Why Leaders Make Bad Decisions (and How Better Judgment Drives Business Value) - John Little

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Behind the Numbers. If you've been here before, you know this is the show where we go beyond the data to explore all the stories and the insights that really drive business success. I'm Dave Bookbinder. I'm known as a business valuation expert, best-selling author, and I thank you for joining me.

We live in a world that's got more data, more tools, and frankly, more pressure to perform every day. But better information doesn't necessarily lead better decisions. John Little, who is a leadership advisor and performance architect, is here to join me today to explore why judgment, not just intelligence or experience, is the real differentiator. And John, welcome to Behind the Numbers.

Thank you, Dave. Excited to be here. Appreciate the invitation. Yeah, it's my pleasure.

Looking forward to this conversation. I'm going to have you tell the audience a little bit about who you are, but in the context of, in the broader context of, your website refers to you as a performance architect. As such, I know you help leaders navigate high-stakes decisions and changes. Tell the audience a little bit about who you are and how did you define that role?

Thanks so much. So yeah, I've had a kind of a, I always like to describe my career as more of a jungle gym than a career ladder. I've had a number of opportunities to work in some pretty dynamic industries. I started my career in sports television production and then made a hard shift into a more corporate type of role working in the banking industry before kind of moving into real estate and doing consulting on my own.

And the one through line that I always got so excited about was the people and seeing people grow and develop. And I was very fortunate at a young age to be in leadership roles and leadership positions. And so I was able to learn from my mistakes. I was able to see things that worked and try things and see things that didn't work and adjust.

And so that's kind of what that performance architecture looks like as what I do now is I lean into a lot of those experiences and models that I had to really help leaders be the support structure as well as the foundation for the people that they lead, the people that they're developing, the people on their teams. Because I think the reality of it is, and you and I both know this. Dave, is that a lot of leaders end up in leadership roles, sometimes by accident, and they don't really have the foundation that they need and the fundamental skills that they need to truly pivot into people leadership.

And so that's the space that I really try to occupy. That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what keeps me kind of thinking until 2 a.m.

Different ways that I can help leaders really make that positive impact on their teams and their organizations as well. Yeah, good stuff, man. And you're right. There are a lot of accidental leaders or reluctant leaders, as you point out.

So I work in professional services now throughout my career, and people have tended to get promoted based upon their technical actions. How many hours they deal like that and then suddenly they're, and i've shared this stat before on the show but i'll share it with you as i recall in the u.s the average the average age when somebody gets demoted to the role of manager is around 31 and the average age when that person gets their first manager in their leadership training is out of deck so that's about you know 10 years to basically screw things up and learn from bad leaders who haven't been trained.

And there's a lot of damage being done. So I feel you on all that. You emphasize the importance of clear judgment over more tools. And we're in a world where we're obsessed with frameworks and technology.

So what exactly separates judgment from intuition? It's a great question. I mean, judgment is when you're able to layer your experiences, you're able to layer your knowledge, you're able to discern what's needed in the moment. That's one of the things that I work with, with leaders, especially those leaders that are still developing and growing in their leadership acumen, is how do you lead in the moment?

Because leadership is this, this big monster people get scared of, and they think that they have to be all things for all people at all times. But the reality is leadership is really the influence that you have over people, but it's also how you're leading people when they need to be. So, you know, a great example that I use and one of the frameworks that I work with leaders on, it's really a phrase that helps to bring it right to the moment. And this is where kind of judgment comes in.

And it also is where you're leaning into someone. It's when you're working with somebody on your team and, you know, you're talking either about a project, you're talking about a relationship they have, or you're talking about something they need to be, you know, focusing on. It's asking the question, you know, where do you need me to step in and where do you need me to step out? Right.

What that does is that allows the conversation to shift away from the things that are scary and really focus on the things that need to be focused on. And that's where judgment can come in. And that way, you're not thinking in theory, you're actually thinking about something that's going on right now. You're leading in the moment, you're meeting them where they are.

And for a lot of leaders, that's the biggest thing that you can do. Um, cause, because you don't have to figure everything out. You don't have to carry all the weight. You are literally saying, how can I be the best leader for you right now?

And how can I be the best leader to support you from afar? An old mentor of mine once told me that, um, good, good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. Yeah. So when leaders are making high stake decisions, oftentimes under pressure, what are you seeing as common blind spots that trip them up and how can they counteract?

Yeah, one of the biggest common blind spots is leaders expecting the people that are on their teams to either have the same knowledge, to have the same perspective, to have the same approach as they did. So especially when someone has been an individual contributor and they've been successful, right? Like there's a reason why I'm a big sports fan. As you can probably see behind me, I've got, you know, my team's cups represented.

But you often see that the greatest players frequently become the worst coaches because they don't really understand that that's the difference is that they have unique skills. They have unique abilities that not everybody has. And so they can tap into those things as an individual, but they can't convey that to someone else. So that's one of the big blind spots that I think a lot of leaders have as well is they expect other people to do things the way that they would do them or the way that they would want to do them instead of calibrating to how can I help you be the best you?

And how can I help you be the best in the areas where you have your unique skills, your unique knowledge, your unique abilities? You know, I like to talk about it as superpowers. Like, what's your unique advantage? What's your unique superpower that we can lean into and leverage that's going to help you be ultimately successful?

Because the blind spot for me is that. You know, I may not necessarily have that same skill. So I don't need to think about it as something that's valuable. But if you would just do it this way, you would just do it my way.

You would just work harder. Those things don't really land all the time. So that's one of the blind spots that a lot of leaders struggle with is really figuring out how do I identify and then leverage someone else's superpower because it may not be mine. Yeah, it's an interesting point when you're saying that about the best players don't make the best coaches.

I started a process in my head and I'm thinking, you know what? I've looked at it from the other end of the lens. Some of the best coaches were not great players. You're saying the same thing.

But yeah, I always wonder, why was that? What did they do differently? So interesting observation. Yeah.

I mean, the example is like, I'm a terrible salesperson. Like I started out doing sales and I realized really quickly, I don't like this. I'm not good at it. But what I was good at was I was good at helping people be more confident to go out and do sales.

I was helping. I was good at helping people kind of strip away some of the things that were distractions so that way they could focus on what they needed to do to be successful as salespeople. So I've led very successful sales teams. But if you told me, John, go get in your car and make, you know, make 10 sales calls and come back with five deals.

Like I'm just going to Starbucks because it's, I know that, I know that that's not going to work out well, but it really is like, those are my, you know, the skills that I have are my skills. I'm really confident in them. The skills that aren't my skills, not so much. Yeah, interesting.

I want to talk about generational leadership, because I think everybody out in the audience can certainly relate, whether they're working with folks in different generations or interacting with that situation with client involvement. I see that on both ends. And I know you work with generational leadership differences, and different cohorts are going to see authority differently. So in your experience, what's been a surprising truth about the generational dynamic that we're going to miss?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest pivots that happened over the past 15 years, obviously, you know, with more millennials entering in the workforce, more Gen Z entering in the workforce and the shift in the, of course, COVID, like, you know, that completely upended our work processes and everything. But one of the biggest shifts even before COVID was the difference in expectations. So, you know, I've got some wisdom down here. I'm proudly Gen X.

I grew up and learned under a number of baby boomers. So my approach to work, and a lot of people in my generation and generations before, our approach to work has always been, you do what's asked of you because that's the expectation. That's the job. That's what we're supposed to do.

That's one part of it. And when millennials and Gen Z entered the workforce, the why became a lot more important, a lot more relevant to the work itself. So it wasn't that there wasn't an interest in doing the work. That was a big misconception that was out there.

The difference wasn't that they didn't want to do the work. The difference is they wanted to connect to the work. They wanted to understand the why behind the what. They wanted to see and understand the value of the work because that's what got them bought into the work.

And the other big shift is feedback, right? For my generation, generations before, like we would get feedback, we would get feedback. Probably once a year, maybe more frequently than that, but like our annual review when it came time to get a raise. So we expected that we were going to get, if we didn't hear anything, that meant that we were doing a good job.

We just kept on doing, right? And so that was the feedback that we got. Millennials and Gen Z, they want feedback and need feedback a lot more frequently, a lot more often. And that causes a lot of friction a lot of times between the generations because millennial and Gen Z are looking for feedback all the time.

And it can feel overwhelming to boomers and to Gen X. Here's what happened. If you think about going back to when we were in school, when I was in school, Dave, when you were in school, we would get report cards, what, once a quarter. So that was kind of our measuring stick.

So that was when we saw how we were doing. And that's where we either, you know, got a trip to the ice cream parlor because we had good grades or we had that tough conversation at the dinner table because things weren't so good. But we had just like periods of time where we got feedback. A native digital generation like millennials, like Gen Z, feedback is available all the time.

You can always see what your grades are. You can always see how you measure up. You can always see the scoreboard because it's always available to you. Why do we expect that to be any different when they get into the workforce?

Why do we expect now they're okay with just hearing feedback once or twice a year? So those are two of the big shifts and two of the big friction areas that I've seen and experienced and I've had to coach leaders through because it's just different lenses that we're approaching the world through. But again, it's meeting people where they are, recognizing that we're coming from a different place, that we have different expectations, that we have different things that we value.

And that's what's the, that's what's going to keep somebody engaged. That's what's going to, you know, reduce some of the friction and some of the frustration that people have is when we can recognize that they're not trying to be annoying. It's not the goal. It really is just trying to find that space of comfort that we all see.

And so much there. I mean, it's going to take a real conscious awareness to understand that distinction because you're spot on. The younger folks in the workforce today are in a world where they've gotten immediate feedback. Yeah, I had the quarterly report cards, no question.

And early in my career, somebody told me in regard to feedback, don't worry, if you're screwing up, you'll hear about it in real time. Otherwise, you'll get your review at your anniversary date. And that's what it was. So that's a great observation.

Are there any other things that leaders can be thinking about to leverage this generational diversity and strength and performance rather than making it a point of attention? And yeah, I mean, it kind of goes back to the same superpower conversation from earlier. Like, especially as we're looking, as we're moving into spaces where AI is taking a much bigger foothold in the things that we do and just leveraging technology, understanding technology from the standpoint of how a leader can really lean into that.

The better that a leader can be at connecting what technology can do and how I can support my people in using that technology, that's kind of where that secret sauce, that's where that sweet spot is. So as a leader, I don't have to understand everything. I don't have to understand how everything works. I don't have to understand what's new.

I don't have to understand the latest. But what I need to do as a leader is I need to create the environment to where you can thrive in that space. And I, as a leader, my, one of my responsibilities is Dave, if you're on my team and I see that you're doing some really cool things that I don't understand, I can take one of two directions. Either I can try to kind of shrink back from that work or hide that work, or even maybe even, you know, take credit for that work, for the outputs, even though I don't completely understand it, but I'm intimidated by the fact that, you know, things that I don't know, or I can amplify you and I can say, Hey, you know what?

I see Dave doing some really amazing things that I think are going to make a difference here. And I want to give you the platform. I want to bring him in. I want to bring you, Dave, into these meetings.

I want to showcase you. I want you to be able to demonstrate what you're seeing, what you're doing, because I think it's going to benefit us. Now, as a leader, and that's what I coach leaders to do, is as a leader, I want to amplify the people on my team. I want to amplify the work they're doing.

And so from a generational lens that I've seen that where that's a point of friction, where I don't want to I don't want to look like that things are passing me by. I don't want to look like I don't understand where things are going. And some of the people that are on my team that are young and they're hungry and they're fast and they're doing things at such a pace that I can't keep up. I don't want to get in their way.

so I want to be able to amplify that because truly as a leader one of the biggest things that you can do is build your legacy and I say leaders all the time they kind of look at me weird when I say it it's like the number one priority for leaders is to get people promoted off of your team who want to advance and when I say that sometimes they look at me like I'm crazy like why do I want to. Weaken my team by moving my strong people on. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you are pouring into your team, when you are building that person's strength and they're able to grow, then that means that they're also having people behind them that they can grow.

And you're kind of building out, I think about it like a coaching tree, again, sports analogy. So for those that aren't sports fans, I apologize. But for a coaching tree, it's the more branches that you have of the good work that you do, the good fruit that you put out into the world, the stronger your organization is, the stronger your network is. But it really does kind of go back to investing into those younger people that are on the team.

Not necessarily young in age, but those people who are growing, those people who have opportunities and skills that you may not have as a leader. Yeah. And embedded in that is a certain amount of self-confidence and obviously self-awareness because when you've got a great performer, obviously your inclination maybe I want to keep this person they're making me look great and it may be even counterintuitive some people the idea of just encourage them and grow them so that they're promoted off of.

Yeah, it is. And I've had those conversations with leaders. I remember one of them said, I just got this person to where I want them to be, and you're telling me that I need to work to get them promoted? I said, absolutely.

And here's why that matters. And here's how you do it, is you tell them, I want to see you continue to grow. The person that now is looking up to you that's on that's on their team the person that's now seeing that you are starting to get more attention that you're starting to get more focused and they want that you now pour into them like you kind of give them the same things that you were doing when you were just starting out so that way once you're promoted off of the team now there's someone else who's kind of getting ready and they didn't see it in the stamp they didn't see it from the standpoint of building that pipeline long-term.

They saw it very transactionally of, I've got this one person that I've worked hard to get them the skills, to get them in a place where I don't have to manage them anymore. So now they're good. And like that, that transactional approach, that's stifling to an organization and to a team, because it doesn't really allow that, that growth, that compounding growth that we're looking for from an organizational standpoint. That's what we want our leaders to be doing.

We want them to be compounding the growth of their team through building a strong pipeline of leaders because, you know, we know leaders are not leaders by title or leaders by position. They're leaders through influence. So the more that you're embedding the leadership culture within a team. Within the organization, then it doesn't really matter if somebody gets promoted to a new role because your culture is strong enough and the fiber of what you're doing is strong enough where you're going to have someone who's going to be able to grow into that role that you just promoted someone off of.

And the more leaders that you build up, the more that you lean into that culture, quite frankly, the easier your job becomes as a leader because you're doing less managing and you're being more strategic and visionary and you're not so much in the weeds. Yeah. And if you message that appropriately and make sure that that promoted employee understands that it is a promotion, right? And not we're getting you off the team because something isn't working here.

You've given them the tools and the skills to become a great leader themselves. Because now they've got a different perspective. John, you mentioned the words employee engagement a little while back in the conversation. I want to talk to you about that because in the writings that I do, I talk a lot about leadership and employee engagement and its impact on business enterprise value.

And it seems like as far as back as I have looked, the statistics on Gallup showed that maybe one out of three people in the workforce came from your experience. How much of disengagement is driven by leaders' behavior? I don't know that there's a number high enough, Dave, to really articulate that. I'll share with you something that I heard from a co-panelist.

I was on a leadership panel a few years back, and she said something. Ashley Heard is her name. She said something that just really, really resonated with me. She said the person who has the biggest influence on someone's satisfaction in life is often their direct supervisor.

That's the person who gets talked about the most at the dinner table, positively or negatively. That's the person that gets talked about the most at happy hour. That's the person that gets talked about the most on weekends when someone talks about, you know, so how is your week? How are things?

It almost always goes back to the direct supervisor. So when you ask the question, how much does a leader, how much influence does a leader have on employee engagement, all of it, you know, I mean, that's overstating and it's not 100%, but it's a heavy, heavy amount because a good leader can offset. Maybe if someone isn't getting all of the money that they want or that they think that they deserve, but they're treated really well, they have a really good rapport with their leader and they're getting opportunities and they feel respected and seen and valued.

I mean, is that worth an extra 10, 15, 20 grand somewhere else? Not to say that money doesn't matter, but at what price does happiness cost? Right. So a leader has an exponential impact on someone's employee engagement.

And, of course, we've seen the trails from employee engagement. And employees are engaged. They're going to, you know, they're more focused. They're more creative.

They're more excited about work. They give that HR buzzword discretionary effort, right? So they do all of those things where they're engaged. And when they're not engaged, like, it's pulling teeth.

It's, you know, you get people who are basically kind of tapped out on doing things. They're doing just the bare minimum to survive. You know, they're looking for ways to not do that and not give that discretionary effort. They spend probably more time on LinkedIn than in Excel.

So, you know, we definitely see both sides of it. But I know there's a very long answer to a simple question, but it's a huge, huge impact. Yeah, I personally agree with you. I mean, the old adage was that people don't quit their job, they quit their boss.

And everything that you said about the conversation at the dinner table and you get lucky enough to work with someone that's a great leader. And I've had that a number of times in my career and I've seen the good versus the bad. And I've said many times I'd walk through fire for the leader that did all the things that happened. Yes.

Yeah, interesting stuff. Sorry, I was just going to say, I think we probably have similar experiences to where we have leaders that we don't work for anymore that we still stay in close touch with because the relationship transcends the office, transcends the workplace, right? When we build genuine relationships with our leaders, then that's someone who can speak into our lives in many different areas and in many different ways. And it's not just about work, because that's what a true leader does.

A true leader gets to know the person and gets to know what's important to them and is vulnerable enough to also let down the guard and let people in to their lives as well. Yeah, if you're a leader and you're managing by spreadsheet only, you probably need to listen to this episode more than once. John, I want to talk to you about AI and the future of work, because you've talked about AI not just being a tech issue, kind of a fundamental leadership and cultural issue. What's the number one mistake you're seeing organizations make when they're adopting?

They're just going for the technology solution, and they're not thinking about. How to support their teams in using AI. So either they're not thinking about policies and procedures that support the positive use of AI. So they either have, they go to two extremes.

Either they're completely hands-off and they just kind of let people do what it is that they want to do with AI, or they're overly restricted to where they either don't allow AI use or kind of decisions are being made about how to utilize certain tools, but not really understanding the benefits of those tools. And a perfect example that I can share from just last week, I was talking with an organization who their COO wanted to eliminate the use of AI recording and AI transcripts for virtual meetings because the thought was.

The AI tools can use that information. The AI tools are gathering the information. They're sharing the information. Like, we don't know where it's going.

And so it just exposes us too much. And I don't know enough about it. And so I think we should stop using it. And one of the sales directors on the team said, well, yeah, but when my team, when my salespeople are doing their discovery calls, when they're doing some of their initial outreach, when they're having some of those initial conversations, that AI transcription is so valuable because they're able to be present.

They don't have to worry about taking notes. They don't have to worry about remembering certain things. They don't have to worry about the things that are going to be meaningful when they start to do the follow up and put together the proposals. And the COO just didn't want to hear it.

Like he's just so locked in with this is a bad thing. Right. That was that's kind of one extreme. The other extreme is organizations that just really have no sense of how AI is being used.

And so, as we know, AI hallucinates, right? It's still so, so, so new that the technology is still learning itself. And so, the outputs may not have the same level of quality, the same level of accuracy. And so, now organizations are having to go back and do double work because they have to go back and fix the things that AI may not have, or fill in the blanks, I should saying maybe that AI hadn't done properly.

And so those are the two extremes. So from an organizational standpoint, from a leadership level, that's the things that I'm kind of, in addition to what I talked about earlier of, you know, supporting the people who are using it, amplifying those that are doing it well, not being scared of technology you don't understand as a leader, but really starting to figure out, so where are our guard ramps? Where are the things that we can put in place so we can use the tools that are evolving so quickly, we can use them in a positive way.

And the other thing, and the reason why I kind of talk about guardrails and frameworks when it comes to AI is when companies are so focused on chasing tools, the race is over. You've already lost the race. If you're trying to figure out how to use chat GPT. Or try to use perplexity or try to use co-pilot or whatever.

You're just trying to figure out how to use that. And you're like, okay, this is a tool we're going to use. And we're just going to start putting things. It's like, it's a wrap.

It's already over. So there needs to be some form of strategic approach towards how we're going to utilize these tools. But it starts with identifying how we can best use the tools in the framework of what we do to either make things more efficient, more effective, but also not just look at as a way to reduce headcount. Because that's the thing as a people person, that's my biggest fear when it comes to AI is that companies will race to use AI to knock out tasks that people could do and think they can just get rid of the people rather than figuring out how can we repurpose the people?

How can we leverage their experience, their knowledge, and the things that they really do well, how can we repurpose that still within the organization rather than just eliminating a ton of jobs? Yeah. And I could probably spend another half hour talking to you about AI, but recognizing that we're close to the end of the episode here. But I want to talk about confidence or the lack thereof, something that we've talked about on this show many times, like Posterson.

And what I've seen is it feels like the best leaders, the ones who are really good, are the ones that have the most self-doubt. I want to just get your take on self-doubt, confidence in organization changes, and what can people do to, frankly, boost their stuff? Yeah, confidence is like money. It's hard to get, but it's easy to lose.

With building up self-confidence when it comes to imposter syndrome, self-awareness is the key. Self-awareness of where things start is the key to mastering staying assured. Like, it's good to have a healthy bit of fear and apprehension because I think that's energy. It's how do you purpose that energy?

How do you kind of refocus that in a positive way and look at things as opportunities instead of challenges? So one of the tools that I use when it comes to confidence, when it comes to imposter syndrome is a framework, name it, tame it and reframe it. So when you start to feel that angst, when you start to have those worries, when you start to wonder, I or, or, you know, what am I lost? Am I behind?

So naming that fear, recognizing it for it is, recognizing it for what it is, I should say, and say, okay, this is something that's bubbling up in me. Like this is, this is something that's making me uncomfortable. So I want to name this, like this is imposter syndrome that's creeping in. And by naming it, now I can kind of put it in a box and tame it.

It's like, all right, I understand that my fears are bubbling up. So let me take a step back. Why is this intimidating for me? Why is this starting causing me to doubt myself?

Why is this making me think more than act? When you can start to have that internal dialogue, or maybe that's conversations that you have with a coach or you have with a leader or you have with a mentor, that's part of taming it and then reframing it. So instead of it being this big hairy monster that I'm afraid of, it's what's that first step look like and reframing process that you're going to use to overcome that through those small steps, through those small wins, through those small victories.

That's where you start to build up that confidence and confidence compounds on top of itself. And even when you have setbacks, because we will, when you're able to look at those steps that you took in order to get to the point where you had that setback, you can have more confidence then rather than going all the way to ground zero. But oftentimes in our head, we get stuck at that first point where the fear becomes so overwhelming that we either shut down or we start to compensate and we start to see fear-based behaviors and we start to see fear-based reaction, start to act out of character.

We start to think out of character. We start to do things that don't necessarily support our success, but we can't help ourselves doing it because we're just operating out of that fear-based mindset of either I've got to protect myself or I've got to do something completely different because the path that I think I should go down, it feels like it's going to be disastrous. So that framework of name it, tame it, and reframe it has been really helpful with a lot of leaders that I've worked with because it's something that's tangible.

They're able to kind of step back, take themselves out of a situation for a moment, shift their mindset, and then redirect their energies. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Tame it, frame it, or tame it, name it, reframe it, because it gets you into the rational brain where you're no longer feeling the visceral emotion.

John, we're down to the short strokes here, but I want to give you the last word with. My final question to do, and that is if leaders who are listening to this show right now want to implement a practice change today or tomorrow, what would you recommend? They have one change to make. I would say lean into trust.

Most of the issues that I deal with as a coach when working with leaders, it all starts with trust. It's all foundational trust, where trust either has never been established or it's been broken. So from a leadership standpoint, the mindset of everything that I do is either creating or supporting my legacy. And everything that I do, I want to do from a place of building and either building on, reestablishing, increasing, whatever it is.

But trust is the lane that I think that leaders can go down. The more that you can lean into that lane of trust, that helps build relationships, makes communication easier. It makes accountability easier. It makes all of the things that leaders struggle with that much easier when they can lean into building, maintaining, and continuing to establish trust.

Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more on my journey to prove that people are your most valuable asset. In my first book, one of the chapters I've heard about was trust and just how important that is. And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you to talk about something that can help build trust. And some of the things that I've seen, obviously, do what you say and say what you do.

Be genuine, be authentic, be empathetic. I think Renee Brown was the one who said that trust is built in those small moments. When you do those quick check-ins, say, how's your kid? I know he was sick yesterday.

That kind of stuff really matters. What else do you recommend? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, vulnerability is one of the biggest keys. You know, being, not being afraid to be vulnerable, not being afraid to tell people the areas where you've struggled, what you learned, how you learned it, how you've succeeded. That's a big trust builder because people want to be led by a person and not a position. So that's a big trust building thing.

Without getting super, super deep, because I know we're towards the end. To break it down simply, people build trust one of two ways. They either build trust through likability or credibility. So either they want to see evidence of your work over time, so that way they can trust you, they can rely on you, or they want to build a relationship with you.

They want to get to know who you are. They want to know what you value. They want to know what's important to you because they want to buy into you as a person. So as a leader, if trust is something that you struggle with, start to listen closely to what people are doing when they're trying to get to know you or they're asking you about your work, about your background.

About your history, about your accomplishments. If you hear that, credibility is the way that they're trying to build trust with you. If they ask you about your family, about your weekend, about the things that you like to do, your hobbies, they're trying to build a relationship with you. So likability is the lane.

So they want to connect with you as a person. When you can start to listen closely to the things that people are asking you and the things that are important to them, that's going to be your code hack to building trust with that individual. And the more that you build trust, the more that you build from credibility, the more that you build that evidence over time, then they're going to start to like you as a person. For someone who starts on likability, the more that you can build a relationship, the more they're going to trust your work.

So it's really kind of listening, being vulnerable, being willing to share, being open. Those are really the cheat codes to being able to build trust. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And when your people trust you, they will give you that extra effort and they will launch the fire.

Fundamental building block. John, thank you. I really appreciate everything you shared with us. Tell the audience how they can find you and learn more about you.

Yeah, thank you so much, Dave. So easiest way to find me is online at Big John Little. That's my main website. And you can find more about my performance architecture there, as well as the ways that I can help serve your organizations.

And LinkedIn is the platform that I hang out on the most. So linkedin.com slash in slash Big John Little is where you can find me on LinkedIn. Send me a connection request.

Tell me that you heard me on the Behind the Numbers podcast and happy to connect with you. Awesome. Thank you, John. I really appreciate you being here.

Thank you, Dave. Thank you. And thank you out there for tuning in to Behind the Numbers. Really appreciate your support.

And you know the drill. If you like what you heard here today, please leave us a review. Apple, Spotify, etc. That doesn't matter.

I certainly appreciate that. Until next time, I'm Dave Bookbinder reminding you that it's a tell the story, but it's the people that bring it to life. Take care, everybody. We'll see you next time.