Shandel Sutherland 00:05
Welcome to lead for clarity where we help you, your team and your organization get to their next level with clarity, because you're focusing on what matters. My name is Shandel Sutherland. And I'm here with Melanie Montgomery, today, we are continuing our leadership development around the process of sustainable growth, we are going to talk about off ramping, and on ramping. But the off ramp, when you are not being truthful to yourself, you're not living by your values. And we know many organizations that only care about winning, they only care about the bottom line, they don't care about the real sustainable growth of themselves and their people and the organization that it will last past them. Melanie, you want to introduce kind of what off ramping means
Melanie Montgomery 00:57
Yeah, I'm happy to. Off ramping is when we stop investing in growth and we off ramp into the unhealthy cycle of misery where we're having unhealthy growth. And that can lead to negative mindsets, negative culture, and not making the changes that we want. This is more where change is happening to us, instead of us facilitating the change that we want.
Shandel Sutherland 01:20
Yeah, Melanie, in our show notes, we'll put a little picture of these two cycles next to each other. If you envision two wheels, we kind of juxtapose them. And if you go back and listen to the pain episode that we've done, pain is what gets our attention, that growth is about to happen. Pain, you can think about a challenge and opportunity, they can be positive as well. And so when we look at that pain point, we want to pull into our values and let our values dictate how we purposely connect first to ourselves, like am I living the life I need to live is my team or my people really in that space where they know our company values, and we're all marching to that same beautiful tune. And then the organization is it upholding to its purpose, mission values, and we connect back to those values, and we do the work to connect with each other. But what happens on the other side is a pain point happens. And if you don't want to go or don't have the energy or whatever, then you off ramp into this cycle of misery, which is all about we just need to survive, we just need to win. And we call it the victor. We're not about values. We're about winning. And at that point, instead of dealing with your pain, you distract yourself, you become very distracted, because you don't want to deal with it. Now, do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Melanie Montgomery 02:47
Yeah. And I think it's important to point out that when we think of becoming a victor, that's at the center of our cycle. It's not necessarily like we're intending on doing that sometimes that Victor is in a response to her fear that we're struggling to face what's really happening. And so we end up doubling down on we're fine, everything's fine. I don't have that problem. I'm not like that. And so yeah, and we don't realize that we're doing it. And sometimes it takes that person to be like, hey, you know, you're kind of in that in that victory cycle right now, because we're afraid or any type of hard emotion that we're struggling to overcome. If we have a pain point. And we get into that unhealthy cycle, instead of really focusing on that we're going to distract ourselves with other things, you know, maybe we're going to take on a whole bunch of work, because we don't really want to focus on the hard thing that's in front of us. I think it's easiest for me to explain via like individual growth, I might have talked to my counselor about something and he'll point something out that I struggle with. And instead of being like, yeah, that's something I struggle with. I might say, I don't do that. And I don't, I don't think that's something I need to focus on. Or I don't have time to really work through that. I'm distracting myself. I'm almost like tricking myself lying to myself to say like, this is not a problem. I don't have that pain. I don't feel it. If I had like a physical pain, I'd be taking a bunch of ibuprofen. And I'd be like, I'm not hurting. So we really just get ourselves to believe that this isn't happening. It's not a big deal. A lot of times what I see with clients is they have a hard time really looking inward and saying I could be better, I could do better because that's a hard and scary thing. Making that step to say, I'm not perfect and I can grow is one of the hardest steps that you take, I think in your leadership journey. And then once you really embrace that mindset, you're able to unlock so much but in this phase, we really have to say, yes, it is there and I'm going to feel it and I'm going to lean in and embrace this I can figure out otherwise we're just distracting ourselves with other things.
Shandel Sutherland 04:55
Yeah, and I really think that's awesome and distracting is also addictions, it could be, I got a numbness pain, I'm gonna do everything I can to not deal with the real issue. And I see that with food for myself that people become alcoholics, shopaholics, you know, gamble, whatever it is, they're just distracting themselves from main thing. And if we're not going to deal with it, and we're just going to distract ourselves, then we are going to find ourselves in a really disconnected place. We're disconnected from our own hearts work disconnected from other people's hearts, we are just trying to get the thing done. So if you think about a victor, all I'm trying to do is orient my life around winning and getting stuff done, versus the values and what really matters. And so that disconnection is really what causes a lot of problems on teams. And it really happens, Melanie, when you agree that it happens quietly, it's like an erosion. And you're the last one to notice the leader.
Melanie Montgomery 05:54
Yeah, definitely what I see a lot in the disconnect phase, and even into the next few phases is blame showing up when something goes wrong. And we're unwilling to take that personal accountability approach and say, How can I help, we then start to blame other people, because we want to essentially just say, it wasn't me, I didn't do it. And blame in an organization and in a team is so terrible, because you'll see it a few times, and then your team will just stop telling you things. And so if there's an issue, and they're bringing it to your attention, and you blame you get angry, you get frustrated, you're gonna maybe try a couple of times if you're close, but after that, they're done trying. And now that communication is gone. They're not innovating. They're not telling you where there's problem areas and blind spots, you think everything's fine, because your team used to tell you that things were wrong. And now they're not everything must be fine. But really, we've created that adversarial relationship where they're walking on eggshells, because they don't know how you're going to react to that issue that problem, or if they bring something to your attention that maybe you need to work on.
Shandel Sutherland 07:06
Yeah, honestly, I see this in marriages, too, someone can't handle it taking responsibility, they have so much shame. And that comes out as blame. And that's where you think about that center of the cycle of misery is all about just appeasing someone, as a leader, you do not want people to appease you, you want them to trust you enough to give you feedback, but you have to be trustworthy to take it. And that's where we go into the next phase, which is we call dictate. So if you think about is the opposite of plant, and planting, we're really giving people control, we're trusting the process, we're letting people grow. It's very scary for leaders, usually, because we're letting go of control. We're disseminating the power into the people so that they can make decisions. And again, that works well, when it's orienting around values. Now, what's happening when we're just trying to make a leader happy, and it's kind of I'd say, fly under the radar, you just tell me what to do. And I'll do it and no one has personal responsibility, because I'm just doing what I'm told, this is not coming from a place of connection, this is coming from a place of just get through the day. And I don't like that for people.
Melanie Montgomery 08:20
Yeah, I think that when a response is, well, I was told to do this, and we just say, it's out of my hands, I can't do anything. I'm just gonna do what you tell me. And then I'm not accountable for what happens next. We're not growing and we're not learning. We're just putting that blame out there and saying wasn't me.
Shandel Sutherland 08:39
And I think a lot of this dictate comes in as asking questions like, Well, why did you do that? What were you thinking that like why, and really, the person could be innocently just trying to get to the source, but the way that they're doing is not in a connected way according to values, if they are trying to mitigate their own fear, that's not going to lead to the progress that we want to see.
Melanie Montgomery 09:02
You're absolutely right Shandel. And I've seen in organizations where the top leader dictates to the one right below, and then it just trickles down throughout the organization. And I'll say I've even done it before where my boss came at me and was why'd you do this? Why'd you do that? We're in big trouble, or you know, all those scary things. And then I turned around in fear and was like, what happened? Like, why did we do this, especially if that's happening consistently, it's hard to be calm. And so unintentionally, it happens more and more throughout the organization. And that becomes our response. And a lot of it is fear. When we can nip that in the bud high up and early on, then we can avoid that because it creates this really unhealthy culture throughout.
Shandel Sutherland 09:47
What's so good on the healthy cycle. We have progress, like we're actually seeing things that was where we were talking about celebrating milestones, well, you know what's happening here, everyone's just doing stuff, and they're very busy. especially when the leaders around the leaders gonna think these people work so hard, but the second, they're not in view, they are going to be doing their own thing. They're just doing stuff to get it done.
Melanie Montgomery 10:10
A lot of times, we're just spending our time getting our checklist done instead of really focusing on what matters. And I think sometimes we even take on a lot more to make ourselves feel like we're doing more. In my personal life, when I'm struggling with friendship or relationship, I might then go and do more volunteering, because I'm like, Oh, I'm needed here. And I'm needed here, and I'm doing things but I'm not actually taking the time to focus on what I really should be focusing on and not intentionally helping them in that positive direction.
Shandel Sutherland 10:44
That's so good Melanie, right on in the printing stage, we really like okay, what's really happening with the reality of things we're actually trying to simplify, we're doing the work to set us up for more profitability. Well, not the victor stage, when you're over in the cycle of misery, we are doubling down, if we did this good, we'll do 10 times better, we're overflowing. Because the victor thinks everything's fine. Because no one's talking to him anymore. He's totally or she is disconnected. They're just dictating and everyone's doing things. So they think, hey, let's double down. And that is a very, very dangerous place to be.
Melanie Montgomery 11:24
Yeah. And I think sometimes we double down on our bad behavior, because we start to objectify other people, then we're self justifying our own bad behavior, and it becomes this vicious cycle. I've been working really hard on communication within my personal relationships. If I, for example, have a conversation with my mom, and I don't get the result I want, instead of saying, oh, like, here's how I'm gonna help. Or here's what I'm going to circle back with, I might just say, Oh, my mom doesn't care about me. She doesn't want to have healthy conflict. So why am I even doing this the next time, I'm just gonna go back to what worked before which didn't really work, I'm just gonna double down on my bad behavior and go back to how it used to be, which was not always great.
Shandel Sutherland 12:10
It's perfect, perfect. And last session, we talked about profit. And then we go through this stage of sustainable growth, like we are getting an ROI, both for our energy, our money, all sorts of wonderful things. And it's not just the money, but you have to have the money. So money is very important. But there's people like they are growing, and we're just there, we're seeing what we're accomplishing our little side gig owning the bowling alley, you know, it's not making that much money yet. But we're in this profit stage, even though there's a lot of pain in it. Because people are thrilled and happy. And I'm making a difference in my hometown. Like, there's nothing better than that. So what's happening in the cycle of misery Melanie?
Melanie Montgomery 12:52
Here, we see that we're focused on dollars and dividends, we're only focused on the short term money or success. I've seen this a lot working with organizations or even on teams that I've been on, where we need to make more money, we need to cut expenses. And so what we're going to do is we're going to just cut staffing significantly, and that is going to help us get to our goal for the next month, two months. But when we're looking a year down the line, our people are going to be worn out, the morale is gonna go down, we're gonna have a lot of people quit, because we slashed everything thinking about that bottom line, our consequences are going to be significant in six months to a year or even sooner. We're really leaning into what is needed now what will help me look good now? Or what will make me happy that instant gratification instead of figuring out how do we create this healthy long term growth
Melanie Montgomery 13:50
You know Shandel, I found myself in this stage the dollars in dividends and having that victorious mindset. Early on in my career, I spent my career in the hospitality and hotel industries running a successful hotel by itself is very, very different than running a successful hotel in a casino. Because the metrics are different. When I started Hotel Management in a casino, I was like, Oh, I know how to make the most money for this hotel. But what I was missing is that what made the most money for the hotel did not make the most money for the property was not the most successful for the entire property. And that was such a hard pill for me to swallow to say, I'm going to take less revenue to increase my occupancy so that there's more people to enjoy the resorts. Early on, it was really hard because I wanted to make the most money for my department for my bottom line for what I was responsible for. And I struggled to get to the point where that didn't matter what mattered was the entire property. But I look back and I was in that for a little while and it took me a little bit of time to figure out. Okay, I understand now what I'm doing. It does didn't matter what my department does, I mean, it does in the grand scheme of things, but my bottom line is not more important than the entire organization's bottom line.
Shandel Sutherland 15:09
That is so good. That's great Melanie. And it's interesting, because I've had quite a few companies in my tenure, where we really were helping them grow. And they grew fast, because they were caring about their people, their culture was amazing. And I wasn't working with the leaders anymore, it because they were trying to double down to go after more growth, both of these companies I have in my mind sold to bigger companies, they were acquired, and they're miserable. They've done all this work, they didn't take it over to the next level, they they went for the dollars instead of the profit, boy, you got to be careful, because if you're just going for the dollars and the dividends for yourself, you're gonna not feel good about that in two, three years, when you're trying to work yourself back out because you forgot to stay in the values. And you've just gone over in the victor so that you can win our mission, our B hag is that all of our clients when the best place to work? Well, you got to do the best place to work more than just one little season.
Shandel Sutherland 16:13
Well, Melanie, now we've talked about what it looks like to be in a cycle of misery, how do we get out of the cycle of misery, we go back into the principles of the process. One, you've got to go back through connection. So wherever you off ramp, you come back through connecting, you connect back to your values, you connect back to the team, you connect back to the organization and what is its purpose, what are its values, and then what you really want to do on the on ramping, is realize that you've got to tell the truth, you have to be very truthful with everyone else and yourself and build that level of trust. Because usually, when you off ramp, you know, you have broken trust. And usually that's what yourself to start with. But also with your team. And the one of the most powerful ways to get back into the sustainable growth is just to admit it to be a truth teller, say you guys have kind of lost my way a little bit like I really got focused into winning, and I'm over here in this cycle of misery. So I'm just letting you know, we are all getting back to our values starting with me, I think there is something to be said about having that humility, so that you can get back to everyone living their purpose and the organization thriving in its purpose. We're all going to lead in the off ramp, we're all going to off ramp, maybe the whole organization for a season, and one of the best things we can do is get them back.
Melanie Montgomery 17:44
And I think it's important to know that when you are in the unhealthy cycle of misery, that's not an indicator that you're a bad person or a bad leader, you don't have integrity, any of that. We all go there. Do we have the introspection to say, I'm not living my values, I'm not being my best. And then taking the steps to get back into that healthy cycle of growth. I think so often, we get shameful about being in that unhealthy cycle. And so we may recognize that our behavior is not great, but we don't really know how to get out of it. So it's really embracing that and owning up to it. Like you said, I think it's so important to say, Hey, I did something wrong, here's how I'm going to get better and get back into that healthy cycle, the more that we're able to recognize that we're there on ramp back into that healthy cycle. We realize that quicker and we're able to mitigate it faster. Looking back on my career, I'm like, oh, yeah, I was in all of these phases for many different lengths of time. But now I am a lot more aware of myself. And so when I do Lean in there, I can catch it in my internal dialogue and be like, nope, Melanie we're not doing that will make that time shorter as we move forward and really push ourselves to be in that healthy cycle
Shandel Sutherland 19:01
That was perfectly said. Yep. It's all about ownership. I think if you have the humility that you are going to end up in the cycle of misery, I get there, you get there, then it's easier to just be humble and get back. Like just get back. I love this process because you just get back to doing what you're supposed to do. It's not easy at times, because you have to humble yourself. That's a hard thing for a lot of people to do. Okay, as we land this plane, Melanie, what do you want the number one thing you want our listeners to take away from today?
Melanie Montgomery 19:34
I really want everyone to take away that it's okay to off ramp. We're all going to do it. And we want to be aware of that and be compassionate with ourselves when we do it. We just have to have that self awareness to say I need to get back and take those steps just really lean into your values and get back on track.
Shandel Sutherland 19:53
whoo that was so well said and I would say the same thing. We're not going to do this perfectly. So how fast is what your goal should be not to never off ramp but how fast can you be to have a self awareness to get back into that sustainable cycle of growth? Well, I'm excited that we have completed the explanation of the process and now we need to start talking about applying it. So I look forward to the next few episodes really talking about real life case studies, getting some people up here to talk about it, and we're just gonna keep blazing forward into the next level. Right, Melanie?
Melanie Montgomery 20:30
I'm excited.
Shandel Sutherland 20:31
Yes, listeners, we do this for you. We love you send your questions in. You can find us at Shandel group.com and as always, be the best you can be today.
