Top Tier Leadership with Bob Woolverton

Speaker A: Welcome to the TechPro Unicorn podcast brought to you by RPI Consultants, a, uh, podcast about the magic of digital transformation through technology. Each week we'll cover topics related to erp, rpa, business transformation, leadership, healthcare and unicorns. Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of TechPro Unicorn podcast. I am your host, Michael Grace. Today we are talking executive level leadership. We're doing that with Bob Wolverton. Um, his story is really cool. He became, uh, or began as a numbers driven, data only style manager that we see a lot out there, uh, in the workforce with the not so affectionate nickname in the workplace. I love this of Robo Bob. Uh, at age 52 he went back to college, obtained a bachelor's degree and a master's degree both in management and leadership, which I also love because I say management and leadership is a science. So I love, I love your history. Uh, then after hard work and personal transformation, a uh, colleague declared on LinkedIn that he's one of the best leaders that he ever had the privilege of working for. He's been a leadership instructor for the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission for the past ten years. Um, Bob, thank you for joining us here on the podcast and sharing a little bit about all your lifelong, uh, leadership journey.

Speaker A: Well, thank you for having me, Michael. I'm very pleased to be here and excited to share some of my story and maybe pick up a few tidbits from you too. I've been listening to your podcast and got some valuable information there also. So this is exciting for me too.

Speaker B: I love it. For the folks that want to follow along at home, there is a. Bob's got a really great leadership, uh, training program out there and the website associated with it is top tier T I E R Leadership training dot com. So toptier leadership training dot com. Uh, if you want to follow along at home, a lot of the stuff that we're going to talk about is out there, uh, and available on the website if you want to poke around or we're using terminology that maybe you uh, don't understand or such. Uh, lots of great information out on the website. So talk, um, to me a little bit about, uh, how leadership just became your passion and your focus and kind of a culmination of all your experience because you've done other things besides just being a leader. Right? You've worked in criminal justice and such, but leadership is really where you, you focused.

Speaker A: Yeah, leadership is where I realized I was doing very poorly, you know, especially when you have the nickname robobob. That's a clue right there. Right. Red flag warning, you know, and so when I look back at my history. So I started going to leadership classes in the late 80s, you know, when I first got promoted to first level supervision. Because I truly believe that whenever anybody gets promoted, they want to do a good job. And I was the same. I wanted to do a good job, I just didn't know how. But when I look back and I look at the classes that I attended back in the 80s, well, they all focused on planning, organizing, directing, controlling. Even though the title of the class was leadership. Well, we know those are management characteristics, you know, and you know, I'm a really good student, I was a really good manager because that's what the classes were telling me to do. And uh, but then it came to a point where I realized this is not leadership. And so I started reading, you know, some of the best selling leadership books. And then as I was doing that, just by accident, I would have, you know, casual conversations in the lunchroom or the water cooler with colleagues that were also reading leadership books, uh, again, trying to get better. And then we started sharing ideas that, hey, we should start a, uh, workplace leadership book club, which is what we did. And I think we probably had 12 or 15 people that, you know, wanted to be better leaders. And we're reading these books and discussing them and most importantly on how to apply them in our everyday work life. And uh, this went on for well over a year. And it was interesting because I remember one day when one of, um, when we were starting to walk into one of the book club meetings, one of the guys in the group, he said, you know, Bob, he goes, leadership is just relationships. Now at the time I thought that was so profound because it perfectly summarized the previous 10 or 12 leadership books we had read because they all focused on that leader follower relationship. And I thought that was the perfect summation. But since then I have found while the leader follower relationship is important, it is not leadership. And that's where I get frustrated because when I speak in my leadership classes, people are focused on what they've seen in, um, leadership books on that relationship. But leadership's about leading. You know, where are we going? What's going to change? What's going to be different in the future? And so that's what got me started. And I had one opportunity. So I'm going to do a little shout out to Dr. Dale Henry, lives in Tennessee. He was actually out here in the greater Seattle area speaking. And uh, of course it was a one day seminar called Leadership Under Fire. And like I Said anything that had the word leadership, I was there. Now I will say, I will tell you, Dr. Dale Henry is a fabulous storyteller. He is so entertaining. But he said two things that day that caught my ear. And he said, if you don't have your degree, you may be closer to obtaining it than you think. And if you don't get your degree, you're leaving money and opportunity on the table. Well, both those things caught my ear and I'm like, Dr. Henry, tell me more. Four weeks later, I was enrolled in college, back to age, uh, 52, you know, working on my bachelor's degree, got my bachelor's degree done, immediately turned around, got my master's degree, did a 24 month program in 15 months and both of them were in management and leadership. And that's where I truly learned about what leadership really is. About basically changing the direction of an organization and inspiring people to get on that journey with you and creating that synergy where everybody gets excited about what they're contributing to. And that's where it all started for me. And then I started teaching leadership classes. I wound up writing a book and um, I actually need to update the book, do a second edition now. So that's kind of a brief synopsis of my decades long journey.

Speaker B: I love it. Uh, you know, I love it. I told Bob when we first got on the call, I brought up the website and I said, I love anyone who talks about leadership that uses the word inspire. Because there's so much, I think people, you know, a people become first line supervisors and now they're in management and, and they have no idea what to do, right? And so you get called management. So you start executing as a manager, right? You go, okay, I got to do my quarterly reviews, I got to do my 90 days, I got to, you know, ah, and you get all these tasks, right? And you manage project management, you manage tasks and things and you think, okay, I'm a manager and I'm successful because I'm accomplishing all these tasks. I'm checking the list off. That doesn't make you a leader. To me. You can be a manager without being a leader, right? A leader is someone who inspires. A leader casts a vision. I always say, you know, my job is to paint a picture that inspires folks and moves company and processes and change and people. Um, talk to me about just a little bit about that word inspire and the value of that in leadership.

Speaker A: Well, you know, one of the things that I, that I like about the classes that I teach at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training center back when we used to do it in person, before COVID was on Friday afternoon when we're handing out the certificates where people were so inspired to go back to their organizations and create change. And that's what inspired me to keep teaching the classes. But I also look at. Let me take you back a little bit. So everybody's probably familiar with the Gallup poll that was done in like 2013 about that, uh, showed 50% of people quit a bad boss. They're not quitting the company, they're quitting a bad boss. Right? Well, there was another company I was like, 2017, 2018, did a similar survey with twice the many of the number of people in the survey. And that number had actually gone up to 57%. But the thing that I found interesting about that survey was another 30 plus percent wanted to quit their bad boss. They just hadn't done it yet. So in totality, you, you know, over 80% of the people either have or want to quit a bad boss. And I'm like, where's that disconnect? It's that 8020 rule, right? Well, and that related to me because in my career, I worked for five bosses and they were all great, charismatic people. They had the interpersonal relationship part down perfect. But one of those five, the 20%, was a phenomenal leader because he had a vision of, uh, what, how he was going to change the organization, a new direction that we were going, and he got everybody inspired about where we were going going, and everybody was so motivated. But it wasn't so much how much the paycheck was, it was what we were accomplishing, you know. And I remember, you know, we, we even had workout competitions and so on, and we had sweats with the name of our organization on the sleeve and down the pant leg. You know, we'd be out jogging through town and stuff because we were proud of our organization and we were so inspired. And so that's where I see that 8020 rule. You know, it's. I, everywhere I go, it seems like on the leadership aspect, there's 20% of the leaders that, that are phenomenal leaders because they have that, that vision that they can articulate. So in my classes, I use the example of, you're going to build a custom home. Generally you have an, uh, architectural rendering of what that home looks or is going to look like. So everybody that shows up on the job site, all the trades can say, oh, this is what we're building. This is what I'm contributing to. And they can envision the final product. Right. Well, a vision statement's the same way. It's that, uh, architectural rendering just drawn with words. So when people read the vision, they get the same picture in their head. And when it is an inspiring vision that, uh, resonates with their heart and soul, that's when they are inspired to create their contribution to, you know, building, basically translating that vision into reality.

Speaker B: Uh, I love it. I think, you know, no one teaches, even though. Right. I have a. Similar to you. Right. I have a bachelor's in business with a focus on management. I have a mass. An MBA with a concentration in management and leadership. Right. That didn't equip me to be a great leader. Right. That equipped me to understand a business environment, to understand the value of all my resources, the most valuable being being human resources. Um, but that, that inspiration, right, that. That wasn't taught in college. Nobody in college, I didn't have Inspiration 101 or Vision 102 or, you know, well, in the master's program, I guess it would be a 300 series class. But, you know, it's. It's. It's a learned skill that's post academia. Uh, and it's mostly learned, like, I'd love to know, like, where you got your inspiration, you know, or learned about inspiration. Because for me, it was watching great bosses that I had, and I was like, ooh, this person did a really good job of telling us where we're all growing towards. Right? They created that inspiration and then they motivated us along the way. And sure, they might tap us a little bit if we needed to get back in line or whatever, but it was really more positive than negative. Um, and it was learned for me post academia, even though I have all this academic work and management and leadership, uh, I'd love to hear where you kind of got the take on inspiration.

Speaker A: I would say probably very similar to you watching great leaders. When I look back and that one, that one out of the five, that was so inspirational. And, you know, looking back on how he did it, how he got everybody so inspired by that vision. And then I look at, you know, some of the big success stories you, uh, know throughout our country, you know, and when you're. I think what is really inspiring for people is when you convey the importance of what they're contributing to. I mean, if every business is filling some sort of need, otherwise they wouldn't have a customer base, you know, so when you're fulfilling a need that's important to you, that resonates with your heart and Soul. That's where I say, you know, in our industry, we know my law, when I worked in law enforcement, we didn't have people that wanted to be architects come in to be police officers because that doesn't resonate with the heart and soul. You know, they're about building big things and, you know, big buildings and so on. But the people that have a service heart, you know, whether it's police, fire or, you know, whatever sort of service, and that our message of what we're doing in our community resonates with their heart and soul. That's the people that we want. And then as the employer, we've got to create the environment that stimulates that. And we do some of that through the interpersonal relationships, through building the trust and um, conveying the idea that as the leader, as the supervisor, I'm responsible for your success. You know, that's where you ah, know particularly. And uh, I see it in private sector too, where people get promoted and they go, oh, I'm in charge of such and such. I go, let's change that mindset. You know, you're responsible for the outcomes and you're responsible for the success and you're responsible for the welfare of the people in your assigned scope of influence, whether that's at first level supervision or you're at the CEO and it's the entire organization and we start changing that mindset and it doesn't happen overnight, but when you stay that course, in essence that's your moral compass, is that I'm responsible for your success and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Uh, that's where the inspiration, because that's where the trust comes from. You know, so when, when people trust that you've got their back and to me, and when you do that, it's for me personally, that's so inspiring. When you see others that you've, you know, basically led along the way and they succeed, you know, so there's inspiration on both ends that way. I mean, it's a great thing.

Speaker B: I love it. Yeah, I always use the term. My phrase is I have the privilege of serving right, because there is nothing greater than, uh, being honored to lead a group of other human beings. Um, and then taking the time. You know, I had one team that was, I had 175 people that reported up to me and I took, you know, 15 to 30 minutes a quarter to meet with each of them, uh, just spread out over the quarter and they were all blown away. They're like, no, no one at that level has ever. I'm like, well, how do I know what you're trying to achieve and what goals you have so that I can help you achieve them if I don't take the time to talk to you? Right. Um, and it just created such loyalty, right. I had less than 1% turnover over five years. Um, those people, you know, would have been lemmings, right? If I said, hey, we're going to jump off a cliff and we're all going together, they would have been like, yep, let's line up, let's go off a cliff. And that trust was built because I cared. You know, I took the time and I cared. Um, and so often we forget about that. We get so caught up in the task management of being a leader that we forget about, these are other humans. Look up, look them in the eyes, shake their hand, pay attention to them, be aware of their feelings and their emotions and be emotionally engaged with them to know their highs and their lows and celebrate the highs and comfort them in their lungs. Right? Just like you would a friend or member of your family. And, um, oftentimes I think we forget that. Sometimes we forget to emote along with them.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, similar to what you were saying, I started, um, when I was responsible for patrol operations. I was the captain and I started going to shift briefings every Friday morning at 6am well, the very first time I did, it's like the conversation stopped. The captain's in the room, you know, and the sergeant's like, captain, do you have a message you want to convey or whatever? Like, no, this is your shift briefing. You know, carry on. And it took some time where that became the norm and the expectation and it kind of broke down the barriers between us and management, you know, sort of thing. And so exactly where you get to know people and know what their needs are, and when you understand what their needs are and what their desires are, then you can basically, like you said, do a little rudder, tap and keep them in line with the organizational mission and they can still get fulfill their needs and their satisfaction that they're contributing to something bigger than themselves.

Speaker B: I can't imagine a more stressful. Right. I mean, law enforcement, especially in the day and age today, right. Those men and women are serving under such stress, and I can't imagine a harder job, right. Than law enforcement right now. Um, and to have the privilege of law leading, you know, those, those men and women and just the stresses that they're under as part of their job, um, we often hear, you know about just life stress that, that bleeds out of their job into their personal lives. Um, you know, and I think every industry obviously is a little different. Not saying that other industries don't have stressors, but um, how, how was it to uh, to have the honor of leading um, in that environment, you know, just with all those, the pressures of the job, the stressors, uh, to be a leader in that field.

Speaker A: I got to the point where I absolutely loved it. And I think as my leadership skills improved, I loved it even more because I was my focus. You know, like I say, my motto is lead, teach and inspire. And my focus was success of other people. And what I mentioned earlier about being responsible for people's success. If we would have a situation where, you know, as the on call commander, to get the call in the middle of the night and there was some incident that might involve a policy violation or whatever, and in essence there's an allegation that one of our people violated policy. My first thought to myself is what could I have done or what should I have done to prevent this from occurring? Is there something that I missed? Because obviously our intent is that our policies have a particular result or particular outcome and we didn't get that outcome. So as a leader, as a manager, what did I miss? And ah, so I started looking, where's my culpability in this? Rather than pointing the finger, which, you know, my industry and probably many others used to do the same thing, you know, they just point the finger at you like, why'd you make this mistake? And so on. I'm looking at the systems aspect is how did we fail this employee? What can we learn from this and how can we prevent this from happening again? And when I, when I started thinking about my role, then that way is, you know, basically that service mindset because I'm responsible for their success. And people understand that that's your mindset, that's where that trust comes from. And once you've got that trust, it's a very rewarding work environment.

Speaker B: You know, it's such a key thing. Uh, I've had employees not succeed, um, in that same feeling of. I, um, used to say when ah, an employee fails, the leader fails and the leader has failed the employee. And in some cases. Right. Where maybe an employee does something that's just grossly negligible. Right. Okay. That maybe isn't the leader's fault. Right. Somebody shows up intoxicated to work or something. Right. That's just a policy violation. You have to do what you have to do. And, um, you know, people go, well, that wasn't my fault. You know, blah, blah, blah. But I go back to that relation and that touch with a human being. Who knows what happened in that person's life. Were you aware, you know, were you sensitive to the fact that maybe that person was in a downward spiral for a, ah, while. Did you reach out? Right? Um, just being aware of the other humans. Forget the titles. And so many times, right? Like, I love your example of the captains. You know, in the briefing room, and everyone's like, oh, my gosh, the captain's here. Sometimes when we walk in, they'll be like, oh, a director's in the room. And I'm just like, hey, we're just people, right? We're just people. Can we. Can we cut the crap? Can we stop all this? You know, there's a time and a place, right? In a crisis situation, right? Everyone's looking at a captain to give direction and move forces around. Totally get that. That's different than, hey, we're just people. And I just want to hang out with you and understand and observe so I can contribute. Um, and there's times and places and when people realize, like leaders that truly want to serve, um, you have to be open to that. I think as an employee, you have to realize, oh, this person really does care. There's not an ulterior motive other than they're trying to learn about you so they can help you. Um, and hopefully, I hope everybody gets an opportunity to have a leader that's inspirational, that truly cares about you, because when you have that, it's such an amazing feeling as an employee to want to work for someone like that. And if you're not that as a leader, then look for training programs like Bob has, right? Improve your skills and get better. Uh, because it's your job, it's your responsibility, it's your privilege, and it's your honor. And don't screw it up, right? Um, because you affect other people.

Speaker A: You covered so much and that. Oh, my gosh. No, actually, so it's really amazing because, you know, you talk about. I think the vast majority of people want to do good. In a case, of course, there's the one oddball, malicious act sort of thing. But the vast majority of times I refer to it as, is it a good apple spoiling in a rotten barrel? You know, and so the culture that we create, so we have to keep in mind where are, uh, we are responsible for the culture. And I say in my classes that if you avoid having a crucial conversation with somebody because, you know, interpersonal conflict is hard. You know, we don't want to have, you know, those critical conversations with people. And it's easier to let little things go, but once you let a little thing go once and that behavior is repeated now, it's become your culture. And so it's much easier to have that crucial conversation. And one of the students in my class last week, he used the term a little, a little rudder tap, get them back on course. And I told him, I said, I'm going to use that from now. I love that phrase, you know, a little rudder tap, you know, before it becomes, you know, a big thing or it becomes your organizational culture, you know, and at the same time, like you were talking about is connecting with people. And that relates right back to needs theory where, you know, people need, you know, food and water and shelter to survive and then they want to be part of something, you know, that belongingness, their family and then, you know, part of the world, work group, what they're contributing and they move up to self esteem and so on through Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right, but are you also aware that when you see a change in behavior, that maybe something has changed and maybe that something is their spouse filed for divorce and they're about to lose their shelter and lose their custody of their children or something. And so now their focus is back down at the lower level where they might have been a super high performer. And if you're not staying connected with somebody to ask them, you know, and be empathetic to what they're going through, you know, and it's, it's vitally important to have those connections. And so, you know, I teach those sorts of things about, uh, I've got a section on what I call ethical decision making and influence in the workplace, which is keeping that culture clean and doing those little rudder taps. I also do a segment on theories, uh, of human motivation where we get into needs theory and equity theory and expectancy theory and goal setting theory and all of those. And there's, there's just not one, one bright line phrase or whatever that makes you a great leader. It's all of these things that combine together like a jigsaw puzzle. And when you can put all those pieces together, that's when you can develop fabulous leadership skills. But every, that's why I said what your little two minute submission there just covered so much of my classes.

Speaker B: I love it. You know, um, leadership is just such, such an important thing. Um, you talk about, uh, three little known yet primary Leadership responsibilities. And I want to, I want to kind of get some, some like, quick hits out there for folks that are like, okay, this is cool, I'm interested. Um, so. So people get promoted, they become a leader. Um, what are those kind of three primary leadership responsibilities and why are they important?

Speaker A: Okay, so I actually, I touched on them already, and to me they're, they're more like the foundation of leadership. Because as we talked earlier, to me, the main stay in leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. Having that inspirational vision in these three, there's not necessarily that inspirational vision, but when you first get promoted, if you do these three things, whether you get promoted to first, first line supervisor, middle manager, or executive, this is the good first step that'll get you going in the right direction. And one of the characteristics and one of the biggest complaints of people that quit their boss is micromanagement. And the reason that that comes about is because when we were the technician, the line level person, we were great being a technician, and that's why we got promoted. You know, and then like you were saying earlier, we kind of get thrown into this management role. We're not really sure what to do do, uh, we're not really sure how to be a leader and so on like that. And so micromanagement, very common because, oh, I used to do that job so much better than you do it. And even in some cases, oh, just step aside, I'll do it for you sort of thing. And so my very first rule is focus on results. And George Patton was famously quoted saying, don't tell somebody how to do something. Tell them what you want them to accomplish, and get out of their way. Their ingenuity will amaze you. And so that's my rule number one, once you get promoted, is focus on results. Whether it's the results of your team or if you're middle management, the results of your division, or if you're at the executive level, the results of the entire organization is focus on those results and lets people's ingenuity amaze you. Uh, the second rule is to again, change that mindset from I'm in charge to I'm responsible. And so rule number two is to adopt the mindset. I'm responsible for the success of the of or, yeah, I'm responsible for the success of the people, you know, that I've been assigned to, basically. And then number three is that I'm also responsible for their safety and welfare. So those first three things, if you change that mindset that I'm, um, Focusing on results. And then so again, rather than telling somebody how to do something, what's the result that you want? Tell them, I want to get this result. And you can even collaborate with them. Because that takes me to another rule I call the 12 foot rule. And if you've gotten promoted up to the executive level on what I call the ivory tower, and you've been there for any period of time, and even though you, at one point in your career, you were a great technician, I can tell you things have changed. And so if there's a problem down at that level, you might think, oh, you know, I know the answer. I know the perfect answer. No, get a person within 12ft of that problem involved in creating a solution, you know, and advising you on what that solution should be or could be. And I call that the 12 foot rule. So again, that creates employee engagement. When you go to somebody and say, hey, this is the issue that we're seeing from the 40,000 foot level, you know, why is this occurring and how can we do it better? I. They almost always have an idea on how it can be done better because they do it every day. And then when you get their opinion and especially when you implement it, they have ownership of that. They love that my opinion matters. In fact, I just heard the other day that the number one reason that people quit, and I haven't had time to verify this particular survey, was that people don't feel appreciated. And if we use that 12 foot rule and get them into the solution process and wow, my voice has meaning here at this organization.

Speaker B: I love that when you talk about appreciated, Red. I think sometimes we're like, oh, like I remember, my wife is a nurse, right? Um, so works for large healthcare organizations and they do Nurse Appreciation week and they give them a whole bunch of trinkets, you know, like, oh, here's a T shirt. Oh, here's this, here's that. And I'm like, wow, that organization doesn't understand that that's not appreciation, right? Like, appreciation is listening to your employees, making them feel engaged and informed, involved. Why are nurses unhappy? Why are they striking and walking off the jobs all over the place? Because they don't feel appreciated. They don't feel involved, they don't feel heard. And then I hear people, we do a lot of work in healthcare and I hear people go, well, there's all these staffing shortages and you know, uh, our nurses just need to work harder and blah, blah. Did you talk to them? Because they'll have ideas on how to cover shifts. They'll have ideas on how to make this work and that groundswell up. They're going to be totally bought into that execution versus if you go, hey, you need mandatory overtime, blah blah blah. They're going to be like, screw you, right? They're not bought into that because you didn't listen to them. It's so simple to have that 12 foot rule to engage with your employees, to listen and make them. That's appreciation where they feel part of the solutioning to the organizational problem. And if you're like, well I don't want to involve them right now, you have a real leadership problem. Your leadership team is just disengaged from the people that actually bring your organization to life. It ain't the leaders. Hate to tell you guys out there, all you C level folks, you're not the ones that are delivering on your organization's mission. It's all those people that you pay every two weeks that are out there in the trenches regardless of your industry. Those are the ones representing your brand. Those are the ones you need to inspire and those are the ones that are delivering on your mission.

Speaker A: Yeah, like your wife. I have a friend that's a nurse practitioner, works at urgent care and the Clinic closes at 11 o' clock at night and she's there until 2, sometimes 2:30 in the morning doing her charting because she has to finish her charting before she leaves. You know, how frustrating is that? You're supposed to be off at 11, but you've got to finish your charting and you know, so the organization is treating the person like a tool rather than a person, you know, and, and not involving. How can we make this better? No, we just, you know, we got to get as many patients through as we can. And if you have to stay late, tough. You know, it's, you know, you don't treat people like people and you treat them like tools. That's going to be a problem.

Speaker B: It's, it's um. I always look for tips and tricks, right? Like how do I, how do I give somebody a little something, right, that they can try to change their, their behavior? And a lot of it. Yeah, probably you m much like me, right? We read lots of leadership books and inspirational books and some of them are just too damn long and no one's going to read them. I follow John Gordon who writes little, little motivational books. He wrote a book that I just love called the Energy Bus and it's all about the bad apple, you know, and how do you seek out these negative folks in your organization? Uh, so that you have people in a positive environment pulling together and you get rid of the kind of the negative naysayers. And then something you touched on, uh, I'd like to add, like, make the right hires. Right? Get the right people on your team that are bought into what the organization is doing, what you're trying to do. It's so critical. If you get the right wrong person in there, it just sours that group and it becomes really hard for you to try to change somebody. Just like you shouldn't get married to somebody in the hopes that you're going to change them. Shouldn't hire some employee in the hopes that you can somehow magically change them. Uh, and a book that I love is called you can't send a duck to eagle school, meaning a duck will always be a duck. A duck will never be an eagle. Even if the duck goes to Eagle School, there's still a duck. Um, so, you know, make the right hires there. Um, how important is that? We talked a little bit. You touched on culture. How important is, you know, that that environment that the employees exist in and, you know, the culture, the positivity, the, you know, the sour apples. Like, how important is that to the success of the leader?

Speaker A: Well, I think it's everything. And so it's interesting because I started when I first started doing the segment of my classes on theories of motivation. I got invited to speak at a couple of, um, associations around the region here. And it was all I would talk about is I would just ask the open question, is, is it the responsibility of the employee to come to work motivated to put in a good day's work, or is it the responsibility of the employer to create an environment that stimulates motivation? And, oh, my gosh, the discussion is phenomenal. We have great discussions off of those two opposing opinions.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: But what you were saying is getting the right person on the right seat on the bus is the first step. So in your recruitment processes, you got to make sure you're getting the right person. But then I think then the greater burden is then on the employer to create that environment that stimulates that motivation. And the example that I'll use for that is if you take an old analog clock and turn it over and open up the back, you see all these cogs, wheels and springs.

Speaker B: And.

Speaker A: But the mission of the clock is to display the time of day. And all these cogs, wheels and springs have a completely different role, but they all interact. And if any one wheel, cog, or spring doesn't do its job, the whole machine comes to a grinding halt. And that's where it's important for people to understand what they're contributing to. And I use the analogy I don't. And this might even be folklore. I don't know if it's really true. But the story has been going around for a long time. Remember when President Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon? Well, at that time, that was so challenging. The metal materials that we needed to even build the spacecraft hadn't even been invented yet. So we had to invent new materials, even make the spacecraft. But one day, President Kennedy was touring NASA and he comes across this, um, employee that's wearing his NASA ID badge. And he asked the gentleman, he goes, so what do you do here at NASA? And the man was so proud because the President of the United States was speaking to him, and he held his chest out proudly and he says, sir, I'm helping to put a man on the moon. That man's job title was janitor. And even though he wasn't an engineer, he wasn't sitting at the point into the rocket or pushing the launch button. He knew his contribution was as important to keep the workplace safe, clean, and that that was his contribution. He was proud of that contribution. And I think sometimes in our work environments, sometimes we lose track of that. We have people that have the roles that appear to be exciting, and then we have the clerical roles, but those clerical roles are on our payroll because we can't do our mission without them. And we have to keep people connected to that bigger picture of what. Of what the organization is accomplishing and what they're contributing to. And that's where that environment, that's where, uh, the leadership part comes from, is keeping those people engaged in the vision of what we're aspiring to accomplish or aspiring to become as an organization. I mean, when you look at organizations like Apple, I mean, and the. I mean, every product they build, they build with the mindset that we are going to make people's lives better. We're changing the world in that way, you know, and the contribution and the fact that even in their recruitment videos, they say if you come to work at Apple, that means you're the best of the best or you have the ability to become the best of the best. Talk about employee appreciation, you know, and, uh, if we thought of our employees that way all the time, they would love coming to work. They wouldn't be coming for the paycheck, they'd be coming for the environment. And what they're contributing to that intrinsic

Speaker B: motivation you know, I had a guest that. That just said something. We were talking about user design and user experience. And he said something that I, uh. It just caused me to pause. And he said, Apple, Tesla. Tesla's not a car company. Apple's not a technology company. And I was like, what? And he said, apple doesn't sell technology products. Apple sells a user experience. Right. Tesla doesn't sell cars. It sells the inexperience of owning a Tesla. And I was like, whoa. And it just kind of caused me to pause. And it's that Steve Jobs bigger thinking, right? It's, we're not designing how do we make the best headphones. We're designing how do we provide the best experience to our consumers. Um, and it's just such a paradigm shift. And so that bold thinking about what are we trying to do as an organization? When you're a leader and you're trying to cast that vision, really think about, are we creating a vision that motivates janitors to feel like they have a part? I used to stop and I, uh, worked in a really large healthcare corporate center, and I'd always stop and talk to, uh, the janitors, right? The people that were cleaning that came in in the afternoons and just, hey, how are you doing? Whatever. And people were always like, wow, you, like, are talking to the lady who, like, cleans the. And I'm like, right. Her name is so. And so, um, here's her story. And, like. And she's important, right? Because it keeps the center going. Um, and she felt so connected to the mission. You know, she had been there for years. She retired finally. But, um, creating those visions and casting that, like, larger motivational moving is so important.

Speaker A: Yeah. I have to apologize. I don't know if you can hear it. I've got contractors working outside my house.

Speaker B: Oh, that's fine.

Speaker A: I don't know if you can hear it. It sounds like there's a jackpot right now, you know? Uh, and of course, you know, I contracted with them, like, six weeks ago, and of course, yesterday is the day that they decide to show up.

Speaker B: I love it.

Speaker A: So I apologize for that. But, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's making that connection with everybody. And. And I say in my classes that the person's on the payroll because somewhere in history, somebody had to do a sales pitch saying, we need this position. We have to have it. You know, we have to fund this. We have to spend money on this position. So obviously it's important, or that sales pitch would not have occurred. You know, somewhere in history to get them on the payroll in the first place.

Speaker B: I, uh, love it. You know, we talked a little bit about, uh, you know, we're in the Great Recession. Not recession, the great resignation. The great, um, you know, people are leaving jobs, changing jobs. There's all this movement around careers. Um, and you had some great statistics around employee dissatisfaction with quitting their boss and such. What are some of the employee complaints? Right. Like, I spend a bunch of time watching people move jobs and do all this stuff, and I just don't understand it. Right. And I'm fine. I totally agree. If you're unhappy in your job, go find something that makes you happy. If that's a company change, great. If that's a boss change, great. If that's a career change and you're going to retool and reskill and go do something else, great. Whatever makes you happy. Don't live your life miserable in some, some job. But what, what are kind of the, uh, the complaints that you're. That you hear about why people don't engage or don't like their jobs.

Speaker A: So 80% of the complaints that I've heard, and even colleagues who have done surveys through their classes, you know, for decades that have, you know, since retired, they've had the same exact result. So really, things aren't changing. And that number one complaint was micromanagement, you know, and I even hear that at cocktail parties. You know, I hear about micromanagement in the workplace and so on. Uh, the number two issue is lack of direction. Those are the top two complaints. And then just last week I heard there was the third that we mentioned earlier is not feeling appreciated.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I still, I still have to verify, uh, that survey, but it totally makes sense. But yeah. So, you know, for the last 10 years, I've been working off the top two complaints or micromanagement. And again, that's that technician that gets promoted and hasn't made that transition to leadership yet. And that's where, if you focus on results that will prevent the micromanagement aspect and then, uh, providing direction and even at the division level or even at the team level. So I'll give you an example. So at the division level, I got assigned one time to patrol operations. So I had been, I think, investigations, maybe administration before. So I get assigned to patrol operations. First thing I'm trying to do is assess the health of this division. So I meet with my first line supervisors individually and I asked them go as a division. Were we successful last year, yes or no? And what are you using as a measure of success? Well, every one of them said, yes, we were successful last year. Okay, what are you using as a measure of success? They were so far apart. I mean, I had one sergeant, really high level thinking sort of thing, and then another one, yeah, we were successful because all my people got to go to the training they wanted to go to, you know, and so in essence, what that told me, they weren't getting direction. And in that absence of direction, they will fill in the void with they, with what they think they should be doing. But everybody was rowing in a different direction. So that's why I realized it. Being the new, being newly responsible for this entire division, My first responsibility was to provide direction so that we're all rowing in the same direction.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, so many times, um, we do a lot of organizational change management and I'll start with the leadership and they'll, they'll tell me everyone in our organization knows what this project is about. And I'm like, wow, that's, that's a bold statement. So I, what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk out of this boardroom, I'm going to go, uh, two, three floors down. I don't even know what department is there. I don't care. I'm going to walk, you know, three cubes in on the left hand side. I'm going to ask that person, do you know what the Matrix project is? And you're telling me they're going to give me, um, they're going to understand? Oh, yeah, absolutely. We've done a lot of communication, but I said, I'll be right back. Walked out of the boardroom and everyone was like, what the hell is this dude doing? Walked down and did exactly what I said. I walked over, I said, do you know what the Matrix project is? And they're like, no, what's that? I said, wow, thank you very much. Have a great day. Went up to the boardroom and said, that person whose name is so and so has no idea what you're talking about. And they said, but we put out this and we put out that. I'm like, just because you communicated doesn't mean that the message was received. Right. You had no feedback loops to say, you know, but we sent emails. Well, maybe that person doesn't check their email or they delete all the corporate emails because you send 50 a day. And they're like, oh my God, not another corporate nonsensical email. Right. Um, that, that communication, I think that direction, um, is so hard. Right. If you give it Too high. People are lost, right? You. You inspire, but don't direct. So then people are like, okay, that's great, but I don't know what to do. If you do too much of it, it becomes noise, right? It becomes annoying. It could become micromanagement. Um, if you're like, here's the six tasks I need you to do, and when I need you to do them by, okay, well, you're giving them no leeway. That's micromanagement. You're in their business, right? So somewhere between too much and not enough, there's a sweet spot. And I think it's really hard to. As leaders who are, you know, we have a million other things that we're trying to do to remember to find that sweet spot and then to look at them. Watch body language. Look at, like, is that message received? Are they empowered? Are they directed? Are they enabled? And to let them go do the magic. Right. And that's hard as a leader.

Speaker A: Yeah. I talk so much about feedback loops, and again, that's focusing on results. And so, you know, like you were saying with this, you know, this, the Matrix project. Oh, everybody knows. Well, how have you verified that everybody knows? What's the feedback loop on that? You know, I use the example that, you know, obviously, in my industry, when we write a policy, we write a policy expecting a particular. That is going to have a particular result. Right. You know, a particular outcome. And so I use the analogy because, you know, in law enforcement, they. All these people, through their career, they've had to qualify with their firearm. You've been trained on how to use a handgun. You know, how to line up the sights and squeeze the trigger and. And the mechanics of hitting the bolts. Bullseye. And yet, if you go to the gun range and you do all the mechanics that you've been trained and pull the trigger and then turn around and walk away and never get feedback from the range master if you hit the bullseye or not, you'll never know. But then if the range master's. Whoa, whoa, wait a second, boss. You didn't quite hit the bullseye on this one. Well, then you can take what you've learned. Okay, why did I not hit the bullseye? Make some adjustments, and then, uh, again, go through that feedback loop from the Rangemaster until you finally hit the bullseye. Well, it's the same thing when we. We intend to hit the bullseye when we send out a policy or some communication. But if we don't have a feedback loop, we'll never know if we hit the bullseye you know, and that's so critically important. And we've all probably been in that organization where a new policy comes down and, and as the line worker, you look at it and go, what the heck are they thinking? You know, this, this isn't even based in reality, you know, sort of thing. So if you don't have that feedback loop, you know, at the C Suite, you think you're going to be great. Everything is going to be perfect. And the line levels going, oh, they're crazy, crazy. They're so disconnected. And a perfect example is that show Undercover, um, Boss. How often do you see people from the C suite go undercover and they find out what's going on? On the line level is not anything of what they thought was going on. It's not either consistent with franchise policies or whatever, you know, and then they've got to make all these corrections and so on. And that's a perfect example of not having a feedback loop where you think everything is going according to plan and something totally different is going to on in real life.

Speaker B: So, so many leaders are just out of touch with that lowest level or out of touch with their customers, right? Like, they don't, they don't have any ways to. They're designing products or services or direction, and they don't have any idea what the customers are thinking. Saying they don't do any focus groups or they leave it up to leadership at a lower level and they're just not involved, right? They're kind of out of touch. It's really hard to inspire and inspire growth and such when you're out of touch with what's currently happening. Um, and what are people asking for? Right. The easiest way to grow a business or a company is, uh, to develop something that your customers are asking for. Um, but if you don't have that feedback loop, uh, you're kind of flying blind. And then you develop product X. And what they really wanted was product Y. And you're like, why aren't they buying product X? Well, you never asked them what they wanted. They would have told you they wanted product Y. It would have been really easy to build product lines and product X. Uh, so out of touch. It's kind of crazy. Um, I want to, uh, to kind of ask what, you know, what's the most important thing of being a leader? Right? There's. We've covered kind of all these aspects and being a leader is hard, right? I mean, I want to, I want to just put that out there. Like, uh, Bob and I are, you know, over 30. Uh, so, you know, um, thank you. We speak from this authoritative or informed position, but it's been a lifelong journey to get there. Um, it's not, it's not easy to be a great leader. It's something you have to actively work at, constantly building and improving and reading and learning. And if you're not willing to take that journey, please don't become a leader. Right. Please go do. I don't care what, but do not dishonor the profession of leadership because it's such a great honor and privilege to serve and to lead. Um, but I want to ask what, what do you really think? You know, if you had to pick one thing out of all the stuff we covered, what's a, ah, great trait of, uh, being a leader?

Speaker A: Well, at the, uh, risk of sounding redundant, Vision. Having a compelling vision. Because when we get new leaders, the reason a, uh, new leader is usually installed most of the time is because we want change, whether it comes from the board of directors, whether it comes from the employees. And then we get that new leader and we're all optimistic, okay, things are going to get better and things are going to change. And then so often with the passage of time, we realize, no, this new leader is just version 2.0, uh, of the old leader, and the disappointment sets in. And so that idea, and that's where I think, you know, so much of leadership training really misses the mark, is we don't talk about the vision of basically what do we aspire to accomplish or aspire to become as an organization and how to translate that into reality. You know, and there's, you know, there's different ways to communicate the vision about, you know, how things can be so much better. Or you can also look, uh, at when, well, if we don't change, what's going to happen? You know, are we sinking? Is the building on fire? You know, sort of thing. And so we can, you know, look at it from, from either way. But ultimately we want our leaders to set a new direction. And generally, a lot of times that's why the board of directors puts a new CEO in place. Because they want change. They want something to be different. And it's the leader's responsibility to get that done. So the definition I use of leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality, have that vision of the future and reverse engineer that and figure out how we're going to make it happen, which is, you know, the, uh, change management aspect of it and, uh, and making that happen. You know, I was listening to your podcast, uh, recently on change management, you know, and I love so many of the things that I was hearing there because so many organizations need to hear that. When I, even when I talk about vision, people are just lost. I mean, you can go on their website. A lot of organizations don't even have a vision statement. Or if they do, it's not, it's not actually a real vision statement. It's just something they framed and put on the wall and they call it a vision statement. It's not to going guiding anything or not setting the direction for the organization. But I think, you know, for leadership, that's the number one thing. Because there have been great leaders that didn't have interpersonal skills. You know, we've all heard the stories about those. But like the one great leader that I had, he had the vision and he had great interpersonal skills. He was so charismatic. Everybody loved him. And when you blend those two together, when you can, when you can build that inspirational vision trust in the organization and charisma, you can't lose.

Speaker B: I love it. Yeah, turning vision into reality, that uh, that just, that just sounds so, so amazing. Right? It just uh, it almost sounds like, like fantasy land. Right? But it's, that's really the purpose. That's such a great definition of, of leadership. Taking a vision and turning it into reality. Um, Bob, you've got so much content out on your website, which I love. There's videos, um, talk to me a little bit about. I'm kind of intrigued. There's an executive leadership breakthrough session, um, which just sounds really impactful. What is that? Like, what does that do?

Speaker A: Well, that's where we really focus on how theories of human motivation, how systems in your organization and how vision and strategic planning all blend together to create that inspirational work environment. And that's why I say there's, there's not just one golden, um, um, remedy. In essence, it all blends together. You've got to understand all these, I mean even systems in your organization, if you've got employees that are doing a particular process and they're going, this is stupid. M and they want to, and they have to toil in that, uh, day after day after day and they go, this is so stupid. It's such a waste of time or whatever the red flag warning is. And we as leaders don't understand how to recognize those red flag warnings. Use the 12 foot rule and get it changed and make it more efficient or make it better. I mean, they all play a role together. So in that executive, uh, breakout session, that's what we focus on is basically how to bring all these pieces together, uh, to basically get the ball rolling and get things started.

Speaker B: I love it. Every organization should, you know, regardless, should get coaching, you know, for leadership growth. Um, it's really hard to be a leader in an organization and really take an honest look at your effectiveness, uh, your growth. And it really helps. I think we've, through my career, almost every organization I've been at, we've had external uh, consultants or coaches come in, uh, even if it's just, you know, at a leadership retreat or conference. Right. And we've learned so much and maybe they're an author and they have a book that helps us grow or you know, we can do a book club after that and kind of follow on and study. Um, it's really cool. And you offer very similar, uh, types of services as well. So, you know, for the listeners, if you're like, wow, this is cool. Bob and Michael, you know, kind of, uh, riffing on leadership, um, Bob's available to do those types of things to conduct seminars to help your organization, uh, in one on one. He also does some events. So check out the website on top tier leadership training. If you're a leader, please, please, please continue uh, your journey on education and self growth. Uh, you owe it to yourself. You owe it to the people who you have the honor of, uh, leading and the privilege of serving. Um, Bob, thank you for taking the time, taking the time out of your day, uh, sharing your story, uh, sharing all the content, uh, helping us define what leadership is, the vision, the reality journey, uh, and for what you're doing for both the members of uh, men and women of law enforcement and through your work at the uh, training commission. So uh, thank you.

Speaker A: Hey Michael, thank you for having me. And I also want to thank you for doing the podcast that you do. I've listened to some of your podcasts and I've still picked up golden nuggets of information. You know, it's part of being a lifelong learner and uh, and so keep doing what you're doing too. It's obviously, uh, probably helping way more people than you ever realize. Pick up those golden nuggets to help them be more successful in their leadership or um, change management, um, pursuits.

Speaker B: Appreciate that.

Speaker A: Thanks for joining us this week on the TechPro Unicorn Podcast. Make sure to visit our website at www.techprounicorn.com where you can subscribe to the show and catch our latest blog articles while you're at it. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on itunes. Be sure to tune in next week for our next episode. Remember, unicorns represent the magic of digital transformation that occurs when business process is enabled with technology.