Unfazed Under Fire Podcast

From the NFL to the Boardroom: Leading Teams with Purpose

• David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist • Season 2 • Episode 10

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What if mastering resilience could transform not only your career but your entire approach to life? Join us on "Unfazed Under Fire" as we sit down with Mohamed Massaquoi, a former NFL player turned business leader, whose journey is nothing short of inspiring. Mohamed’s story is one of overcoming adversity, from the highs of professional sports to the challenges of life-changing physical injury, and how these experiences have sculpted his leadership philosophy.

This episode uncovers the secrets to building high-performance teams and leading with authenticity. Mohamed shares his insightful perspectives on maintaining consistent performance even in high-turnover environments, emphasizing the importance of clear mission and values. We dive deep into the strategies for fostering collaboration, overcoming resistance from siloed individuals, and the critical role transparent communication plays in creating a cohesive team. Mohamed’s passion for psychology and people-watching provides a unique lens through which he navigates organizational transformation and rapid growth.

As we wrap up, we reflect on the universal desires that drive us all—health, integrity, family, and a positive work environment. Mohamed’s personal anecdotes about adapting to significant physical changes underscore the emotional and mental resilience required for true transformation. Learn how structured schedules and effective systems can prevent burnout and why empathetic leadership is essential in today’s world. Tune in for a masterclass on leading with vision, heart, and a profound care for the people you work with.

How to contact Mo Massaquoi:

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohamedmassaquoi/

Email: mohamedm@thevessol.com 

Unfazed Under Fire Podcast - Host: David Craig Utts, Leadership Alchemist

Access to all our platforms:
https://www.unfazedunderfirepodcast.online

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Unfazed Under Fire, a podcast designed to elevate your leadership and amplify your impact. Each episode offers valuable insights to help you transform your vision into reality, cultivate high-performing cultures that attract top talents, and navigate the complexities of today's uncertain, chaotic world with confidence and clarity. Now tuning into your needs, here's your host and moderator, seasoned executive coach and leadership alchemist, david Craig Utz.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to Unfazed Under Fire. I'm David Craig Utz, the leadership alchemist, your host and companion on the journey to strengthen your leadership impact. Now, this show is designed to empower executives like you to elevate your leadership by tweaking tactics, and it's reshaping the way that you perceive and practice leadership, because even when we have a clear vision, the resources and the talent to succeed, you can only magnify results through disciplined practice of leadership and consistent efforts to build and sustain a high-performing culture. Now, in each episode of Unfazed Under Fire, we push the boundaries of conventional thought by providing key insights that align with the unique challenges and opportunities you encounter in the executive suite. We have a stand at cultivating workplaces that are not only efficient but also inspiring, where the team will be motivated to bring their best in service to your organization's visions, values and current priorities. Our philosophy is rooted in the conviction that authentic leadership starts from within. Every individual has a unique potential that is unlocked through a commitment to self-mastery, and this inner mastery forms the bedrock for leading others with confidence, vision and compassion. Leadership can easily become disoriented and frustrating endeavor without this internal alignment, especially in today's crazy world. So when we're looking to enhance leadership capabilities, discover new perspectives or connect to a network of like-minded executives. Unfazed Under Fire is your destination for growth, inspiration and lasting transformation.

Speaker 2:

Now, today, I'm very excited to be joined by Mohamed Massaqua, an exceptional leader himself, whose journey from the football field to the boardroom exemplifies the power of resilience, vision and disciplined leadership. So welcome to the show, mohamed. Glad to have you here. Hey, how are you doing? Good to see you today. Good, and Mo, I'm going to share a little bit about you and then we'll get started. So Mo has an incredible story to share and some keen insights and high quality approaches to leadership or an organizational transformation.

Speaker 2:

Mo is an organizational psychologist and principal in Vessel, a professional services firm that focuses on creating effective and efficient workplaces.

Speaker 2:

His ideal clients are organizations that are dealing with rapid growth and change, and before starting Vessel, mo worked in finance for Morgan Stanley, and before that role, he played in the NFL. He was a second round draft pick for the Cleveland Browns in 2009 and played for them for five seasons. He earned his bachelor's in psychology and a master's in industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Georgia, where he also played football, and as a member of the Bulldogs, he was named overall team captain in 2008, which is no easy task, and was first team all SAC. He also has a first generation born American, which gives him a powerful perspective on the opportunities and challenges of being a citizen in the USA. And, finally, he's faced a level of adversity that many of us do not have to face in our life, which gives him a powerful has powerfully influenced him as well. Mo lives in Atlanta, georgia, and loves spending his free time with his family, and because of his background, I'm sure he has to work out every day.

Speaker 1:

So I'm sure you take a day off as well.

Speaker 2:

So I met you through a mutual friend of ours and a longtime client, Stuart Brown, and you all met each other, I guess, at the University of Georgia doing some mentoring for students. There Is that right.

Speaker 3:

Yes, stuart does a lot of work with the young accountants at Georgia, and so that's where we crossed paths. You know, having gone to Georgia on the psychology side, him on the finance side, and he was just helping the next generation, and so I got pulled in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know he's a proud bulldog. He never lets me forget about it. So I'd love to build off my introduction and have you just talk in your own words about your journey and how you ended up doing the work of organizational leadership and team development, all the great work you do in organizations, how you ended up there Because it's always an interesting path how we get from point A to eventually point D or E or whatever. So if you could just share a little bit about your story in your own words, theory or whatever.

Speaker 3:

So if you could just share a little bit about your story in your own words, I would honestly say it found me, and it's a combination of all the things that I'm interested in or some type of lived experience. I'm an athlete, I care a lot about performance, I care a lot about teams. As first generation born American, always being inside, outside perspective, I've always been fascinated with people. I love people watching, and so that's what kind of drew me to psychology and I'm an amputee. I had an accident in 2017 where I lost my left hand and companies are going through change, and when that happened, a lot of leaders start to say, hey, my company's going through rapid change, my company's going through, you know, an adverse situation. Can you talk to us about overcoming that? And the more you start interacting with these groups, you see that a lot of them are going through similar things, and so that whole combination of performance, people change kind of found me as life just evolved.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for that. I want to touch a little bit more on each of some of the things you mentioned there, being a first generation born American, so you were born in this country. Your family came to the country obviously prior to that, but you were born in the United States.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so when you're first generation, you are culturally divided somewhat, because you're being raised with a culture that's not here my family's Liberian but you're being influenced by the land that you're on, and so you're always kind of taking bits and pieces of both on. And so you're always kind of taking bits and pieces of both, and your perspective is very different because you're combining it from multiple sources. And so I'm curious of what people's stories are, where they come from. How'd you get here? What are you interested in? Why are you wired the way you are? Where's the origin of that story? And neither is better or worse, or good or bad. It's just very fascinating to start to unpack how we're all uniquely wired.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Everybody is like one earth in 8 point. Whatever billion worlds out there, right, everybody has their own unique experience and they bring to the table.

Speaker 1:

It is interesting.

Speaker 2:

I had the same feeling and experience and why I went into psychology when I was an undergrad and eventually into organizational development for the same reason. But when you're talking about being, you know, first born and I talk to other people on the show that share that there is a as you're growing up, there's like a confusion that they had to deal with that you touched on and how that kind of forged them. They both appreciate the opportunities here but also integrate their unique cells into that. Is there anything you could share about like what was that like for you growing up and how that has, really kind of think, you helped you in the work that you do today?

Speaker 3:

uh well, my family fled a civil war, and so when you start to realize that my family fled a civil war and so when you start to realize that life could be extremely different, there's a lot of challenges that others face, that individuals may not have to face here on American soil. There's a coming from a country that's not as developed I would say. How you approach certain things in life of what you should have or what you should create or what you should make do of, is somewhat different, and a lot of things are new to me still to this day, because I don't have, you know, four or five, six generations of a reference point as it relates to being an American. So there's certain things that my kid will experience, that we're experiencing for the first time, and so it's a blessing because you don't take things for granted. It's a blessing because you're not on autopilot as much and you kind of take things for what they are or as objectively as you can possibly see it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, no place is perfect and we certainly aren't in this country. But I think that you know you, I think people that are recently immigrated into the country appreciate certain things that sometimes we do take for granted, and sometimes complain a little bit too much about some things that if I was back in a civil war I wouldn't be complaining about. I mean, I wish I would have you know, I wish I would have those problems Right.

Speaker 2:

So it's great that your family is able to get the heck out of there, so yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly yeah.

Speaker 2:

Now you're also a world class athlete. We can't avoid that one. You had a very impressive sports career, professional sports career and, having, you know, played for UGA and one of the top programs in the country, and then being in the NFL for five years, I know that athletes have a very unique perspective on performance and what you have to do to succeed, and I'd love for you to share. What does that bring to your teaching about success, leadership and teams? If you'd be willing to share a little bit about that.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I think what's interesting is it's multiple things where if you don't work hard, you eliminate yourself, and so it's kind of there's a barrier to entry if you're going to do something worth doing. But once you cross over that barrier, everybody at that level has done very similar things, and so then it becomes who understands how to work the smartest. The mental side of sports is something that people don't give enough credit to, to where everybody can run, jump athletic strong, but to know the nuances of the game is what takes you from what level to the next, and so a lot of times people are working really hard at their jobs, but they may not be working in the most effective, efficient way, and so if they can just you know, repurpose some of those efforts in a more tactical way, I think they can get the results that they want. The other aspect of that is I'm used to working on teams.

Speaker 3:

No one person, even in individual sports, does everything by themselves. You have nutritionists, you have strength trainers, you have medical staff. If you're on a team sport, you have other colleagues, and it's very interconnected, and so the ability to know one's role and the ability to know where what resources are around one to get the greatest impact is something that we kind of just intuitive in sports. That always isn't understood in the working environment yeah, yeah, do you find any?

Speaker 2:

uh, as you've met more and more senior executives and work with them, have you seen any? Have you seen some of the best and more? You know we know great leaders when we see them right. You know it's hard. Once you have a conversation for about 10 minutes, you can tell usually if somebody has that in them and a lot of executives I find. I mean they probably could work out a little bit more sometimes, but they have a kind of same mentality, because that's what sometimes I have to work with them on, but they have sometimes the same mentality. I don't know if you found that, or what do you see as the transfer from that kind of professional athlete mentality to being in the executive suite?

Speaker 3:

I think I've appreciated how different it looks because you could have someone that is more quiet, more cerebral, but it's phenomenal because they understand everything that's going on in the organization. Some people are more charming and charismatic where it works for their pocket, because they have people that can operate at a certain level and they're more trying to keep the culture happy. You have some people that are fiery and in that particular environment, if tamed, the right way that people can rally behind it, and so I've appreciated leaders that understand what their team and cultures need things are in alignment versus the ones that are artificially or not authentically approaching things because they read these are the five best ways to lead from some book or blog post. But the ability to be uniquely yourself, surround yourself with talent that you trust, that you empower to do the job and support them in the ways that they need, in your own unique way, I think is what I've come to admire out of leaders where it's not just one type but the variety in an authentic way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, it's so true. I've been working with leaders for 25 years and I've seen all kinds of people that show up as leaders when I mean that they demonstrate leadership in what they do and how they interact with people, how they care about people, how they have to make tough calls, et cetera. One of the things you said was being yourself. That's a lot of times the things that we're working with leaders on to rest and relax in their own brand of, their own expression, and know that that actually leads to them building better teams and being a better leader, and know that that actually leads to them building better teams and being a better leader.

Speaker 2:

So I really love that you said that and you know, that it takes focus and a consistent effort to kind of be. There's always a better leader in you, Right. So if you look at, you know, performance there's always a higher degree of performance Right and or to a certain degree of the performance, higher degree of performance right and or to a certain degree of higher performance, and there's always a higher degree of leadership. You know, all the way up to what I call consider servant leaders, where they're really out of the way and they're disempowering and they basically trust their people and they know they have the right people in place and they can, they can let go and do what they do. Well, you know. So, yeah, Now I have to touch on this just because I know there's different experiences.

Speaker 2:

You had being at the on the you know, on the Bulldog team when you were there and they were a pretty successful team, Right, they were very successful at the time you were there and they were at the top of the conference most years. And then you went to the Cleveland Browns and that was a different team experience. I would imagine you had some rough years when you were there at Cleveland and I and that was a different team experience I would imagine you had some rough years when you were there at Cleveland and I'm not trying to throw Cleveland under the bus, I'll admit I'm a Ravens fan, but let's put that aside. But that's a whole thing we could unpack there and we'd spend the whole time talking about it. But I was just wondering what that was like, going from, like, a high-achieving team to a team that was more struggling and did that? How did that influence what it takes to really build?

Speaker 3:

a great team and be on a great team even when there's when you're struggling a little bit. I mean, that's a great question. I think one of the things that you learn very fast is Cleveland has gone through a lot of change since they returned to Cleveland. So, yeah, and that becomes very hard to put a consistent product on the field. When you look and you say you know one. It'd be hard to name all the quarterbacks that have played there. It'd be hard to name all the coaches that have played there. It'd be hard to name all the coaches that have played. There'd be hard to name all the players that have come and gone. Uh, and with that type of turnover, it becomes hard to know what what it is that you stand for. You know I was fortunate to have a coach in mark rickett, georgia, that he stayed there for 15 years. Kirby smart, that's there right now, has been there a very long time.

Speaker 3:

And when you even look at the Ravens franchise or the Steelers or some of the franchises that have had success, they have long-tenured individuals and their leadership and their coaches and their players and you develop a true distinct culture.

Speaker 3:

You're not changing cultures in and out the ability to string together and build on top of something becomes incredibly important, and that was just very challenging to do while at Cleveland. And the thing that people don't understand is everybody wants to do good and everybody is good at what they do at that level, but a lot of it is fit it's. Can you get these pieces to fit in the right way and do you have the longevity to continue to install a culture that, hopefully, is going to work out for the long term? So I think it was just a combination of all those things happening at the same time and hopefully, I think the Browns went to the playoffs last year. Hopefully they can continue to build off of that, because there's a ton of talent in the building and the Cleveland Brown fan base is one of the most loyal and best around the world, and so I think, as success continues to come, you'll see something that's unleashed with Ohio people that support their team in a tremendous way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have no doubt about it. You can see that they're building something special there and it does take time. And you know certainly I hear it all the time in the NFL the level of talent is pretty equal team to team, and it really is. You know, obviously some teams build better player personnel, you know, at a certain level above another team, but fundamentally it's the same level of talent. It is about chemistry and fit and getting people working together in a certain way. So what I wanted to transition to is like you've been through those experiences and now are doing this work in organizations, helping teams, and one of the things you do certainly is helping teams perform at a high level. What are the principles that you lean on when you do your work, or what you've learned from that you believe are essential to creating a high performance team that is knocking it out of the park?

Speaker 3:

Well, I mean, we're starting with. You know what are the mission and values and, as simple as that sounds, whatever you have written on your website or whatever you talk about, are those actually being lived? Do people understand? That is what is taking priority, because, if not, whatever we layer on top of that is going to be competing with you know what you're trying to accomplish and how you're going to accomplish it. Essentially, and it's the simplicity of what are we, what are we trying to do, and if we can figure out what we're trying to do, a lot of times the answers to solve those problems are somewhere within the organization and we just have to figure out where they exist.

Speaker 3:

You know, if you use a sports reference, a coach is going to run their system and they're going to try to put the ball in the best player's hands, but they know who the best player is and they know what the best player does and they know how that changes week to week. And so in an organization we're trying to figure out, based off of this problem, who are the best individuals to solve that. It could be the first day employee, it could be the CEO, it could be a combination of multiple individuals, but instead of saying we're going to try to solve a hundred things, let's get really tight with the problem set that we're trying to solve and bring in the right individuals to the table. That should happen more. Unfortunately, people are usually too close to the problem to unpack who this want to even frame what problem they're trying to solve, versus trying to solve 10 things at once and even more. Who are the individuals that we can rely on to extract their knowledge and resources for the betterment of the whole organization?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, that's why they bring people like you that have a perspective you do in, because people are so close to the problem. A lot of times they're focusing on things that not because they're not intelligent they are intelligent but because they don't see the forest for the tree sometimes. And you know, having a perspective like yours could be very useful. I also you know love what you said about are they living what's on their website? Very useful. I also you know love what you said about are they living what's on their website? You know I've seen many times organizations go through a great deal of effort to get clarity but they don't necessarily use it to focus them after that or they don't use it as a way to have conversations with each other about how are we living this value of collaboration or this value of customer-centric focus or whatever it is within their value list. And you know everybody has different definitions of what collaboration is.

Speaker 2:

Because I come in, you know, when we hire people into an organization, right, we don't choose the people that we work with. A lot of times, sometimes teams do get to do that. Don't say that. But a lot of times you come in, you're new to an organization, you didn't necessarily choose to work with everybody there. Now you have to get to know where people are coming from, and that's so why you know the communication stuff that you probably do is so essential to helping teams operate more effectively. You know you've also I mean we're going to get more into your work.

Speaker 2:

I promise in a moment I wanted you to talk about Bessel and what you're doing, but I'm also still on your story a little bit and how it relates, because it's so rich. You went from, you know, a highly structured environment as probably an athlete being on a team and Morgan Stanley, which is much more structured, and you became an entrepreneur. You know, and I'm wondering how, what that transition was like for you, if that was a challenging one, especially, I mean probably because you have the discipline you have. It may not have been for you as much as anybody, but I'm wondering if that was an interesting shift for you and what you learned from that.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that's a great question. What you learned from that oh, that's a great question, I think, once you start to realize, is that you can fill time up however you want, and time is going to expand and contract to whatever you prioritize. And for me, I am a person that needs schedule, I need structure. My regimen is going to be very similar every day, unless I'm traveling, of when I check emails, of when I reach out to certain people, of when I do research, of when I design. All of that is in a structured, fixed time period, when I put meetings on the calendars, and if you don't, then you can always feel it and people say, hey, you know I'm busy, and they legitimately are, but not everything is top of priority, and so we are focused on high performance in athletics, not just performance for the sake of performance, and so I'm trying to maximize output where I spend time, because if not, then I'm going to burn out.

Speaker 3:

I don't know any athlete that plays a game every day, but a lot of employees and a lot of leaders are in game mode every day, and it's just hard to make quality decisions when you do that, and so I've been a victim of trying to pull all-nighters and wake up early and do this, and what that tells me is I don't have enough systems in place that allow me to have this structure. And so I have to look and say what are my systems? And if I'm just pulling off the hip, that isn't a system. And whenever I feel overextended in one way or another, there's a system that gets put in place or there's somebody that gets hired that their skill set is better on that than mine is because certain things, regardless of what system I put in place, I'm just not going to be as good as someone else and I have to take my ego out of it and understand that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm sure that's something you also provide to your clients too, because I see executives working harder than they've ever worked, having less time than they ever had, and it seems to ever since the pandemic it's gotten worse. So much is coming at them, so much is expected of them, but a lot of times even the aspect of self-care, which is essential for ongoing productivity and performance, is left out. Reflection is left out. People used to hire me as a coach just to have time an hour a week to reflect, and now it's like they don't necessarily have time to hire a coach to have that reflective time sometimes. But it's so important that you have that structure in place in those systems in place, as you say, it's so well said. That can help you make sure you're also taking care of yourself in the whole game, right? Because if you don't take care of your body when you're playing sports, what happens? You know you're going to burn out and fry and hit a wall. So any other thoughts on that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So my big job is to be very tactical and precise with what's being found and what solutions are being created. I learned something very valuable when I was getting my master's in organizational psychology. We did a project, we came back and we had, let's say, 15 recommendations, and the teacher looked at us and said you're dealing with someone that's extremely busy.

Speaker 3:

How many of these things can they realistically implement? Three, two, maybe one? And so once you start to realize that pie in the sky, yes, 15 sounds great, but what is the one thing that you can actually deliver on and can that thing move the needle in a tangible way? And then, after you've done that, then you figure out how do you deliver on the next day, versus muddying the waters and overwhelming people with all these things. And so that's helped me in my approach, where it's very, very precise, of we're not going to introduce a million things, we're going to be very prescriptive with the thing that makes the most sense and, if we can solve that, put tight structure on it. That gives us a good foundation to graduate into the next thing, versus just adding more things on that actually never get done.

Speaker 2:

That's well said. Sometimes I see organizations are an innovation overload. They're trying to innovate so many places and not get anything done really well, and that's a really good point. You have to kind of take one thing at a time or a couple of things at a time. It makes sense. And the last thing I want to touch on in your story is the adversity that you face with your left hand and share a little bit about that, if you're willing to, because I think that you know my sense is when you're sharing in the opening that while I want to hear the difficult part of the story and what you learned from that, because somehow you turned it into something that was useful to you and was useful to your clients. So if you could just share a little bit about that, that would be great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so when a company is going through change, they're going to lose a part of something that made them them and they're going to have to become something else, and so I can relate to that.

Speaker 3:

The thing that made me me essentially was being able to catch a football, and even though I was retired, a lot of identity was wrapped up into my hands. A lot of physical attributes are what I've leaned on for a large part of life, and when that gets removed, it complicates things both mentally and physically, and the physical side eventually heals and the mental side is what lingers, because you have to live with this reality for the rest of life. And so for me it has been a tremendous amount of growth and stretching me in ways that I probably would have not gotten stretched, and it's opened up opportunities to connect with people where you can be more empathetic with how they feel. On an emotional side. It's not that people can't go through the change, it's the emotional fears, emotional doubt, it's the emotional resistance, and when you can kind of pierce at the hearts and minds to get momentum started, I think that is what starts the journey, because most people can't do what's ever on the other side of change. It's just hard for them to wrap their heads around it.

Speaker 2:

Right? Well, it gives you certainly compassion and it also gives you an honoring of kind of a grieving process. If there is a change, you have to let go of something else and let it go depending to the degree of the change. Obviously, you faced a big challenge. Big challenge given your background and everything, and then the ability to be open to what life is teaching you in that moment.

Speaker 2:

Like a friend of mine says, life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. So things happen for you, but when it first happens it doesn't feel that way for sure. You know, as you said, you get over the physical, you still have the mental, and then there's something that happens in the. You know that challenge that gets cooked inside you, that emerges right, that, that, that, that do you something. You don't overcome it, but something in you opens up. Do you remember the moment, do you remember the moments when that began to happen? Is there anything you'd be willing to share around that? Like a certain point, I just recognized this and I got it. It wasn't that I was still happy it happened, but something came to me that I recognized. This is what I could do with this.

Speaker 3:

I would say it was gradual. And then it was gradual to start to gain more understanding. And so the first year, after you physically heal, mentally, you're trying to find your way, you're still dealing with a lot of emotions, and then you get a little more comfortable. The entire journey, I would probably say, is a six year journey, which, when anybody asks me when is this going to be over, I say buckle up, and that's not to say that all six years are challenging or difficult, but it's just to when you truly feel you're on the other side of everything. And with that, a lot of the deep work is done, though, so that you're not regressing at some point. And so I would say it's years and years and years of trying to figure out how to grow, how to improve, how to adjust, how to be comfortable, and then, finally, you get to the other side and you're fully there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's really well said. I think in people that you're working with right now, I think resilience is probably one of the top leadership competencies that leaders are having to face and we're all having to face in this kind of world right now. It seems to be going crazy at times and what would you say is the lessons you learned around resilience that you feel that you give to those that you work with?

Speaker 3:

Most people are more resilient than they think, and resilience isn't like fitness. I can't transfer my level of fitness to one person, no matter how much I think about it. But I can give you the mindset of you can do this, and one's going to find out that they can actually do it. They can actually get through whatever they find is a hurdle, and you go from offense or defense to offense to where now you're trying to avoid everything. So now you're starting to lean into things and you're starting to embrace whatever challenges you have.

Speaker 3:

You know, coming from the sports world, where you lose and you win and you get hurt and you feel good. You're dealing with all these emotions and that's a snapshot of what we have to do in life. But you know, if you lose a game, it's not like you retire quit. If you roll an ankle, it's not like you retire quit. You figure out how to get back in the game. And the challenges may be different in life but the mechanics are very much the same. If you break a bone, the healing may be a little bit longer if you get a paper cut, but you can still heal. And so that's kind of the approach of just helping people understand the mindset that they need and that they can realistically get through the thing. That is a huge hurdle for them.

Speaker 2:

Well, and you said it's a shift in identity to a higher level of identity. Right, you're going to most people. They have to go from this is me with a fully functioning left hand to what is a higher identity that I can lean into. How can I show up and be? That eventually happens? You know it affects your identity for sure, but it calls you to a high. It can call you. Some people can lose it and never recover, but that's a choice. What am I going to do about it? Going into your work at Vessel, you help clients primarily who are dealing with rapid change and growth. Do I have that right? That's kind of what your ideal client is. What are some of the common challenges you see organizations face as they're growing rapidly and going through big changes that they must resolve to kind of go to the next level and make sure that change is operating well and that they're taking advantage of that growth or allowing that growth to serve them to grow more.

Speaker 3:

Great question Communication often lacks, and some people over communicate the wrong things, and so you send too many emails, you put too many things in Slack, which means that it just gets lost in the shuffle, or you make assumptions that people know what's going on and they don't, and so there's a lot of misalignment throughout the organization. There's a lack of feedback, and so the feedback loops may be too long of what's good and bad or what's desired or not desired. So many things can be cleaned up with communication. Even when you don't have the right resources, a person may not know why you need those resources or how they impact the overall picture, and that's a communication flaw when you need help, when you don't need help.

Speaker 3:

The ability to collaborate across teams, and none of these things cost money, but none of them cost money to implement, but they can cost you money in the long run or cost you resources from mismanagement in the long run. And so if one can communicate effectively and learn how to collaborate effectively, as things are moving 100 miles per hour, I think that is the key to it, and this is simple for a guy that has come from the sports world, because we're making split second decisions with everyone on the same page at all times in highly complex, fast moving environments, and trying to figure out the mechanics of that. In an organization where things are all over the place all the time, the organization doesn't always stop to create those systems once again and they're just kind of bolting on things as they move forward, so there's a lot of things just slipping through the cracks.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so given that you have an organization that's called you in and they're asking you to help them with change management, with dealing with adjusting to this growth, how does Vessel help them navigate those challenges? What are some of the things that you do? I know it's a general question. You'd probably need a specific client. You can even share a story if you want, but what kinds of things do you do and how do you help clients be more effective with all that?

Speaker 3:

Well, we're going to start by asking the leader to communicate what they want in a shorter time horizon. That way, the leader can actually think about the work to be done, and in doing that, we can uncover a lot of different things. And so, if it's this week, we're responsible for these three things. We can measure performance to those three things. We can measure communication to those three things. We can figure out role clarity and workflow dynamics. But if it's just like let's do work and we have all these challenges, what starts to bubble up are all these things that are more inconveniences or personal preferences of what one wants to do, and they're loosely connected to the overall picture. And so I'm trying to get a leader to really, really tightly define this is what we're trying to do cascade that message throughout so that the team, as they're reporting back what's going well and not going well, we can get accurate data on what we need to improve, versus just, once again, everything that's going wrong or right in the organization that we can't act off of because it's too overwhelming.

Speaker 2:

Well, it sounds like yeah, so make sure I got this right. Like, maybe the first thing you might do is sit down with the leader, or leaders or whoever is hiring you, to understand what's the navigation. Where are you trying to go, where are you trying to create here with this change? Or how are you adapting to these changes or this growth and a lot? Of that has to do with that Pardon, go ahead.

Speaker 3:

I frame it like this as an athlete week to week, we have an opponent. Yeah, I frame it like this as an athlete week to week, we have an opponent. Each week, that opponent has a specific game plan. While we're trying to win the championship at the end of the, we can take the lessons from this week and carry them to the next week, and carry them to the next week, and all these things are building on top of each other.

Speaker 3:

You're learning from this data, essentially, but if we don't know what is top of mind and we can artificially make it up, because sometimes there's too many things. But once you start to pinpoint and get a little more niche, a little more specific in the thing that you're trying to solve, for that's how you start to create these feedback loops of where you can say this is going well, this isn't going well versus this generic pie in the sky harder. Or you know we need to meet more, or we need to meet our revenue targets, but like, specifically, what is getting in the way, so that we can understand oh, david wasn't able to do this because of X, y, z reason, but David does this one thing really well that we hadn't paid attention to that we actually need to share across the organization. Essentially, you're trying to train the organization from the inside out, but you have to understand what's taking place.

Speaker 2:

Right. So you get them to kind of not let go of the big goal but step back into now and say what's the most powerful way we could move forward, and then measure that and take the next step and learn from that and then take the next step, kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

Is that right? You're trying to get them to break the big goal into smaller chunks smaller chunks that they can actually see results off of Right, got it.

Speaker 2:

So, in that you're having a lot of conversations, right, you're probably facilitating all. Is that something that you do? Like you, you might be going out and doing research in the organization, finding things that people are doing, how the decision is affected them. What kinds of ways in which do you, what kinds of conversations are you facilitating in those small increments? How do you do that?

Speaker 3:

Well, usually somebody is going to say hey, I think we have this big picture thing that's taking place. And as you present that big picture thing to the team of leaders, to the VPs, the directors, the team under them, what you're going to start to do is you're going to start to get insights of more of a holistic, global idea picture was taking place and you can curate that. To say this is what I've heard, this is what I've seen, and there's going to be certain things that, once again, aren't really relevant. It's going to be this, this hey, we're not collecting data over here, but even if we got the data, we couldn't do anything with it. Or hey, you know, you know they, they took this from us and it's like well, do you actually really need that? Or even if you, you're not going to get it back, so we, we can't act off of that.

Speaker 3:

But as you start to get these themes and you start to get an understanding of what's taking place, you can almost rank from a priority standpoint of which themes are coming up more or less, which themes are going to move the needle more or less, which things do the organization actually care about prioritizing right now, because we can't solve everything. And as you get that, you start to be able to present this information back to whoever the decision maker is through the lens of their employees, and you come up with a tactical game plan of how to solve one of those things, with the understanding that other things you'll just have to understand are taking place intuitively. But what's the thing that's going to actually give us the result that we want, that we can build off of, versus the thing that doesn't have any material impact on anything?

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. We all love to hear firsthand accounts of things I don't know. If you have a story you'd be willing to share about without naming names and maintaining confidentiality obviously what the organization was dealing with, what support in the way that you described got practically applied and what was the result.

Speaker 3:

So if you'd be willing to share a story like that? That'd be great. Yeah, one of my favorite is there was an organization going through a lot of change where they were changing up the almost like the org chart structure and they were were redesigning how their offices worked across the globe. And one of the things that was fascinating is this particular leadership team here in America. They were very overwhelmed, they were burnt out. They were working extremely hard. They didn't have as many resources as they need, even though they were a global organization. Resources were tightening up across the globe as they were restructuring things, and so we were trying to figure out what can we do, because it's not like we can go hire more people. And one we were trying to figure out what can we do Because it's not like we can go hire more people, and one of the things that I found is okay, david understands how to operate his team effectively in this manner.

Speaker 3:

None of the other members on the team knows that David has this process. We have to get David to share this process. Maybe David's been used to hoarding this process and only doing it for himself and having everyone come through him. Now we have to incentivize David to share this process. Oh, by the way, mo has a different process, that in a different capacity that David doesn't know. Mo is used to hoarding this process for himself as well, and Mo is used to hoarding this process for himself as well. And so we have to start to figure out how are we sharing this institutional knowledge across, with the understanding that this is going to make us more effective and efficient?

Speaker 3:

And as we start to do that, the problems start to solve themselves in a different way as it relates to the thing that we're trying to accomplish. You can change company logo, you can change industry. That is the majority of the problem and the solution Because, once again, resources, regardless of the organization, people are going to be frugal or tight with them. Regardless of how many assets you have in people, you're not going to be able to deploy them all the same and change the way that they work overnight. And you're figuring out what are these easy wins that? I can understand what David does. Well, it's a proven process, it's in the culture that we live by. It works for him. It's not antiquated, it's something that's actually happening. If we can start to share those things, we solve challenges from the inside out, versus taking something off the shelf. That may not resonate, and so that's a that's a lot of my work of going in and figuring out how to diagnose that and extract the insights that are already within.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, really well said.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think you know you somebody that I learned from really articulated collaboration in a way that it's very clear like getting in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, communicating right and you do. You do find a lot of people that still have an individual contributor mode that they're operating in. This is my team, this is my group, this is my process. I get successful. Because of that and because of that success, I'm going to get a good performance review. I'm going to grow, I'm going to rise in the organization. I mean, that's one way that it can unfold. And you have to kind of enroll people into being more transparent with each other is what I hear as in being more sharing of what works so that other people can benefit from it, vice versa. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3:

It is because I'm limited in my leadership development, if there's things that I am, if I have gaps, and so if one can help me close those gaps, it's almost irresponsible not to leverage it. And let's say, if I hoard it, I'm probably going to get passed over for that leadership position anyway, because my team isn't having the impact that they need. Or I can share things freely and receive things freely in return and start to become a more well-rounded leader, and if I don't get promoted, I need those skillsets anyway. If I do get promoted, I need those skillsets anyway. If I go to another organization, I need those skillsets anyway. And so it benefits me, it benefits all individuals, to continue to learn and share, because that is the way you're ultimately going to grow in the most effective way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's really great. Now I'm a resistant executive. You got somebody that wants to hoard his thing and get it because he wants to keep it. He doesn't see the light that you just shared. What do you do to enroll executives? I mean, obviously you, it sounds like you share. Here's a different perspective that that can work. But what else do you do to kind of get people to be willing to be more transparent and open up? What do you? What do you? Is it you building a relationship with them and having some private conversations and like getting real what, what, what is it? What are the kinds of things you have to do, you think, with with people that are in that boat?

Speaker 2:

And it's understandable in a certain way, they've been probably reinforced for that behavior at some level.

Speaker 3:

But what is it that you do to kind of whittle down or melt that resistance? Well, they've probably had success in doing it that way. Yeah, probably, it probably works for them, whether it's through fear or power or control or all the elements that that one may have. I think the best way is to spotlight the desired behavior. No one's all bad. There's going to be certain things that people do that you can say hold on, let's kind of freeze this, this thing that you did right here when you offered assistance over there. That's what of freeze this, this thing that you did right here when you offered assistance over there, that's what we actually want. Or hey, you just ask somebody a question because you didn't know this thing, and it could be very low table stakes type things what they've done. But if you can show a person that they've actually done the behavior that you desire, it becomes easier to help them see for themselves, and the more you continue to reinforce that.

Speaker 3:

Now, sometimes there's other interventions where somebody may need a coach because maybe they're a narcissist, maybe they have something else going on, and you help that person find that in the most respectful way.

Speaker 3:

But you also have to understand what does this person want, some people want to make money, some people want to have healthy work cultures, some people want promotion, some people want whatever the slice is, you can play to that thing right there. If you want to make more money and your team is burnt out or your team isn't engaged, hey, by the way, you're not going to get this result. Hey, you have this huge turnover problem. People don't like working in this particular environment, and so you're trying to figure out what is the thing that sets individual needs, and sometimes it may not come from me, it may come from a different entity. It's my job to kind of help that person find what that thing is that is going to help them get it in a way that helps them save face, in a way that helps them protect their ego, especially if they're a leader and especially if they've been guarded, which is why they may be displaying some of these behavioral traits.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, and you're unlocking something when you're connecting to what they really care about, right, you're connecting to something deeper in them that I think a lot of times even for really highly effective executives they can lose touch of why they're showing up every day. I mean, they probably have an answer if you say why you're showing up every day to work. I want to. You know, whatever, I want to make a lot of money. That might be the reason. Well, what is a bunch of pictures of dead presidents going to give you? At the end of the day, what does that give you? If you have a lot of money, what's really floating your boat with that? And a lot of money, what? What's really floating your boat with that? And, um, a lot of times they don't. They don't think much below that, but somehow something gets. Do you see something get ignited in them when they touch something deeper that they care about? Do you think that that's a way in which that opens up and reduces that resistance?

Speaker 3:

the casual conversation honestly uncovers so much more. Because you may understand they have family. You may understand that they do want to make a lot more money, but they want to donate some of it, or they want more control of their time, or something happened to them as a kid where they developed this tough outer shell and it's more of a protective measure. Regardless of what their status is and I know that to be true. There's certain things that I do that it's wired from a different place. There's certain people that I know that have been high performing athletes, high performing celebrity type people, and they have their own kinks, these high performing celebrity type people, and they have their own kinks and the more that you can state directly what it is in a way that is not confrontational, but you're coming with the lens of empathy, you're coming with the lens of vulnerability.

Speaker 3:

It helps that, having played at the highest level and had a true adverse situation, that people can kind of see the extremes of both worlds. It helps develop some credibility to draw people in and say, okay, let's be honest. Depression's a real thing, I've experienced it. Let's be honest, fear is a real thing of not knowing what's on the other side. Let's be honest. Hey, you're competing at a high level and you may have some insecurities. All these things are things that I know for a fact people are dealing with, and so you don't have to dance around it and play in hypotheticals. You can dive deeply into it. The blessing and the curse of my journey that it has so many mountains and valleys and twists and turns that you can connect to one in a way that they care about, um, and and help them get to a place of where they're trying to grow, and not just say, oh, this person's just like this, it's a hopeless. You know it's hopeless yeah.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean again, you're. You know when we open the door and they get, that you care and that you're really earnest in understanding what's holding them back and you're not judging for it. Get over it, pull yourself up from your bootstraps and feel better. You know that's not real. You know people do, I think, carry baggage of trauma into organizations, probably more than we're willing to admit. And I became trauma-informed because I saw that in my clients and saw that there's things and ways in which they're operating that are holding them down or tamping them down because they're protecting themselves.

Speaker 2:

No-transcript and a lot of times, I think, for folks that are inside organizations, obviously that's not like the end result of what you do, but it's part of the journey that you have to go on with people. Sometimes it's like showing up and having those kinds of conversations, which for many are rare. They haven't had a lot of those and there's something about it and it's already built into us as human beings that when we touch that part of ourselves and somebody is willing to be vulnerable themselves and touch that part of themselves and share that with us, we can't. It's hard to resist that, you know. It's hard to like, not look, you know, shut it down, um, and that opens something that's possible. And it sounds like that's some part of the work that you do enjoy, that you value that part of the work that you do.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, almost everyone that I work with has the ability to grow, the ability to perform, the ability to solve their subject matter, experts in the thing that they know All that is already taken care of and that the hard part is actually already done. The thing that is easier is to kind of lean into these things of uncharted territory and explore where it cannot grow and do it in a very safe environment. And when you start to do that, you start to understand where you should grow, where you're weak, where you're deficient, all that stuff. And when you start to do that, you start to understand where you should grow, where you're weak, where you're deficient, all that stuff. And so, once again, you're transferring I would almost say that you're transferring ownership of the journey of this individual has self-selected in to improve in ways that make just a better leader, a better person, a better, whatever they care about.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well said. Well, you know, and I think you know, we all wish we could have a crystal ball. Maybe we don't, I don't know. Sometimes I wish.

Speaker 2:

I could see what the future unfold and the craziness of this world, man, it's like whoa, I can't believe that happened. You know, and there are a myriad of ways things could you know unfold in our world and our business, but what trends do you believe organizations need to really attend to to stay relevant and continue creating value for the customers and stakeholders and their employees? What do you think are some things that you really see that organizations need to attend to today that would add a lot of value for them, that you'd like to see unfolding more in the business world?

Speaker 3:

for them that you'd like to see unfolding more in the business world. You know it's almost redundant, but communication, because if, as a leader, you're communicating with your team and not just communicating, you know, down or out, but actually receiving communication back, people are going to tell you what they need. They're going to have a lot of those abilities and if you listen to what they can do and in society, I think they're going to have a lot of those abilities. And if you listen to what they can do and in society, I think society is going to tell you what it needs, and not on the extremes.

Speaker 3:

When you look, all demographics want largely the same things. You know. They want their personal health, they want to be treated well. They want you to keep your word. They want you to operate in high integrity. They want to love on their family. They want to have a good time. They want to do it in a positive work environment. They don't want you to sabotage whatever they have going on. They want to be empowered. And that's going to look different for every leader, every organization, for every leader, every organization, but these individuals are going to give you the answer to the test. As weird as the world is now. People don't even I think expectations have changed. They just want you at the value that you say you're going to deliver. Please just deliver there, because so many people are getting let down.

Speaker 3:

Don't fib to me, don't fib to me. Yeah, hopefully the world gets back to that. So I think leaders and organizations have a crucial part to play in that, even more so than the government, because they touch more people in a more intimate way than what's happening across the political landscape.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I tell people on my years all the time you, you have a great opportunity here. You can give a place for people to come to work every day and feel safe, feel they can, they have a meaningful place to be. And where they can, they can, they can Blake some sweat and see value in that and enjoy that, that experience of seeing something happen that they contributed to. And I and I think that's what we kind of lost in the global thing. It's like you know, well, we have a.

Speaker 2:

You have the power as a leader to not only do that but make sure people don't go home and kick the dog and they hug their wife, you know, or they hug their kids, you know, and you know and and that is huge, I mean, you know, one of the leaders that I work with said, you know, he went to a wedding and saw somebody giving away their daughter and he just realized, holy I won't say what he said holy shit, whatever. Every employee in my that I work with has a family behind him and a father wants to give away the bride and all this stuff and there's somehow it hit him and he changed the entire way. Somehow that got him and he changed the whole way that he worked with people.

Speaker 2:

After that, you know, and that's what we have to get people back to is the simple simplicity of life a little bit, you know what we care about right, yeah well any, any final thoughts you have or any final comments you wanted to share that you wanted to get out today, as I invited you to come, spend, spend some time me, anything you wanted to finish off with?

Speaker 3:

You know you did an amazing job. I think we covered a lot of territory. It would just be the idea of you just said it simplifying what you're trying to communicate and how you're trying to collaborate, and there's so much richness in being effective and focused in certain areas than trying to do everything at a mediocre level. And so that would probably be it, but this has been an amazing conversation that I've enjoyed.

Speaker 2:

Oh good, I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's one of my roles is to make sure my guests enjoy having these conversations, and the more you do it, the more you're, and you provided so much. I really want to thank you for taking the time. I know you're busy. You got a busy schedule and you took the time to stop and and join me on the podcast and what you shared was really illuminating and lighting and helpful and in many ways it is simple, but we we live in this complex world where sometimes we need that reminder right of of what it was. It was really enlightening and I want to thank you for coming on the show, appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Anytime, anytime, have a great day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and for all of you tuning in. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. Your time is also valuable to me and I found. If you found today's discussion useful, please help us spread the word about this episode and Unfazed Under Fire in general. You can share the link that's below the video or below the audio and get it out to people where we show this in video on YouTube and also in audio on Apple Podcasts, spotify, amazon Music and 12 other podcasting platforms, and I you know I really appreciate you joining us today. Have a great rest of your day. Keep leading with vision, with heart and deeply caring for the underlying value you're creating and the people that are working for you. Have a great rest of your day. This is David Craig Utz on Phased Under Fire signing off.