feel like everything changed that day, and we were more of a cohesive unit that day because of that.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Wow, that's such a beautiful story. And I mean, clearly that is. Is somebody who's a true leader. Right? And I love that story so much because that's one day, one moment that you remember forever. And I think that's the power of leadership. And do you want people to remember the moments where you did something that helped them be at their best, or do you want them to remember the moments that they felt at their worst? And we don't get to choose what people remember about us, but we can make choices and how we act to help potentially impact that. And you hit the nail on the head. And I think that's the thing about behaviors, is when we're in business, we're measured by results. But at the end of the day, we get results through behaviors. And leaders are going to get better results when they focus on the behaviors that enable them to have better relationships with other people. And one of the things that you just brought up, there's so much research about this around gratitude, around appreciation. People feel valued regardless of who they are. This is core across demographics. When they feel heard, when they feel seen, and when they feel understood. And they also feel valued, when they feel like they. They matter and mattering.
There's a researcher by the name of Isaac Politensky who has a fantastic model around this. And he says that mattering is really about two different things. It's. It's about contributing to something greater than ourselves, and it's about being recognized for that contribution. So if you kind of synthesize that, it's about adding value and feeling valued, and that sounds like what that leader of your. Yours did. And, you know, one of the things I also think about the word leadership and the idea of leadership is that was an example of a manager who had a position of authority. You had all worked really hard, and they took that moment to step into leadership. Management and leadership are two different things. Management's the title. Management's the operation. Leadership is the behavior. And because of that, anyone can be a leader. I mean, in fact, we all lead something. Maybe it's whether it's our own lives, whether it's families, whether it's, you know, a sports team that you coach on the side, band that you're a part of, or at work. And I'm sure, just like you could think of a story of that impactful leader, you can probably think of somebody in your life who doesn't have a position that is a traditional leadership position, who has been a leader in your life because of what they've inspired you to do, what you've looked up to them and how you've followed their lead.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: I love that. And I'm not saying. And I don't want the listeners to think people who are not in a leadership position, because I do agree with you, we are leaders in our own right. But I'm not saying that you have to drop the waterworks and tears every time. But I think there's a difference between saying thank you for doing a great job or showing some vulnerability and saying, you know, listen, really, really, really, really, really want to thank you guys for. For all the hard work. I know it's been tough, and I know there's been some ups and downs in the last, you know, month or so, you know, and you guys all stuck together, and I just love our cohesive unit. You know, just. There's certain words in there that you can put in there that means so much more than no, thanks for your hard work. Y' all did a great job. Like, there's just. There's two. You're talking about two different scenarios there, right?
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Yes. It's specific. And I do a lot of workshops around feedback, and that's one of the things I think people get wrong a lot, is, well, I'm giving positive feedback. I'm telling them that they did a great job. It's it's empty. It's empty calories of feedback. It's like the snack food version of feedback. And there's a couple reasons. It feels like a platitude, it doesn't feel genuine. And then the person doesn't know what you're actually praising. And what happens in those cases is the person might actually wind up doing something again that wasn't what you actually liked or appreciated, and now you have to come back and correct it, which causes frustration, which causes confusion. So it is about getting very specific and genuine with what the person did, what you appreciate, and again, showing that you notice them. You notice them as a human being. You notice them as a team. You understand the value they provide, and you're bringing that back to them. And we're starving for that. You know, we're so busy. We're constantly doing, doing, doing, doing, doing that for somebody to take a moment and pause and go, I see you, I value you, and here's why and how. There's just something that hits a core human need there.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: So listen, I know we've kind of delved in this, but I want to go in a little bit deeper here when we talk about leaders. What behavior should good leaders avoid?
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think the. I'm going to kind of bucket this in the biggest thing that. That leaders should avoid. And I'm going to call it one size fits all leadership and changing it to one size fits one leadership, with the caveat that there are some core things that we can do. Well, what I mean by that is I think there's a tendency, especially for newer. I'm gonna call them managers because it's what they are. Yes, Leadership. Hopefully they're modeling it, but they might not be where, okay, this is what works for me, or this is what I've seen work. So I'm just gonna do this, and I'm just gonna do this for everyone. And we're all diverse human beings with unique needs.
And what works for you might not work for other people. You know, I'll give you example, like goals as an example. There are individuals who are really inspired and motivated by having what seems like an insurmountable goal.
You know what I'm gonna. It's insurmountable, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna go after it. There are other people where that's really demotivating. So I do an exercise sometimes in my leadership workshops where I ask people, okay, imagine that I give you a million dollars to run five miles. Raise your hand if you Would try it. If I give you all day to do it, most people raise their hand like, yeah, a million dollars all day, fine, I'll try it. Then I go, okay, keep your hands up. If I said an hour, hands start to drop. Keep a hand up. If I said 20 minutes, more hands stop to drop and I go all the way down to 30 seconds, there's always one or two people that will keep their hands up because they go, you know what, I'm probably not going to be able to do it, but it's a million dollars, so what's the harm in trying where other people think that's impossible, so I'm not going to do it. So again, just goal setting is one example. But if you are somebody who needs baseline goals that you can smash, don't assume that other people are going to go above and beyond. If you're somebody who needs the impossible to motivate you to get there, don't assume that that's going to be motivating to other people. So I think that that one size fits all, especially when it's trying to approach leadership in the way that works for you without being aware that other people have different needs, different styles. And I think the other thing is assumptions. That's the biggest thing. Look, we as human beings, we all make assumptions every single day. But I can't tell you how many times I have coaching conversations with leaders where I hear so and so is doing this and so and so is thinking this, and I think so and so wants to develop in this. And I go, well, how do you know?
And they go, well, I don't actually know. I say, how could you find out? Well, I guess I have to have a conversation with them. So assumptions without conversation, it's impossible to understand what people's needs are. And doing that. And then the last thing that I would say is the command and control leadership. So I'm telling you what to do, you go do it. People aren't responsive to that. Certainly fear can be a motivator. Authority can be a motivator up to an extent. It's not lasting motivationally. And it gets you compliance. It doesn't get you discretionary effort. It doesn't help you activate somebody's potential.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Wow. Everything you said there was just amazing. The thing that kind of jumped out at me is a one size fits all. I feel like that's kind of like an old school thing. So I feel like, for example, there's a company that's developed years ago, started by somebody, an elder, and they've built and then everybody else in the family's kind of come in there and other people under the family and they're developing them. How that original person develops stuff and how they lead and they're continuing to do it that way when we have to look at every individual and everybody's motivated differently. Myself, as I've gotten older, if you tell me that I can't do something, I may not do it in the end, but I am gonna go hell in high water to make sure that I can do it. And then I can say I did it. And now I'm collecting receipts because I did it. That is my mentality. The other thing that I want to talk about is assumptions. Absolutely. You always have a leader. We have to have a conversation with somebody and see what direction they're they're going in or what direction they like to go in or what, you know, what could be bothering them. If something's going on and they're behaving in a certain way or manner and you're thinking it's something, but it actually might be something else, we need to have that conversation. And that was kind of, that would be kind of like a. We talk about what they should avoid. I think they should avoid not having regular check ins with their teams to make sure that everything is good and having regular one on ones to make sure that everyone's on track and if they're okay and if there's anything that they could do to help them to grow throughout their time.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Preach, Andrew, preach. So I am hundred percent on board with you on that. And it's so fascinating how that seems to be the first thing to go. And even if leaders are doing it consistently, it doesn't mean they're doing it well. So I think that the concept of a one on one, when you break it down, it's person to person. But what a one on one often winds up being is one to task or one to project.
Where is that person to person connection? Right. It's often about, okay, what's the status on this? What's the status on that? You know, what do you need help with that? So I think one of the things that, that regardless of where you are in as a leader is bringing the, the one to one, bringing the person to person back in what you just shared. You know, when, when somebody is starting to slip or something, asking hey, you know, let's take a beat, what's going on with you? This is, I know this isn't usually like you, I want to check in with how you're doing person to person. You know, if you're not comfortable talking about it, if you're not comfortable sharing it, that's fine. But before we talk about how we get to a plan to help you get to the point that you need to be and we need you to be, I want to just break and find out what's going on. And then, you know, I think the other thing about, you know, what you just kind of brought up is there are many leaders who, who don't turn the one on ones into a dialogue. It's almost like it's this like volley back and forth versus being a conversation.
And even creating a space where you say, hey, let's use this one to talk about our one on ones. What's working for you in these? What would make them a little bit better for you? What can I be doing differently afterwards? What would I like to see differently from you afterwards? You know, how can we progress better? And I think there's a talking about assumptions. I think leaders have the belief I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time to have that conversation. We have so much we need to get done. And it's such a misguided view because what happens is we overestimate the amount of time it takes upfront and underestimate the long term time costs. So we go, I don't have 10 minutes to have this conversation right now because we have to talk through all of these tasks. But by not having that 10 minute conversation, you're actually creating hours and hours of inefficiency, hours and hours of follow up conversations because there's a lack of alignment, hours and hours due to frustration or demotivation because that that person hasn't been able to share with you what they need. So you don't know what another person needs unless they, unless you ask. And it's often small things and there's ways to frame questions to get to things that are within your control. And tailoring your style to another person's needs doesn't mean not being who you are.
It's just about changing your approach and skills and routines a little bit to help them be successful. And you brought up values. We all have different values. We're all motivated by different things. We also all have different experiences and perspectives that shape how we show up. You know, sometimes somebody showing up in a way because they've had negative experiences in the past with bosses who have done similar things to what you're doing right now and you don't know that History. So you don't understand that that's impacting that we have different cultural contexts. You're in Canada, I'm in the US Even though those countries are neighbors, there's different cultural things. And as teams get more global, as you lead people across different cultures, you can't assume that your way of doing things culturally actually jives with that other culture. But we don't often sit and have the converse. Maybe we go through a training about cross cultural communication. That's a starting point, but that's not, it's not a replacement for having a conversation with a person. Tell me about how your culture influences your work. Tell me, tell me culturally what's important to you from a leadership. You know, when we talk about being diverse, that's what it's about.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I, there's so many different ways that we can, we can look at that for sure. And it's, it's super important that we, that we take the time to ask the right questions and understand that are, you know, when we're talking to somebody that like you said that we can't assume somebody is one. It's, you know, one size fits all. Like you mentioned, we have to understand that everybody thinks about things differently. Understands a little bit differently. What, what I want to know from you is what are the disadvantages of behavior changed?
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a great question.
And I think there's a, there's a few things in a few different layers. I'll answer this with the first. I'll kind of start with the individual, with what you are talking about. When you're a leader, everybody's always watching, even when you don't think they are. And that's the case even when you don't have a quote unquote management position. So, you know, if you're, if you're somebody who's a role on the team who, you know, kind of steps up in a way where the rest of the team sees you as a leader. They're, they're taking your lead, they're following your lead and they're watching what you do. And leaders are human. And we have bad days and sometimes we make missteps. And the challenge is because everybody is watching and because humans by nature make their own assumptions, we start creating our own stories. And those stories can be within a context. So, you know, we're in a, we're in a stage right now in the world where layoffs are rampant and people are feel fearful for their jobs. And so if a leader is having an off day, that might have nothing to do with work and is completely personal. Team members might start making assumptions. Oh my gosh, they're, they're getting ready for layoffs and that's why they're acting cold to me. And that's going to change how that person shows up with you. And you might not even know that you've done that. So I think that's one of the challenges of behavioral change. I think the other challenge of behavioral change is when we act in certain ways without setting clear expectations, we might actually inadvertently create the wrong behaviors.
So, you know, like, I think vulnerability is really important.
I think a level of transparency is really important. But when we're not clear on, hey, I'm sharing this context now because of X, Y and Z, it might actually create an environment where people feel like being transparent on everything is okay, which might not be the case. Or that people should open up and share every intimate personal detail of their lives because their leader is modeling vulnerability. Or in the case that you shared that it's okay to cry at work every single day. So setting some expectations of, you know, this is why I'm doing this is important context. And then the last thing that I would share is behavioral change is both hard and easy. So by that I mean it's really hard to create new habits. And I'll talk about it in a second of like the things that you need to actually do it. It's also really hard sometimes for leaders to do the right behaviors because it's not what's incentivized by the organization. You're not again measured on behaviors, you're measured on results. And if there is a lot of pressure, if there's a lot pressure to deliver results, pressure to do a lot of tasks on time, when we're under stress, it actually brings out our worst habits. It narrows our scope of view. It puts us into that self preservation mode of flight, fight or freeze. So how we show up shifts and by saying it's easy, how we show up shifts and shifts very easily depending on our environmental dynamics. And one thing we do could have lasting repercussions. I think about trust. Trust takes forever to build. It's like, I think about it like a bank account, you know, it takes forever to build and build and build that, that savings of trust. And it's by lots and lots of actions over time. But it only takes one action, one behavior that could actually spend all that trust in an instant.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: So when I thought of that question, the thing that popped into my head was a friend of Mine. And this is going back, I'd say probably about five or six years ago. They were working for an organization and they had an organizational change. There was a leader. Leadership change. The leader that was there previous, they were always in her office. She was telling me they had always the door closed.
They didn't really interact with anybody. You could go see them, but you were kind of a little bit timid because the door was always closed. And then it changed, and there was another leader that came in. And that person, from the first day, I walked around the whole office every day.
Good morning. How are you today? How was your evening? They just kind of like, wow, what a difference. And then she said what the talk was, was, was not necessarily, oh, so nice that this manager walked around. But the talk was, it's too bad that the last one couldn't be like that.
But we're kind of going back. It's like, who cares what the other one did before, what you're in now? That's what you. That's. You got. That person from day one has always makes it a point, whether it's a quick tour or a long tour. They go around and they say, good morning, everybody. And you are. You're seeing it right away. So there's a reason why you're seeing it. So just take it and enjoy it.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: It's hard. I mean, it's. It's so hard. We live in the past a lot in life and the work. Like, actually human beings are time travelers. We're very rarely living in the present. We're often living in the past or we're living in the future.
And, you know, I think sometimes when you see what good leadership looks like and you haven't had it for a long time, it's. It kind of opens your eyes to, wow, I could have had this, and what could have been possible had I had this. And I wish I could have instead of. To your point, you know, focusing on the moment. And I think that's something that a strong leader, whether it's a leader of peers, and probably that's an example of a leader of peers, can step in and do what you did and go, yeah, I wish we had had this in the past. We do have this now. And because of that, how do we share that this is what we need for the future, and how do we take those lessons from the past to move forward in the present and the future instead of sitting there?
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Exactly. So, Jonetto, what do you think the impact is of diversity on a leadership's behavior?
[00:33:09] Speaker A: I mean, it's so impactful. And I think it's impactful in two ways. One is. Well, I'll say it's three ways, okay? So one is that the leader's own diversity of experiences. So our upbringing, our culture, our genetic makeup, our past experiences, they all shape how we show up as a leader. So there's. There's the diversity for us as individuals. Then, as we've talked about, there's the diversity of the team that we actually lead and the people that we actually lead. Each person is like a unique book in a library, right? They all have their own stories, they all have their own context, they all have their own genetic makeup, and they all have their cultural influences. They all have their hopes and dreams and values, and we don't ever get to fully see that. Right? So that, you know, makes it super complex of how do we get these consistent results and these consistent behaviors out of a wide variety of people who have completely different perspectives and lives than what I'm aware of. And I'm influencing that based on my own perspective and life and style. And then I think there's the diversity at the organizational level. It is still, unfortunately, hard for a variety of people to be able to move into leadership positions for a number of reasons. There's still a lot of bias in there. And the sad thing about that is, I think it perpetuates more of that one size fits all mentality. Even. Even when we don't think we're doing that, you know, even when we're trying to promote good leadership behaviors, because we don't have representation in leadership that matches the representation of the world, that matches the representation of the people that we're leading. Because when we put people in leadership positions, we're often looking for certain experiences and looking for certain things that are harder for certain groups of people to have access to.
And at the same time, it's risky for an organization to give somebody a chance when they've not been able to display anything. So it's hugely impactful. I think that we need to be in a world where our leadership at all levels and the higher you go in an org, the C suite, you know, tends to be predominantly male, tends to be skew older, tends to be white. It's even worse at the board level. And, you know, even. Even me, I'm a white woman. I have a set of perspectives.
I do a lot of research on leadership, but I come from a westernized nation. And when I'm working with individuals in global organizations, it's really important for Me to understand the context of the culture and identify. Just because these are the practices that I think are right and the right behaviors, it might not fit here because this is a culture that's much more hierarchical. Even though I don't believe in a command and control leadership style, maybe it's what that works for them, that culture. And how do I help them adopt behaviors that are in line with leadership best practices that still feel true to their culture? That's on a global scale, but I'll tell you where else it shows up.
I work with teams spanning everything from engineering to sales to finance to manufacturing in plants. That cultural context is completely different. I spent a lot of time working in an organization where I was working with production facilities that were on site in the throes of COVID when the rest of the staff and the rest of the organization across the different teams was remote. Their experience, their sense of safety, their needs were very different. Their needs are very different because they don't. They're not on computers all day. How leadership acts in that environment, actually, there's some.
There's some really great benefits where they can have more of those conversations than you can in a virtual world. But, yeah, virtual matters, hybrid matters, and even within an organization. And this was, I think, a challenge in developing leadership development at scale. I could create core practices and principles, but if I didn't understand the context of the team, I wouldn't be able to help them tailor it to their particular needs or recognize that there's a place that that needs to change. And it was very important to me to spend time and, and really understanding that context and really advocating for the differences in different groups. But not everybody does that. And, you know, I had to go to bat sometimes for spending that time because, well, we need to get out X, Y and Z. But that X, Y and Z isn't going to be adopted if I'm not spending the time to understand the cultural context.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: What you just said is super impactful because probably people might be sick of hearing me say this, but I say this, this often, and I'm gonna probably say this until everybody and that I know has heard it. And that is, as a leader, we need to continue to learn, need to continue to grow. And you just said it there. When you're talking to different organizations, you could very easily go in and you could, well, this, this is what you're doing. This is the way that you should do it. And there's no questions, ifs, ands, or buts about it. This is how you have to do it while you're actually doing the research and you're actually finding out about the different organizations and the culture and how things grow or finding out more. And you're learning by that. And you said it earlier that you like to lead and you like to learn new things. And I'm very similar to that. I send me an article, send me anything. Like I said, any doable leadership, workplace or hr, send it to me. Articles, whatever, I'm gonna read it. Because that, for me, I'm going to continuously do that. And because I'm never gonna say that I know it all, I'm never gonna work with an organization and go, oh, yeah, I've seen this before. This is what you need to do. And then. And there's no way around it, this is what you have to do. Every situation is different, and we just have to take the time to learn and listen and hear exactly what people have to say and from there, kind of figure out, because there's going to be solutions for one end, going to be solutions for another end. But you need to hear the whole story, just like anything, right? It's like hearing your best friend calling you and telling you about a situation. And yeah, you, for sure, you're going to kind of maybe go with what your friend is telling you, but you want to hear the full story, because if they're a very close friend, you're going to tell them, sorry to hear that. And once you start hearing a full story, if they're really, really close and they will take your feedback, you're going to tell them, say, listen, I understand what you're doing, you're what you're feeling, and I understand you're upset. However, I might have done this a little bit. I might have done that a little bit differently. I might have said this a little bit differently. I want you to understand that because I love you and I care about you. I'm not telling you this because I'm trying to hurt your feelings. I'm trying to get you to see something in a different way, in a different light. And it's the same thing with an organization you want. Every organization has a different light and a different solution.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: Mm. I love that you shared that. Because the thing that I love most about leadership and the reason that I invest so much time and passion into this space is. Is twofold. One, there's never an end point of leadership, right? Like, you never get to, like, congratulations, you've reached level 100 of Leader, and you have nothing left to learn or grow. There's always room to learn and grow. And then the second reason is skills and have a half life. And it's interesting because we spend so much time training people on technical skills, updating technical skills. I hate the term soft skills. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it because in my perspective, those are the core skills and those leadership skills are the core skills. They are the only skills that are durable. That regardless of how the world changes, regardless of what technology is introduced, regardless of what jobs exist, these are the durable skills and they're transferable.
They, you can move into any role and leverage these skills. These skills you can leverage at home, these skills you can leverage in your communities, these skills you can leverage in your hobbies. And leadership's a practice and, and it's, it's one that you keep having the opportunity to get better at. And I would say have the responsibility to get better at. And again, it's not easy. Behavioral change is hard. And you know, one of the things I'd, I'd say to your listeners, like, as you're thinking about the behaviors that you might want to change, it's not going to happen overnight. You mentioned like New Year's resolutions early. There's a reason why resolutions fail. And there's kind of, I would say like, I've kind of bucketed into like four fact, four things that you need to keep in mind in order to change behavior both for yourself and others. And this is also where if you want to start having different conversations in your one to ones, you can actually bring some of these factors in to engage in dialogue with people. So number one is the knowledge. If you don't have the knowledge of something that need, or I'll call it awareness. If you don't have the awareness that something needs to change, then you can't change it. Right? So it starts with awareness. The second piece is motivation. You can be aware of it all you want, but if you're not motivated to make that change or know what would motivate you to make that change. And this is what happens a lot of time with, with New Year's resolutions. You know, oh, I want to lose 10 pounds. Okay, why? Why are you motivated to lose 10 pounds? I want to look good in a bathing suit. Okay. Why is that important to you? Like actually diving in deeper to understand? Well, it's actually I really want to be healthy because I want to be around for my family for a long time. Boom. That's your motivator. Your motivator is to be around for your family For a long time you have awareness that you need to get healthier to do that. Losing ten pounds is one way, it's not the only way. And then, okay, so we've got awareness, we've got motivation. Do you actually have the resources to do it? And resources are different things. Resources are money, depending on what you're motivated to change. Resources are time. Depending on what you're looking to change. Resources could be support and accountability, depending on what you're looking to change. Resources could be like just mental capacity. You know, maybe you've just got too much going on in your life right now and you can't add that one thing. It can be the skills and the techniques, the equipment. So it's the resources. And then lastly, ease. It needs to feel. It's not going to be easy, but it needs to feel possible.
And this is why things like couch to 5k programs work, because you start small and you build. So that's the same with behavior. Start small and then build. If you go, I need to completely revamp all of my one on ones and completely change that. You're setting yourself up for failure. Instead of what's one one on one that you have this week that you can ask a different question to get to know the person a little better that you're not doing right now. Cool. Do that. Celebrate that. Build on that.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: So I. I loved it. I love everything you just said there. You might have said it, but I want to give you the opportunity here. In closing, what is one takeaway that you want our audience to get from this episode and this conversation?
[00:44:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share a takeaway and then I'm gonna share a challenge slash like call to action to people listening. The biggest takeaway is that leadership and behavioral change are both iterative practices. They're things that take time. They're things that come from trying small things. Experimenting, learning, growing, building.
Making a mistake isn't a failure. It's part of a. Part of the learning and the reflection. And it's small, small, small, small, small. Build, build, build. The small things are what matter. And my challenge to leaders looking to change behaviors and others looking to change behaviors in themselves is the best way to learn is to. Is not to read, actually. It's to lean in through conversation. And you know, I think Andrew, you shared that and I'm a huge proponent of that. I can learn something from every single person on this planet. But in order to do that, I need to engage them in conversation. I need to be curious I need to be interested in them as a human being and what they have to share and what I could learn from them to help them be better, to be better myself. And I need to be present in order to do it because if you are not present for that conversation, you're not in a conversation.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: I love, love everything you said there. I'm going to say my call to action here is rapport building. I have said this to the cows. Come home. Rapport building is huge. It's huge for me. It's one of my core values. I love it. I think it's super important. And rapport building brings conversations like this, people. So all the audience or anyway that's listening here. If you have an opportunity, I know people, you're busy, I know you have stuff, take a 10, 50 minute call, have somebody to have a conversation with. If you really felt like you had a good conversation with them, you can do it. And I've done this many times. I've said, hey, this was such a great conversation. We're running out of time, we have to get back to adulting. But we should have a part two and this and you could even do a part two, part three, part four, part ten if you want. But just have that conversation. You just never know where it's going to go.
Jordana, listen, I want to take the time to think you for coming on today. You are a special human. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
I've really enjoyed interacting with you previous.
Your words, the way you speak, you speak so clear, convoyant and concise and confidence. I just love your confidence and it's just been a joy to, to chat with you, to get to know you and it's been a joy to have you on here today.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: Thank you, Andrew. I have so enjoyed the conversation and, and you are a model of conversation. You are a model of seeing that people are interesting out there and wanting to connect with people, to hear their stories and learn from them and then share that more broadly with others. And you know, it's just starting from a simple hello, you know, would you be up for a five minute conversation? Just your passion comes through in everything you do and you know, you don't just have that as a value, it's something that you model and you know, to me you are, you are a leader of connections. So thank you for connecting with me and thank you for connecting with so many and thank you for helping me connect to your audience.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: I appreciate that. Listen, it was a pleasure on behalf of myself and my guest Jordan. I'd like to thank you all for listening today and until next time. Be safe and remember everyone that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything you have been listening to.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Let's Be Diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
