Embracing Leadership Shock with Pete Steinberg

In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, hosts Nathan Freeburg, Dr. Linda, and Brian Schubring engage in an insightful conversation with Pete Steinberg, President of Innovative Thought and author of 'Leadership Shock: Using Authenticity to Navigate the Hidden Dangers of Career Success.' They discuss the challenges leaders face during transitions, the importance of intentionality, the value of feedback, and how understanding one's purpose is crucial. Pete shares his experiences coaching the U.S. Olympic women's rugby team and offers valuable guidelines for developing authentic leadership.

07:16 Tipping Point Moment of When the Book Got Written
29:15 About Giving Feedback
42:05 Two Takeaways from the Book

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It is about understanding that excellence is a journey, not a destination, and if you want to fulfill the potential of anything, you have to take risk Right. And so it's very easy for leaders and this is actually where I think people get into leadership. Shock is that they have a set of behaviors and principles that they've used throughout their career. They come into a new role Often it has a much broader scope, and so they are risk averse. They're nervous about their new role. So what they do is I am going to be the same leader I was in the previous role. But guess what? If you were the director of finance and now you're the VP of finance? Those are two very different jobs. Like those roles are very, very different, and the strengths you bring, the value that you bring to the role, is very different. So people are very risk averse. So what they do is they don't change, they don't try anything new. They try what worked in the past, and that's what gets them in leadership shop.

Speaker 2: 0:56

You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and today on the podcast, brian Linda and I get to talk with Pete Steinberg, the president of Innovative Thought, a top talent management agency. Pete is also a former Olympic rugby coach and author of the new book Leadership Shock using authenticity to navigate the hidden dangers of career success. The conversation touches on the challenges of leadership transitions, the need for intentionality in leadership and the importance of creating a feedback culture within teams. Pete highlights the significance of understanding one's purpose and the value of being open to experimentation and feedback in complex leadership environments. Pete also shares insights from his experience coaching the US Olympic women's rugby team and how focusing on performance rather than winning led to long-term success and personal growth for the athletes.

Speaker 2: 2:02

I really think this episode has a lot of great advice and insights. So, whether you're navigating a leadership transition yourself or looking to enhance your leadership skills, pete's experiences, examples and anecdotes are not only interesting and entertaining, but offer valuable guidance on the journey to building more authentic leadership. We really had fun talking with Pete. There's a lot of overlap between what we do here at Leadership Vision and what Pete and his team do over at Innovative Thought, and we hope that you'll enjoy this conversation. Make sure to check out our show notes with the link to buy Pete's book and a few other resources that we mentioned during the episode. All right, so we're just gonna jump into this conversation with Pete introducing himself, and then we'll get into the book and some of the leadership topics and principles.

Speaker 1: 2:53

This is the Leadership Vision Podcast. Enjoy. But yeah, tell us about you. I know so. I'm not an athlete, as I explained. So I was a mediocre rugby player in England but my dad was American, so I had a US passport and so I came to the States to get a PhD in geochemistry and play rugby for the U? S and I went to Penn state and after two and a half and and and I failed in both of those things. So I failed in my PhD and I failed in in in playing rugby. I failed in playing rugby because I turn up at Penn state and find out that only undergraduates can play.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Oh, I that only undergraduates can play, so I wasn't able to play and if you know my state colleges, there's nothing else there.

Speaker 2: 3:28

There's not like another team that I could go play for.

Speaker 1: 3:30

So I ended up coaching. Started coaching at the age of 23, which was a huge blessing, much better coach than I ever was a player, and after two and a half years dropped out of my PhD program because my experiment failed. And that is a beer conversation, it's not a podcast conversation, so I'm all but dissertation. I mean 20 years ago.

Speaker 1: 3:49

And went to the business school, got a job in the business school in executive education, sat in the back of the classroom for six years, learned from some great mentors about leadership development, learned about organizational development, worked with faculty Penn State brought faculty from around the world so I got to hear all of these great people. And after six years of doing that, in 2001, I needed a job that supported my rugby habit. I was traveling around the world, I was coaching the U S under 23s and I can't get a real job. I need a job that allowed me to take three months off and go to the olympics. So I started up my own business, um, in 2001, and I've been so so for about 15 years. I was an elite rugby coach and I did leadership consulting and you know, I think we're going to find that some of the stuff that we do is very similar and then in 2017, I retired my. I'm a late starter, so my daughter was born in 2016. I went to the World Cup in 2017, then retired because I was traveling for work and I didn't want to travel for rugby as well.

Speaker 1: 4:52

So retired from coaching at the age of 47. So pretty young. And at that point I'm like what am I going to do? I've had this pretty good consulting business going half-time and coaching halfftime, and now this halftime coaching thing has gone away. Do I grow my business? What do I do? And that's what I thought. Actually, I've got a model that I use with my clients as an executive coach, called leadership shop. So so it goes the authentic leadership model. I'm like I should write a book about this and that's what I started in 2018. Covid hit things slowed down.

Speaker 1: 5:27

And while this was all going on, my business was growing. Now my business is thriving, so I work with my wife too, linda O'Brien she's the director of operations of the business. We have six or seven contractors that we work with pretty much full-time, but we've also we work in an adjacent area. So we still do executive coaching, we do still do leadership and team development, but we actually we bring innovation to talent. So what we generally do and what we most like to do is to help our clients solve really difficult talent problems and in most cases that's actually working out what the problem is. So in that journey we ended up doing a lot of work in innovation leadership with a bunch of large consumer packaged goods companies and we've brought that best practice innovation into talent and that's where we do some of our most interesting work now.

Speaker 4: 6:13

So, good.

Speaker 3: 6:14

All right, Pete, just a couple of details. I understand the book just came out like a few months ago. Is that correct?

Speaker 1: 6:20

Yeah, it came out in April. Okay, congratulations, thank you and congratulations on that I'm currently doing the audio book, which is next time I am going to do the audio book before I finish the edit, because now I'm reading it I'm like this is a terrible sentence. I can't read this sentence. It's like so hard to read I think those sentences hide when you're going through the copy editing well, you know, when you've read it for like the 10th time, it makes sense in your brain, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 6:50

All right, well, thanks, pete, for that running. Start Um a couple of starter questions.

Speaker 2: 6:56

That's all the time we have Um.

Speaker 3: 7:01

I really want to know, like, what was the tipping point, um, in your journey where you felt I got a book here? Like that's one question, Because a lot of times authors have something that happened where they're like oh, this has to get written. Was there one of those moments for you?

Speaker 1: 7:16

I don't think I had like a blinding flash when I kept finding my executive coaching clients with the same issues over and over again and I was like, huh, okay, there's something here, and I, you know, I love to create things, and so I created a system, which is the same thing I did as a rugby coach is, I had a system about how my team would play and how we would coach, and so I ended up creating a system for the leaders that I worked with, and then, after a while, I was like there's, there's definitely, and then I would talk to people about it and they'd be like, yes, I'm in leadership shock.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And then someone else would be, like, yeah, I have that problem too, and I was like there's something here that's worth sharing. I don't think it was a blinding thing. I think it was a little bit more of an evolution. And then when I retired from rugby, I had the extra time yeah, the extra time. So if I hadn't retired from rugby, I probably wouldn't have written it, because it's pretty intense to write the book and so, yeah, so I think it wasn't necessarily a blinding thing, but it was an evolution of there's something here that might be useful to more than just the few clients that I get to work with.

Speaker 3: 8:17

Right, and how long were you working with the model?

Speaker 1: 8:21

So it's really hard for me to actually go back and point when it became an actual model, like it ended up being an approach, right.

Speaker 1: 8:30

And it ended up being in. The approach was like the first thing is, let's really understand. People need to understand themselves Right, and so that's why the model is called the authentic leadership model. But I didn't call it the authentic leadership model, I just started it from first principles. If you want to change your behavior and this comes straight out of my coaching experience like athletes need to understand themselves, they need to understand why they do something if you want them to change, and so I just applied that to executives. These guys need to understand themselves right. And it ended up being and I think it became a model.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I was doing some work with the head of a large business unit, like a $4 billion business, very big, very big business. This was the head of the business unit. He was just appointed and he wanted me to work with him and his team to be effective. He wanted to completely restructure his team, and so what I said was well, I think you need all of your leaders. You need to know what you want, you need to be intentional as a leader, and then all of your team needs to then know what they need to do to be intentional. And I said you know.

Speaker 1: 9:34

This is probably the first time I used the word model, I said I have a model for this, and so I ended up working with him and all of his direct reports on their authentic leadership model. I actually called it back then the personal leadership model, because I think the idea was it was theirs, right? It's not anyone else's, I'm not sharing anything with you. That is like what someone else has done. You have to create your own model. And I think that was probably when it actually became more systematized or more repeatable, because I actually was like, oh wow, if everyone on the team is going to have this, then they need to have language that allows them to talk about it, and therefore now the language that I have in the model has to be consistent and the structure has to be more consistent. And so that was probably the first time that I actually, like in a Word document, actually wrote the model out in a way that everyone on the team could use it. So that was probably when it really became like something very tangible.

Speaker 3: 10:27

So, Pete, as an athlete, was there a coach in in your coming up that had this approach and it really resonated with you.

Speaker 1: 10:35

So you know we talked about this before. I wasn't much of an athlete but, I will tell you I I actually had. So I had a um. I played the french horn when I was growing up oh, there we go yeah, um beautiful instrument.

Speaker 4: 10:52

I wasn't very good but I played it for like 10 years.

Speaker 1: 10:57

I I one of one of the things my memory is I um, I grew up in cambridge. My dad was a professor and so we ended up doing a lot of things at the university, like I was a child actor for university performances, in fact, with some very famous actors, because they all came through Cambridge. That's one of the things that happens in England. But I also played I was like the fourth horn on a college orchestra and we did Peter and the Wolf, and Peter and the Wolf has a very difficult horn piece. Isn't that the wolf? It is the wolf, peter and the wolf, and peter and the wolf has a very difficult horn piece isn't that the wolf?

Speaker 1: 11:28

it is the wolf. It is the wolf yeah, okay so it's really hard, but it's four horns playing at the same time, linda will know this like your embouchure has to be like all over. My dad told me afterwards. He said that that might be the worst horn playing I've ever heard.

Speaker 4: 11:43

So so you had an honest.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So what I had was I had a French horn teacher who was a very professional French horn player when he was young, but actually had dental surgery and they cut a nerve, and so he didn't have any feeling in his bottom lip, so he couldn't play anymore. And and what? And? What he was also unable to do as a teacher was to demonstrate. So he like like often as coaches, we like to like, do it, like this, let me show you how you do it. And he was unable to do that. So what he always had to do was he had to, he had to get me to understand how to do it and and and what he did, which was really interesting, is he would ask me. He wouldn't tell. Is he would ask me. He wouldn't tell me. He would ask me Because telling me is not useful. Well, how did that feel? What did you try? That was a pretty impactful experience for me, one that I, of course, I didn't realize until years later.

Speaker 1: 12:38

It's a focus on learning, not teaching. It's like learning and teaching are two different things. We spend a lot of time thinking about teaching, not a lot of time thinking about learning. By the way, after learning comes change. Change is really hard. After change comes performance. That's the hardest. We spend all of our time in business focused on teaching and learning and not much on change and performance, and change of performance is is the hardest thing.

Speaker 1: 13:02

So he was able to help me get into change, into that change space, because I had to own it, because he wasn't telling me I had to discover myself, and I think that was a really important piece. So I think that lives in the authentic leadership model and the work that I do is I'm not here to tell you how to be a leader. I'm here to help you learn yourself how to be a leader. And you know, as fellow leadership consultants, what I'll say it's a terrible business model because what I'm teaching the leaders to do is how to think. So once they learn how to think, they don't need me anymore.

Speaker 1: 13:36

You know we have a podcast called Leadership Shock and there's a woman on there called Nicole Massey and she's a vice president at Smuckers and I worked with her when she was transitioning to director and like at the start of the podcast she was like oh, pete, I went back and pulled out my leadership model before I became a VP and worked my way through it and I'm like great, obviously, congratulations. That's a piece of business. I didn't get right Because she was able to do it by herself.

Speaker 1: 14:01

So I think this idea of like the discovery piece is really important part of learning and and really focusing on helping people discover themselves and being authentic to who they are is a critical part of like the work that I do with leaders.

Speaker 3: 14:14

So, pete, have you seen, like in the last four or five years, that that work of knowing oneself is becoming more important or more urgent? Are you seeing any shift at all in the leadership landscape or concerning that? So, authenticity, seeing any shift at all in the leadership landscape concerning that?

Speaker 1: 14:26

So authenticity and sustainability to me are connected, and maybe I can give you another story of my coaching that can do it. So I coached the US women to the 2014 Rugby World Cup and in all of my coaching, I never cared about winning, I cared about performance. And in 2014, my goal was I want this to be such a transformative experience for the athletes that not only do we perform well on the field, but they look back 20 years from now and say that was important to me. Okay, because that's how I coached, that's how I coached at college. That was you know. And we go to 2014 and I think the athletes had this great experience. We came sixth, so we didn't perform very well. And and I think the athletes had this great experience we came sick, so we didn't perform very well. And what I realized? I had this realization that I was coaching to my goals, not to the athletes goals, because what do the athletes want to do? Win. They want to win, right, they want to win. And so I fundamentally changed the way I coached. So I did, you know, not based on what was authentic to me, but based on the athlete need.

Speaker 1: 15:28

And we went to the 2017 World Cup and I swear I spent more time with the sports psychologist than the players did, because I was not coaching in an authentic way. It was very hard for me. It took a lot of effort to be a different kind of coach, which wasn't true to myself. Now we ended up making the semifinals for the first time in 20 years. It was really successful, but it was really hard for me. And so to me, that idea of if you know yourself and you understand your purpose and you understand what's important to you, you can work 60 hours a week because it'll be energy filling, but if you don't know that stuff and you're working 60 hours a week, it's not sustainable. So I think knowing yourself as a leader is really important because it really helps you deal with the stress and the intensity of the work.

Speaker 3: 16:16

That is so in line with all the work that we do. That's the starting point.

Speaker 3: 16:24

But I often find that the starting point is with the individual. Our objective is always moving towards team culture and leadership, but it starts with an individual awakening or an individual awareness that leans in towards an authentic understanding of this is who I am, and here's the extent of my identity or my talent, um, but I often find or I know that in our work we find that this approach is so counterintuitive to how many people function that it's almost like you have to go through a complete undoing of one's work experience, almost to help them better understand who they really are.

Speaker 3: 17:04

Do you find that challenge?

Speaker 1: 17:06

Yeah, completely, and I actually. So, you know, and I think this was my journey, my journey was when I was starting off my business. I took every piece of work I could get right Because I had to pay the bills, and especially when I was coaching coaching doesn't pay very much. I had to do that. Now it's so critical to me that, you know, I had a call today with a potential executive coaching client and I said are you going to change? Do you want to change? Right, and if the answer is no, then I'm like let's not waste our time. I, I I do have.

Speaker 1: 17:45

I do like the difficult ones, though, brian. I do like the difficult ones though Brian. I do like the ones that don't want to change and get them on the journey. I remember having a conversation with the national team, with one of my assistant coaches brilliant coach and we were talking about a very difficult player to work with, and his comment was you know, that difficult player takes up too much time and too much energy of our resources. And I said, yeah, but I'm here for the difficult player.

Speaker 1: 18:13

The easy player anyone can coach. The easy player is going to go on and have a great life. The difficult player needs help and needs support to go on their journey of growth. So I do some and I think with some of my clients I do find myself getting the difficult ones. They're like oh pete, can you work your magic with this person which is like this person doesn't want to change? Can you get them to change? Right? So I think, but but I don't think if you go down that route, you only have a certain amount of control over whether you're successful. Right, and some people just aren't going to do it.

Speaker 1: 18:44

So I do find that that's's difficult. But I think if you can get people to be really metacognitive, if you can really get them to think about how they think and you can really get them to be deep reflectors and you connect it to their goals and what they want to do, I think you can open the doors to most people to some of that journey at least. How do you guys open it up for the resistors To some of that journey at least? How?

Speaker 4: 19:07

do you guys open it up for the resistors, we welcome them into the space and we seek to build with intentionality, build the community right away. So they're having conversations about who they are. Early experiences so even that's why Brian asked about a coach for you and you mentioned a teacher and then we get some insights on, okay, how do we connect the dots between people. And then there's usually someone that starts to the kind of the light goes on and they say, oh well, maybe, maybe I do like to change, but maybe I've seen change as a threat or I've seen change as, or these experiences as, a fad or a something that's just, that's just fleeting. Um, so what's the flavor of the month? So are we going to do that leadership development now? And when we start to realize that this can be a marker in their life or like a pivot point where they could just expand who they are, there's usually, there's usually greater buy-in. So maybe, like you, we move the difficult players to the you know, early adopters, maybe in the next wave.

Speaker 1: 20:11

So I think, Linda, what what you just described is the power of team, yeah Right, so so when you do it as a team, it's every people like like you know, there's a bell curve right, there's some distribution, and when you do it as a team, you're moving people more into the early adopters because everyone else is doing it, and I think that is literally to me, the difference between that's why teams are powerful is you can move together right, and so the community that you're in will move you, even if you might be reluctant to move on your own.

Speaker 3: 20:48

And Pete, that's critical in our approach, because we believe that the team that we're working with, they already have a built-in culture, a built-in community, and when we are working with a team, we really practice intentional framing of what we're talking about and then leading with priming questions that are opening people up to the further discussion that we're going to be having down the road. And so, of course, we're doing all kinds of you know, skillful listening in the process, because we want to know, like you said, who are the early adopters that are aligning with our approach quickly and who are the ones that are going to be the more tougher individuals that are going to buy in. What works for us is that gradual approach towards something more trusting, more at stake, because I think that people do want to change and what we want to know is where have, where have they had success in change in the past? Yeah, so we can talk about when they've done it before. What were some of the behaviors, attitudes, tendencies that led to that change and how can we apply it now?

Speaker 1: 21:59

well. So one of the things that I used very successfully in my rugby career and now help leaders embed into their practice is it's called personal disclosure, mutual sharing, so in in in the team psychology like it's a piece, but it's it's. It's the ability to be vulnerable about your, your past, right, and so when you can talk about so it's not just like where have you been successful, but maybe where have you failed, because you have to. In those moments, you have to create an environment where people are willing to share the difficult things. I mean in the work that we do in teams. And I'm working, we've got a session next week in Mexico city and I'm working with another provider, right, and they have all these things that I'm like, okay, these are all great activities, but guess what? They're not real, no-transcript. And because you build more trusting relationships, people are able to take more risks before them. Because they will take more risks, they're able to perform more effectively. And I think it's a really interesting and I did this. I learned this like I started doing this when I was like 23 or 24, no idea what it was Right. And I'll share one thing with you that I thought was when it, so I spent most of my career coaching women and people often ask me what's the difference between coaching men and women?

Speaker 1: 23:35

I'm like there's no difference and I honestly believe that, except if you coach women, you can coach men, and if you coach, if you can coach men, you may not be able to coach women.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Women are actually a lot harder to coach. They require more intense understanding and and women actually very easily create very strong team bonds. When I've done, um, uh, personal disclosure, mutual sharing with men, right, so women, I mean not all over it, and I want to be careful about gender labels, because there are men that are like women and women, but but with women's teams, personal disclosure, mutual sharing often very easily, very easily done they can get very deep very quickly. Men tend to be shallow, but if you can get them to be deep, the bonds that they build because they don't get to build them anywhere else are really, really powerful. So this is and I think this relates into business in the sense that I think it's hard for a lot of the male leaders that we work with to show that vulnerability, because it's not something they grew up with, whether it was in sport or whether it's been in business that actually, that vulnerability, is really hard to do. Therefore, if you can do it in the team, it can become really powerful.

Speaker 3: 24:43

Now, pete, do you talk about that in your book? When you talk about role, do you get into some of those?

Speaker 1: 24:49

Not really.

Speaker 3: 24:51

So this is the first book.

Speaker 1: 24:52

This is called Leadership Shock. The next book I want to write is called Team Shock. Yeah, right, because.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Team.

Speaker 1: 24:58

Shock also exists, and so the book is primarily focused on the individual. We don't get. There's a little bit of team stuff in there. I'll tell you, I wrote a book that I would read. I don't read. I don't finish business books. I get about a third of the way through and I'm like I got it. I don't need to read any more of your anecdotes. This book is a fable. It's a story, right, and so there is embedded in the story Um, and it's an amalgamation of all of my clients. But in the story there's definitely some of the team dynamic pieces, but it's not explicitly about that, because it's really about the individual.

Speaker 2: 25:33

You're saying Michael's not a real person.

Speaker 1: 25:37

Michael is lots of real people. Nathan, Lots of real people.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Sure, I put in my notes because I heard you say that on another podcast. Your next book is going to be about team shock and I'm curious. You know, oftentimes leaders feel like they have to have it all together and so they have to come to their team. You know, having completed the seven elements of authentic leadership and knowing all these things and being the strong, you know, leader that has it all together. But how much of becoming an authentic leader is interdependent on your team and those around you to help you figure out your purpose and your vision and your values and beliefs and all of that. Like, talk a little bit about how you've seen that, because that can't happen in a vacuum, but it can be super messy to just do that as a team, right.

Speaker 1: 26:25

Okay, so this might sound like a tangent. I'll get back.

Speaker 2: 26:29

We love tangents um. We love we are we.

Speaker 1: 26:33

We have a challenge with failure in our culture, right, and so the reason why you described it the leader needs to have it together is that that is like someone that doesn't want to fail right and actually failure is a really important part of learning, and so, and so, to me, the most important thing someone asked me on a podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:52

They're like oh, you know what makes you a good coach? And I'm like I'm not a good coach. I want to tomorrow. I look back at my coaching in 2017 at the world cup, or 2016 at the Olympics, and I feel like now I was terrible, like like I wasn't very good, and I want to tomorrow to look back and be like I wasn't a good coach today, because tomorrow I'll be better. So I think there's there's.

Speaker 1: 27:13

It is about understanding that excellence is a journey, not a destination, and if you want to fulfill the potential of anything, you have to take risk Right. And so it's very easy for leaders and this is actually where I think people get into leadership shock is that they have a set of behaviors and principles that they've used throughout their career. They come into a new role Often it has a much broader scope, and so they are risk averse, they're nervous about their new role. So what they do is I am going to be the same leader I was in the previous role, but guess what, if you were the director of finance and now you're the VP of finance. Those are two very different jobs. Those roles are very, very different and the strengths you bring, the value that you bring to the role, is very different. Being very knowledgeable about the details of finance is not a strength in the VP of finance, but it is a strength in the director of finance, right? So people are very risk averse. So what they do is they don't change, they don't try anything new. They try what worked in the past and that's what gets them in leadership shop, because the role's different, right? And so I think if we thought failure was a great thing culturally, I don't think anyone would get into leadership shop, because they'll try stuff, and, nathan? So as a leader, I need to try things with my team. My team is probably the greatest source of feedback that I have on my performance as a leader. If I am not getting feedback from my team, I cannot go on that journey. My phrase is feedback is the fuel of high performance, like when I'm coaching Olympians.

Speaker 1: 28:44

When I was coaching, guess what they always wanted? They always wanted feedback the whole time. Coaches like players outside your door wanting to know what can I do better? What can I do better? The challenge you have as a coach in that situation is no one's willing to give you feedback. The assistants don't want to give you feedback because they want their jobs.

Speaker 1: 29:08

The reselected Exactly the same thing. I was talking to a recent CEO that I used to work with. We were catching up and he's like first time CEO, he goes, no one tells me anything. No one tells me anything. He has no feedback mechanism. So I think the most important thing that, when you leverage your team, is that you're explicit and intentional, that your team is there to give you feedback so you can be better and you're there to give them feedback. And so what I ended up doing as a coach from that 2014 to 2017 time when I changed, is I made feedback two way Every time we gave feedback to a player, the player had to give us feedback. How did we do? How can we be better? We're on this journey together, right, and so I think feedback allows you to be more open as a leader with your team and it allows you to be more experimental with the things that you do.

Speaker 2: 29:50

How do you get real feedback, though, or how do you surround yourself with people that are? Or I would not. Can I add to that question?

Speaker 4: 29:59

because I'd like to add how do you teach people to give feedback that's actually helpful and not out of that? Oh, my needs aren't being met, so I'm giving you some feedback.

Speaker 3: 30:10

It's like are you just?

Speaker 4: 30:11

posting on my? You know, are you hating on us or it's a great question? Yeah, so how do you? How do you do that?

Speaker 1: 30:18

But I think this is fundamental to how you lead. So to me it starts with we together are doing something together. I'm not doing it and you're my team. We are together doing it. And so if we're aligned strategically about what we need to do, then we can build systems and process of being intentional about feedback. So I work with an executive team.

Speaker 1: 30:41

A couple of months ago and I took them to the Olympic training site and they got to spend a day with the US women's Olympic rugby team and the feedback mechanisms that they have are like they're mind blowing right, because, like a day, something that doesn't work today could affect the gold, like winning a medal, winning the gold or whatever. It is Right. And so that was one of their key, one of the key takeaways I wanted them to have, and so they put in structures in place. So just things like whenever anyone gives you feedback, you say thank you for your feedback, right? And that you actively seek can you please give me feedback? Right? So as a team, we can make that choice that we're just going to ask each other for feedback. So one is sort of putting the system in place and then you need a process Right. The process is how do we do it Right? And so the easy one that I use are two things I did well and one thing I can do differently next time. Now, it's not I did wrong, because, by the way, the thing I could do differently next time is you could do that thing you did well, but do more of it.

Speaker 1: 31:45

And so those like if you put those things in place, then you build a culture of feedback Right. And then, and if we're strategically aligned, you know what you're supposed to give feedback on and you know what's important. That's right, right. So you need both of those things you can't like. We need more of a feedback culture. I'm like no, you need more alignment in your organization. There you go. If you get alignment in your organization and feedback's a key part of your culture, you'll get it Right. But if you don't have alignment in your organization where people understand that we're going in the same place, have it teaching people, feedback's not useful because, just like you said, linda, I'm going to tell you, man, I don't like your shirt. Okay, great, thanks for the feedback.

Speaker 4: 32:25

It's not helpful yeah, we, as a happily married, um business partners and co-facilitators, consultants I need to learn this because my wife and I've been working together for about a year and a half, so you get any tips and tools? Yeah, it's really, it is really wonderful, but do um. We'll do our own little assessment on the drive home from a client and we call it win, and so the acronym for what what went well, um, what needs to be improved and what is something we'll never do again.

Speaker 1: 32:57

I love that. So I think anyone anyone can put the, can embed those right. That's just like literally the, the executive team I was talking to remember today, like two, three months ago, they're like, yeah, like they're actually now joking about it. Hey, you haven't given me feedback for a while. Like what feedback? Like it very quickly. You can put that. You just need to put the processes and systems in place for it to work.

Speaker 4: 33:19

Now I but I want to ask about. I'm thinking about a culture that I was in at one point back in the day and there was someone that was always looking for feedback and it almost went against the culture, and so people would wonder is this person just wanting, you know, to be, you know, patted on the back? Um, is he, you know, how is he trying to create that? And it just felt like he was working at odds. So it wasn't. Maybe it goes back to that alignment piece, um, so have you had some like lone wolves that people are like yeah, I'm not following you in the feedback, or how did that?

Speaker 1: 33:56

go. So I, everything is contextual, right. So this is like thing in in our job is that I can't do your job, but I can tell you some ideas about it. It's all contextual. So I think that you have to be conscious of the culture that you're in and when you're conscious of the culture you're in, you have to be thoughtful and intentional about how you get to the outcomes that you want. Yeah, right, and so some of it it comes down to like how intentional am I about? So I would like, I would ask that individual what's your purpose for asking for feedback?

Speaker 1: 34:26

You're trying to create a feedback culture. Do you actually want to learn? Like, is it about you want to find out what you know? You want to feel good about yourself? None of those are bad things, right, but they're all just different. And so really understanding and being intentional about it I think I think is important, and then recognizing and this is actually sort of part of what I brought from both my geochemistry background, where I did things like climate modeling as well as sport, and I've brought it into the book this is the system, right. So I work with a guy called Adam Russell. He's a leader in AI, super smart guy, but he's a cultural anthropologist, so really interesting, because his deal with AI is like how does AI interact with people? That's more important than what does AI do, and so we talk about this concept of third wave thinking.

Speaker 1: 35:12

So, first wave thinking is when things are clear. It's cause and effect. If I do this, this happens. Second wave thinking is complicated, right? So first wave thinking we call them experts. Experts know the answer. Second wave thinking things are complicated, cause and effect isn't direct. But I can actually build something, a strategy that can make it work. Right, and we call them engineers, right? So in a second wave thinking, you're an engineer, you're building things. The cause and effect isn't direct, but you know how to get there. Third wave thinking when things are complex and you actually don't know like I'm going to do something. I don't know what the outcome is, right? Like it's so complex, I can't understand the system that I'm trying to interact with Leadership is a third wave issue.

Speaker 1: 36:04

To interact with leadership is a third wave issue. I say something. I could say something to each of you in exactly the same way, and you will. There'll be three interpretations of what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 36:09

And so third way of thinking in our mind requires experimentation. It's almost like a wicked problem, right? It requires experimentation and feedback, right? So I have to try things and then very quickly adjust based on the feedback I'm getting. And that's what really great leaders are, right? They understand their outcomes, they're intentional, but they're also very agile because they're very quickly adjusting to what they do. And so I think that third wave thinking for leadership is one of the really, really important things that I try to bring into my work. And it's not explicitly third wave as a word, isn't explicitly in the book, but that idea of the complexity of the leadership system that you're working in and the organizational system that is like core to what we do and it goes back to a little bit like the work that my firm really specializes in now is in that complexity where clients have an issue but they don't know how to solve.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Where clients have an issue but they don't know what, they don't know how to solve it, and it's mostly they don't even understand what the issue is. And so we do build in like experimentation and prototyping and those sorts of things so we can learn what the actual issue is, so we can actually build some effective interventions huh yeah, pete, one of the things that I was thinking about when I was preparing for this.

Speaker 3: 37:22

I was reading something in your material and my question is about leadership shock. Are you addressing people that are changing roles, like within a company, and experiencing that kind of shock, or is it from the outside in, or is it both question and so leadership shock happens?

Speaker 1: 37:44

when the context changes. So, whatever it is like there could be a real. I could have a very different boss, like it's really where that my work has mostly been in transitions and it's mostly been transitions inside the company. In fact, maria Taylor, who's the chief learning officer at United Airlines there's a quote of her in the book where she says look, when you go to a new company like when you move companies you expect things to be different and therefore you expect to lead differently.

Speaker 1: 38:07

But when you're promoted from within, you might be going back to the same desk, right like you have the same email. Your routine is exactly the same. So that's when you get into leadership shock because you need to change the way that you work. But superficially everything's the same and especially if you're like promoted from within, like you have the same colleagues, all of these things are the same. So it's like my experience is it's mostly been in those internal transitions, but it can happen whenever there's a context change and the leader isn't aware of it or it doesn't, isn't intentional about what is changing for them.

Speaker 3: 38:43

Yeah, that's the part that I wanted some clarity. I thought you meant that because I thought experientially, that's what we find over and over and over again is that there are the subtle nuances of culture that change and people don't respond to that and they simply revert back to the old behaviors that got them to where they are, which is another whole tangent Pete. Recognizing what time it is, is there anything that you want to make sure that we cover that Nathan can post-produce and put it somewhere else in the conversation.

Speaker 1: 39:16

Well, I mean interestingly, what I would say is like when we talk about leadership transitions. So I actually don't like sports as an analogy for business, and the reason why I don't like sports as an analogy for business is I think our metrics are wrong. So what we look at is we look at team wins good team, team loses bad team right. When I look at the Buffalo bills and I say if you can get to the Superbowl four years in a row and lose every time, that's a great team, that is a really phenomenal team. So our metrics are wrong when it comes to sport. Our metrics are wrong when it comes to leaders. We don't have good measurements and good metrics about what makes someone a good leader. Therefore, our leadership selection is poor.

Speaker 1: 39:57

We select on things for a new role when actually we like based on the old role right. So someone did something well in the old role and therefore they're going to be good in this role. So so we do a lot of work with clients in in internal leadership selection and we think about things like attributes right. We think about things like mindsets and we say what are the attributes that are needed for this new role? What are the mindsets that are needed for this new role and therefore, who is a good internal candidate or external candidate? Then how do you measure those? And we have some activities that you can measure those things, but I think we have a metric problem in leadership. The same way we have a metric problem in sport, and I think that really warps the way that we think about leadership succession. If the reason why people come into leadership shock, I mean all of these things are around poor metrics, that's good Wow.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Was that was that good. That resonates.

Speaker 4: 40:52

That does it's so that's so helpful. That could be your third book.

Speaker 2: 40:58

It's got a trilogy now.

Speaker 1: 41:00

We have a trilogy I don't know Like writing, a book is not. It's got a trilogy now we have a trilogy.

Speaker 4: 41:05

I don't know Like writing a book is not.

Speaker 1: 41:06

It's not for the faint of heart. It isn't for the faint of heart. But I think the real challenge with the metric is it's also culturally like I want to be the best director of finance because that's the way I become the VP of finance. And so how else do you motivate people to be really good at their job if that job isn't what you select them for? And so how else do you motivate people to be really good at their job If it isn't that job isn't what you select them for? So so it like, like I can, it's a, it's a great consultant statement, but in operationally it's actually really hard, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:30

I think it works at the C-suite because at the C-suite the jobs are very different. There's lots of candidates, but I Prior performance has to be one of the criteria you look at. Otherwise you're going to challenge some of the extrinsic motivation of some of the people in that group.

Speaker 2: 41:45

That's good, Pete. I'm curious, maybe to close things out here what do you really hope that people take away from this book?

Speaker 1: 42:08

Like if you could say, after somebody reads this or goes through the steps here, what's the thing that you're hoping people walk away with and are able to implement in their own context? Yeah, so so the book is both a fable and a do it yourself book. Right? So what? What you get is you get Michael's story and it goes through different parts of the model and then at the end of the model, it's like hey, if you want to develop your purpose, here's how you can do it. Right, so you could actually do it yourself.

Speaker 1: 42:24

And I think there's probably two things that I would like people to take away from the book. One is we need to find time to think about ourselves more. Right, like, that's the hardest thing that I have, and, and actually the virtual and hybrid world has destroyed that. I used to have 40 minutes to drive into the office and now I don't. Virtual and hybrid world has destroyed that. I used to have 40 minutes to drive into the office and now I don't. Now I actually start work at the start of my commute. So if I would leave at 7.30 and I would get to work at 8.30, I actually start work at 7.30. Right, so I've lost that reflective time, and so that, I think, is a huge loss that we have. So create time for yourself to think about yourself would be one.

Speaker 1: 43:02

And the second thing is be intentional about what you do, be re like, really think about what you do and the outcomes that you want, because when you're intentional about what you do, you can learn. Right it's, it's a learning mechanism. When I'm intentional about how I lead, I can see the consequence and I can learn from it. When I'm implicit about how I lead, I can't see the consequence and I can learn from it. When I'm implicit about how I lead, I can't see that consequence and therefore I can't learn about it. So probably the concept of giving yourself time and the concept of being intentional as a learning mechanism, I think those are probably the two things that I'd like people to get out of the book.

Speaker 2: 43:37

I have a follow-up. But how do you think more about yourself? That sounds so selfish, that sounds not like a servant leader. How do you and I know exactly what you're saying, but for someone listening to this that is like wow, that seems like a not.

Speaker 1: 43:52

So I think there's a generational issue there, nathan. I think younger people coming up are much more willing to put themselves first, and I think that's a healthier space, right. And so I think what I would say is it's sort of like Dr Heal thyself If you are not willing to look after yourself, you will not be able to serve the communities that you want to serve. Right, and so, and and and so and and but. But this comes back like most people don't think about themselves as serving communities, right, so they think about that. But actually your community is your family, it's your team at work, right, it's like the social activities you do. If you are not about being the best that you can be in those different spaces, then you're not actually fulfilling your obligation to those different communities that you serve.

Speaker 3: 44:41

Wow.

Speaker 2: 44:42

It's a worn out.

Speaker 3: 44:43

I can't wait to hear this podcast when. Nathan produces it.

Speaker 1: 44:48

Yeah, it's going to be like a Frankenstein podcast A bit here, a bit there. We're going to stick it together.

Speaker 2: 44:54

No, I think it was. They always are. I think it was a really good idea. Thank you so much, Pete, Wow.

Speaker 2: 45:00

Another thank you to Pete Steinberg for joining us on the podcast here. I really do hope that he writes a second or maybe even third book about teams. I think it could be interesting to see how leaders can implement the ideas in Leader Shock across a group of people so that the whole team is healthier. Make sure to check out the show notes for a summary of what we talked about, along with links to resources, including the book Leadership Shock, and to sign up for our free email newsletter.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Thank you for listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years, so leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. We would appreciate it if you found value from this episode or any of our other resources. We would appreciate it if you found value from this episode or any of our other resources. We would appreciate it if you could review us on iTunes and Spotify and wherever you are listening to this, but also share it with someone that you think might get something out of it as well. I'm Nathan Freeberg and on behalf of our entire team, thanks for listening.