Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stitch. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Not one day goes buy when decisions do not have to be made. Some of those decisions require very little thought. Deciding on what to wear, what to eat for lunch, or which route to take to work are not the type of life altering decisions that people dwell on. I could think of one decision that I've had to make, and it usually ends up with the same daily question, what's for dinner? So I thought today we would delve into this topic, the processing our thoughts before making decisions. And today I'm so lucky to have as my guest discuss this topic. Stacey Millard now, Stacy Millard is a mom of two and a multi passionate entrepreneur. She grew and sold her first seven figure business before she was 35 while raising her daughters. She provides herself not only on her own experience growing a business, but also the thousands of small businesses she's helped over the past 15 years. She believes in three nonnegotiables for every successful business. Making money heartbeat impact on those we serve and having a great life because of our business, not in spite of it. Stacey works as a fractional CFO and business mentor for entrepreneurs, helping them scale and have the success she knows they can all achieve. I spoke to this person originally when I first met her on LinkedIn. I was so impressed with all the stuff that she was putting out there and I thought, I got to have this person on. So today is our lucky day. Welcome to the show, Stacey. I am so honored and happy to have you on today.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Andrew. I'm so excited.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: We're excited to have you on today. How are things with you? How was the summer? How's the weather out your way? How's work, family life? How was everything?
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm in northern Canada, so sweater weather. Fall has hit here, but it's welcomed. It was a warm summer and kids are back to school. It's one of those transition seasons right now where we're going from one season to the next. But it was a great summer and also really enjoying a little bit cooler weather in the fall.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Did you get a chance to get away anywhere or nice trips?
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah, we take trips throughout the year, so it wasn't any big long family trips, but we did definitely visit our families through the summer and really enjoyed that. But also some time at home I think that's an interesting concept that has been sticking out to me more that people travel so much and I'm like, I'm enjoying our house, our yard, some routine, and just actually enjoying being in one place instead of being all over.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Yes, I totally make sense. A staycation is always nice as well. You can get things done and enjoy your home. Exactly. Sit outside a deck, read a book, videos, whatever. Watch movies that everyone's talking about. Gives you an opportunity to catch up on a lot of stuff, for sure. I'm glad that you had a good summer. I'm sure that you were excited about the kids to start summer. And now I'm sure as a mom, you're probably excited that they're back. So now you get your mom time.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: I don't know about mom time. They have a lot of homework. So lacking on the mom time. But I am really excited because they really enjoy being in school. They love learning. They love having their friends every day. They thrive in routine. It's good for them.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Good.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Thanks for sharing all of that stuff with us, and I'm glad to hear that things went well and you had a good summer. Before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question from my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours?
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: My question for you is, if you could remove one color in the whole world, what would it be and why?
[00:04:01] Speaker A: There's this level of green. That's not neon, it's brownie. It makes my stomach turn. I would remove a level of green.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: So just because of your stomach, you just don't like it?
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Seeing it just turns my stomach. I'm like, I could remove that color.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: I think I might agree with you on that. I think that there are some greens that are nice and there's some that are especially. Sometimes you see a car driving by and it's that particular green, and you're wondering, why would they pick, of all the colors in the world for a car that you see every day, why would you pick that color? So, yeah, I definitely agree with you on a certain level, for sure.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Thanks for having fun with me. I really appreciate you doing that with me. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about you and your story?
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So I grew up in the prairie provinces of Canada. My parents both worked for fairly large corporations. And what I would say is, naturally, I was always very intrigued by leadership, but also by psychology. My first leadership position was when I was just a teenager. I wasn't even legal age to vote yet. But they left me in charge of this retail store that I had been working at. And it just came very naturally to me. And eventually I went on to go to business school. I got my CPA accounting designation and spent a lot of time working with thousands of entrepreneurs through all the years. Eventually I left working for somebody else, went into working for myself, and I got a whole new level of leadership training and responsibilities and understanding what that's all about, to be the one in charge. And really along the way, I guess I would say I learned a lot about myself. Eventually I built and then sold an accounting practice. And now I also went back into somewhat accounting, but mostly working with businesses, understanding how they make money and how that affects their livelihood, the community, the people that they hire, and trying to find some longevity. Because I know, we all know of the failure rates of businesses. We talk often about how 50% of small businesses fail in the first few years. And so that's a statistic that I want to change. And that's what I help people with along that way. I had two kids. They're six and eight now, little girls. And when I say multi passionate, it's just because I love working with businesses. Every business I work with, I almost see myself as a part of it. I want to see how it can work, how it can be successful. We own a couple of businesses. Yeah, that's a little bit about me.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: There's so many things that I loved about your story there. First of all, I love that you learnt leadership at a young age. Many conversations I had with leaders is that I think they forget or we forget that we learn leadership at such a young age. Even as far back in kindergarten, where you're playing with your friends and you're leading, okay, let's do this. And why don't we learn this today? Or let's play this game. Let's play this puzzle. You want to play it with me? So you learn such a debt. And I think we forget that and we go with what we currently know and we don't think back of what got us where we were.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: And I think that's really funny because a lot of the entrepreneurs that I talk to when they go in business and when they're even promoting people in their own businesses, often we're having conversations about what leadership really is because they may be good at their trade, but then as they become head of the business, I actually say leadership is a separate skill. And if you've never been in that position before, you have a lot to learn. And the same going with when you're hiring and promoting people internally, just because they were good at doing the job doesn't mean that they're going to be good at encouraging other people to do the job. It's so interesting that it's like something that we do innately learn. But then also I think the real success comes from being mindful and purposeful and intentional about how you show up as a leader, what you want to accomplish from it, and being purposeful about it.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: I agree with you 100% that I think people are put in a position. They're not taught how to be a leader. But I also think, too that a lot of leaders feel that, oh, I've been a leader for 20 some OD years, but it doesn't mean that you can't continue to learn because things are changing, people are changing, the needs of employees are changing, needs of customers are changing. So you have to change your way of thinking a little bit and philosophy, because if you don't in the next five years, the demand is going to be so high. If you can't adapt and adjust to it, then you're going to struggle for sure. So, yeah, I just love your story. I love the fact you built two businesses. It sounds like you are a business but family orientated individual, which I think is super important. I talk a lot about the term work life balance, but I think it's hard for that. So I kind of coin it as integrated life balance where you are integrating yourself into your work and your home life because it's hard to separate the two. There's going to be times where one's going to be a little bit involved with the other or vice versa. I think integrating yourself is very important. It sounds like we do that, and I think that's awesome.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: I love that term. I love how you say that. I don't know that there's this balance of something. We're always like wobbling, hoping that we're staying upright. But I do love the way you put that.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's something that I've been thinking about for the last little bit because it's a topic that people are talking about a lot. And this platform, this podcast, I've had a lot of opportunities to talk to a lot of people, a lot of different stories, and a lot of people have gotten a situation where they started. They did the thing, they studied, they got their diploma, they got the job, they got the family, got the husband, kids, house, they got the car company, credit card, cell phone. They have everything. But yet they sit back and they go, I have all this stuff, but I'm just not happy. I don't know what it is or you can't put a finger on it. What I believe is that you have to have passion for what you do. And I noticed in our first conversation over the phone to discuss having you on today, and I noticed it even more now that you understand the importance of everything and you separate the two. And I could tell you have tremendous passion for what you do. You even said it before, that you feel like you are part of the organization when you're working with them. And for me, that is rapport building, which is super important as a leader or as a business owner. Rapport building builds trust and respect, which means that you're going to have a positive engagement and a safe work environment altogether.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: I love that. I think when you talk about rapport, it's really interesting because I had a lot of thoughts when I was a young leader about what I need, needed to do to be successful. And I think it's changed over the years. I don't know if this resonates with you, but I used to think I needed to work the hardest out of my team, and I thought I needed to come be the first one in and the last one to leave. And along the way, I realized that that was actually so detrimental to my team because while I was the one in first and leaving last, and while I looked like I was putting in the effort, I also took away a lot of their ownership of their own work because I was just responsible for it. They weren't being held accountable. They knew that. And when I shifted to seeing it as a team process, so if one person's staying late, everybody's staying late. The whole dynamic of the team shifted and we had so much more success. I don't know, leadership is just so interesting along the way, how our thoughts and our perceptions and we try things and then they have to change a little bit. But that was one of the things I did that I was like, oh, I'm going to build some rapport with my people. And then it was like, this is no good. I'm the only one responsible for anything.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: And I love that you realized that. You saw that because speaking to a lot of people when you're a leader who, for example, if they're always staying late and after hours and doing stuff and they're staying till 637 o'clock at night, it makes your team feel like, oh, man, he's been staying like all week, maybe I should probably stick around, too, to help out when that might not be the perception that they're trying to portray. They're just trying to get what they want done. It's quiet time, everybody's gone. And they figure, I'm going to stay for another hour, get stuff done before I go home. But the perception of the team, they might look at it like, maybe stay. Whereas you changed your philosophy and now the rapport is so built that now your team members will like, steven's behind. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm going to stay for another hour, so finish up. And the rapport is so strong, they're like, okay, you're going to stay. We want to make sure that you get home to your families. We'll stick around. What can we help you out with so we can all get home sooner and we're not leaving one of our teammates there. So that's vital to an organization.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would also argue that when I was the one staying late as a leader all the time, I think I likely was doing things that were responsibilities of my team. And so then almost like they had no agency for their own work. Like, I'm just going to take care of it. And I just think it created a really weird dynamic of like, you don't have to be responsible for this. I've got this. Maybe even a level of like, I can do it better. And then so people lose desire to try. And so when you start really just holding yourself accountable to that and it set the boundaries, everybody became responsible for their own positions, but they also became more responsible at a team level of what could we do to make the whole team more efficient instead of everybody working in silos?
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Our topic today is processing our thoughts before making decisions. What I would like for you to do is to explain to us why processing our thoughts before making decisions is so vital or important.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of the most important things that you can do in a business. So whether if you're in a leadership position, but maybe you're not at the top asking this of your leaders, or if you are at the top, the most important thing you can do is provide your people with direction. And this is what a lot of small businesses in general fail to do. As we get larger, more people demand that we have strategic plans or business plans in place. But a lot of the time, the smaller that we are, the more we think it's agile to not have a plan. So oftentimes we're like, we'll skip that part. Everybody will understand what we mean. But on so many levels, it creates a lot of indirection, but then that makes that hard on the team to carry it out. It makes it hard on the team to get to wherever the goal you've set is. And then from a financial perspective, I think it just brings so much questioning and indecision or wrong decisions because everybody's using their own judgment. Instead of thinking as a team, trying to move the needle in the same direction, everybody's pushing their own way. So this thought process of thinking our decisions out really comes from that planning. One of the best things that I ever did in business was in my team meetings. We went through our mission every single meeting. It was something we started with. I've also sat on boards for nonprofit organizations. I also sit on the board for an airport. But that is something that we bring into every single meeting because it really helps us align all of our decision making. And when we got in that habit and team meetings, what I started seeing is people doing that within the organization when they were thinking like, hey, how do I handle this customer or this client, or how do I make this decision about what I'm going to do in my role next? It was always driven back to that bigger business plan, and they were able to make their thoughts congruent with where the business needed to go. So I think it is incredibly important. I would also love to tie that into. I read this book and I give Donald Miller so much credit for how he explained this. It's called business made simple. And you would think it's just a business book. But at the very start of the book, the concept explains how a business works. And I think everybody should read it because understanding, we all have a role, whether we're an employee or whether we're at the top, we actually want the business to survive. We want our position to be there for the future. We want to have our impact in whatever role we're in. We want lots of amazing things. But for those to happen, the business has to be sustainable and the business has to last. So reading this book, Donald Miller explains how we actually need the business to make money to do it. So when I start talking to leaders within the business, and it's funny because sometimes they want things like, we want great pay for our teams and we want to have community impact and we want all these amazing things. But when we haven't brought it back to how we make money, the longevity of the business is compromised. Maybe we aren't profitable or we're not profiting what we could so we can't invest in this next level of growth. So I highly recommend everybody understanding how a business makes money. And that book is one that just breaks it down so simply. Even the most seasoned business owners are like, wow, I wish I would have known that when I started my business. And that is important because like I said, we want the business to succeed because I want to keep my position. I want to keep doing my great work for the customers or the clients that I deal with. And in order to do that, we have to be profitable. And when you change your thought perspective on that of like, how does the business make money? How does my position add value? It's so interesting. I've seen people go from pushing agendas of we need this next in business to thinking back and being like, oh, is this going to move the needle? Does this bring a level of risk that maybe would close down the business? Is it important? Is this important for one of our initiatives? Does it make the business money? And they come up with way better ideas in terms of that constraint, all of a sudden is pushing them to be like, okay, I need to make money while doing this. So that meets the business's needs and my needs and maybe a community. And now all of a sudden we're getting creative and we're having way more progress because we've thought of all aspects instead of just us in our silo. For example, HR pushing their initiatives, or I work with construction teams, so, like, safety is pushing their initiatives but not understanding how do we tie this all in. And so I think it is so phenomenal when we can bring it back to how does the business make money? What does the business need to succeed, and how do I succeed within that? And we're bringing that thought process to every decision we make. That's where the magic is made.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Wow, so much to pack in there. I just love everything you just said. One thing that jumped out at me is providing direction, and I think that comes in the onboarding process. When you are onboarding your people and they're starting their new position, it's the job of a leader to sit down with that person, talk about the job. They obviously know what they applied for. Go a little bit more in depth, and the leader should give that employee or their team member their expectations of them. So what do they expect from them? So that the employee doesn't go in blind and giving them a word doc on something when the leader wanted a spreadsheet. So just little things to give them direction and let them know what their expectations are. And a huge aspect of that is communication, I believe. I believe in business, we can never over communicate. I'm sure that you probably see it with businesses that you deal with. Some are very good at communicating things, some are not very good at communicating things. Some hide things and then not communicate it. So I think just let people know, even if it's just to say, hey, we're working on something coming up. We can't go into any details at this point. However, something is coming down the pipe very soon, and we will give you further details on that. You can even give them a little bit of snippet of what it's about, but just to let them know that something is coming down the pipe and what you can tell them. I understand there's confidentiality in certain aspects. I think leaving people in the dark and not letting them know what's coming, it leaves people fragile when they're not knowing what's going on. And some people have a little bit of posture syndrome of what's going on, especially if there's lots of closed doors. Well, is it me? Are they talking about me? Did I do something wrong? It can affect many different people, especially in this age of mental health, people having anxiety, ADHD, that type of stuff. It's super important to let people know what's going on.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I think that's so important, too. One of the things that I learned that was, I would say, had the biggest impact on me as a leader was about our nervous system regulation. And we always hear about fight flight in terms of, is the lion chasing you or not? And how do you respond to conflict? But understanding how that tied into my business and how my actions as a leader could impact somebody, not that I would necessarily always take responsibility for that. You can't always be responsible for somebody else's emotions. However, I can be aware of whether my actions are always going to lead to that. So, like the closing the door, if I know that's going to set my team off, then I don't do it. And becoming aware of how your actions affect others and that emotional intelligence, that was like, by far the most important thing that I would say is even just a level of care for that, right. I think too many leaders are focused on the bottom line or performance of their team, or even just sometimes we walk in with ourselves. We're fragile. We need to feel liked because maybe we're missing that in a part of our lives and we're like, okay, we're going to get the team to like us, but we're not aware of where is the business's goal. How does this work well for the business? How does this work and feel well for me? And how can we make this a great environment for everybody? And when you start putting that emotional intelligence at the forefront and being aware of how your actions will create reactions, whether you want them to or not, it happens so you can be more intentional about it as a leader, I think that's so important.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think it's okay to be vulnerable. Right. So you don't have to always be hard nosed person. You can show your vulnerability. You can go into, tell your team, hey, I'm just having a bad morning. Give me ten minutes in my office and I'll come and see you guys and see if there's something that I can help you out with. But I just need ten minutes just to focus. I think that's so important. And I think if you show that vulnerability side, people will be like, wow, he's like us. He's an actual person and he has feelings like we do. And I think that just means so much to somebody. And I can guarantee you that if you show that your employees are going to go through a wall for you, guarantee it.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: But one of the things that you said, I think that makes the biggest difference is, for sure, it's the vulnerability. Right? If you're not vulnerable, you can't build trust without vulnerability. But also it's the level of responsibility that you just showed of, hey, I need ten minutes in my office, right, where you're not putting it on your team to make you feel better or you're not offloading on your team. You're really taking responsibility for yourself and you're setting such a great example for them to do the same. Right. We cannot affect whether life's going to happen before you show up to work that day, but you can show up and say, you know what, I'm not going to let it bother me, but I do need ten minutes in order to figure things out and have some deep breaths in order to do that. That's so good.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, like you said, I'm not going to let it bother me, but there are certain instances that it's going to bother you. Some things are going to bother you. A simple thing like we talked about work life balance before, having a situation where you're getting ready for work and you get into maybe not a major argument, but you get into a discussion with your husband or your partner and you're like, oh, my God, I'm so annoyed. And you just close the door and you leave and then you're thinking of that the whole way to work and you can't be an actor, an actress and walk in and go, hi, everybody. How's everybody? I hope you had a good morning. You have to take some time to turn that off and get yourself all set up. That being vulnerable is so important, for sure. Why do you think leaders have so much trouble processing thoughts before making decisions?
[00:25:06] Speaker A: I don't think we're really taught to do that as a kid, to be honest. We come out of the womb pretty reactionary and it's a skill that's developed. And I don't know that we learn that in life, even in society right now. If you think financially, we have a lot of impulse spending, we talk a lot about delayed gratification and do we require that of our kids anymore? So that's really built in. So if you haven't built that muscle in your body, you just don't really know how to use it. I think it's something you actually have to be intentional about, which I appreciate you bringing it up is sitting back and thinking. And especially when we have a really busy workload and the to do list is seven pages long, we just want to have quick decision making. We just want to get things done. But we're not really considering how we're impacting ourselves or the business or others in the business in that long term. So I would bring it back and always say, I actually think we can probably get away with doing less if we're intentional. Looking at our to do list, we can look at it and be like, is this moving the needle? And I think a lot of the times we can do less and do other things better because we're so intentional about it and we're able to devote more time and energy to them.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: I love when you said I never taught. I totally believe. I think we were talking about it earlier in the episode where people are put into situations where you're working at a company, Stacey, and they come to you and say, hey, stacey, you know what? You do such a great job. Understand the processes we're going to put you in as a manager, and then you're put into a management position. And now you have to show somebody how to do that job. And if you're just going to go to the system and okay, okay, Andrew, go into here, click here, click on this. Click on that. Open up that sherpwit file. Save that. It's going to download into your file. That's not showing somebody how to do it, but that process is how they do it. They go in and they just go, okay, click here, go there, do that, click that. Sharepoint. Boom, done. So then I think you need to taught because everybody learns differently, right? So one person learning is not the same way as another. So figuring out how people learn what motivates them is super important. And we live in such a diverse world today that you have people coming in from different countries. Now, a team of five, you can have somebody from Italy, somebody from Thailand, and somebody from India all on your team, and somebody from Canada. So they're all different. They all grew up in a different environments, different ways, or taught different things, different lifestyle, as one thing might not motivate one person the same way. So I think figuring that out as well, before we come up with thoughts or making decisions on how we're going to train them, I think we need to rethink. Okay. Stacey learns this way. She's more of a doer, so I'll put her in and I'll let her do it while I watch her, and then I can tell her, okay, no, we'll go here. And then by doing it, maybe she'll learn quicker. Andrew may not learn the same way. Andrew needs to have somebody have a written process out that he can look at and follow, and if he forgets something, he can go back and look at it. So everybody's different.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think there's so many different pieces of what you just said. Most of the time, I see businesses promote somebody because they were good at the job below whatever they're being promoted to. It's very rare that somebody is, especially now when we're constantly short staffed, it's very rare that we're like, hey, we're going to train you to be in that position. And you're taking like, three months or six months of some shadowing and training them and saying, okay, here's what you need to know to be in that position. We just give them the pay increase and shove them in there and be like, hey, good luck. Be successful at this. And today, like day one, right. So I think that's super interesting where I think people need to plan for where they're going to be promoting people more. Instead of being like, hey, we need this now. It's like maybe planning ahead of time also explaining what does success in that position look like? So from a business perspective, it's not even just about the KPI, because I think maybe we want a financial result from this department or division, or we want to hit a certain number of something, which is fantastic. But explaining what does success look like in this position and what values have to be upheld when you're doing that. So especially with diversity, when we have people from all these different countries, we all grew up with different ways of life, what do you want the customers to experience? Or what do you want the employees to experience as they're going through those? So we want to hit this KPI, but this is what it should look and feel like, and this is what's really important to us so that they actually know what they're doing. Otherwise, it's just like it's the Wild west. Get to this goal, who cares how it's done? I think that's very confusing for people. And especially in an organization, when you have change, it's really hard to manage because you're like, well, so and so used to do it this way, and now I don't know what to expect. This other person's doing it this way. I think there needs to be a lot more thought that goes into change management within an organization. And then from the financial perspective, we often see things suffer when people don't manage that well.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: I totally agree with you on that. So what do you think processing our thoughts will look like for managers or business owners in the future?
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I would like to say in my perspective, I think that processing our thoughts needs to come from an understanding of how we make up a part of a greater picture than us. So I don't think we can be successful until we understand what the big picture looks like and how we lead to the success of the organization as a whole. So that's number one. Number two is understanding what it is we're trying to accomplish more. And so even if you're head of HR, I think if you understand how you play a role in the business's success, but then also what is it that you're trying to do? Is it having certain recruitment or retention or you're having employee records up to date? What is it and why are you trying to do it? So I think that's going to be the first part of it, but then the second part is actually building that muscle and understanding that reflection, having reflection time, not your manager at the end of a quarter or at the end of the year giving you a performance review, but you yourself taking it and saying, am I doing well in my job and how could this go better? And you reflecting on that and building up that muscle is going. I think that really leads to a sense of what can I do for the community instead of what can it do for me? And if we're all thinking that way, that's when everybody thrives. Everybody thrives within an organization. If we can do that.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Wow, I love everything there that you just said. I love talking about building your muscle. I think that what happens a lot is people will, whether it's business owners or leaders, they'll hire somebody for a specific role. They will get them in that role, they'll start doing the role, and then that person will wonder, what am I allowed to do? And I think allowing your team member to come up with ideas and be innovative and creative and not be afraid there's going to be some stuff that they're going to think of that is absolutely off the wall idea that it's never going to work. Creating that environment where they say, okay, that might not work. I'd love to hear any other ideas that you come up with. Feel free to come and see me with them, or even ways or processes that think people are doing stuff. I think that if you're allowing them to do that and have the ability to say, be creative, but don't worry about the mistakes, because I do believe that any mistake that is made can ultimately be fixed. It's just a matter of taking the time. Some things take longer time to fix. But I think if we're afraid of making a mistake, that means that our creativity is taken away from us. And you're just basically a pen and paper and a data entry person just entering stuff in the system and you go home at 05:00 I think we.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Can actually set people up for really great success doing that, though. And the first key to it is letting them know again what the success of the position looks like or what they're trying to achieve. So when you're not just having them come up, they're not in HR and coming up with accounting policies, right.
Giving them some parameters and some, hey, this is what we're hoping to accomplish, then that sets them up for success. And then I think the second piece is, nobody likes being shut down. So if you say to somebody, hey, be vulnerable, come up with the best idea, and then it's quite far off and you're just like, oh, that's no good, try again. I think if I was that person on the receiving end, I'd be like, I don't know if I'm going to try again. So number one is like you're giving them a narrower window so they have a better chance of success. And then secondly is when they come to you and it misses you, explain why of this is what I'm hoping to accomplish. You have a suggestion on how we can tweak what you've came to me with? Because I see it missing something this way, or you're off in this area. So how can we work with that and almost having them revisit the drawing board instead of it just being like a no, right? I'm not saying you should say yes every time. Or maybe you're like, hey, this is a great idea, but we don't have the capacity yet. You almost want to give them that soft landing spot so they keep coming up with ideas.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Again, it's that communication aspect. I just love that. I think it's so important. And you're right. That's what people want to hear of board. I like this idea. There's some things that are. Pieces are missing, and like you said, what could we do to fix those puzzle pieces so that we can make this thing run successfully? I love that. I absolutely love that. If you could choose one word to describe yourself, what word would that be?
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Gosh, community oriented. I have a very strong desire to change the world.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Love that. I do agree with you on that. I definitely can see that in you. I would definitely say for you also, too, is adaptable and thinker are two words that I would probably say for you after speaking to you. You have been in a situation and you saw that it was going a certain direction. And there's a lot of people who don't have that ability to pivot and adapt, but you have that ability to look at it. Okay, it's going okay, but I think we need to do a little spin on it or adapt and pivot on this a little bit to keep it going in its succession. So I definitely think that, too. And then thinking. Seem like you're always thinking. You're always processing.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Very analytical.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Very analytical. So, yeah, those are two other words that I would definitely.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: My husband doesn't always like that trait. I was like, this picture could move a little bit over here, and that's okay.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: And I think our partners are like that, too, because HR guy, I think very philosophical and analytical. And when we're having conversation and I'll pull out the HR thought and she'll be like, okay, don't hr me right now. I don't need the HR aspect, and I'm not trying to be. That's just my thought. There's not one solution. There's different aspects, and there's two stories, and the truth is in the middle. So let's figure out what happened on this side, what happened on this side, and then, okay, I agree with you on this, but in this aspect, I think this is probably the direction that I could have gone.
But she's not a big fan of that. So I try to pivot away from it a little bit. But when you're so used to thinking and looking at stuff and reading stuff in a certain way, it's hard to get away from it, for sure.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: I read a book once. This is just like a random fact for you that talks about lawyers, how they actually have the highest failure statistic in their marriages, because a lot of them are litigators. Like, they actually are taught to argue every day, and then they go home and they argue in their marriages. And we almost have to be conscious of ourselves. And I think that's one of the things that we could do that would have the most impact on our lives, not just as leaders, but as individuals is like a self assessment. And being able to remove yourself from the situation and be observant of how you show up, because then you can see, oh, my lens is to argue. This is what I do 10 hours a day. So maybe I am a little bit litigious in my marriage as well, kind of thing.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that.
I always tell my wife because I say to her, nobody's perfect.
And I always joke with her, I say, if I can be okay 70% of the time, I'm happy because there's going to be that 30% that you're going to be upset with me for whatever reason, even if I looked at a pencil a certain way, that's just the case. So if I could be 70% in the positive, I think we're good.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Any final thoughts today?
[00:38:37] Speaker A: No. I really love these conversations about being more mindful about our decision making. And maybe the one thing that I would say, maybe new for people, is being asked, how do you make the business money? And I think that is the future of our businesses. Even in a position where I sit on the board of our airport and we're talking a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion and environment, and we're thinking about these changes that have to be made, but also having to see what is the sustainability of our organization, because we think of ourselves as leaders in these areas, but if we aren't thoughtful about the financial aspect of it all and coming together, then to create change, then we almost jeopardize our sustainability. And then who's going to take over? Maybe somebody who doesn't operate that way so really encouraging everybody within an organization at every level to understand that financial stability is at the core of organizations being maintained. Whether you're not for profit, it doesn't matter. We all need financial stability, even as individuals. So how do you play a part in that, and how can you advance your agenda, and how can you advance the business? With that in mind, I love all that.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: I wanted to take the time to thank you for coming on today. I sent you a message earlier this week and I said to you that I become very quickly a Stacey fan. And I meant that wholeheartedly. We had such a great conversation, our first conversation over the phone. And I just love the way that you present yourself with care and compassion, but also you have that adaptability to pivot and figure out, not just for your business, but for other people's businesses, what's happening or what could happen or what you foresee happening if something doesn't go correctly. So I'm super impressed with the way that you present yourself, how you communicate, and I just love the passion that you have for what you do. I think it's so important we spend however many hours a day working, and I think we have to have so much passion for what we do. If we don't have passion, then we're in a bubble or we're just lost with no direction. So I appreciate you and all you do, and I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to have this conversation.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: That is the highest compliment. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the conversation and thanks for bringing these thoughts to the world.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: You're very welcome. On behalf of myself and my guest, Stacey, I would like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe and remember that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
