Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Before we dive in today's episode, I want to take a moment to share something that's been on my heart, something I've been working on behind the scenes for a while now. I'm officially writing a book. This book is called let's Be A Practical Guide to Leading Through Change. And it's deeply personal to me. It's built from real experiences. The uncertainty, the challenges, the moments where I didn't have the answers but had to lead. This isn't just a leadership book filled with theory. It's about navigating uncertainty when there's no clear direction, building internal clarity when everything around us feels unclear, having courageous conversations, even when they're uncomfortable, and leading with value, especially when it's the hardest to do so. I'm also going into topics that don't get talked about enough, like what it feels like to be challenged, overlooked, and even bullied as an adult in a workplace. And how those moments shape the kind of leader you become.
This book is for anyone who's ever thought, how do I lead when I don't feel ready? How do I show up when I don't have all the answers? And how do I stay true to myself in environments that challenge me? If this is you, this book is for you. I'll be sharing more about the journey behind the scenes moments, and opportunities for you to be part of it as we go. So stay tuned, because this is more than just a book. It's a movement around how we lead through change together. All right, let's get to today's episode.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Good day, wonderful people, 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've supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts. I will never be free. Forgotten. Our topic today is why adults learn differently than children and why it matters in leadership. Our guest today is one fantastic human. Her name is Britta Newley. Britta, welcome to the show. I am so thankful, honored, happy to have you on here today.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Thank you, Andrew. This has been a long time coming, so I'm really pleased to be here today, too.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: I'm so happy to have you here. So tell me, what, what's been energizing you these days? Give us the tea, give us the deets, give us it all. What's going on, man?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Lately these days, I've been really energized by so I have a master's degree in business psychology and I've just been energized by how the psychology of culture can influence the psychology of an organization. So obviously right now there's a lot going on in our culture and I think that has influenced buying decisions. There's a lot of fear going around and so. Fear, fear in the general global culture creates fear in consumers. So we need to shift our messaging both internally and externally. So shift our messaging as we're internal branding and shift our messaging as we're externally branding.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: I love that answer. That is so interesting. And you are absolutely right. This world is ever changing. Every day you wake up, there's something new. And yes, our branding, I will admit, has to change according to it. Am I an expert in that? Probably not, but I would definitely, I would definitely seek some advice on that because I know that that's. That's where it's going, right?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Totally.
Yeah. I'm a. I'm a branding and psychology nerd to the core.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Well, that's it. Well, you know what? That's probably why we get along because I am a. I love all stuff branding. I'm not an expert in. I don't know everything about it, but I've always said seeking and asking questions about it because it's part of our world. It's part of who we are, what we do, and whatever we're doing, it's. It's a huge part.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Truly, you're. Yeah, you're right on this.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I'm glad to hear that things are going well. Before we begin, Britta, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I ask all my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: I don't know, Andrew. Am I ready? You're the one who knows. Let's see. Go for it.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: I think, I think you were ready. I just asked this to another guest and I thought it would be perfect for you as well. If you could download your memories into a searchable spreadsheet, what would those memories be and why?
[00:04:18] Speaker B: I think I would probably download my biggest failures into a searchable spreadsheet because I think, and I don't know if we necessarily need to call all of them failures, but biggest mistakes or maybe most painful, painful lessons that we've had to learn, I would download those into a spreadsheet because I think from pain is.
Is where a lot of our growth comes from. And for me, I don't regret any of the pain that I've been through. Even though there's been a lot. I don't regret it because it has taught me to be a more effective human being and it's made me really good at what I do. I'm very good at pattern recognition, cognition. I'm very good at understanding symbol and noticing high level systematic patterns. And part of that is because of some of the pain that I've been through. And so I think it would also be helpful to make those memories searchable to understand what is it that I can own and what is it that I don't need to own Because I think sometimes we maybe over blame ourselves for situations that, you know, we're maybe only partially in our control. So.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: Yeah, listen, Britta, I was expecting you to bring it today and we're not even five minutes in and you've already brought it. So I'm, I'm really impressed with, with that answer. I fully agree with you. Without pain, I don't think we can grow. So I think we go through those things because in a lot of ways we're supposed to. And I know we don't think about it when they're happening or when it's happening, but. But when we take time to think about what it was or why things happen. And I don't even like to use the word failure because I think without failure, we're not being, we're not trying. And if we're not trying, we're not being innovative or creative. I love the fact that you are talking about that and mentioning it. We're going to talk about, I'm sure this is going to come up again, but I think that it's a lesson for us as leaders, personally and professionally to, to remember those things because it's not always sunshine and rainbows.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: It's not, it's definitely not for sure.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Well, listen, let's get into the nuts and bolts of this thing to get us started here. Who are you and what really drives you to do the work that you do?
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So my name is Brittan Newly. I am a freelance marketing consultant at the moment. I do a lot around branding and marketing. I do a lot around content creation and how to leverage that content in specific, specific places in the sales funnel so people actually see leads, actually see revenue to their bottom line. So real results is really important to me. I have a couple different clients right now and I'm excited to find my next opportunity looking for a W2 and excited to be able to be a part of a larger team that is doing some exciting things in branding and marketing.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: And I love and admire the Words we say real results matter to me because yes, you, you could be doing all this stuff and we just talked about branding two seconds ago and how important it is. We can do all the things, we can do everything that we want to do, but if we're just continuously doing the same things and it's not working, then what are we doing? We need to be marketing, but we need to be doing the right things. And I was talking to somebody the other day about a mission, vision and value statements on a, on a company website. If they're there and we can't answer why they're there or what a reasoning that we're putting them there, then why are we putting them there? Just for show. So I love that you said that. Real results, we need to put stuff out there so that we're getting results, but good results and things that people will see why they're good results.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. It's about, on a lot of levels, both personally, professionally and company wide, it's about the stories that we tell ourselves and how can we leverage those stories for success or how are we setting up those stories to bring us more pain than necessary.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Right, Absolutely. Absolutely. I totally agree with you. So our topic today, as we said, is why adults learn differently than children and why it matters in leadership. What I wanted to ask you, Britta, is why is this something leaders often overlook or misunderstand?
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So one thing I think that leaders generally misunderstand and I think it's really important to know this just the human brain on a base level, as it grows older, loses function, period. Right. Unless someone is a very curious person and has a growth mindset. So number one, as a leader, you want to be looking for people that have a growth mindset.
There might be somebody who maybe has more experience and is more skilled, but if they don't have a growth mindset, they're not going to be able to be an asset to your company. Over time they'll start to drag that department down if they can't have a growth mindset and be flexible. So that's kind of number one about adult learning is looking for and being a person with a growth mindset. And then I think secondarily, humans in general need repetition to learn something well. So if a leader is deciding to make a larger change in an organization, in a department, in a process, and they choose to only announce it in a company memo, they should expect it to not go well. Because those types of changes, larger systemic changes, one threaten anything that threatens the system. The existing status quo is going to get pushback even if it's a good change. Anything that threatens status quo. Our human brains, especially older human brains, are designed to say like alarm bells, there's something different here. We need to, we need to be afraid. And so leaders will always be contending with fear of their employees whenever something changes and when they're teaching new things. So not being, not being afraid or even resentful at the people that you're teaching you, you just accepting that you're going to be dealing with their fears, that's the way it is. And then if we take that and translate it down to ourselves individually, if we want to make a change in our career, in our life, we will be contending with fear even if it's good change.
But yeah, human brains are need repetition. So we need to repeat things over and over again in organizations, outside of organizations to expect people to even be able to retain any of it. I don't know. What have you experienced from the HR side, Andrew?
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Well, one thing I was just going to say a story that I've noticed throughout my career is when you're talking automatically I'm thinking about when you're sitting in an area or sitting at a specific desk and the manager comes over and says, okay, I'm going to be moving you over here and someone and we're going to be moving debt people around. So I'm moving you here and moving you there. So the first thought is why are they moving me? The second thought is did I do something wrong? And the third is, hey, I'm so used to being here, why do I need to move? So you're absolutely right. People make such a big thing about moving a desk and maybe rightfully so, maybe it's because it's near a window and you don't want to go there because it's colder and in the winter time and you don't want to be there. But there's always a reason for it. And I, I, I think people need to understand is that leaders are doing stuff because there's a reason for something. A lot of things they can tell you and a lot of things that they can't.
So that, that's something that we have to understand. And but yes, I've been in that situation where I've seen people like absolutely just lose it because they're losing their spot and they're just so used to going to that desk when they come in in the morning and now they have to go somewhere different and they don't like it.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. Change in any aspect, on any level starts to make people nervous. And even again, if that change is good, if that's a new technology system or a new healthcare plan or something like that, you know, throughout your company, all of those things require you to create safety, psychological safety and buy in for the people around you. For people to be able to take in that information, integrate it and actually learn it.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Now I think the way that a leader will do it is different. If they're going to be aggressive in nature, telling you to move, then people are going to be like even more skeptical. But if you're kind of like, hey, listen, we're doing some changes, I know you like your spot but have a reason for doing this and I need somebody else to be in your spot. So I'm going to put you somewhere else. If there's anything, let me know. But this is kind of what I'm doing here. And you're absolutely right. When you talked about sending out an email compared, compared to going to see them about it. Totally different.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think too additionally you pointed to something really important. Those leaders that just have this top down mentality that say do this because I said so and don't provide any why or any transparency, they are probably most likely to get a lot of push back and to have people that maybe will rebel against wanting to learn whatever the new process is or switching desks or, you know, they're just creating more problems for themselves.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: They certainly are. They certainly are. So we might have to discuss it, but I want to go a little bit deeper in here. Brittucks, I want to get your, your, your thoughts on this. How does lived experience shape the way adults take in new information?
[00:13:52] Speaker B: This is such a fascinating topic when it comes to change management in particular meaning like there's something going on, a big change happening in an organization. People's attachment styles, and we're getting real nerdy psychology here have a lot to do with how they relate to the leader.
This is, this is something I learned in my degree that feels so unfair as a leader to know, but it's true. Every single one of the people that work underneath you will project their ideas about authority, meaning whatever happened in their relationship with their mom and dad or whoever was their primary like caregiver, they're going to project that idea unconsciously onto you. So at some point, no matter how you behave, they are going to be feel hurt by you no matter how well you try to say things. So you have to learn how to repair with the people that you're leading and understand maybe a little bit about what their attachment style is. Are they an anxious person? If they're an anxious person, maybe they need me to just reassure them a little bit more than the person next to them. If they're a dismissive person, they probably need me to give them the barest amount of direction and then to trust them to be able to handle it. You know, if they're somebody who's secure, they might be somebody I could rely on to be an ally inside of that department to help me get buy in from the rest of the team. So depending upon someone's experience in their family of origin is actually really going to make a huge difference to how they behave at work. And I know we always want to say that we can compartmentalize. Humans are not capable of compartmentalizing their subconscious. It's just. It just doesn't work like that. We. We are who we are wherever we show up. And it seems unfair that people would project their mom and dad issues onto you, but research has proved it over and over again. So you're.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: You're. You're making me think here today, Brita. You really are. And what I like about what you're. What you're seeing is that we just need to kind of be a little bit better listeners. Because when someone is projecting their ideas of authority because of what they've gone through in their past, either, like you said, with their. In their household, with their parents, and even in maybe even a relationship that they've been in, we as leaders, I think, need to understand that we are not. When they're doing that, we're not there to solve the problem.
We're there to listen.
And when we try to solve the problem, that just makes it worse because they feel attacked. And at that point, they just want to feel, like you said, safe, secure, and have somebody listen to them. So they want to be seen, heard, valued, and understood.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you have a really great point. There is like, we need to be able to validate. It doesn't mean we agree. Right. We might. We might not agree that it's a bad idea for them to switch desks because we have a bigger picture, but we do need to validate. And so one of the ways that I've. I have a little magic little phrase that I use to help me validate people, and it. Here it is. I can't imagine how you must be feeling right now, because you can't. Like, it's true. I cannot physically, I can empathize But I don't, I don't really understand what it's like to be that person and to be told suddenly that they need to move their desk. Maybe they've been at that desk for 15 years and they've had some really profound experiences there. I can't imagine how you must be feeling right now about this change, but I still need you to be on board with so on and so forth. I don't know what do you. I'm sure you probably have some magic phrases that you use, Andrew.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Well, I love that. And I actually say something very similar, Britta, to people. Well, and that's personally and professionally. I can. Won't fully understand what you're going through, what you're feeling, but I can definitely sympathize with you and I'm willing to listen. And I think that when I do say that, I do notice that people kind of back off a little bit and they kind of like, okay, he's not going to be in attack mode. He wants to really listen and he wants to be there for me and show that he can be a trustworthy individual. So I think trust is super important in that manner. And when you say those things or say something like that, you may or may not gain the full trust of somebody, but it's going to help to gain that trust way, way faster.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: I agree. And I think it communicates respect. You know, you're saying like, I respect that you are a human being, that you're not a cog in this wheel and that you're, you're going through something, that you're having an experience with this, whether or not it make, quote, unquote, make sense because we never know what people are bringing in to work them with work. You know, who knows, Maybe that person is really private and maybe their mom has cancer and they're not willing to talk about it, but you still need to be able to validate that they're a human being and, and that they deserve respect.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we can never assume what, what somebody is going through, what they're dealing with. That's the, that's the, that's the main thing here for sure. So, okay, so Britta, we got a big one here for you.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: How are leaders unintentionally teaching adults the wrong way?
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Well, I think first let's say somebody has a big training initiative or something like that if they're only teaching in one style of learning. So maybe that is, you know, know an online video course, you know, that might work really well for visual learners, but it might not work well for learners that, you know, get more out of reading something, you know, so making sure that you're covering a lot of these different avenues of learning, because not everybody learns in the same way. And sometimes when we can learn in multiple different ways, we take in different angles of that same information.
So I think what leaders are missing at is not thinking through, okay, we have this new thing we're trying to teach or this new project we're trying to launch. How many different ways can I help people onboard and gain this information?
You know, it should be a really important and exciting challenge for a leader. How many different ways can I feed this information to these people so that they. I know that they really have integrated it and get it. And I think a lot of leaders sometimes will put it back on the learner and say, well, if they don't learn it, then it's their fault. But it's like, no, I don't know if you had this perspective, but. Or if you experienced this. But when I was in high school, if a teacher didn't teach you, well, it was the teacher's fault, not the learner's fault. And I think we flip that on its head sometimes in corporate, we think, oh, if the worker doesn't learn this, then it's the worker's fault. It's like, who's teaching them, honey?
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Yes, pretty much, yeah. I, I think you're. You've hit the nail right in the head there, because I think when we take on a position in a leadership role, it's the responsibility of the people under us to, to learn and understand the processes and the tasks that we want to do. But it's un. It's on us, like you said, to learn and to find ways to teach different styles of people and to motivate different styles of people. Not one person is going to be motivated the same way that another person is going to be motivated or one person is going to learn differently than someone else. I've mentioned this many, many times. I, and I won't say that I suffer from adhd, because I think a lot of people say that. I'm going to say that I deal with ADHD on a daily basis, and the way that I deal with it on a daily basis is different from someone else who has adhd, but I definitely deal with it differently than someone who doesn't deal with adhd. So they have to. I think you have to understand that and comprehend who needs what. What do they need? How do they need it? And not to make Them feel less than the other person because they may not be getting it right away.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: I think you're so right about that. And I think a lot of people struggle with being open about the fact that they might have ADHD or. For me, I have both ADHD and dyslexia. And I've struggled historically telling employers that. But I realized when I do tell employers, it's kind of a qualifier. If someone hears that I have ADHD and dyslexia and they see it as a problem, that's not a good place for me to work. Like, it's just not going to be a good or productive environment. So, so. But when people are supportive of me, I've done incredible things, like, and I'm not trying to, like, toot my own horn, but I've been in startups where I've been able to kind of do the job of five people at once. And it's because I was in an environment that was supportive and understood how I learned and why that made a difference and celebrated my differences instead of viewing them as drawbacks.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah, Yep. I agree with you 100%. Always. There's people out there who struggle with where they're working. And they have what I like to call the.
The Sunday Blues, which is basically at home on. After a wonderful weekend, and you're sitting there after supper watching TV with your family or a movie or what have you, and you're thinking to yourself, oh, my God, I gotta go back to that place tomorrow. And we don't want that. We want people to have what we call a safe work environment. And that's what, when you have that, it makes. It's so much better. So what you were experiencing, what you're talking about, that's great. That's awesome. And I love that you experienced that, and I hope that more people experience that as time goes on. And it's just a matter of everybody working together in a cohesive unit to make it safe for everyone.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Agreed? Yeah, agreed. And it's kind of this idea that when we all do better, we all do better. And so if we're only doing the bare minimum for our employees, what we can expect back from them is bare minimum. You can't expect more than that. And so if we. If we want to invest in a workforce, you know, we have to invest
[00:24:05] Speaker A: in it for sure. So brittle. What does it look like to model learning as a leader?
[00:24:10] Speaker B: I think modeling learning as a leader, first of all, is I will not do anything. I will not request that my employees do anything that I'm personally not willing to. To do myself. So I will not require my employees to show up on time. If I'm not showing up on time, I can't get mad if I'm displaying the wrong behavior to them. So it starts first with, am I modeling the right kind of behavior? And if I'm not, like, a lot of people struggle with taking accountability for that, but if I'm not, then I have to take accountability for it. And I think the leaders that get the most respect are the ones that take accountability post publicly in front of their workers, like, saying, listen, I know that I have not been good at this, but it is something that we need, that we need to run efficiently as a company. And so I commit to doing this.
And if they do that, oftentimes they get a lot of loyalty and respect back. But if they just choose to continue to ignore it and pretend like it's not happening, they lose respect much faster. And it's harder to gain respect back once it's been lost than it is to start from a place of respect from the beginning.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I worked for a company years ago, and I was part of the leadership team, and someone else on the leadership team was going away on vacation. They, the big boss asked them, are you gonna have your phone with you? Are you gonna be, like, available if we need to message you, whatever?
And they said, yes, I am.
So they were on vacation, and the.
The owner kept messaging them during their vacation, so they had to step away or answer a call or take a call.
And at one point, they had said to the. To the owner, say, listen, I know, I know I said that I would take the. These calls or these texts. However, I'm with my family, and I keep having to interrupt my family time due to the fact of answering these messages or texts or whatever. And I think there was a shift in the owner's thinking because I don't know if he realized what. That that's what he was doing, but once he said that, then it totally changed because I could hear him saying, I'm so sorry. Absolutely no problem. You're back in a few days. Enjoy the rest of your trip, and we'll talk when. When you get back. So maybe sometimes they're doing it on purpose, but maybe sometimes they're not doing it purposely. They're just not thinking because they want something answered quickly. But then when they get the full picture of it, they have a different framework, if that makes sense.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Right. Well, I think that's fascinating too. I think you're kind of Speaking to the phenomenon of managing up. And to be honest, I used to be upset about the fact that I have to manage up sometimes. But here's the deal. Like, if I am an employee and I am seeing a data point that I know for sure my boss is not seeing, if I can be respectful enough to share it in a good way, it's going to make everything else move more smoothly. And I think that's a great example of that, you know, somebody really sharing a good data point, being respectful about it. And it's like a super effective example of managing up.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think if he was aggressive in nature and was yelling and screaming, I think it might have been a different scenario. But the way that he put it was. Was perfect. And he talked about it with me when he got back, and I told him I thought that the way that he put it out there and said it was absolutely like the chef's kiss. It was perfect.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and I think too, like, people who, for people who work under a leader sometimes forget, like, the leader is not infallible. And if they're. If they're telling you that they are, then that's a really toxic workplace.
But, yeah, leaders need feedback, too. You know, leaders are not infallible. They're going to make mistakes, and it's okay for us to talk about them, you know?
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. Britta, before we wrap up here, what is one key takeaway that you'd like our listeners to remember from this episode?
[00:28:21] Speaker B: So let's say you are in a working environment where you know that you're not getting the information that you need in as many ways as you possibly, possibly can. Let's say you can't afford to leave, then what. What needs to happen? And this is what I have learned to do as somebody with ADHD and dyslexia is I've had to find a way to learn it in a way that works for me, and I've had to do that in a way that's fun and joyful. And so if you are in a situation where you're in a job that maybe is not your favorite, find ways to enhance the job that give you some sense of satisfaction and allow you to learn and grow in the ways that you want to. And truly, I believe people can find happiness in almost any job. It really is kind of a perspective that one chooses to have in a way that one chooses to orient.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: That is a great way to frame it. I love that. For anybody that's listening today, my call to action is to, like share and follow this episode I wanted to take the time, Britta, to thank you for coming on today. What I admire about you is your ability to thrive, your enthusiasm, your. Your dedication in everything that you do, your desire, your forward thinking and your magnetic personality. I've enjoyed connecting with you from day one and I've really enjoyed this conversation and wanted to take the time again to thank you for coming on here.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Jeez, you're gonna make me cry. Those were very kind affirmations. Thank you. I really appreciate being able to have this chat with you and I think your show is, you know, doing a lot of incredible things for a lot of people and so I'm more than willing to to come and talk to somebody, a friend I already enjoy talking to.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: Appreciate that. On behalf of myself and my guest today, Britta, I would 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
[00:30:21] Speaker B: have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content. Hit Subscribe.
