Human Development: Relational Intelligence

This the second piece of our Human Development series.  In this episode John Tuders and Josh Lucas lead a discussion on Relational Intelligence. We talk about why this is an essential skill in  building dynamic relationships and why it is vital to your success in your professional career.

Michael Gray, Method’s Head of engineering. Michael brings a wealth of experience with over 20 years as a leader in the technology space. Also joining us will be Cat Carter. At the time of this recording, Cat was a principal strategist at Method and an active member of our Financial Services industry practice. She recently left to pursue her interests in cooking and hospitality and will be opening a restaurant with her partner this fall. 

I think it is easy to assume that relationships just naturally happen as a result of work interactions but how strong are those relationships? the truth is, in order to have meaningful connection with the people around you those connections must be nurtured and cultivated. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:14 What is Relational Intelligence?
• 9:47 Building Rapport
• 16:59 Understanding Others
• 24:44 Embracing Differences
• 34:51 Developing Trust
• 39:29 Cultivating Influence
• 1:04:29 Outro

Transcript

0:02

You are listening to Inside Methods, a podcast that takes you behind the scenes of a global consultancy. This is episode two of our Human Development series and Method. We want to help our people grow in their roles and develop their craft. But in order to do that successfully, it requires interpersonal skills that often can go overlooked. In this episode, we discuss relational intelligence and the essential skills to building dynamic relationships and why it is vital to your success in life and in business. Aside from myself and Dr. John Tutors, who you heard from in our previous episode, are also going to hear from Michael Gray Method's, head of Engineering. Michael brings a wealth of experience with over 20 years as a leader in the technology space, and I know you're going to really enjoy hearing his perspective on this conversation. Now, you will also hear from Cat Carter. At the time of this recording, Cat was a principal strategist at Method and an active member of our financial services industry practice. But since the recording, she has recently left to pursue her interests in cooking and hospitality and will be opening a restaurant with her partner this fall. We're sad to see her go, but we know she's going to do great things there and we couldn't be more excited for her. I think it's easy with this conversation topic to assume that relationships just naturally happen as a result of work interactions. But how strong are those relationships? The truth is, in order to have meaningful connection with the people around you, those connections must be nurtured and cultivated. But how exactly do you do that? That's what we're here to find out. So let's dig in on the topic, and I'm very excited about this. The topic written today is relational intelligence. You know, if a client says to me or somebody says to me in the street or student A, what's the difference? What is what's the difference for method? Why are they different? Pretty much my answer is 100% of the time. Nobody invests in relationships like we do. Nobody has the intelligence level of relationships and the and the importance of relationships. So I'm excited to talk about it. There's a lot of research in this space. There's a lot of documentation around not only today being more important than it maybe was before, but we're in we're in this weird, you know, hybrid environment, this post space that we that we're just still getting used to and the relationship aspect of it and know how to build a relationship can be more important. So I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys to be a part of it. There's a lot of books on this and we'll talk a little bit about from experiences I'd love to hear. Michael, your experiences in the development space and the folks that you work with as well as clients, as well as outside in the real world, right? So the caps, as I mentioned, do this before we jumped in here on the microphone. There's not many people in the world with an intelligence level of relationships and yet know the importance of it. As much as you do and the humility you probably bring to it, not knowing how good you are at it is the part why I want you here, right? So I'm excited about it. So, you know, let's let's kick this off. And Michael, I'm going to toss this over to you. And, you know, let's tell everybody what is relational intelligence like, How do you view it from your lens? What do you think about when we talk about that? Well, you know, it's really two things come to mind, right? You know, right. Office is really relationships, Right. And so the ability to connect with others. And so, you know, that that really shows up in a couple couple different ways. Right. Your ability to one be willing to enter into this relationship like how are you showing up to connect with others. Right. And the intelligence. Right. Being thoughtful, mindful about how you're connecting, about what the other person is, you know, reading body language, you know, active listening. So I think all those things really kind of come together in terms of your ability to connect well with others. I love it. I love it. So can we say relational intelligence? What do you think about and just for the audience, you know, why is that important? Why do you see it as being important? I think I like to phrase for two reasons. I'll take the second word first, kind of, I think piggybacks off of all of the the work that was done in the nineties and beyond around IQ, but just the fact that we attach the word intelligence to it. Yeah. You know, tends to be something that feels, I guess aspirational. It's something that, you know, people tend to want. And I think that that's important to kind of attach like a high value word to it as something to pursue as much as you do anything else in your career or even in your personal life. In terms of the relational parts, I agree with a lot of things that Michael just said in terms of the active listening, you know, really just from day one minute one trying to figure out opportunities, whether consciously or not, because it's it's learned or it's purposeful and intentional to immediately build empathy and pursue a relationship where both parties are benefiting, maybe not always at the same time, but over time, you can still see evidence of that as well. I love that. And you know, Josh, one of the pieces you mentioned influence word in there, too. And one of the pieces, Josh, that I want us to walk through today, there's there is a five step process really in building out and you can't skip it. We all want to be influencers today, right? That seems to be the term that everybody but nobody wants to put in a lot of the time. Or when you do, you really start to understand you can be so. So Josh, I want to walk through kind of those steps and really take a take through each one. But I want to hear from you. Like when we say relational intelligence and we knew we were going to be hitting on this and you and I have talked about this is how is method different? Well, here, what what do you start thinking about when we start going into this this terminology? You know, I think one of the reasons I and I'm not saying this just because I'm on the pat on on the podcast here, but I genuinely enjoy working with the people we have here. You know, it's not just putting up a front to try and make everyone feel good. I think this is one of the one of the few places where I've been where I feel like culturally I think there is something different. And I think a lot of that is because of the the intelligence that we're talking about here. And I think a lot of it has to do with we're surrounded by a lot of folks who when you're referencing the empathy portion of this like that, is that is palpable in so many ways here where I think it's probably more common for folks to go through their every day and a place where that's taken for granted or not valued as much so that people are just walking through with the assumption of you're here to get a paycheck, do the job. And that that level of empathy where we're not just talking about taking it to our clients, but taking it towards one another and realizing like, Hey, how can I serve you and what's going on in your world that could potentially be impacting the work that you're bringing to the table? And is there a way that I can influence that for the better? Those are regular interactions that I have with people here that I don't think are super common. So as we're unpacking it, those are kind of the first things that jump out to me that I do think to your point earlier, it does kind of make us a little bit unique from a lot of other places I've seen. It does in your writing, you feel it applying, feel it. I mean, whether it's clients we've had for years or just, you know, in the first six or seven months, they feel it. So one of the first things when we talk about relational intelligence, again, it's building blocks, the first one and this is know MJ, I want to get your take on this building rapport. Yeah, building rapport. As easy as that sounds, you can't get to the next four without the rapport. And one of the one of the pieces it talks about in the book, which I really like in real quick, what is the book that you write? So the book one of the well, there's a couple of books that that I've read on this now, and some of the peer reviewed, the one that I'm speaking to with this particular quote comes from Dr. Ben Talley called Relational Intelligence. And he breaks down probably one of the more simplistic, which I need ways to be able to grab it. And the quote that he talks about in there is with reward. It's it's being willing to use energy in order to positively, positively connect. And for me, it's that that's intentional, that positive connection, that willingness to put energy forward you have to do it doesn't just happen. And so that quote and thank you for bringing up the piece of the book but I'll quote a couple of things. But that that one area, when you talked about rapport, some of us it comes easy and some not. So what do you think when we talk about rapport as that first step in building this out yet, you know, I think tangibly one of the things I know is that when I when I first started working, working here was the number of questions that others asked me. And it wasn't just simply about, you know, my qualifications to work here, but about me, about my interest, you know? And there was an intentional effort to find connection points. Yeah, right. Because with those connection points, all of a sudden, then we're able to have these sort of conversations that lead to deeper relationships, and that's where things go. I noticed that there is both common and to your point, Josh, a regular sort of interaction, right, with others that, hey, you are intentional about reaching out and connecting with me and really wanting to bring me into the fold. Right, right, right. You're that you're you're not just simply you're the person sitting beside me, right? We're going to be in this together. So let's actually build some relationship. I love that. And, you know, there's got to be some curiosity asking, did you feel that? So coming in the method and thinking about building rapport and you're you have a lot of platforms that you write and and you think about coming into math and working with clients. A lot of the work that you do outside. Is it easy to build rapport? Do you do you feel it when people are trying to like, talk to me about that component? Because it is it's natural for some and it's not natural for some. Yeah, but everybody I've been around at least here, fully understands the importance of it. What's your take on that? Well, I'm almost going to kind of take it first from maybe the harder day that I would have and building rapport for the first time with someone or, you know, a early interaction, I guess dirty secret are not so secret. I'm an introvert. And so there are days where, you know, someone's like, hey, can you jump into this meeting and talk to this person? And I'm kind of like, Oh, and I think I love the way that this book frames it, because it is about giving your energy to that room, even if it's a virtual room. Right? And just kind of like, you know, pulling some resource from within. Even if you're tired, it's easy, I think easier to build rapport when you have a natural energy around the community, around the topic. It's harder when you're you know, you're unsure of yourself, you're tired that day, things like that. And that's why I like the casting of like, hey, you know, you still need to put the energy out there and see what comes back. And I think that can be as simple as acknowledging people the curiosity thing, you know, expressing interest in other people and you know, how they're acting, what they're thinking. And I think inclusion and just making sure that the whole room feels like they're a part of whatever is happening and noticing that people are not you know, I think all of those things are like the building blocks of starting to establish that rapport, not just with the person that you may be the most interested in, but, you know, maybe some other people that are in the room that aren't getting as much energy. Oh, yeah, Yeah. As the as the main person, you know, because there's usually a person, right. Yeah. You know, it's funny, one of the Chris Manley, you know, one of the OGs at Method really gave me a great insight one time and he changed his question when building rapport instead of how you doing? So what's on your mind? What's on your mind is a really interesting, curious question that it pauses, people. It does, yeah. Right. So I said to you, and what's on your mind? You got to think for a second. Hey, what's up, Nathan? That's an easy answer. You don't. That's right. Good. Good. Yeah. What's on your mind? So when he posed that to me, I don't know if anybody's as good at reporters that as he is. So that was kind of a I like that. I'm going to take it. I've used it with students and said, What's on your mind? And you know what I got back? You're the only person who's ever asked that. Hmm. Multiple people. Multiple students. And you don't a person ever asked that when I think that that speaks to a certain level of sincerity. Yeah. That we've had some discussions prior that might kind of have some bleed over into this topic in the world of networking. Right. And so a lot of times folks look at networking as some people are all about it and other people are not. And there's there's multiple types of networking. But the one that I think people for the most part are immediately turned off by are those ones where it's like, this just feels so disendorse, like forces trying to like weasel your way in. And so coming into something, how do I establish that I'm here because I want to help, right? And maybe there's something that we can make each other stronger by like that. That kind of questioning goes a long way to establish that. That's I love that. I love that you said that. And that's true. People will see through the insincerity or the unauthentic. Yeah. People see through it. The force. How are you doing? Good. Again, You know, the worst thing that I've seen happen when somebody is trying to build rapport with me, whether it's a new business person or somebody or whatever, they shake your hand and there's no eye contact. Eye contact to me is extremely important to Billboard, right? Yeah. If you look in a way, for me, being from Queens, I got a little problem with that, right? But the reality is it's forced or you don't want to. The the authentic self is not there. So yeah report to me it could it can be easier for some and God I'm glad you brought it up because even as long as I've known you, it still boggles my mind that you're an introvert because you're so good. Yeah, you're an extroverted introvert. Yeah, but I know where you get your energy from. It's a learns. It's a to learn skill. Skill. Yeah. It's an amazing thing that we can unpack that later. But like, I think everything about the way that I grew up. Yeah, enabled that. So it's a good thing, you know, That's a gift. I didn't know I was being given. But it is, it is a gift. And the piece that I read in the book, too, and I've read through a lot of research, is you can learn before you can learn how to be better at it and sincere at it. I think one of the biggest things I saw in an interaction with students and then and then read is we all have concentric circles. And what that means is we have a lot more in common than we don't. And you just have to find the commonality. Yeah. And I think in the true sense of relational intelligence, knowing that in rapport you do have something in common with that person. I don't care if you think it's far fetched, I guarantee you have something in common, and I think that's one thing that we can all start with new client or new teammate or whatever it is. Yeah. Find that common. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Your, your comment about being introvert because I'm very much an introvert. One of the things I find is, is for being intentional about the environment that I'm in. So there are times when there are certain environment factors that help me bring the energy right. So if I if I can create a situation where it's less than two ways and it's more one on one, I find it easier for me to fully bring my, you know, my full self to that. Yeah. And so and so there are times where I might sort of maybe pull someone more to the side or maybe try to invite someone to something where there's little, you know, it's more us. And so, you know, that's part of that intentionality and that it's worth both If you can reflect on who you are and where you're able to bring more of your your full self to that, you know, where you can do that, that can also help you show up and still authentic as well. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And it brings it nicely into the second phase, right? The second phase in real quickly, managing real quick for folks who might be kind of taking notes, not not as familiar with the content or but just a run through. You want a quick CliffsNotes version of what we're about to get into the five categories, and then we'll go back and dig into those a little bit. Establishing rapport, understanding others, embracing individual differences, developing trust, cultivating influence. Not far, so far, no takers. There you have it. And then now that's good. Again, this is where Josh keeps a straight, right? It's good. Yeah. Now and that you can kind of note underneath each and the one we're going to now is understanding others. You know, you build that report, you now have the right to understand others like, yeah, and that's when the IQ comes in heavy. That's when you're but but to the point you were just bringing us when I saw that bridge the self awareness is an important part of understanding of it's tough to understand others if you don't understand who you are. Yeah. And so that's a big part of it, right? So really taking the time and we do some of that here with, you know, the Enneagram and other things, trying to find us, trying to figure out like self-awareness. You're at a point where now to understand others, you built the reward, understanding others. What do you do like? So talking about different styles, everybody's got different styles. What do you do to understand others? What? What are some of the questions or what are some of the things you do too? Intent. Because there's intent there. What do you do? What are some of the tips and tricks or thoughts? I mean, obviously icebreakers, I always were thinking of not I mean, I think you do sometimes learn something from a well-timed and well organized icebreaker. This goes back to what Michael was just saying. I think that there's modes in which you get to do that that are most comfortable for you. And then other ones where I think you have to kind of be a little bit more intentional. It's a communication like channels to that. I think I'm thinking about, for instance, I don't really like talking on the phone. I don't know what it is, especially in this day and age, because we have cell phones. It's so easy to be multitask when you're on the phone texting. Everyone is allowed to be asynchronous and answer at their own time one on one. You know, most most of the time people can stay pretty engaged when you're right in front of someone you know and I think phone is that like unhappy middle for me yeah I try but I that said you know I think this goes back to what you're saying about curiosity you know whether you have 10 seconds to engage with people before somebody else joins like a meeting or, you know, just sitting down with somebody and kind of being an interviewer. This one of things I miss about like writing is getting to views like a natural curiosity for a person or a subject like that with a list of questions. I think it's fun. I think it's interesting to learn about people and and know that somebody lived a different life and had different experiences and times. Yeah. And to me, when I think about like the best interviews that I've had, like those are thrilling. I carry that energy the whole day regardless of, you know, when it's upon the paper that moment. And I've even recorded some of them because they're so compelling. And I think you know that you use that word I'm I'm going to say a lot, but it's like the natural curiosity. Again, whether it's 10 seconds or a channel that you love or don't, it helps you being interested. Oh, yeah. You know, think about what you just said. Being interested when somebody is is being in with being real, being interested in you. That's an incredible feeling. Yes, it is. Think about that. It's their time. Yeah. Yeah. Especially now where you know. Yes. To be distracted and distracted. Yeah. That's because we all have the same amount of time and we've talked about that in some other series. You're asset of time and you're going to give it for curiosity and learning about somebody else. That's a gift. It really is. That's a big gift. That active listening, right? It's something I work on constantly, actively listen, don't listen to respond, but actively listen to understand. You know, Are you Ted Lasso fans out there talking about you know, you think about the scene, he's in the bar and he's playing darts and he talks about people back in the day being judging him. Oh, yeah. But it was because they weren't curious. If they were curious, they might have caught. They may have they may have understood him a little better. Right. And so then he said, you know what? I realize it's not my problem. They're just not they're not being curious. They're judging. And it's an important piece like to understand someone. You've got to be the question person. You've got to be curious. You've got to have active listening. Yeah. You know what the questions, I think open ended questions open because they allow someone to expound and you know, sort of the active listening at times is sort of, Oh, I heard this right. Let me sort of then this gives me sort of the permission, if you will, to then sort of then ask this sort of sort of follow on question. Right. So those open ended questions allow people to expound that that then will oftentimes sort of expose different things about who they are. Their thing that that's really interesting is, is there some of you that are out there that are what I call observers? Hmm. And quite often, if you are willing to be quiet, watch and listen. You can also pick up things about people as they interact with others. And so you know that that may allow you sometimes to to then bring something back into a conversation. Oh, hey, I notice in the situation that this happened or whatever else, I was really curious about that. Right. I can keep Can you tell me more about that? Right. So oftentimes, actually watching, being observant and listening will actually help you sort of pick up on things right into things. But you can also then bring that back as you try to engage with someone. Yeah, I think the thing that sticks out to me as I'm listening to the responses you all are bringing to the table here is as you're you know, as you're looking at establishing rapport and understanding others, it's hard to do a lot of those things Well, if you're not consistent, if you're not spending time doing it, I think a lot of us, myself included, we want to just jump to the end result and we want to be able to just get there. And to your point earlier, like these take time, time. So to earn that right, to like have somebody who now is willing to give you their time to get to know them, that's a huge privilege. But that doesn't just happen because you said I want to. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yes, right. Can't demand it. Enforce it. And you're exactly right. And, you know, one big thing to take away, just to the point you're bringing up, is you have in order to influence. Because really in life, I mean, you want to build trust and influence. That's that's the goal, right? In order to do that, you have to have the intelligence to know you can't skip anything. You have to have the relational intelligence to understand people. You got the rapport, check, you understand them, understanding others, right. That's now you have to go through the rest so that if I can build real fast, that's something that he just said. You know, I think we talked a lot about like verbal, but I think there's a lot of nonverbal body language, what people do. So I think a perfect example is my partner, right? So, you know, I think he speaks a lot more about who he is as a person and the things that he does and what he puts his energy into than verbalizing stuff. Right, Right. Yeah. And that's I love what you said about like it's making that investment time and that it's a privilege that someone is opening that up to you, you know? But I want to make sure that we also talk about the fact that it's not just what people say because either they may not be talkers, they their behaviors speak, they may not know themselves enough. And so you know, as we're all trying to get to know each other, everyone can think about a progression of like a really strong relationship they have and like what they thought about the person on day one, day ten, you know, month three and year 15. And hopefully most of us, you know, can think of that person say like, wow, I really actually know this person now. I thought I knew this person on day one, but I you know, I think, yeah, the the combination of what they said and what they told me on day one, you know, combined with all of these other really just data points actually makes me understand this person. Now. I love that. So now we understand people. We understand others, right? We build rapport. We understand others. And once you understand others, you understand there's differences. And so the third piece of of really relational intelligence is embracing not just understanding now, but embracing individual differences. It's very difficult to to build trust and then influence if you can't embrace the individual differences. I know coming in the method, we're all different backgrounds. Our approach is write an 1,000,001 other things, and until you embrace it because sometimes you have control over differences, if you don't control the differences, quiet differences. Right. So let's talk about that. Embracing individual differences, big part of it, right? Because if you can't very difficult to move further. So what do you guys when you think about that, that step of it, what comes to mind? What are some of them maybe hurdles or ways you look at it? You know, I think for you know, for me, being being a minority, I often came to that conversation as being the one that was different. And and so there was always fourth showing up with how do I help folks understand? I think to the point, John, you said earlier about those circles and that, in fact, those differences are necessarily in some cases as big of an issue as. So I'm you know, so so so at times, how do I minimize those? Right. And then at other times, how do y for shedding light on where I think those can be positive. So sort of reading the rooms for a sort of understanding that. So for me, oftentimes I came to the conversation from being the one that was different and trying to figure out how do y for navigate that? Right. That's been instructive for me as I get into, let's say, you know, when the topic of engineering, right, that's a male dominated space, right? So how do I embrace the differences of having, you know, women, you know, in the team? And so, so much of that has been about I think we've mentioned a lot of lot of factors, right. Curiosity, actually reading and research, like understanding that when you have blended teams, right, your outcomes are better, right? So some of that is a having conversations, be reading, getting educated and learning, you know, learning about it. Right. And then some of that risk taking, right. Are you willing to take a risk? You take a chance and then experience it, right? So it's not just sort of head knowledge, but it's like, let me open up and embrace this difference and sort of take time to see how it works out. Yeah, I like that a lot. And, you know, embracing it, the risk taking things interesting I hadn't thought of it is taking a risk. You know, I one of the pieces move away from work for a second go go to personal life. Hardest part for me over the over the years is starting to realize that not everybody reacts to things the same way that we're going through the Enneagram right now Here and realizing everybody's so different, yet we need every bit of it. Yep. And and getting to the point of understanding. Okay, I don't understand why somebody would react this way or I don't understand why somebody would think about it this way. It gets to the point early in my career it was like, well, if I don't understand it, it must be wrong, right? If the difference right that was I was like, if I don't fully get to understand there's differentiation here. And I never embraced that. It was different. I just embrace that. If it was different than way I thought, it must be wrong. Yeah, right. You realize as time goes by, yeah, you're the one that's wrong. Wasn't that right? Yeah. So that's the piece where I try to get to is the thought that the embracing the individual differences in how someone thinks and reacts. And a lot of it is because of all the history. Yeah. Regardless of what their history is, that's what creates it. And I have a different history than, than all of us. Right. And so it's okay to have the different thought of reaction. Yeah. It's embracing the fact that it's okay regardless. Right. So anyway, that's the risk piece is interesting because it is a risk. It is a risk and it's something that's not a comfortable. Right. Yeah. I was just to say, as I was saying about this, this is mostly going to come from like a personal perspective similar to what you were saying. I guess what I was saying is, one, this step is not natural for people and it's particularly not natural for people. And they specialize society. Everything that we do in terms of like, you know, moving people into professional places become an expert at this thing. And when you do that, typically you separate from more and more groups of people. Yeah, right. Maybe get to work with them on a cross-functional team, but your tribes are set right? It's also, I think, not natural because we were built with these like intact fear mechanisms that are supposed to protect us when they're being utilized correctly and can be weaponized when they're not. Right, right, right, right. That's natural. And I think that that's part of where maybe some of this good fortune comes similar to you. You know, I'm a minority, I'm a woman, but I grew up in a bicultural home. I had to experience that firsthand every day of my life, whether or not I was conscious of it as a child, you know, I had to literally embrace myself as a person, you know, and how people might understand me or not understand me or whatever. And my parents, who came from two very different upbringings and, you know, trying to interpret sometimes as a kid for your parents, you know, for the other parent or, you know, explain, you know, why somebody that was all built in. And then on top of that, you know, growing up in military environments and a super diverse community in Maryland, I got an opportunity to kind of like learn that along the way. And then I came into a very technology driven profession through studying literature. And when you're doing that, literally your upper level classes are sitting in a room with other people, you're all reading the same book and everyone's walking out with a different understanding, you know, not to get too postmodern about it, but like you start to break down these notions of like right and wrong and think more in terms of like, how are people perceiving the same set of types, Right? Yeah. And all of those I think became kind of tools to do this very hard thing. I'm not saying that, you know, I get it right all the time. I don't. But I think that that this is a very challenging step because a lot of people, everybody can see the differences. Yeah, but running to it and embracing it into the versus running back to your community, whatever that is personally and professionally, that feels safe. That's the easy that's what humans want to do, right? Of course we do. But there is there is a pot of gold there. And I just I don't know, like I said, I think that when that happens for people and they get excited about it and you and you flex that muscle enough times like and you know that it leads to an exciting outcome or a better outcome, it starts to feel less fearful. And then there was a lot, but no, that was great consistency. That was great. And I think from the business case and the business value that that that brings the story you're sharing and the experiences you're talking about, MKG is, you know, we are creating products and experiences that are not limited to tribes and people like the we are creating these things that are, that are impacting everybody. Like no matter what your culture, you're, you know, no matter where you're located, we have such a broad reach with these things we're creating. So and that's where I know you both have mentioned at some point. And one of our core values even is seek perspectives. And a lot of that is rooted in the idea of that background and that history that you're bringing to the table that all of our people are bringing to the table. Everyone's going to have something to contribute that ultimately can benefit that end user even more. And how much of a disservice are we doing to ourselves and our client if we're not embracing. That's right. Those things, right? That's right. So yeah, just from like the business side of it is like we we don't, as far as I see it, like we don't have an option. You have to do this. But on a personal level it's like, man, how much better? Yeah, I'm a risk. Take a risk sample and go outside, but embrace it. Right? Yeah. We have, you know, one of the other pieces here, as more people come in the method and we grow as more clients and different cultures that we're working with inside these different companies, we're going to have differences in thought and everything else, right? So the idea of embracing it and embracing, running into the fire, embracing the risk of it, it is easy not to embrace. Embracing and accepting are two different things. Yeah, accepting it just means they're okay. Embracing it means I appreciate apply it and want to understand and the individual differentiation and embrace it. Meaning you can leverage it too. Right? Right. That's that's the difference. And I think that's probably a key difference in the two words. Yeah. When they do your last point I was going to say is at I think I've become a much more well rounded person because embracing some differences they've at times has actually triggered things in me. I'm like, Oh, I want to know more about that more. I want to I want to try that or I want that. And so it led me to the set of experiences in interactions and relationships that were not necessarily top of mind. Right. But one stepping into those that they have really expanded who I am and and I think and what I can bring. So it's actually been pretty enriching, right, for me, both personally and professionally. To your point, Josh, you know, to actually embrace me, those differences. Well, and that's, I think, a perfect segue into the next section, which is developing trust, right? You're not doing that. You're willing to take on some of those experiences learned by the people you're surrounding yourself with. If you don't first, if you don't at some point get to the to the position where I. I trust your opinion. I trust I trust you as like the person you've let me see that. Like now I'm willing I want to see what that's like. You know, And I might not have ever I might not ever have gotten to that point where I'm willing to do that. Yeah. Prior without without first stacking through all of the steps that we're discussing. But so developing, developing trust, obviously, like a huge part of this. I'm curious kind of how integral to the to everything we're talking about is this specific step. Yeah, I mean, to me getting to this point, I love the term they use developing. I loved it. I love the term they're using in front of each of these, you know, of kind of sitting there in establish, understand, embrace. I love these terms they're using in front of it because I think it goes well developing trust because it's a process. You don't develop 100% trust right away. I remember a question posed to me many years ago, Who do you trust hundred percent. That's an interesting question. So it's always developed right beginning of a relationship. That rapport happens, You're understanding who they are, you're embracing any differences, but now you're at the cusp. You don't just you know, it's not automatic trust, right? Trust isn't just given, you know, you hear that all the time. It's earned or developed. That's the term. So for me, getting to this point of saying now it's my now it's my right because I've gone through these others, I can start developing trust. And yes, have I developed some of it during the way? Yes. But the reality is, here's where the investment goes, here's where, you know, being who you are and and doing things behaviorally, like you said, that behaviors are consistent. You're doing things that make sure the other person understands you have their best interest in play. So the developing word I love to get you guys take on that because it takes a lot to develop trust. You know how quick you can lose it. Yes. Right. And then guess what? You don't just start at number four again. Right. So let's talk about that developing trust. I think internally here amongst our teams, new talent ongoing. Our senior leaders continue to do things that show that trust continues to develop clients. The same thing, especially start when a new client or new project team. Right. Talk to me about that. The word developing is interesting to me with it I actually really like the word in juxtaposition of the other word that's more commonly used, which you just used, which is earn, right? Because earn almost sounds like it can happen like on a an a one time event, right? Like I've done this thing and now I've earned your trust. It's like a paycheck that you get right developing. I literally think of like a development. And a lot of times developers are starting with what, like bad soil that they have to like, you know, level and, you know, put some pylons into it, get it stable, and then they lay down a foundation and then they build the structure, you know, and the last thing you do is hang the curtains. Yeah, I like that. It feels like a much more rich word and not a not the propensity you think of. Like there's this one thing that I can do and now I have your trust. It is again a time factor. It's an investment. It's a conscious effort, you know, over over a lot of different stages and steps and activities that ultimately lead to this moment where somebody has said, okay, I trust this person, and that can happen. And like that I call it like the summer camp effect, where it's like super intense and you spend three days together in a workshop or something like that. You're all best friends and it might take three months, it might take a year to earn that kind of or, you know, develop that kind of trust, I should say. So yeah, I think it's a very conscious word choice there, and I think it's an ongoing and I know you had an example of one of those that you've been working with, but I think it's an ongoing thing. I have had friends, you know, or relationships. Somebody maybe 15 years, you know, could be some works in Charlotte. I'm continually developing higher trust levels and higher trust levels and higher returns. And I don't think that ever stops. I truly don't. I mean, think about, you know, your family or what have you. You're always developing deeper trust levels. But again, I don't think it stops and when we get to this last one around, you know, cultivating influence as you're to me, there's there's a parallel here. As your trust level continues to grow an individual, so does your ability to cultivate influence. That's right. Right. If you if you spent three days at a workshop, you built trust, but nowhere near the ride or die friend 15 years ago where that you can you can influence you know there's an old not too old but there's a movie called oh oh the village or the town. The town, I think it is. And it's with Ben Affleck. Ben Affleck? Yeah. And he brings up that line of like, I need you, I need you to take me here. I'm not going to tell you where I'm going. I heard some people and a guy goes, you can ask any questions. No question is are we taking that's developed trust over a long period of time and the influence factor is through the roof. Right. So so I want to see what you guys think about that. I mean, it is it's not a yes no to me. It's a scale and it's a scale that you can continually build on. So, Mike, what do you think about that? We've actually said these four words that really come to we talked about consistency, right? We talked about reinforcing, right. Repeatability, those things really cement trust and continue to allow it to sort of growing and get deeper. Right. So our ability to show up and still have a reasonable understanding of we're going to do what we said we're going to do. Right. We're going it, we're going to be able to react and respond in a particular set of ways in most cases. Right. And those things reinforced again and again, really continue to to to really foster, enable and develop, you know, through the layers, the layers of trust there. So I think all these things we're hitting on are really are really parts of that. Yeah, I actually have a question as I'm listening to everything everyone saying is I know we're discussing from developing trust from a perspective of what can I do to earn or develop your trust. Is there is there an element of this that trust is trust can be developed, a trust can be earned by giving it? Ooh, that's an interesting question, I think. Or I guess what I'm doing in front of me is a friend and. Yeah, yeah, like is what role does giving trust to others play within this, or does it have a place there? Well, I think it does. It does. I think it does. I think the vulnerability comes into play. Yeah, right. Trust is about how vulnerable are you? The more you trust someone, truly, the more vulnerable you are. And so I think you have to give it to get it. That would be my quick answer. Michael, what do you think? You know, I was thinking about actually in a professional context of when we think about developing leaders, quite often you need to put them in a position of responsibility and say, you know, this is part of your growth, so I'm going to trust you with this body of work, with this particular deliverable per say, because in extending that right, you're being vulnerable, right? But you're also then helping them to step into that opportunity to then deliver to then sort of grow in that role. And so as they deliver on that, you're able to trust them with more with more sort of work. So as part of how we think about growing people is important for us to extend that trust and actually with that trust, also risk right, to allow folks to grow. So it's a very much we need to extend that for others as well. I don't agree with that, especially as managers, you know, just giving people an opportunity if they ask for sure, even if they don't ask, you know, to get to be out front and then, you know, if it goes well, great. You know, you've you've earned their trust. And if not, then, you know, there's coaching opportunities and you've earned their trust still through that. But I think that that's a much better outcome than kind of like saying, No, I'm just going to do it all myself. And then, you know, your team, I guess, almost kind of get suspicious. I remember feeling this way. You know, I was in a pretty intense environment like early on in my career. And, you know, I worked with managers who were very open to letting, you know, junior members of the team participate and present in big ways early on. And then I worked for opposite, you know, personalities and the former group built trust not only between herself and us, but amongst each other as an entire body. Because of that, you know, that behavior. So, yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, the consistency is key there. I mean, you know, I think back at folks that I've built trust with and vice versa over time and it's it consistency of, you know, they did what they said they were going to do or they were a person of their word, those kind of things like that. To me, that's a continual trust building. The other piece I would say is, you know, there's a lot of I remember talking with students as we're going through social capital and networking and like, well, how do you just call somebody after you haven't talked to them in five years and and and reach out and all of a sudden you just catch up and they can help you with something or you can help them or somebody reaches out to you after ten years and you'll help them because the level was built in a certain point where it withstood time. Yeah. And to me as a, as a company with our clients and then internally here you your goal and our goal should be to build the trust level to where time doesn't actually matter. It's always going to be there. Yeah, right. And to me that allows where you're not starting from scratch. You may have rapport again to kind of catch up. Yeah, but the reality is it's it's you not passcodes not like you can just keep going right at that. So to me the trust factor, the biggest part I want to slide us into the fifth and to me what the most important goal here is. How do you cultivate influence? How do you have that ability to do it? And so the trust is there, right? So you've built that trust and you're continually developing that trust. Let's talk about cultivating. Cultivating is an interesting term to cultivating influence. So let's talk about that. We all want to influence positively. For people who want to influence negatively. We've got another whole, I guess, negativity, bias and narcissism and all that stuff. But let's talk about cultivating influence. That's what we are as consultants. That's what we are as leaders. What do you guys think about this part of it? Again, this is the pinnacle I would look at, right? What do you think about as cultivating is such a active word? I mean, of course, all of these to I think to cat ears point all of these are action words that that are very intentional. Yeah. I think about some conversations that I've been having with with some of the different engineers and talking about some of the future technology and in how we think about it, how we talk about it. Right. And so, you know, what I'm trying to do is, is influence and move folks to action in terms of research and engaging with this. Right. And so, you know, many times it is for thinking about what my goals are, what their goals are, and where we have shared overlap. Right. And so where I can find that point, then I can sort of engage them and sort of say, Hey, I think this is where we can go. I think this is what we can do. So there's a a level of inclusivity with with, with the way that I'm trying to approach that to sort of influence an outcome and a set of actions, activities and that sort of thing. So I think finding some of that common ground, a common purpose really can, can can really help sort of cultivate that that influence. I love that. And, you know, one of the pieces there, there's a positive impact, right? The positive impact, it is difficult to influence when it's going to be a negative impact. Right? That's not influence. That's called coercion or something along those lines. So the positive impact and it's a mutual positive impact in most cases when you're influencing the other piece that comes to mind for me, which I which I think I don't know of many other styles that cultivate influence as much as servant leadership, and servant leadership means a lot of different things, a lot of different people. To me, it means putting the best interests of others in front and making sure you're intentionally have a positive impact on. But but you're looking for ways to help. I mean, this company in general, we get new folks on. I see everybody in the ring to be servant leaders. Our our senior leaders are servant leaders. You know, there's nobody that's not going to roll their sleeves up. Our clients adore that. Our clients look for that. I remember in some of the conversations with folks that we started doing business with when asked, Why do you continue to do business with? Because they believe we have their best interest at hand.

They believe when they have the 2: 48:57

00 meeting, it's going to be a positive impact when they're meeting with me. But, you know, they believe that we're doing things to make them look better. Right. And so that's a differentiator. That's a big differentiator. And so when I think about cultivating influence, putting those mindsets on and understanding when when you influence somebody, you're you're potentially getting them to do something either that they didn't know they could do or they weren't ready to do right, or they didn't know they could do right. When you start going through their sequences, influencing them to do it or influencing them to allow you to do something that's powerful, that's extremely powerful, the positive piece always comes to mind for me. So, you know, closing with with servant leadership and that positive, that's what I wanted to get from from the two of you. What do you feel when you say that positive impacts doing for others, that servant leadership, that the putting the others in placement stuff they're kind of hit top of mind is as you guys are going through the thought of just influence in general. Yeah so actually so this is tied to the the word cultivating for me. Very much so. I think I'm like my farmer friends and just the, the servant's heart that is required to put this tiny seed into the ground, you know, take care of a very tender reed, as Matt Miller calls it, and, you know, tend to it day after day, take care of it until it turns into something that is like a mighty oak tree or producing fruit. And there's a lot of frustrating moments in the life of a farmer that can, you know, if you handle it the wrong way. I think can you know, we're talking about unwind the influence that you're having in the field. And then there's also just like this really big payoff, you know, when when it works out the right way. So I like, again, that choice of word. And I do want to say, I think, you know, we kind of moved off it a little bit. But to me, these last two are so intricately connected, you know, the trust and the influence, because I think especially in today's society, people can kind of declare that they're an influencer. And for me, you know, having 14 bucks for that checkmark and, you know, and I know I'm a little bit of a skeptic when I say this, but, you know, coming from like a branding and marketing world, I see this a lot. And, you know, people kind of come and say like, well, I'm an influencer, and I'm like, Well, what makes me trust your opinion? What credibility? You know what what have you done for the people who are already following you? What you know, And you can use some pretty easy mechanisms to understand are they really doing this with the intention of, you know, benefiting not only themselves but their community? And. Yeah, and so I think a lot of times you kind of have to investigate that a little bit further in society to say like, okay, you know, who is actually an influencer? Because a lot of times the influencers, the quite as person in the Instagram chat room in the you know in the boardroom. I talk to you about this conversation I had recently, you know, with this woman in our community who I think maybe does it better than anyone I've seen. And most of the time during that discussion, she was asking questions and she heavily influenced the outcome of that discussion. Yeah. And everybody else was doing all the talking. And I, I knew it was happening, but I slipped away from it and like 2 hours later I was like, That is master class. I want to be like that. You know, there's I think all of that is just really connected. I think there's a real danger and pitfall and just kind of being able to say, I am this sure, you know, and I think there's a real big payoff when you actually are spending that time cultivating and, you know, understanding that you might be starting with a very, very tiny seed and spending time. Yeah, nothing influences. Someone more than them believing they got there themselves, asking them questions and all of a sudden, you know, yeah, there was that I go to movies all the time, but my big Fat Greek wedding, when when the wife says, you know, that he may be the head of the household, but I'm the next target, whichever way I want. The reality there is when you do ask questions and you do get by, you do get people start to realize that they haven't been always led there. They went there themselves. And that's an ability to influence, right? When you can ask those questions and there is a trusting zone. And but the piece I would think and I don't know that person well but my assumption is people knew they were at she was asking the questions with all positive intent, no malicious intent. And that and that there was a high level of regard and respect and trust that was already there to be able to answer those questions. Because if you don't have any of that, you're manipulative. Yeah, that's kind of where I was going. I like the question piece when I think too like, you know me, I know that they made this into a cycle and I'm going to go like, Oh, but you can also go back. This goes all the way back, you know, not just to the previous stage, but also to that embracing differences thing and also kind of embracing differences of the situation and the person that you might be talking to. And I feel like this is a lesson I'm still learning, you know, even today, maybe I'm a little bit better at it than I was in my twenties. But it's like you're not going to be able to influence every situation to the degree that you, you know, you might want. And you also have to embrace that difference, too. Not everyone is going to be receptive to your message. They might hear the same message. We all know this has happened in our lives, right? They might hear the same message over another person better. And professionally, I have definitely had moments where I tried to, you know, really persuade someone of a stance that I felt really strongly about and it wasn't working. And then I pulled another person on my team as I said, Hey, can you go talk to this person? Because I know they will listen to you for this and such reason. And and that's okay. You know, it was hard for my like 25 year old self to fully embrace the power for this. Yeah, but, you know, it's everyone's having different days or just different styles of communication and all of that. And I think you got to like kind of recognize that there's places where you have a lot of influence and there's places where maybe you have less and or someone else that can, you know, bring something to the table in that moment. You know, when things about servant leadership and I kind of like you talked about that that you know the farmer and planting and I think you show up to servant leadership with this word base understand is that I exist as part of something bigger like right when you can embrace the concept that there are something bigger than yourself and that statement doesn't make you small, that can make you integral to the to that. So when you show up that way, then investing in someone makes sense because you're like, we're part of this, this, this big, this really. Right. And and so I think it's sort of that posture that that sort of understanding that if you show up in that way, it, it it makes sense for you to invest and grow and nurture and that sort of thing because you're like the dividends or well beyond. Sure, yeah. Me, it's us. It's we rise being part of that bigger thing. So I think quite often it's sometimes it's going back and it's like, are we understanding that we're part of something bigger and are we willing to be part of something bigger and are we willing to share that, you know, share the spotlight? Oh, yeah. And you know, the title of this MKG to what you were going through just now. The title of this is Unlocking Human Potential, The pieces you were just talking through. When you unlock human potential and they all do, you're unlocking a lot, some bigger, you know when everybody you give the platform the ability to help people unlock that potential the the accumulation of all is huge and that's to me like unlocking everybody's and then understanding the broader impact that that can have. That's a powerful thing. Yeah, just in general it really is. And as I was having this conversation with someone the other week and we were talking about them being an individual contributor and, and, you know, writing code and kind of being a star coder and what would it mean for them to move to sort of lead engineers in what we're talking about. Like so this thing about the value, right. Yeah, you can be in there, you can be writing that one piece of code and obviously that would be valuable. But if you move to say a team lead and you really cultivated and really grew that team, now you multiply the value, right? You multiply the value that they can bring, right? And so when you have that capacity, capability and willingness then to, to sort of invest in there and help train others. Right. The value spreads. Right. And it's like in that what we want it is it is. And you know, there's an underlying piece and you hit a cat. And I think Mike right at the end of that person getting into the bigger something that helps all of these phases is being a really good communicator, right? Being harnessing every ounce of your effort to get better and better and better at communicating to build rapport. If you continue to be a better communicator and work on that, you're going to have better rapport and you just keep going through the line, right? And so communication, the ability to really understand and think about our world, right? Not all of it face to face. We have a hybrid approach now. We have these Zoom calls, right? Yeah, we have a lot of writing Slack messages are flying, emails flying. So it's not just verbal, it's written and really getting better and better at that craft and getting better and better at the ability to to communicate in any scenario, in any situation, whether it's a hard one, an easy one, a funny one, it doesn't matter. All of that is going to play a big role. And how good are you at building relationships? Because it is very difficult to build rapport and understand and embrace and build trust. If you can't communicate, read, tone, tell tone, all these things. So I do want to end on that. Right. So so what do you guys think about that? When we talk about it in the book, they talk about it a lot. How Good. Your communication is will play a big role about what level you get to in your intelligence when it comes to relationships. What do you guys think about that And are you know, are there any tips, tricks, thoughts or just opinions and stories that you have around communication as a part, a big part of building that intelligence? So, again, having been an English major and finding ourselves in a in a very kind of fast paced digital world, it's actually kind of funny to me because lots of people who hated writing class have to write all day. I'm guilty of this. Slack is an extremely powerful tool. And before that, you know, I am was and text and email before that. But with that speed and productivity, I think deliberate thinking as you're writing is harder to do. Oh, yeah, I know. Like one example I can think of like, you know, especially, you know, some of the places that we might have worked at before were email emails for three or 400 emails a day. And it gets frustrating cause you're like, I can never clean out my inbox, you know? And then there gets to be that one email that's, you know, going to require a thoughtful response to navigate maybe a difficult situation. And I can't tell you how many times I would write the email and then put in my draft folder and get up in the morning and go, okay, now I'm going to revisit it and I'm going to edit it, and then I'm going to send it because I wanted to slow down. I think that that counts for verbal too. But, you know, I think first but just like Slack, you know, going back to even like the stage of building rapport, I still catch myself doing this because, you know, I have this like task oriented, knee jerk reaction of launching a Slack message to someone with no context and just immediately asking a question and then going, Good morning, how are you doing? You know, great. Or what's on your mind? It's so true. And, you know, it's it's it's because we're moving so fast. And that tool is just an intuitive place to do it. Yeah, it's too easy. Yeah, you're right, though, because it is. It's a quick one, right As you're building, you know, say it's a new person you're working with on a team and all of a sudden you just getting to the point, you know, it's not the niceties and but the reality is the the thing. Have you built rapport with them yet at all? Right. Have you do you know who they are, the ones you understand what how they're going to receive you? Do they know you enough? Have you built trust for them to know your tone? Right. Yeah. I. I agree with you when you think back through the steps because it's too easy. Yeah. You know, I was going to say is we ask the question, the first word came to mind was pause, pause. So, you know, certain types of communication are appropriate through certain. Yes. Isms, right? There's certain conversations that the the person you're communicating with deserves a level of respect for there to be a one on one sort of conversation. Right. Right. Because you need them to understand the fullness of your communication, your tone, your voice, your body language. All those things are very important. And there's there shouldn't be room for misinterpretation, right? It is this type of communication that warrants that. To your point, is there a level of trust such that I will get the benefit of the doubt? Sure. If there's some misreading of what I wrote. Right. Is is is that they are they will allow me to put this in text. Right. Versus that right that the you know, the context right. So, you know, I think sort of pausing and thinking about where am I communicating? Who am I communicate to what's going to be the most effective sort of mode of communication? You know, she she you know, you know, she should I have in this I you know, the number of times when I'm I'm watching a thread or across Slack and the next thing you know, I'll put it up at a Zoom meeting in there. Now get this out of that, right. That's right. Number one, which you just raises a lot of brain cycles where everyone reading, reading through this. Right. And we can communicate in 15 minutes. Right. As they should get on and like, communicate. Yeah. You know, let's like, share our humanity here. So yeah, in MTG, it's funny because yeah, I mean, new tools keep coming on how to communicate. Nothing goes away, just keeps adding to it, Right? Yeah. We talked about relational intelligence. We talked about the five pieces, all the components to it, why that's a differentiator for method. Like that's why people come here. That's why they stay here, right? A big underlining is got to get your communication right in order to be able to do it. So. So for me, what I'd like to do is just pause it there, unless we've got some other last point and say, you know, more to come on edge on communication because it is a crucial part and we'll have more discussion on that. So, M.G., thank you. Jack Carter Thank you, Josh, as always. Yeah, we're all just thankful that you all are willing to come on to the podcast. I like being just kind of a fly on the wall to all the knowledge that you bring to the table. So thank you. Thanks for having us. All right. Yeah, thanks for having us. Focus on the human and we go. Thanks, guys. I hope you found that conversation helpful. And remember that this episode, too. So if you missed episode one, which was focused on filter quality, make sure you go back. Check that out. I know you're going to enjoy it. Also, keep an eye out for episode three, which will focus on leadership brand. In the meantime, you can always check us out on social media. Drop in on one of our monthly tech talks there. We would love to see you. Until next time, though, don't forget to stay nerdy.