S4e03 Decoding Your Blindspots with Martin Dubin

Host: What makes a great leader? Think of the best leader you've ever had. What makes them so memorable to you? What did they do for you? Did they believe in you before you even believed in yourself? Did they take a chance on you when you weren't ready yet? Did they trust you even when you hadn't earned their trust? Did they have your back even. Even at personal risk to themselves? Want to know why they did it? Then you're at the right place. In this podcast, we dig into the why through deeply personal stories of great leaders who are powered by their purpose, anchored in their authenticity, and connect who they are to how they lead in good times and bad, at, ah, crossroads and crises, who challenge status quo and existing paradigms that and do different things differently. It will make you wonder what would you do if you faced a similar challenge? Join us in reimagining the leadership of the future with me, your host, Shahana Banerjee, CEO of Just Human Leadership Advisors. We all have blind spots, but we don't usually know what they are, how they hold us back, or how to overcome them. In. If you've ever felt stuck, this one's for you. Join me as we take a scientist approach to our mind and decode the blind spots that prevent us from achieving our goals with Marty Dubin. He's a clinical psychologist, a serial entrepreneur, a business coach, and author of the bestseller Blindspotting. He's on a mission to empower people by unlocking their self awareness. Welcome, Marty. Uh, so thrilled to have you on our podcast today.

Marty Dubin: Thank you, Shahan. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Host: Oh, I am as well, I am as well. Let's dive right into the deep end. You founded a multimillion dollar healthcare company, right? It had a great trajectory of growth, amazing growth, amazing prospects for about 15 years till it didn't. What happened, Marty?

Marty Dubin: First, I was a clinical psychologist and then founded this company with, uh, three partners. We manage the behavioral health benefits for large insurance companies. So we were at risk for the financial and the, uh, care of everybody, all the people that were all their subscribers. So, um, we would bid on a contract and then based on their past history, and then we would manage, uh, all the care, pay the hospitals and doctors, all of that. Um, and so we did that, um, for probably close to 14, 15 years or so, grew across the country, number, um, of locations, couple hundred employees, and we were doing well. Um, and then we had a contract. It was one of our largest ones. Um, there was a new contract and we realized after about three months into the contract that we were losing money. Oh, my goodness, hand over, you know, fist. Um, and we realized, and it was enough, that it would have been an existential threat to the entire company. And what we realized was that we had. They had given us inadvertently bad data, um, to bid the contract of their historical data on their costs and their. And their utilization. Um, and when I look back on that, we got through it all, but it was a major, uh, drop down the value of our company and kind of limited our trajectory after that in some ways. And at the time I thought, well, that was kind of their mistake, and we had to figure out what to do about it. But looking back on it, um, I was the CEO of our company, and I can see two big mistakes I made that I wasn't aware at the time and really took a long time really to be aware. So I talk about blind spots in the book I wrote, and I talk about six of them, and I think there are two here that really came forward. So one was, I was the CEO. I was responsible. I signed the contract. Like, why did I sign a bad contract that had. Even though, you know, somehow I can't just say it was their fault in giving us bad data, I should have realized they'd given us bad data or something. Right, right. And when I look back on it, my identity was still, quite frankly, as a psychologist with a business. I mean, it was a fascinating business, and it was in my area of expertise. If my identity would have been a businessman with psychological knowledge, I think I would have built up our actuarial department better than I had in retrospect, I would have done more due diligence on the data. Um, I'd have just been sharper about all of that. M. And that's a very subtle difference, but a huge difference in your identity. Um, and then the other blind spot I had at the time was, um, when, uh, it happened, I thought, hey, you know, we're. It was their mistake, but, you know, it wasn't intentional. I'll just go talk to them about it.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: Um, and as a core trait, I think one of my traits, disagreeableness, I. And it serves me well, and I get along and I figure out ways to make things work. And I approached getting out of that problem that way initially. Um, and they kind of, uh, quite frankly, kind of almost shrugged their shoulders. Hey, like, we have a contract come to us in a year when the rates are up, and we'll talk about a new rate. And so in doing that, um, in approaching it in that kind of more agreeable way. I gave away leverage of our negotiating because my partner said, we've got to sue them. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. This is one of our core contracts. Why would we sue our own client? And he was right. Um, but that was not instinctual for me. And so by the time I got to the point, you know, after a month or something or so, that he was right, um, I had probably shared more than I needed to because we did end up suing them, and we had to negotiate out of that.

Host: Well, thankfully, it all ended well at the end. Right. Because you were able to sell it to Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. But what's really fascinating, I think, about your story, because it is such a great story that goes right to the heart of what a blind spot is and the impact it has. It sounds simple, but the impact is so profound. And so in this particular case, the fact that you identified yourself as a psychologist and not a business person really cascaded into behaviors across the entire business in some ways, I would think.

Marty Dubin: Correct.

Host: And your people certainly saw it. Right. Most people see our blind spots, but we rarely do.

Marty Dubin: And there were positive aspects of that identity. We had a more, quite frankly, more humane way of treating it because I understood deeply about the psychological issues.

Host: Right, yeah, absolutely. Fascinating. And thank you so much for sharing that story. Uh, that is deeply personal. I'd love to ask you a little bit about your previous career as a clinical psychologist. Right. So you were already a successful clinical psychologist, practicing for 14 years before you decided to take the leap as an entrepreneur. What is it that drove you to entrepreneurship?

Marty Dubin: I didn't really decide to be an entrepreneur. It kind of happened. Um, looking back, I enjoyed being a psychologist and. And helping people. And just people are fascinating and trying to understand we are all very complex and how to help people make changes. But I actually didn't like the job of a psychologist, of being in my office all day long and just opening my door every 45 or 50 minutes and ushering one person out and one person in. And, um, I. I was finding ways to get out of the office. Um, quite frankly, I kind of felt like the world was passing me by in some ways. Um, so looking back, I. And my family history is my father was a physician. My mother's family came from kind of small entrepreneurs, um, you know, stores and those kinds of things. And I think I like both of those. And so I was trying to find. I wasn't consciously doing this, but I was trying to find a way to bring both of those into, into my life and healthcare was changing. Um, and so I was curious about what's happening in healthcare and trying to manage care and thoughtful about what's needed and what's appropriate. And ah, employers were complaining about the costs. So I was curious about all that and found an opportunity and just kind of slowed my practice down and started to build the company up. And then there was a point where it was like, all right, I can't do both. I really have to decide which one am I going to do?

Host: Yeah. What's fascinating is you found a niche, certainly, but it's also such a full circle moment in some ways because it's like the best of both worlds in some ways and that it is entrepreneurship, but it is leaning into the area that you're truly passionate about, which is helping others.

Marty Dubin: Right, right, right.

Host: You're a serial entrepreneur, you've started multiple ventures. What is it about entrepreneurship that is so compelling for you?

Marty Dubin: I'm creative in terms of how I see opportunities and bring ideas together. And it's taken me a while to see that because I would say things in meetings at my company and in other places and people would kind of like, look at me like, and kind of with this curiosity, like, oh, I never really thought about that. And so I think that is a piece of being an entrepreneur is that creative, innovative, wanting to do something different, see possibility, um, rather than just status quo. And I am driven to that.

Host: There is a theme of helping people unlock, um, self awareness. Right. That runs right through your career from your days as a clinical psychologist to being an entrepreneur to, you know, now being an executive coach and now as an author as well. Why is that so important for you?

Marty Dubin: People are fascinating and we are all very unique and very different. And when you're a psychotherapist, you really realize that there's, you may have an understanding that this person's depressed or anxious or there's a trauma in their early childhood. And so there's some pattern there that, that I think about and the research and science has shown maybe what works in those cases. But you still have to be very creative with every individual person and treat each person uniquely. And so that fits for me. And I've found throughout my career, um, and the different things I've done and I think that I'm driven to kind of look for that uniqueness and that complexity where I have a bit of a blueprint. But I guess I'm building my own unique house from those blueprints, not just following them directly and that, that's uh, that's motivating for me.

Host: Are there some early pivotal experiences perhaps that shaped this idea?

Marty Dubin: My father was a physician. You can look at my initials, uh, and you can see where I was destined. I'm the oldest child, the son. And um, I did well in science and advanced courses and all that kind of thing. And when I got to college, I was going to be pre med. That just. I hadn't really thought about it. And then I had just a chance encounter with, uh, with someone, um, and I showed them my, uh, what I courses I signed up for. And they just simply asked me, is that what you want to be taking? And it was the first time I gave myself permission really to think about that. So maybe there's some, uh, um, sense of, uh, um, wisdom in that, of being able to recognize your identity. Um, maybe you just didn't, uh, choose that identity. The identity just kind of, uh, was a suit of clothes you put on, and they fit pretty well and you just kind of stayed with it. But only when really asking the why question, really those deep questions. And I find that I do that a lot. And in the work I do as a coach, um, people are coming in usually with a problem or something they want to be better at, and that's kind of the what or the how. And uh, I pretty quickly say that's interesting, but start to dig at the why, because that's really where the. Where the real answer lies.

Host: Yeah. You know, there is something really fascinating in what you're saying as well, which is that, you know, often when you talk to people about being a psychologist or being a coach or being in HR for that matter, I think people often assume that it is this warm and fluffy thing, you know, that you're like, you know, you're the shoulder to cry on and, you know, that kind of thing. But the fact is that I think our professions are a lot like, you know, being a scientist tinkering with the mind. Right. You're really trying to figure out what's happening, why, and then being able to find a productive pathway forward that helps the person achieve their goals. And so it is really not the warm and fluffy. It's actually hard work, which is really the nuts and bolts of how to live a better life. Right?

Marty Dubin: Yeah, that's well put. And it's, it's really melding the both of those. Right. I mean, it is an art. It is an art and a science. And the art part is that art of, of making people feel comfortable and having, um, a sense of confidentiality and a sense of trust and hope and empathy. But if that's all you're doing, then you're just a cheerleader. Um, and you're.

Host: That's right.

Marty Dubin: You know, in positive feedback, if you think about that scientifically, positive feedback says you're doing great, keep on going, doing the same thing. Yeah, well, people are coming to see you because doing the same thing isn't working. So negative feedback in a. Not negative in a judgmental way, but negative in a system way is self corrective. And so. Yeah, your point, that's the science part. It's very difficult. It's easy to sit down and talk to somebody and make them feel better when they walk out of the room. But I'm always asking myself, are we talking about what we should be talking about? Um, and if you don't have a bit of a framework, um, if you don't understand personality and understand the human change process, then you may have a great conversation, the person may smile and say, oh, I learned something. But they often don't make any changes if you're not really drilling in on what's really critical.

Host: Right, right. Very well said. As a coach, I see it actually often I see a lot of leaders who feel stuck, right. Sometimes they are stuck at a certain level. They are really trying to break through into the next level, but it's not happening. For some reason. Some leaders are stuck trying to scale their leadership, but they just don't know how to scale their leadership for the next level. Some have been laid off from the workforce, are trying to find their way back, but are stuck and not able to make that entry point. You know, some are just stuck in these really stressful work relationships. What's underlying all of it, I think, is that there's a unproductive pattern. You know, just like you talked about, there's an unproductive pattern that you keep repeating, right. And you know you're repeating it, but you don't know how to get out of it. Right. And so I see that, I think quite often and ah, at some point, right, in the coaching engagement or whatever, I'd ask, you know, what's really getting in the way? What's really getting in your way? And the answer is always myself. Right. We all have blind spots, but we don't often know what they are. Right. And so what are some clues we should look for, Marty, as we try to figure out how to decode our blind spots?

Marty Dubin: One of the big differences I realized in being a psychotherapist, working with patients and being uh, an executive coach is in the psychotherapy part, People, their life isn't working in a major kind of way, Right? You know, depressed, anxious, bad relationships, whatever it is. Um, and so what's getting in the way is really getting in the way. What m. Often happens, and you described it so well in those. All those examples with an executive is things are kind of like my own story. Things are going great until they're not right. And so it is often more difficult in some ways to figure out what is wrong. It's pretty easy to see what's wrong in the psychotherapy patient, but not in the coaching patient, because what's wrong is probably what did work before. And you just. All the examples you just gave were somebody got into a context that's different than their context before. Company needs to scale. Now I'm out of work. Now I have a new company or a new team or boss or whatever it is. And so the question to ask, um, that I think is a really. It could be a number of things, but one place to start is, what are your strengths? Um, and kind of in the. People start kind of smiling and talking about how good they are. Whatever it is, my tenacity is my strength, my creativity, my diligence. And then I'm thinking as they're saying that, how did that work? That probably worked for them in the previous job or previous situation. And so now why are they not able to scale? Now it's that strength that worked in the past isn't working in a scaling situation or isn't working in a go find new. Find a new job situation. And trying to figure out how they are continuing to probably overplay that strength. And instead, often it's the exact opposite. Like, you should be doing the opposite of what you're doing. Uh, something very different than one of your core strengths or a combination of your core strengths. So that would be the place to kind of get curious if you're stuck. It's like, okay, how has the situation changed? How's my context different? And how did my strength fit before? And is my strength not fitting now?

Host: Yeah. What, uh, other clues are there, Marty? And is there perhaps a story that

Marty Dubin: comes to mind to answer your first part of your question? Some people say, well, how do I really realize why. Why would my strengths be a problem? I say, all right, think of what your strengths are. Um, and usually some kind of adjective. I am conscientious, diligent, hard working, smart, whatever it might be. And I say, put the adject, Put the modifier. T o O in front of it. What happens when you're too creative? What happens when you're too diligent? You know, and usually they start to smile and say, well that's what my spouse tells me all the time, that I have to plan every detail of our vacation and why can't I be more flexible? And um. And so those really are um, often the kinds of little things that start to unlock some curiosity about that.

Host: Yeah. Your self awareness model has six elements. Right. So there's identity, there's behavior, there's trait, intellect, emotion and motive. Right. Since you are a clinical psychologist, I can't possibly pass up the opportunity to talk about motives. Right. Why do we really do what we do? So it's one of the, I think, more difficult ones as well.

Marty Dubin: Right.

Host: It's also probably the one that we lie to ourselves perhaps the most about. And so I'd love to know a little bit about what blind spots and motives looks like. And also if you have a story of a client that you'd like to share, that'll be great as well.

Marty Dubin: There are core motives, um, certainly in life, but you know, survival is a core motive, um, and there's core motives in business. Um, and then we all have lots of idiosyncratic individual motives based on our life history and genetics and all sorts of things. David McClelland, who was a psychologist half, um, a century ago now at Harvard, um, talked about power, affiliation and achievement as three core motives in work. Um, and I think. And those are very distinct from each other. Right. And I believe we all have set points on those, kind of like a thermostat. Um, you can move around your set point a little bit, but uh, it's core. So one place to start is to think about that, um, and think about how important to me is power, how important to me is achievement. Achievement is about getting the job done. Um, for the fact of your own self satisfaction. Um, it's not to please anybody else. It's like I want to get an A because I really want to get an A, um, or whatever it is. And affiliation is that interpersonal motive of connecting with other people and feeling that. Um, and the power motive is often about control over your own life, um, sometimes control over other people's lives. Um, money can be a measure of that because it gives more freedom in that kind of way. So start there, um, and think about where you are on those. And then one question to ask to kind of get a hold of how can that become a blind spot is whenever we're under Stress, everything shrinks. I mean, if you think about the core fight flight response, when your core motive is survival, at that moment, you're not caring, thinking about what you're going to make for dinner tonight or who's your best friend. You are focused on what you need to do right now to survive wherever one of those three motives, maybe you're much higher on affiliation than you are on the other two. When you're under stress, you're probably going to be seeking emotional interconnection, um, with other people. And maybe you're walking around the office and cheering up the team and thinking about all those different things to get the job done, when maybe that's not the best thing. You should, you should be doing some of that. But probably you need to be more balanced. Maybe some of you need to be closing the door in your office and, you know, going over the strategic plan a little more deeply and figuring things out and doing that achievement motive or a power motive. Maybe you need to be thinking about what you need to get control over to be able to really get to the, you know, out of whatever the stress situation is. Um, so that's one place for people to start, is to think about those three motives and, and think about times under stress and what did you do and what, you know, what do you kind of reflect back on as your, as your core. And then learning about what are other motives we have and your point about. It's hard to know really what motivates us. Sometimes we're very clear. Um, yeah, I know I'm doing this for this reason.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: Um, and it's never one. Usually there's several motives. Um, but you know, at some points, some rise above others. Usually emotion is kind of the royal road to your motive, if you will.

Host: Right, right.

Marty Dubin: And if you're feeling something really strongly, you walk out of a meeting and you're just really annoyed and irritated, um, and you're not quite sure why, you know, somebody said something and you felt bothered, then that's to start asking yourself, what, why did that bother me so much? Um, feeling frustrated, it means a motive is being blocked. It's not getting fulfilled. If you're feeling wonderful, it's probably means a motive got satisfied. And that's, uh, equally important, why did I walk out of this meeting? M. And I'm just so excited and just energized and I don't quite know what happened in the meeting that made me feel that way. Well, that's a good question to ask yourself.

Host: There's so many lessons in what you said. And, you know, one of the interesting sort of takeaways, if I think back, is that, you know, certainly you see all of these motives at the workplace very, very clearly. Right. Whether the person is aware of it or not, as the person receiving it, I think you're definitely. You see the impact of a lot of it. The real takeaway in what you're saying is that your motives may be unchangeable. Right. But how they show up.

Marty Dubin: Right.

Host: Uh, is not right. And so, for example, I think one of the motives that we see, see, which is perhaps the most corrosive one sometimes, is the power motive at work. Right. And what happens is that under pressure, what shows up is manipulation. Right. Especially when people feel powerless, people are in a survival mode, people are feeling insecure. That's the time m. When you see a high degree of manipulation in order to get what they want. Right. Or lying to be able to achieve the outcome that they seek. So you see a lot of those, the, uh, kind of decisions then that it powers. And just like we talked about earlier, it's that one blind spot then cascades into a number of behaviors, decisions, actions that have overall a corrosive effect sometimes on the organization and on your people. And people see it for what it is, but you just don't know that that's how it's landing on them.

Marty Dubin: You can always change your behavior. So maybe power is your core motive. Um, and power doesn't have to be a negative thing. It can be corrosive. But, you know, power is. Is like, I really want to get things done, and I want our company to be big and whatever it is and so on. Um, and. But you have a lot of choices in how you express that motive in your behavior. And some are more, you know, beneficial than others. Sometimes you need to be a wartime CEO, and sometimes you need to be a peacetime CEO. So sometimes you really do need. You know, that's what I learned in that situation where we had to sue the client. I mean, it was like, wait a minute, this is war.

Host: Yeah.

Marty Dubin: You know, I need to be different. Um, and I don't have to be, you know, horrible about that. But I need, you know, I can be moral and ethical, but I really need to do some things here. And you could say that to your people that report to you with self awareness, you can announce your motive as more powerful. And in such a. In a way you take away some of the sting, uh, of a more corrosive, as you said, uh, Right. M. Impact.

Host: Right. Is there A client story that comes to mind, Marty, where the blind spot was about motives and how were you able to help this person.

Marty Dubin: So I was working with a, uh, I did a lot of work in Silicon Valley with entrepreneurs and, um, founders. And this one gentleman was, uh, had been a physician, um, very accomplished, um, and started a company and got well funded. And his people described him as both humble and arrogant. That seems like a possibility, right? That seems. That can't be. And if you look at lists of traits, you should be one or the other. When I first met him, I saw the humility part, um, very much because that's. I think that's probably more the core of who he is. Whenever things got. They were doing some very breakthrough kind of technology, uh, scientific technology, and basically trying to do things that hadn't been done before in medicine. When he saw, when he got into situations where that was happening, and he really got into the fact that I need to solve this problem, um, and he put too much responsibility on himself, quite frankly. He wasn't using his team as effectively. Um, he became more of a doctor than a CEO in terms of identity. He's asking the people, tell me what's going on? Why isn't this working? And so he's asking very. He's becoming very humble. You know, he's listening and he's drawing in information. But there would always become a point where he was like, I got it, I figured it out. This, quite frankly, this arrogance. He's super smart, always did well in school. Uh, you know, Pat's on the back for lots of things on the wall that say how smart he is. So his responsibility and his, quite frankly, over indexing on his strength of intellect, um, caused him to become very arrogant at the time. And what he would do is he would say, okay, thank you all. I think I've got it figured out. Here's what we're gonna do. And you, you, you, and go do that. And, you know, and then I'm on to my next project and let me know how that works out. You know, kind of he's out of the room and people are like, what the hell just happened? Um, very humble guy became a jerk, and he's just dismissing us. He's not listening anymore. And all that was going on inside of him. And so what, all they saw was this kind of listening and then dismissing people. So you can see how. And being able to show him that he was like, oh, my God, I don't want to behave that way. You know, that's not how I See people. But he really was treating people that way.

Host: Yeah. And so his driving motive perhaps was, uh, achievement. Right. Where he really wanted to get the problem done, get. Get it solved and move on. But in doing so, he was, you know, definitely leaving bodies in his way.

Marty Dubin: Exactly, exactly.

Host: It's so interesting because I have a very similar, uh, example as well. And I think it almost speaks to competing motives sometimes. Right. Some we are aware of and some we are just not aware of at all. Right. So I had this, uh, leader I was coaching, and this is now many, many years ago, ridiculously smart, just like you talked about this physician, ridiculously smart, extremely talented, on his way to the C suite, thought of as an amazing leader, uh, loved by all of his people. But he had a tendency that when there was a crisis, he would just take over. Right. He didn't care what was going on. He would just come in and take over. And so I think obviously that affected his people significantly. And he knew it, he knew he was doing it, but he couldn't find a way past it. And so I think probably because he knew that achievement was his primary motivation, it was really driving him. While he knew that this was not a great behavior, he didn't feel enough impetus to change it. Right. So I happened to ask him that. Okay, what do you think it says about your people when you just go in and take over? Right. There was like pin drop silence. He took almost a minute or two to come back to me. And what was really fascinating about that is that actually he was equally driven by a motive to develop people. He thought of himself as a great leader. He really wanted to invest in and develop his people. And so suddenly he realized that his behavior was in complete contradiction to his other motive. And so he had competing motives, but he only knew about one of them. Right. And so he was really not. He knew it made him uncomfortable. He knew there was something that didn't feel right, but he didn't know what it was and why it was alien.

Marty Dubin: That's such a beautiful story from. I'd like to unpack a couple of pieces of it.

Host: Sure.

Marty Dubin: So first, a piece on the, um, his team. Um, and you mentioned this earlier when you say people kind of know your motive. Well.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: People know one mo. They know what motive they're feeling. And it also maybe also speaks about them, about what they're sensitive to.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: So there's no truth there. Right. It's not like. It's not like the people know the truth and the leader isn't aware. It's Everybody's got their own piece of it. But what. So there's that and what you're saying. And I would also wonder, is this a guy that just can't deal with chaos and can't deal with, um, you know, the. The jigsaw puzzle that's got the pieces all around. He's got to get them all organized. And, you know, and so he becomes so, you know, into his power motive to be able to put it all together. Um, so there's probably a number of things going on for him, you know, emotionally. I would try to ask him, like, why. What are you feeling at those times when, you know, when you are ready, when you jump in and put it, put your arms around the whole thing. But what you did to me is the art of it all. Because just to say, don't be such a jerk and try to control everything, you know? You know, even though that's, like, good advice, maybe in one level, it's just not going to work. Right. The arc is you created a, uh. You helped him see an opposing force that was equally as important.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: That gave him the power to really say, oh, all right, how can I do both? How can I get the job done and treat people, you know, how can I try to balance these two motives a little better?

Host: It's true. It did give him the impetus. That is what helped him get over the thing of saying, okay, this is something I need to address. It's not just a, uh, oh, you know, it's okay, uh, to do it right.

Marty Dubin: Because you could. There are some leaders that would have just said that, too.

Host: That's right. Too many. Too many, unfortunately. Do you see this in your work as well, that, you know, are competing with each other? Some we know, some we don't know, and how they impact our behavior. I'd love if there's a client story that you have that you'd like to share here.

Marty Dubin: In the example that I gave with the guy that was both humble and arrogant, the question is, what did he need to do to not be that way? And it's similar to yours. Um, I said to him the same kind of thing. I said, people are experiencing you as dismissing them out of the room when you're. You're ready to move on to the next project? And. And he was like, really? All. I was just, like, excited to move on to the next thing. Totally unaware of how he was.

Host: Totally unaware.

Marty Dubin: Um, and so then he said, how can I not do that anymore? And I said, well, let's figure out what's Your trigger? Yeah, of. To be aware of when you're switching from humble listening, um, curious with everybody, everybody's solving the problem together, to where you move now to it's my job, and I'm done. And it's when he would stop asking questions. He typically asked lots of really good questions that got everybody thinking, like, why not this, why not that? But once he had figured it out in his own mind, he stopped asking questions. And so that became the trigger for him, the prompt for him to not do that. And so I said, what could you do instead? Um, and he said, well, I still think I've got the answer. And I said, yeah. Have there been times when people have come back to you later with, uh, information that change your answer? He said, well, of course. I said, so you don't always have the answer right then, right? Maybe there, you know, there are some times where maybe you have to have a decision right there. But most of these things are, yeah, you know, you could wait a few more days or a week or whatever. So how about leaving people with still the feeling that you're engaged with them and you're all working on this together? Yeah, you know, I think I've, uh, I think I'm coming close to the answer. Here's what I'm thinking, but, you know, my door's open. I'm going to think on it for a few more days, or let's talk about it next Tuesday when we meet again. And those that became the. And once he did that, he realized that other information did come in, and he liked himself much better in that kind of interaction that was more consistent with who he was. So that, I think, is the final part of all of these is you have to leave somebody with something to do. And often it's small. That was a very tiny change. Keep the door open, and that could change him. And I'm sure it was with, uh, the leader you were talking about, just thinking about, I need to continue to develop people. And that was just a small little thing. And then all of a sudden, things change.

Host: What happened in his case is that he would bring the team together and then do a bit of brainstorming and things like that, which actually then helped the team feel involved. Right. And not like he's just taking it over and he is doing his own thing, but he involved the team in a much better and more productive way while meeting the timelines that, you know, he had set for them. This podcast is brought to you by Just Human Leadership Advisors. We specialize in executive coaching and A broad range of human capital solutions. To learn more, Visit us at JustHuman IO. And now back to the podcast. Would you like to share maybe Markus's story? I found that story very powerful in your book.

Marty Dubin: This is an entrepreneur, um, who had had one fabulous multi billion dollar product innovation in a whole new category. He was a serial entrepreneur, had had another success, not quite as big, but still pretty good. And now he was into his third company, um, he still was involved in the other two. He was very bright, very, uh, design, aesthetically thoughtful and creative, um, an amazing visionary and storyteller. He loved being the hero. He solving the problems, he loved telling the story. I got called in because some of the venture capitals were realizing that there were problems in this new product and it was getting ready for release. They didn't know what was going on and they felt like things went right, things were not progressing and they were concerned about that. And he was getting very close to a deadline for product release. Um, and so a number of them actually backed out on the last funding round. Um, oh my goodness. They were still involved, but they weren't going to do more funding. And clearly a very big bad sign. Um, and he was still off generating more and more buzz about that, getting more investors going around the world, giving the talk and everything else. He, uh, you know, was willing to see me and talk to me. I was trying to get him anxious in the room with me or share with me about, are you worried about the product? And he was always giving me blue sky and the best things were going on. Everything's fine, everything's fine. Um, and if you want, you can talk to a couple of my people, you know, and they could probably use your help. And so he kind of pushed me off on his people who basically owned up to, there's some real problems here and I'm worried that the product is going to fail in this particular kind of way. And uh, you know, and he's not attending to that or giving us enough resources. Um, and he's not available, but yet he would always make the final decision. So there were a lot of places where he was missing the boat. And for whatever reason, this didn't happen in the other companies. Maybe the product development worked smoothly and the technology problems, they had the right solution. But here was a time when he needed to get off the airplane and stop, ah, making more pitches and pull the people together, kind of like your physician, and get everybody in the room and say, what's going on wrong here? What are people afraid of? What's the downside if we say we can't deliver the product by this state and really buckle down to all those things. Um, and he was unwilling to do that. Um, and, um, and he did have a failure and it totally caved the company and really erased much of his gains from his past companies and really was, uh, he. His future was really kind of cut short, quite frankly, and he didn't have his. He had a very different life after that.

Host: That's horrible. What was the driving force for him that was not aligned to running this company?

Marty Dubin: I think like a lot of entrepreneurs that have had success is you believe your own press was all due to me.

Host: Right?

Marty Dubin: And I mean, there were a lot of things that were definitely only due to him. So he could point to some things about the idea and the design and so on. He wasn't willing to look at the fact that right now they needed to see CEO who was rolling up their shirt sleeves and willing to say the baby didn't look pretty and, and really solve the problem. And he wasn't willing to do that. Uh, and maybe he had never done that in his life. I don't know. To me, it was all these motives around success. And his success for him was really not the money because he wasn't worried about, quite frankly, all his investors money, which, you know, that was a really. They're going to lose a lot of money if this doesn't work. And, uh, he was interested money up to the point of his lifestyle. He loved the fame, he loved jetting around, he loved being welcomed into the boardroom by all these wealthy and powerful people who were going to give him money for his company. And he talked to me originally when I first met him. He was giving me stories of all the famous people that he, you know, wined and dined with. And so fame was his, was his core motive and it was the way he treated people around the company. I mean, he was kind of warm and nice, but there was this sense of I'm better than you and.

Host: Yeah. Oh, wow, that is such a great story and so many lessons in there. You know, one interesting sort of thing that resonates with me.

Marty Dubin: Right.

Host: And I don't know if you've seen this, Marty, uh, in your work, uh, as an, as a coach, is that sometimes you have really, really talented, high potential people and they think they don't need a coach. I can't tell you the number of times that the organization calls me and says, hey, you know, I would like you to work with this person. And the person's like, wait, m. Why. Why do I need a coach? And it's only later that they do realize. Right. It is always fascinating to me how they must have some blind spots, right, that really prevent them from seeing that they need to work on themselves.

Marty Dubin: It can be a lot of different things. Right? I mean, it can be some core sense of imposter syndrome, and I don't want anybody to talk to me about it and reveal it to me. And I often will get that situation where somebody says, can you work with this leader? Because we really. We think they're great, and we really want to invest in them. And, you know, for all sorts of reasons like that. And as I'm almost the last thing, as I'm walking out of the room, they'll say, but do you really think he can change? I want to give him a chance. And so they're really. They're really showing in some ways that they don't think that. And so that's a core question in all of this, is, do we. Can we change? When I give talks, I often. There's, uh, some really interesting research, and I'll ask the audience, I'll say, how many of you in here think you are really markedly different than you were, say, 10 years ago? And usually about two thirds of the hands in the room will go up. And I say, that's pretty typical of the research, survey research that's done when they ask people, you know, have you changed? Um, and then when they ask your family and friends, have you changed? The answer is not so much. And so the truth is actually both.

Host: Um. Right.

Marty Dubin: There are core. I mean, we're talking about that in those cases, you can't really change who you are in a lot of ways, but you can change how you show up.

Host: Yeah.

Marty Dubin: Uh, you can change. Make those small changes in behavior that can have a reverberating effect on, uh, around your environment and kind of make changes. So sometimes I've been able to get people who are skeptical about coaching by starting off that way. I say, I'm not here to change you. I can't stand the word transformation in coaching. I've never transformed anybody. Nor should I. Nor could I. Nor would I, uh, would you want to be transformed. But you can make small changes and get better. And, you know, coaching is a lot like athletics. It's about performance and who gets the most coaching. The elite athlete.

Host: Exactly.

Marty Dubin: Athlete has a coach for five different things that they're doing, you know, versus the, you know, athlete in high school or in college. And so on so. And it's about making small changes. Wouldn't you want to get from 95% to 98 or 99% better?

Host: Yeah.

Marty Dubin: Sometimes I can help take away some of that sense of people like, you know, I don't want you to come here and change me.

Host: Yeah. Beautifully said, Marty. And people, you heard it here first. If you are smart, talented, and have places to go and you don't have a coach, you've got to wonder why.

Marty Dubin: Yep.

Host: Okay. One of the greatest derailers for leaders, I think, especially at work, is the, I don't know, chasm, I suppose, between their intent and impact. Right. They say one thing, but end up doing another. And, you know, we've talked a bit about that, and sometimes what they do is exact opposite of what they actually intended. Right. And so, you know, have you seen some of this in your work as well? And, you know, if you have a

Marty Dubin: story there, One of the things that I'm sure you do that, um, I do is 360 interview interviews with a leader. I have a. A few questions that I ask, and I want to, you know, I say give me a list of, you know, 8 to 10, 12 people that work with you and for you and above you. I typically ask, what's Joe's greatest asset? What really is unique about Joe that really makes him successful here at abc, uh, Company. And then I'll typically ask, what does Joe do? Sometimes he gets in his own way, and that it makes him less successful as he can. And then all third kind of bucket is kind of, what advice do you have? And I'll write all that up into a report that I organize thematically. I do it a little differently now since I'm thinking about these blind spots, but I used to do it as kind of the strengths and the opportunities for improvement. And most leaders would say, I don't want to thank you about the strengths. That's wonderful. I already know all that. And they don't want to look at that. And then they say, let's look at where people are complaining. Usually they'll go through that and they'll say, well, I know who said that, and that's because of this or that. And it wasn't really. I wasn't. That wasn't my intent. They took it that way because of who they are, and that's not what I normally do. And so they go through this and try to find way. And maybe there's one or two things in there that they might say, yeah, I could do that a little better. But There is this effort really to kind of whitewash some of those, uh, differences between intent and impact. I used to say, well, that's how they felt about it. That was their. The impact on them. But I found it's much more effective to do. What I was talking about before is to say, I organize my reports now in terms of these strengths and how the strengths get overplayed. And so I'll find those situations like that where the impact was adverse. And I organized that as saying, you overplayed your power here or your conscientiousness here, or you were too slow to make a decision where, you know, that's a strength when you're anal, you know, your analysis, conscientiousness. And so that's been able to help people get off of this intent because the impact is about the other person's point of view. And so sometimes it's just. It's too easy for them to dismiss it. But when I wrap it all together as you, you're doing the same thing, but it can have these two different effects.

Host: I love that. That's actually such a great idea and such a great approach to doing it. Uh, and one that I think people find easier to take as well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Who's the best leader you've ever worked with, Marty? Uh, and what makes them so memorable to you?

Marty Dubin: There was a leader that was in the right job at the right time, and it really was right for him. That just was very memorable to me. Um, he's the leader of a large financial institution. He was actually probably a bit introverted, I think, in his general nature. But, you know, he was the face of the company, the CEO, and so he was out there and did that. But he didn't really think he needed a coach at some level. I think he was curious about what I could say, say. But it was like, hey, Marty, you've never run, ah, something the size of what I'm running here. So what we would do is we'd walk around, um, and I was struck by how. And it was a big skyscraper. And we'd go down to the down floor where there were actually frontline people doing financial consultants of things with clients and so on and back room analytical people. And he would stop people in the hall. People knew him by his first name, and they would greet him that way. He would greet people. Either he knew who they were or he was close enough that he just, you know, would say something. And there was these very warm, friendly relationships. And he would always ask them you know, what are you working on and what are you excited about and what are you frustrated about? And I just thought he was being very engaging and just kind of keeping that good culture going, which he was. But he was collecting data. Always collecting data. The data that didn't rise 17 floors to his suite. He was going down and finding it. Um, and he was, you know, there was a process going on where he was like, is this. Am I hearing that from the leader of that department? Or why haven't I heard that particular problem? Or is this is what's really exciting people? Are we really attending to that in our culture to make sure we really have programs around that? Um, so he was just really conscious about that. And he used me that way. He would ask me questions that were very provocative, um, and kind of, you know, kind of almost like we're doing now. Tell me a story. I realized that's how he learned. Um, and it wasn't like I want the answer. When you get to the top, you get, as you well know, you get isolated. Um, and there's. And so many people want your time that it's very hard, um, to not be in a bubble. And so he did two things to not be in the bubble. One was this. Walking the halls, collecting data from within his company. And the other was he had a. He had a list of about a dozen people in very different industries and walks of life. And he would make sure. And he would sometimes work with his assistant, and they would come and say, you haven't talked to so and so in the last six months? Oh, God, yes. And he would be asking them these provocative kind of questions. Um, and so that aspect of leadership, a lot of leadership is you make. Is about decision making. But you can only make good decisions if you have good knowledge and good information. And he was just the most thoughtful and very deliberate about him collecting information.

Host: Yeah. Oh, that is such a great story. I truly believe that most answers lie within the organization. Right. But we have to find a way to unlock them and to get them out. And he clearly seems to have found a way to do that. That's pretty cool. Oh, Marty, this has been so amazing. I have so many questions. I've tried to put some of them together in a rapid fire section. Are you ready?

Marty Dubin: Okay. Well, let's do it.

Host: Okay. What is one blind spot that you've had that surprised you?

Marty Dubin: Well, I guess that was that story that, that identity blind spot of, um, um, because it is so subtle. Um, you know that I was a psychologist with a business Rather than a business person who happened to have psychological knowledge. It hit me a few months ago, you know, I'm now mostly doing this and writing. And. And so I really sat down with my. And I thought, so, do I want my. Is my identity now to be a writer and a speaker, and does that fit for me and what do I need to do? And I'm evolving that identity right now. And that actually was another surprise. It wasn't anything I ever thought I would ever kind of do as a right. As a vocation.

Host: Ah. What's one surprising thing about you that most people don't know?

Marty Dubin: You got me on the couch here for that one. Um, you probably will find this interesting, given the title of my book being Blindspotting. Um, so I was born legally blind. To this day, my vision is correctable enough for me to negotiate very well in life. Um, but not 2020 or anywhere close to kind of perfect vision. When I came up with the title for the book, then it wasn't very long after that I had a kind of a little laugh to myself about that. Isn't this a funny title for me to come up to? And I think, you know, so part of that is probably also a piece of who I hold inside about who I am, um, at some level.

Host: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Marty Dubin: Sure.

Host: What is the most memorable feedback you've received about your book? Blindspotting.

Marty Dubin: So I went on a book tour shortly after the book came out, and, um, in Europe, uh, and Nordic countries and in uk and people came up afterwards and said that that was so inspiring. And I was thinking, like, what? I didn't. I didn't see this as an inspirational book. This is, you know, what we've talked about. And then I realized, um, when I asked people what was inspiring, and it was a couple of things we've talked about, kind of the sense of, hey, we're all imperfect. Everybody's got a blind spot. I mean, like, who doesn't? I mean, it's not a weakness. It's just how we're creating how we are. It's part of the operating system. And then this sense of all you have to do is make small changes and you can have a huge impact. And it was like, oh, so that was a surprise. It wasn't like, I'm going to write a book that's going to inspire people, but that's how people have responded.

Host: That's amazing. So your book is obviously having a lot of impact. Is there a specific impact that someone shared that stayed with you? About their own journey.

Marty Dubin: I've gotten a number of people who have made a, it's had a personal impact on them and they've been able to share that within their organization and create, uh, at a team level, create this kind of ah, team, uh, sharing. Um, and um, and so that, that's wonderful for me and that certainly is something that I hope would happen out of the book. You know, when you're a coach and a psychotherapist, you're dealing with one person in the room with you maybe a little bit with a team in some ways. But to have somebody take the experience and be able to then spread it, that's. That's been wonderful.

Host: Yeah. Oh my God, that is such a great story and you know, clearly a testament to your impact. What's your favorite coaching question to help someone unlock self awareness?

Marty Dubin: Well, I ask people always, you know, after we've kind of gone through a fair bit of their history and so on. I said, so what are your either in life or in um, work, what's a failure or a disappointment? Um, something that really didn't turn out the way you wanted it to. And if I've created enough of a warm, engaging atmosphere, people begin to share that often there's a lot of emotion that comes, that often surprises people. Then I'm able to say it really is affecting you even today. Right. Um, and it usually opens up. I ah, have a couple stories in the book about that kind of a thing where it just opens up tremendously valuable, um, insights for people.

Host: Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Would you like to share one of those?

Marty Dubin: Sure. So one of the ones in the book is it was a company that a new CEO had come in and he wanted, as a good CEO should do, he wanted an evaluation of all his senior team. Should I keep all these people? And it really wasn't like, are they good or not? It's like, do they fit with him? Are they the right complement of who he is, um, and where the company where he wants to take the company. Um, so she kind of knew she was being evaluated, um, and it, you know, was a major career thing. As we were going through her history, um, I asked her one question I always ask everybody is, ah, you know, who's kind of like who's been a great leader in your life, um, and it could be your parents or your coach in school or a teacher as well as, uh, in the work as history. And she started talking about her mother, um, and then very competent, accomplished, um, you know, like she owned the room when we were in there and all of a sudden she couldn't talk and totally surprised her. I said a few things and I could tell she was deciding in that moment, um, as she's trying to hold back the tears, do I share with him or do I not? Um, and she decided to share. And she talked about how her mother, um, never achieved what she could have achieved because as being a female at the particular time, um, and the industry she was in, she just, you know, the ceiling was way below where she could be and how frustrating that was for her mother and how she had been gearing her whole career, like, that's not going to happen to me. Um, and at times she would become too ambitious and at times she would think people were. She would tend to see people as either, um, people who were. Advance her career or would block it.

Host: Right.

Marty Dubin: People were in those two camps in, in a very emotional way, very quick, black, white way that even when you would ask her, she wouldn't really say that she would talk about people in a more.

Host: Sure.

Marty Dubin: That's deeply where she felt. And so this awareness that she was really living out her mother's legacy, um, and over doing it in some ways, um, was a very big eye opener for her. And it was like, whoa.

Host: And liberating, I would assume it was very liberating.

Marty Dubin: And you know, this is. As a psychotherapist, time is irrelevant in our lives. Things could have happened when we're five years old and we feel those emotions at age 40 no different than we felt them at age five. Even though the people in situation is different, we're much more competent, but those emotions are just as raw. And that's where it was for her.

Host: Oh my goodness, what a powerful story. Thank you so much for sharing that. What is one piece of career advice you'd like to share with our listeners today?

Marty Dubin: As I said earlier, I did not make these choices to go from psychotherapist to CEO to business coach to author. They all kind of happened. And then I pursued it. And my advice is serendipity happens. Pay attention.

Host: Yeah.

Marty Dubin: Just don't say, oh, isn't that an interesting coincidence? Or that was funny. But I've really. Earlier in my life I realized that and I started to say pay attention. And probably what that I'm saying is like, I'm probably drawn to this or this person is drawn into my life in some way. Pay attention to it.

Host: Yeah. Love that. When the universe gives you hints, take it.

Marty Dubin: Yeah.

Host: Um, very, very well said. Thank you for that. What is one step forward that you'd ask everyone to try as our Mindful Leadership Challenge for the month.

Marty Dubin: All our strengths can become overplayed. That's in our traits. Uh, and so ask yourself, uh, what are some of my core strengths and what are the contexts? What are the situations? What are the times when they haven't worked for me? And and start to be curious about that.

Host: Oh, beautifully said. This has been such a joy, Marty. So much wisdom, um, so many lessons, so many powerful stories. I can't thank you enough for spending time with our listeners today. Truly, truly appreciate it.

Marty Dubin: I've really enjoyed the depth of the questions and conversation. Thank you.

Host: Thank you for joining us. We'd love to hear from you. Please rate, review and subscribe to the Mindful Leadership Podcast brought to you by JustHuman. We are a growth accelerator for our clients, helping your people and businesses thrive through human centered ecosystem based people solutions. To learn more, Visit us at JustHuman IO and schedule a 30 minute free call with us.