The Leadership Alignment Problem No One Wants to Fix

Christine Courtney: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Stepping Into Your Leadership. I'm Christine Courtney, ⁓ and am excited today because we have somebody coming to us from Charlotte, North Carolina, a new guest here on the ⁓ the lovely Kaufman. ⁓ And let tell you a little bit about Betsy. Betsy Kaufman is the founder and CEO ⁓ of Crossed. Impact Coaching. She's a TED speaker and an executive leadership coach who helps mid-market CEOs and senior leadership teams align their leadership to navigate the complex challenges like AI adoption, rapid growth and acquisitions. 25 years leading large-scale technology ⁓ across Fortune 500 companies, ⁓ now focuses on helping leadership teams close that gap between strategy and execution, something we could all use a little more of. And her Ted Talk, I highly recommend it. I watched it. Her Ted Talk, Four Tips for Honest Conversations at Work ⁓ over 1.6 million views. ⁓ incredible. So ⁓ Betsy. Betsy Kauffman: Hi Christine, thanks for having me. Christine Courtney: So let's talk a little bit about it because I think it's so fascinating that you were in technology for so long and then made this transformation. So let's start back in your days in technology for a minute. Yeah, well, you know, think about it. mean, now it's, you know, it's on the tip of everybody's tongue. ⁓ you know, when you look back at watching all these technology transformations, and I think it's great to look back because, well, for instance, my mom was one of the first Betsy Kauffman: Yes. The diners were aged? Yeah. Right. Christine Courtney: people to sell personal computers, right? So when I talked to her about what's happening now with AI, she's like, Christy, this is what they said about PCs. you know, I thought PCs were gonna take over for people's life, you know, and we're still working. So I was like, yeah, okay, that's true. So in your years of looking at it, you know, was there a moment kind of early in your career when you were convinced maybe that technology was the problem or some technology where you were using or? Betsy Kauffman: ⁓ how fun. Yeah. Yeah. All the time. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Christine Courtney: I don't know, what was that like in that world? Give us a picture of that for a little bit. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah, I mean, I think to your point, Christine, we've gone through these types of technical transformations for multiple times. So maybe before me, I was just getting into technology. had the dot com boom, right? And then we had, I got into the agile ways of working and agile technology and agile software development. ⁓ I've got an app for that. We're building apps with iPhones and things like that. And in the very beginning, you always enter a project thinking it is a technology. We've got to the technology figured out. ⁓ bad data or on old systems or on mainframes. But then we come to find out, know, usually, yes, there might be some sort of a technology problem, but it's truly like the people that are leading that effort are the ones that need to align first and figure out how to solve the bigger problems before the technology is going to do its fix. And we're just we're literally seeing the same thing with AI. We have all these companies that want to implement all these AI agents, and they're very excited about, you know, the transformation and what it could be. ⁓ if we don't know what we're trying to solve for and what the problem is, and we keep layering like new technology on top of old bad systemic problems, we're just gonna have a bigger mess. And AI, think, is gonna bring that to the forefront even faster than maybe some of the past technological advances that we've been looking at and implementing. it's usually the technology problem that we're trying to solve for, and unfortunately, it's probably the wrong approach. It's probably about what's the business outcome that we need to solve for first, ⁓ then as a company and as a leadership team, how do we get aligned around what it is that we're trying to do? Christine Courtney: Yeah. That's interesting. is that, I mean, I suppose I'm making an assumption, but I suppose that's one of the reasons why now your work focuses so much on aligning teams, right? Betsy Kauffman: Yes, yes, it's funny because a lot of times we would come in to help with the project or with the teams or with the high performance. They would tap me on the shoulders and say, you know, come sit with us. We as a leadership team, we're struggling. So I was I was usually mandated to come fix a certain problem within the organization within a project or a program or a transformation. And leadership would say, no, we actually need you sitting over here. We need the help. We need to learn how to talk better together. We need to learn how to how to have good conversations and make sure that we're aligned before our teams go execute on that. And so that's, it's funny because the work that I do morphed into that. I didn't actually set out to be a leadership coach and a leadership team alignment specialist. You know, I started, you know, I left my very secure job at Bank of America to go do agile development and training and help build high performing product development teams. And then ⁓ we got more and more into it, they were like, no, no, the leadership needs you more than we do, which is, which is usually the case, right? And so we kind of have evolved into that type of a company and that type of a consultancy. Christine Courtney: interesting. So when you started, you were doing work training the entire team and the teams were shouting like, ⁓ help our leadership. Betsy Kauffman: Yes, yeah, we'd come in and run. Yeah, we'd run trainings and they'd say, yeah, we get it. We know what we like. We know what we need to do. Thank you so much. This has been great. But actually, you really need to go help our leadership team to get figured this out because we need for them to all be on the same page because they were getting different directions. I worked in a lot of different like across multiple areas of product business technology. And so we would try to help those teams on how to work better together to become more high performing. And they were getting each each area was getting a different direction from their leader and they were saying please go help our leaders please go help our leaders like like we can play nicely together we're okay playing nicely together it's our leaders that need help and so then I would okay fine and so I would I would the leader that usually brought me in I would actually go tell them by the way Christine Courtney: You would? Betsy Kauffman: Yeah, ⁓ yeah, that's probably why I've been successful so far is that I would say, hey, by the way, they actually think I need to spend time with you guys because our challenges are not at the team level, they're at the leadership level. And I see that all the time. ⁓ I'm constantly. Okay. ⁓ Christine Courtney: So what would they say? Betsy Kauffman: do you suggest we go about this, right? And so usually it's like, let's get into a room. Let's talk about some of the big things that I'm hearing. And bring them up, they were the elephants in the room and people knew they existed, ⁓ but was being able to have a safe place to like kind of create that container to say, okay, ⁓ we're working well together. When you say one terminology, ⁓ somebody something different. How do we actually get to the point of ⁓ true alignment and that we're all showing up as the same direction and where we wanna go? Christine Courtney: That's good. Betsy Kauffman: what didn't happen overnight, right? So it wasn't like, let's all get in a room and we're gonna come out singing kumbaya. I mean, it's, ⁓ a lot of long knocked out drag out like conversations and ⁓ get very emotional, ⁓ know, because people sometimes feel like, well, you're, you're calling my baby ugly. Well, what about your baby? Like, and so, you know, you're, really trying to get folks ⁓ come together and figure out how do we work better together and how do we actually create the environment ⁓ makes our team successful and our company successful. Christine Courtney: Yeah, interesting. you know, in building your corporate practice, you know, after years, I mean, sorry, building your coaching practice after years in kind of corporate life, you know, that's a big leap. imagine. ⁓ there kind of any ⁓ you learned from? You know, I love sharing ⁓ stories on here because I feel like so often ⁓ just sharing our all these successes and the people listening ⁓ oftentimes Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Yeah. successes. Christine Courtney: dealing with their own challenges and they, you know, I think it's good to learn from mistakes that others have made too. So was there any mistake that you made in that process that you're like, and I look back, it ⁓ good to learn from, but this is ⁓ of those moments. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Several, okay, so which one do we start with? I'm trying to think, there's so many. I have two, I'll do one. When you're getting started, especially with me, I had a 15, 20 year career before I left and started my practice. At that point, you're kind of a Swiss army knife. You can do a lot of different things. And so was trying to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So people were like, ⁓ you can come help us with training, or you can help us with leadership coaching, or you can come help us with product transformation. And when you can do that, it actually, almost dilutes who you are, because then you're like, know, one, you can't spread too thin. And you can also, you know, people don't know like, okay, wait, when do I call you? Do I need, do I call you for leadership coaching? Do I call you for product transformation? Do I call you for training? ⁓ so really trying to figure out like what it is that you want to do and what your niche ⁓ just diving into that I think is ⁓ word of advice that I would give. And so, you know, I got to a point where I was just, was, I literally had about five or six clients and one call would be about training and one call would be about this and one call would be about that. ⁓ to start to really, the context switching and to be all things to all people isn't helpful. You can burn yourself out, and I did. And I'm still of struggling with that today, because the Swiss Army skills have not stopped. But I have to a little bit more selective about the kind of work and how much work I can take on at any given time and really kind of find some pace and balance between that. Christine Courtney: Yeah, it's true. think we were so afraid like, you know, there other work coming? Yeah, yeah. ⁓ did you recognize those? I mean, ⁓ think ⁓ find so many people, ⁓ don't see ⁓ hints ⁓ of burnouts coming ⁓ fast ⁓ Can think back to what some of those early warning were for you? Betsy Kauffman: to say no, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think it was, well, one, was, when I would. I'm kind of a color-coder on my calendar, right? And so like this client gets this color and this client gets this color. And I would look at my calendar and be like absolutely overwhelmed and see like I had like 10 different colors across my calendar, not including all my personal stuff. You know, I have a family and I'm trying to keep them on track and have them move forward in their lives. So I think just like when you'd wake up and be like, ⁓ my gosh, I have to be prepared for seven different meetings and like the overwhelm was there. you know, it takes a lot of time to prepare. and to prepare for every single client to make sure that as you show up that you're showing up 100 % focused on them. So I think just being like, wow, it's the overwhelm piece of it. then ⁓ I would get on a client call and be like, I just really don't want to work with this client. You kind of get that pit in your stomach and you're like, why I doing this work? How do I stop doing the work? Is there a way to say no? And ⁓ in and in coaching, and I was looking at my feed and one of my groups, there are several women that are in a corporate and they're like, I think I wanna make the jump, I think I wanna make the leap to coaching or consulting and all of that. mean, it's a really hard jump to make. And to your point that you said earlier, it can be feast or famine. Like it can be somewhat of a roller coaster of like, I have 10 or 15 different clients coming at me and then the statements of work end and am I gonna get something new and can I say no to stuff? And so ⁓ it's to make the best judgment calls at the moment, right? When you're in it and trying to figure out what's happening. Christine Courtney: For you, I'm curious, what is the client you don't like to work with? Like, don't tell me the names, but obviously, like, what are the qualities ⁓ you're like, this is not my, ⁓ you, I assume, try to say no to now, but ⁓ we don't know until we're in it. But how do you know? What are those qualities? Betsy Kauffman: No, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of funny and I guess it's why I do what I do now with my practice. But when the leaders are not bought in to what we're trying to do and they're not showing up and they're not engaging in the engagement and saying, okay, yes, we all want to be here and we want to be a part of it. That's what I don't want to be a part of. So I know that's kind of a generic, but it really is true. If we're not getting the support from the leaders, we're going to do a lot of really good work at a certain point, but then it's going to hit a wall because we don't have the support of the people that we need to keep us moving forward. And the teams feel that the folks that are actually doing the hard work to make change and make transformational change are gonna feel that as well. I like to, that's why I usually try to start at the top and be like, okay, you want me to come in, but I want your support and I'm gonna give you feedback and there's things that we're gonna have to do that we're gonna have to change and can you get behind that? And if they can't, that's kind of like a big sign to be like, okay, well then you're gonna spend a lot of money, not a lot, okay, a little bit of money. It's all relative, right? You're gonna spend a little bit of money, a good chunk of money. and you're not going to see the results that you want because you're not putting your support and your time behind it. So when they don't have time for the type of work that we're doing, is when I'm like, time out, do we need to pause this and come back to it in a few months when you're ready to really dig in. I'm working with a client right now. We just wrapped it up actually yesterday that the engagement ended they weren't as engaged and we got some success. It was good. We could have gotten a lot more if they had been a lot more engaged. And so, ⁓ know, one of them said, send another statement of work or I do more work. And I'm like, I don't think you are. Let's take a pause. Christine Courtney: Thanks for spending time here on stepping into your leadership. I'd like to give a special shout out ⁓ to our podcast producer, Richard Francisco. ⁓ Check out our notes for any and if you wanna get anything out of this, go to our YouTube channel and please subscribe to Leadership Lab TV. If you heard something today, of course, that resonated with you, do something with it. Betsy Kauffman: back in about six or eight weeks when you're ready to you know to focus on it and see what happens and that's a tough decision to say no I'm gonna we're gonna put a pause on this right especially as a independent coaching consultant it's probably not the most normal thing that most people do Christine Courtney: It's all about the choices that you make. It's what you say in conversations, how you show up in a moment. Share this episode with someone who's maybe starting a new job or stepping into a new level of leadership try one idea because it just might create some pretty powerful leadership ripple effects. Until time, keep stepping in. ⁓ Yeah, but I mean, that's one of the things I think that comes, you know, the privileges that comes for us later in life is that we have, we have the ability to maybe see it more clearly and say that, right? Have a little more confidence in that. I think it's interesting that you say that because those of you who are leaders out there, no matter what, if you're a middle manager, ⁓ you lead one other person, ⁓ your team is something, Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Yeah. Christine Courtney: because the room changes when you do. It makes such a difference if that leader is in there and fully engaged, not on their phone, not doing something else. You know, we used to, run company that I worked for for years. We worked in schools, right? And I would go into classrooms and work with, with the teacher. ⁓ it would, I'll tell you, was night and day. If the teacher was involved ⁓ it and the kids got to see ⁓ teachers participating in doing something, ⁓ amount of engagement and, and ⁓ shot up, like the performance was. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Okay. Yes. Christine Courtney: we started preparing teachers for like, you want to do this, ⁓ is what it has to be. And now you're so right, Betsy. I see the same thing ⁓ businesses. The other day I went into a workshop here in New York ⁓ the was a hundred percent in, so open, vulnerable, sharing real stories. ⁓ And everybody was then Like I was like, ⁓ what a difference. ⁓ What a ⁓ Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Right. engaged, yeah. And I bet they don't have as much turnover either. I bet the team members love to work for that kind of leader, right? Because they're engaged, they're excited, they wanna be a part of it. They're coming to the table with the vulnerability or with the transparency or whatever's needed at that time. I still say that people don't leave companies, they leave leaders. And so if you're not engaged and focused ⁓ supporting your people, even your one person, you're gonna potentially lose them because they need the feedback and they need the help. ⁓ Christine Courtney: And if I mean, and I think it's just because the leaders are, you know, quote unquote busy that they think, I'm doing the right thing by my team, by having Betsy or Christina, whoever come in here. And so check, check, check. But they're not realizing that it's minimized. And sometimes it's actually detrimental ⁓ on whatever their engagement is. You know, it's so, ⁓ critical. And somehow everybody knows this until they become a leader and then they Betsy Kauffman: Right? Yep. Yeah, 100%. Christine Courtney: Forget it. So we're here to remind you. Betsy Kauffman: You Yeah, what happened? Why did it not go well? Right? Yeah, exactly. Well, and that's why we see a lot of transformations fail. So AI transformation doesn't matter. You if you're doing any type of transformation, you're trying to really change the company. If the leaders aren't involved and they aren't they aren't driving the change and the support of it, it's not going to go well. I can tell you that because you're to get to a certain point and it's going to stop because we were like, well, what are we working on? And is this important enough? And my leader's not engaged. So how do I why should I do this as well? And that's where I mean, that's that's truly forget the technology layer. on top of it, it's all about human and change management and leaning into your people. Christine Courtney: I love that. That's such a good reminder. Let's shift a little bit to, you know, people who listen, one of the things that we hear over and over again is that they love that they come away with this, you know, 30 minutes that were in their ear with some actionable tips and takeaways. And that's one of the things I admire about your work is that you're really good about giving those kinds of tips for folks. So first of all, you talk about a leadership operating system, right? Shared behaviors, decision frameworks. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Christine Courtney: execution rhythms. So for a senior leader who has never thought about this formally, let's say, what's the one thing they could put in place this week to start building that? Well, first of all, maybe explain it a little bit to us and then something that people can do to use some of this kind of operating system that you talked Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. Yeah, so what we typically do with the leadership operating system is when we learn the leadership team and we try to figure out like how do they work together, what's their current style? then we put in place some potential frameworks that might help them to work better together. So if we find that they're struggling with ⁓ or delegation or ⁓ do we actually work together better as a team, we will start to bring those out together and create patterns and frameworks and verbiage to them to learn. to work better as a team. so that, we also try to talk about, OK, what are the most important things that we should be talking about? What are our highest priority initiatives, ⁓ projects? ⁓ so I think the one thing that a leader could possibly put in place is I would bring your team together for one hour and ask them, if we had to make one decision today that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? ⁓ Christine Courtney: love that. Betsy Kauffman: and get them to speak for one hour and decide on one decision that is needed to impact the company or the department, depending on where you sit in the organization, and really get them to figure out, you know, okay, let's do this one decision, let's get behind it. And so it is about getting focused, it is about bringing out the tough things, it is about getting folks to understand what it is that we're trying to accomplish. I mean, that leadership operating system is now when we can have the language and we can have the tough conversations and we can put in frameworks that are necessary. can then make sure that we're all focused on the most important things and not all the other things that distract us. ⁓ as you all know, when we get into companies, like there's a million things that are coming at us and it's really hard ⁓ focus. And so trying to get the folks all on the same page is just for one hour would be critical. Christine Courtney: I love that in one decision, one hour. I love it. I love it. All right. So in your Ted talk, you talk about honest conversations at work. And I completely agree with you that almost every conflict ⁓ you dig into it after a long enough time, you find out that it's the answer is someone needs to communicate, right? It's usually you can only control yourself. So you need to have some sort of Betsy Kauffman: One decision. One decision to make the biggest impact. Yes. Yeah. Christine Courtney: what we call difficult or honest conversation. And so what's, ⁓ you talk about four kind of tips to kickstart honest conversations at work. That's what the TED talks about. Give us a couple of those because I do think they're so valuable. Betsy Kauffman: OK, yeah. Yeah, let me give you the four tips. And it's interesting because I think one of the things that you've asked me and others have asked me is, well, what's the most important of the four tips? And I'm like, I might actually turn that back on you, Christine. So let me tell you the four tips and then I'd love to hear what you think it is. Because I'm like, I don't know if I could pick just one. But the first tip is confidence and courage, right? A lot of times we have something to say and we don't have the confidence or the courage to actually say it out loud for whatever reason, depending on where you are in the organization or you don't have the political capital or you don't think you do. ⁓ find that confidence and that courage is the first tip. The one is to really understand what is the intent behind you speaking up. So like you're speaking up for a reason, but why not just to talk hopefully, but because ⁓ you something to say, you want to move it forward. ⁓ This problem to be put out there. It's not the person, it's about the problem, that type of thing. So it's about leading with intent, right? The third tip is having factual data and good information. So it's one thing to sit and just kind of like blubber all the things that are going wrong and you know, this is rad and this is bad. Well, let's actually have some data behind it. why is it something that we need to talk about? What is what's happened? What's the history? You know, if there's actually true data, people like examples ⁓ order to have that conversation. And then the fourth is actually bringing a solution. So it's easy to like I call it to dump to dump up or to dump in somebody's lap. ⁓ are all the problems we need to go fix them, but also coming with a solution. ⁓ think ⁓ might be maybe the one thing I'm like that people don't do is that they want to talk about all the problems, but they don't ever want to try to fix them because maybe a misery loves company type of thing. It's funny because I was working with the CIO and she and I were talking. was in that mindset of all the things that were wrong. And I was just like, ⁓ all these things are wrong. She said, well, great. What should we do about them? Bring me a solution. And it paused me. Right. That's my humans. I was like, yeah, you're right. I should probably come and help with this as opposed to just trying to dump all these problems in your lap. so I think that, if I had to pick one, it'd probably be the fourth one, ⁓ come with a solution or potential solutions to at least ⁓ the conversation and kind of open it up. I guess for Christine, for your perspective, what do you think of the four, if you remember them, is the most important one? Christine Courtney: yeah. Well, you I do agree that it is hard to choose one because you really need all four. I think probably the ⁓ that whichever one someone struggles with the most is one that is the most important, right? Because there's usually one that's we forget. think, ⁓ you I find the second one interesting ⁓ because I that ⁓ the intent Betsy Kauffman: True. Yeah. Thank you. Christine Courtney: is something that a lot of people don't ask themselves. And I find that if you take that moment right before you walk in, I mean, hopefully you do it right, you do it before the moment, but at least I try to, cause we're, you know, we're busy and, and, know, running. I find that if I take a moment to just take a deep breath in to ground myself and then say, okay, what's the, what's the intention? What's my positive intent out of this conversation? Betsy Kauffman: Right? Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Christine Courtney: I come in with a much more grounded, ⁓ of being that doesn't, that tends to not inflame what can already be difficult for that person to hear, right? So ⁓ find that that, when I don't do that, ⁓ can come in with ⁓ energy that ⁓ ⁓ the conversation ⁓ in a much more difficult way. So to me, I find ⁓ to be the most helpful. Usually I don't have the guts Betsy Kauffman: Right. Yeah. Christine Courtney: to have an honest conversation if I don't have my backup ready. So I know I'm gonna be ready with that specific because if you, if I go in, you I grew up temping. My first temp job ever was, you know, I worked in HR at Cushman and Wakefield. And so I learned ⁓ many tricks of the trade then, but I know the first thing I was taught ⁓ you you cannot ⁓ ⁓ it's your attitude or you're unprofessional or it has to be based in behavior. So that was kind of, Betsy Kauffman: Right? Yeah. I'm just going to go at it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right? Right. Christine Courtney: ingrained into me, think those are really a great little four, almost like a checklist ⁓ yourself before you go in. Really And the people ⁓ get good it, and I ⁓ always say doesn't necessarily become easier, it just becomes that you, never, it's always hard. ⁓ But I the more you do it, the more you're like, okay, here we go. ⁓ And you them earlier instead of waiting. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. It's not easier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also if you need to find a peer that you trust and say, hey, I really need to have a conversation. I need to this conversation with somebody else. Can I practice? And if you don't have a peer, honestly, just saying it out loud if you're driving in the car or you're wherever getting ready in the morning, because sometimes we need to hear our voice and how we think we're going to articulate it. If you have that luxury, if you have the luxury to say, OK, today I'm going to go in and I'm going to have a hard, honest conversation. If you need to articulate it loud because when you can hear yourself saying it, like, okay, let me get this just right. How do I frame this? Because honestly, maybe the fifth tip is delivery is everything. And like sometimes that's what we maybe get wrong the most is like, how did it come out the way I wanted it to? It doesn't always have to be perfect. And you can almost say like, I'm going to be a little imperfect in how I say this, but I've got to say it right. But delivery is everything. And that's another thing that we coach on is how do we deliver, you know, our feedback and our thoughts with impact and intent. so I think, you know, the more you practice, the better. going to get at it as an as anything for sure. Christine Courtney: Yeah. you know, AI is a wonderful way to practice. ⁓ mean, you try putting your, know, having it record yourself and give you feedback. ⁓ know, even if you're embarrassed to practice with a person, I mean, a person is perfect because ⁓ going to give you facial expressions and everything that you'll start to read that code. ⁓ even if, you can't do it, ⁓ know, get in there with your, ⁓ Betsy Kauffman: Mm-hmm. True. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great tip. Maybe that's tip number six, or maybe it's tip number one. First, get your favorite AI agent and go talk to it and have it give you feedback on how you just delivered that message. It's funny, because I've just been starting to use that talk to AI, and it's like, ⁓ OK, that's pretty cool. So we're trying to learn all these different new tools out there, which is awesome. I love the technology and where it's going. Christine Courtney: We're just full of it. Yeah. And you have to tell it to be hard on you. Otherwise it will just, you know, blow smoke, which is also kind of funny. You're so clever. Betsy Kauffman: Yeah. ⁓ that was fantastic, Christine. You're amazing. You know, just like all the things that you've talked about in the past, you're the most clever person I've ever met. And just, you go for it. You've got it. Christine Courtney: ⁓ that sounds good actually, on a Friday afternoon. ⁓ right. All right. So, you know, this is something I'm always interested in, Betsy, when you look back at who you were growing up, right? ⁓ there ⁓ you did, like a role you had naturally, did you, ⁓ what, why are you who you are now? In other words, what were some things you did that you could still see were in you, ⁓ know, in fourth grade, in fifth grade, in sixth grade? ⁓ Betsy Kauffman: Right, exactly. Yeah, it's funny. Something hit me maybe a couple years ago because I was like, you know again I was trying to find my niche and what I want to do and who I want to work with I'm like, I really like the dynamic of teams. I just love teams. I really do I love I love watching a group of people come together and create something and growing up I played a ton of sports. I was a competitive swimmer. I was in gymnastics I was on I did field hockey I did soccer, you know, I was in a million different sports and As I started to get older I started to kind of opt out of the individual sports. and found myself gravitating more and more to like soccer and field hockey and my son plays lacrosse and I really loved just watching the dynamic of a team as opposed to just being an individual you know yes you're on a swim team right or you're on a gymnastics team but it truly is about your individual performance and how you're going to do as opposed to as a team how do we pull upon each other's strengths so I guess I'd never realized it but as I started to think about like wow I just love teams and I love team dynamics and I I it goes back to when I was on winning teams and losing teams and knew the role that I had to play and then I knew the role that other people had to play. I knew my strengths, they knew their strengths and it's just fun to watch it all come together and really appreciate what each person brings to the table. it one of these like, ⁓ I never really thought about why I love teamwork so much. And I think it's just because that's how, when I was thinking about growing up, I love being a part I love doing group projects. I'm that person. know people hate, I know kids are like moaning, ⁓ God. another group. I love them. I love them because you know one it's not always on you and you do get to lean on other folks and there's a lot of just different like opinions and mindsets so I just think that that's what's kind of brought me to where I am today and why I've really decided to get into the ⁓ do we get leadership teams to come together and how do we get them thinking and working together better. Christine Courtney: Yeah! And you know those kids, why they don't like those group projects is because they are constantly having to be forced into situations to have difficult conversations and honest conversations that they do not wanna have. And a lot of times they don't have the skills for it, but they're hoping, teachers are hoping that by putting them in those dynamics, they're learning way more than the... Betsy Kauffman: Yes. Yeah. Right. Christine Courtney: you know, it's not about what they're learning at the Civil War or the American Revolution or whatever it is they're in teams to work out. They're really at how do we work better together because the feedback from the corporate world years ago ⁓ we are not educating our kids to be able to ⁓ in teams. ⁓ so we changed it, but boy is it different. Boy, when... Betsy Kauffman: Right. Yeah. They're together. Right. To work together, yeah. Yeah. Christine Courtney: There are kids, like you say, little Betsy's that love it. And there are, there are other ones that are like, ⁓ God, like my son, you know, ⁓ my God, he, you know, he would dread it. You know, he's much more introverted, much more rather, much rather do that. But yet he's a great soccer team player. So, you know, it's just a matter of like, where is your, comfortability too. But I love that. I love imagining ⁓ sports ⁓ you being able to see that relationship, right. To team, real teamwork. That's great. Betsy Kauffman: Hahaha Yeah, yeah. ⁓ right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, it's fun. Christine Courtney: ⁓ Well, I love what you're doing. think it's great. Is there ways that people can get in touch with you if they're interested or ⁓ we'll put it in the show notes as well. ⁓ Betsy Kauffman: Thank you. Sure, yeah. Absolutely. So you can link in with me, obviously, about Zeke Hoffman. Our website is crossimpact.co ⁓ we have a free leadership alignment survey. So if you just go to crossimpact.co, it's going to pop up. It's 10 quick questions that'll give you a lot of insights ⁓ into like, how do we work as a leadership team? How do I show up as a leader? ⁓ do I think my peers show up as a leader? And then the last thing is I have a book coming out ⁓ probably very soon. And so it's called The Fix ⁓ and it's business fable about People are not broken, but your system is. So stay tuned for that. If you actually find me on LinkedIn, you'll see all the different posts about it. And then you can buy it on Amazon or Barnes & or Spotify or all the fun formats. So there's multiple ways to find me. LinkedIn may be the best. Just link in and reach out to me. So yeah. Christine Courtney: love it. Well, thank you and thanks, Betsy, for joining us on this episode. And thanks, everybody, for out there for listening. And we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. Betsy Kauffman: Thanks Christine.