#34 Kendall Lyman: Mining for Conflict

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Intro: 0:02

Welcome to Creative spirits unleashed, where we talk about the dilemmas of balancing work and life. And now, here's your host, Lynn Carnes.

Lynn: 0:19

Welcome to the creative spirits unleash Podcast. I'm Lynn Carnes, your host. This week I'm speaking with Kendall Lyman of the highlands group. We started this conversation talking about mining for conflict, and it went from there. Kendall is the co author of the book change the way you change five roles of leaders who accelerate business performance, we had a wide ranging conversation on why change is so difficult, and why leading change is even harder. Kendall has had a lifetime of experiences to inform his approach, as you will hear in this conversation. And it's clear as you listen, that you will be listening to someone who learns and re learns from his experiences. Yes, he does research. And yes, he follows the research, but his own research informs him just as much. He's also really quite gifted at sharing his perspectives, as you will hear in this conversation. So a little more about Kendall. He is the founder and founding principal of the highlands group, which is a consulting firm specializing in strategy, organizational change and leadership development, all levels of organization. In other words, he's been blessed to consult with a wide range of or ride array of organizations ranging from Fortune 500, to small and midsize firms. He's worked across diverse industries such as oil and gas, lodging, government and manufacturing, helping leaders around the world to navigate change, improve employee engagement, and transform culture. You will hear all of that and all of his experience in this amazing conversation with Kindle lineman, I hope you enjoy it. Kendall, Laurie podcast. Thank you. Thank you. So glad you're here.

Kendall: 2:06

This is fun. I've been looking forward to it all week.

Lynn: 2:08

I do this so we get to have these great conversations. And, and so I can ask questions. So I have a question for you that to start. And we're going to cover a lot of territory, because as people will have already heard in the introduction, you and I met in context of helping a company lead change. And we both think a lot about leading change. But I in reading your book picked up on something that I think is both said directly, and also is a subtext. And that is when people are leading change, conflict is going to absolutely happen. And you talk about the role of mining for conflict in your book, which basically says to me, you're asking people to disagree with each other. So can you say a little bit about the role of asking for it, and leading change? Because I think that's very interesting. And a lot of people don't want to do it.

Kendall: 3:06

That's a that's an error that I've made a lot in my career. Because I started as a strategy guy. And I thought that if the strategy was great, the vision was great, the direction made sense that people would just adopt it. And so I pushed and I pushed and I wondered why things weren't happening. Excuse me. And then I started just talking to people and discovered that there's this kind of natural resistance that happens. Just recently, I read a book called the human element. And they use this great analogy of fuel and friction. I've always used the analogy of overcoming resistance or mining for, for resistance, but they're saying the same thing. But most of us do is, is we take the marketing angle, we put the foot on the gas, we add fuel, meaning, the appeal and the features and the benefits and why you should adopt this. But what we forget about is all the forces operating against us the resistance, the drag, the the emotional part of the change, just the cost of changing are starting to do something new. And so I started to, to do an exercise through the emotional cycle of change. We've all been

Lynn: 4:34

that were like the Kubler Ross change. Yeah,

Kendall: 4:38

exactly. And one of my clients taught me this exercise. She was doing a merger. And she did this great little exercise that we adopted in the change programming in the book of standing up and saying, Where are you just opposed to no name but Lin, where are you in the emotional cycle of change? And you could self identify at which stage you are in. And then taking it on a positive side, what is one thing you need to move forward, instead of staying stagnant or moving backwards, still no names. And the leader can leave the room, the way this client did was every six weeks, they would do this little exercise. Now, this is a great exercise for a leader because immediately she knows, here are the six or 10 or 12 steps that I need to focus on, to enable people to move forward, that they might not be comfortable telling me what resistance they're dealing with. But you can start to uncover it. So that's the language we started using was mining for digging for it trying to uncover it. Because it's there anyway.

Lynn: 5:48

Oh, yeah. When it's when it's operating in the shadows, it's stopping you and you don't know where or why.

Kendall: 5:54

Right? So as a leader, you can you can avoid it. But the reality is, it's happening, whether you're participating or not. So you might as well jump in and figure out what's holding people back.

Lynn: 6:06

Oh, you know, we had language when I was working in the corporate world that said, especially around mergers, and we did a lot of them. I was I was on both sides of many, many different mergers, but it was get on the train or get out. And I recall saying to somebody, one day, I was like, Well, yeah, everybody's on the train. But they've got an Uzi and they're planning the death of the leader.

Kendall: 6:34

You know, I was doing some work with the US Army Reserve years ago, and there was a two star general. And he handed these cards out that were, literally Get Out of Jail Free card. Now you can imagine in the Army Reserve, especially by rank and, and hierarchy, that people would avoid speaking truth to power. And so when he'd come into the command, he would hand these cards out. And his point was, look, you get one get out of jail, free, there's no rank, there's no attribution. There's, there's nothing but I need to know the truth. Because the analogy he used, like your train was, uh, you could be a parade participant, or you can be a parade watcher. But you can't be a rock thrower.

Lynn: 7:19

And so I like that, yeah, he kind of

Kendall: 7:22

figured out that he was in a little bit of a divot position by his rank and wasn't hearing truth. So same idea, everybody might be on the train, but they're in the back, or they're hitting the brake, or they're locking the doors or whatever it is. And so we've got to find that natural motivation, and engage them. Because when you think about change, really, you're starting individually at a time, but you're also trying to move the masses. Yeah, that's a pretty tricky formula.

Lynn: 7:55

It is, and it is what you're talking about creates what I think of is it's messy, because a lot of people that there's certain emotions they can handle, but there's other emotions, they can't. And I think that little formula is different for everybody. And I think that comes from their upbringing. So everybody has a family that sort of had emotions that were allowed and not allowed. And they're very different. So then you put all those people in a big soup of an organization and a culture and say, You're going to all change together. But nobody's allowed to be angry, because I'm the leader, and I don't let let allow anger. What do you what do you do when you find that kind of thing happened when you're leading change? How do you help people through the messiness of it?

Kendall: 8:42

Well, this is this is something that we discovered a long time ago, I might have told you this. I didn't. I didn't start to write a book about change, because I thought the world needed another book about change. There's a lot of good ones out there, right? Yeah,

Lynn: 8:59

yeah. But you have a great time, which I've mentioned, of course, in the intro, but you know, change the way you change is a great title you have to write, you have to write that book. Right,

Kendall: 9:08

exactly. Right. We were lucky to stumble across that title and think that through, but what we discovered, you read any change book Lynn, And they're going to say one of two things in the intro, change happens inside out. For Change happens outside in meaning. I can teach a person to fish and he can fish for a lifetime. So it's inside out it starts with you. And then you change your team. You change your family, you change your neighborhood, you change your community, you change your nation. Other books say well, and you and I have done this because of being in consultants or inside it's it's outside in meaning. We start with a strategy. We might go to org design, restructure the business merge companies, and hopefully eventually we get to the team or individual level but What we kept discovering was that nobody was writing the inside out outside in book. And that's the messiness you talk about because I might go to you and I have gone to workshops for ourselves, we come home, we're so excited to change, we're going to change what we do as a family, we're going to change our morning routine, we're gonna change all these things. And what happens are, our spouses look at us like, This too shall pass. After six weeks or so, you know, when our team say, you know, He'll calm down a little bit because the motivation runs up against the systems runs up against the processes that are already in place. And so when we're trying to teach an employee or or sell the strategies that I talked about, they listen politely and then they say, you don't have an idea what I'm dealing with. The processes are arcane, the systems are fighting against each other. Do you understand that I'm in a matrix organization with two or three heads that are directing me with different priorities? And so that's a long answer to your, your question there. But that's the messiness that they're dealing with. That's the messiness. That's their reality. And so we weren't change agents, we were kind of accidental change, guys, because our strategies weren't getting the results. We wanted our org design, when getting results on either leadership development stuff we were doing, was bumping up against this messiness. So we kept playing with it and playing with it and, and turned into more, I've got to transform individual behaviors, I got to transform the Leadership, Culture, the organizational culture, I got to transform the process structures and systems. And that's messy. And, you know, Lin, most leaders don't want to do that, because that is not an overnight quick fix. That's a long, laborious process. Mm hmm. But if you're not willing to do it, we've seen over the last three decades, that same study done by McKinsey and many others that 70% of these transformations fail. And that's a horrible failure rate. It's nice for you and me as consultants, because this lifetime employment, people keep asking us to help them. But it's not good. If you're on the on the leading side of that, and you're spending all this money. So we got to we do have to change the way we change.

Lynn: 12:20

You know, when you were talking about this, too, shall pass when I was on the receiving end of one of the mergers. This is when I worked in Texas, and I was in banking. And you know, we had different offices, and I was in the Dallas Fort Worth office. And actually, there were two offices, and I was in both of them. But one of my colleagues in Houston was talking about the merger project, and we were doing due diligence. And she said she called it the the bo HCA project. I said, What do you mean, what do you mean by Bo HCA, and she goes, Oh, it's just another one of those bend over here it comes again, project, how? And it literally in their office, that was what it was called. And I said, Well, I say I said, Why do y'all call it that? Because because we know it's going to pass. But we just have to, you know, get it out. And it'll be over soon enough. And that's how people see change, especially in the corporate environment. And, you know, it's I don't I haven't seen a wholesale move away from that. I've seen pockets where it's done better. You know, this is why you and I started some of the conversations we started years ago. I don't even remember how many years ago we met. We were in New York, right? It was right? Was it when we were working at Lehman?

Kendall: 13:40

Yeah, a long time ago,

Lynn: 13:42

years ago. Yeah. So we started, we realized that we had a similar understanding of the complexity and the messiness of really leading change.

Kendall: 13:53

One of the things that you and I have heard a lot, and I resisted it for a while. It's the WIIFM Your Bohemia reminds me of the wisdom. Tell me?

Lynn: 14:02

What's in it for me? Yes, yes.

Kendall: 14:04

What's in it for me. And I remember being on a project and somebody saying, we need to do a WIIFM and we need to do what's in it for me. And I thought, what a selfish, self centered approach to change that I have to sit with you, Lynn and say, you know, what's in it for you, Lynn. And you're not going to move until we understand that and I resisted it, to be honest. Because I thought, you know, as a, as a senior leader of this organization, they should be thinking through what's in it for the good of the organization for the stakeholders, and for their people, as well as them. A bit naive, I get it. But then I discovered if I combined it, because I was thinking what's in it for me is, you know, pay or promotion or some of those things. But I combined the idea of head hearts and hands with it. Mm hmm. And that started to also be bubble up some of this resistance. Because when you think about that, the first question many of us ask is a head question. It's an intellectual question. Tell me the facts, the details, the the plans, the vision, right? And it's almost like I've got this itch in my head. And if you can't scratch that itch, if you can't check that box, you're not getting anywhere near my heart or my hands. So it's kind of a first hurdle. I know I'm mixing metaphors here. But it's the first

Lynn: 15:28

Sorry, I've mixed them all the time.

Kendall: 15:31

And then the second one is really hands. In, in that what's in it for me, meaning meaning, do I get to try this on? Do I get an experience to give you my opinion, do I have a chance to understand how my works going to be different and how it's going to impact my team and my friends, and what happens to Sally because she's been here for 19 years or so. So I'm almost testing the waters on that. Now, I still haven't given you my commitment. Because you still got to get to my heart and my heart is starts to get it. Okay. What's the reality for me? Will this be better for me and my family? Will this be better for my friends? Will I have opportunities? Will will you deal with the emotional part of change. And once I started doing that with clients, it it just really resonated not only with me, but with them. Because it took away just the the selfish pay and promotion thing and really got under this resistance. This messiness, as you described, it is at an individual level.

Lynn: 16:34

I've heard, I've heard that called dealing with the me, we and Bay issues are like that. I do too. Because it's, it's, you know, the meat, the thing. I think the thing that gets lost in the corporate machine is that we're all humans with me. And those needs are hard wired and not negotiable. So Maslow knew this Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which has the pyramid that he didn't draw, some management consultant drew down, and I really liked Scott very Kaufman's redrawing of that he's like a Maslow junkie and wrote a book called transcendence. And he makes it a sailboat where the bottom needs, you know, your basic safety, survival connection needs or your boat, and then your self fulfillment needs are the sales. So you're not going anywhere. And I think it's such a better metaphor. And I look at it when I'm working with people, especially in large scale change, or large scale culture, to say, you know, if people's needs are met, then they can give you their best they can give you their engagement. But if they're, if you do a merger, and the first thing they have to think about is, am I going to be one of the ones that gets let go? Are you cutting my pay, are you going to make me return my job, and spend a lot of energy trying to prove myself again, then it's going to be very hard for me to be innovative and give you my best thinking.

Kendall: 18:13

I think that's so well said one of my favorite quotes about changes from CS Lewis. And he says, something along the lines of getting over a painful experience is like crossing monkey bars, you have to let go of one to attach to the other. And one of the almost soap boxes that I have, or pet peeves that I have is, when I'm working with senior leaders, they they it's not that they're withholding the information about the merger or the transition. But they feel measured about it, they feel that they can't share too much from a legality standpoint, from an HR standpoint. And so consequently, like you said, people are on their heels, they're not trusting, they just don't know. And so you're not going to get their commitment because you haven't resolved some of their concerns. And really change is about trying to move people from one monkey bar, so to speak to the next. And so we've gotta communicate more, we've got to open that up. You know, I, I refer to the rule of seven to 10 times people have to hear something seven to 10 times. If you don't believe it, go ask your husband. Right. And he'll say I would be nice, but anymore lay and I think it's not only seven to 10 to seven, seven to 10 times, but it's seven to 10 different ways. Mm hmm. I've got to get an email about it. I got to get a text. I've got to hear you speak it more than once. And I get that I can't tell you everything about the merger or the transition. But tell me when you're going to tell me something. Next, have a schedule so that I can rely that you're giving me As much as I can to make decisions for me and my family otherwise, college just builds up all this concern and anxiety and fear and frustration.

Lynn: 20:09

Yeah, which which we judge, I mean, I've been the senior leader in the change role and caught myself thinking they just need to get on board myself, and that we judge it and say, there's something wrong with them. And the more I've sort of been on my own journey and understood needs, we are hard wired, for survival. And in the absence of information, we have to assume the worst.

Kendall: 20:36

Go back to your link, go back to your train metaphors just leave it at this. So often, especially you said, your role as a senior leader, your 12 cars down the track, meaning you're about six months ahead of them, because you've been thinking about it, right? It's been secret for six months. Yeah. So you've worked through your head, your heart, your hands, you've worked it through, and now you come out and say, hey, guess what we're gonna do. And they're 12 cars back, this is the first I've heard of it. And we're frustrated with them, that they're not on board, and forget that we're six months or three months ahead of them. Mm hmm. And we've got to give them that same space to come down that track with us.

Lynn: 21:15

Well, something you talked about in your book that I really loved was asking people to go letting them go through their own process. And you know, that giving them that kind of ownership to say, Hey, this is what we're seeing at this 12 cars ahead stage, we've just run into, you know, there's a bunch of cattle on the train, or this thing is changing, the track is bending or whatever it might be, we're gonna let you work it out to and actually carry some of that burden.

Kendall: 21:45

That's, that's a really hard principle, I've found as I've tried to teach it to leaders to do because we're wired for efficiency, we're wired for mass communication. But that approach, the individual approach is more of an effectiveness approach. It's a one plus one plus one plus one. But pretty soon, we hit a tipping point. And we're not sure where that tipping point is. When you look at a lot of the the elections in our country, for example, most of those didn't win in the last three elections by a majority vote. Right, they won by a 51 52%. And if you think about that, as an analogy, as a leader, you don't have to get the majority, what you have to get is not even the early adopters, because they just love change, no matter what you've got to get some of the early ones and some of the late early ones, and start to the 48 49% Because guess what, they're going to pull the other late majority along. Mm hmm. And all your laggards and rock throwers at the parades. And the ones in the back of the train with all the metaphors we've used so far, they'll eventually jump off or they'll get bored. Mm hmm. So reduce the scope and say I've got to get someplace between 45 and 52%. I don't have to get all of the loud ones that are that are lagging, because the majority will eventually come along. But that's a hard, it's a hard sell. Because many of us have been like you and me inside, we were given a project. And we kind of had a six 912 month turnaround time to make a difference, not only for our career, but our reputation and for the organization. And so I needed to go fast, I need things to happen. So I do want to two things I've tried to force it through, or I reduce the scope of the chain so that I can get that amount done. And consequently, I create the messiness, because I'm not willing to look at it holistically, both individually team and organization. And so it's not sustainable. And so either I move on, or I get moved on. And so this idea of it's, it's a hard sell is what I'm saying it's a hard, convincing point, but we've seen it play out so many times that if people would just look for some other analogous examples, they would realize there's a better approach

Lynn: 24:23

it that's that you know, you talk you have this in your book as well the idea of going slow to go fast, which is against our human nature under pressure, when our reputations on the line when our next raise is on the line or that promotion or whatever. And you know, I I mentioned to you I've gotten quite into working with horses and seeing a lot of parallels. And there's a there's a principle and horse in the horse world that says if you show up to work with a horse and act like you've got 15 minutes it will take all day. But if you show up up with all day, it will only take 15 minutes. To assay, it is so fantastic and so very real, because the going slow with horses, they have a survival brain much like ours. And what you're doing is consistently building a level of safety so they can trust you to to then do the next step and then the next step and then the next step. And yes, you can use force fear and intimidation, which is what I think we humans use a lot in our corporate worlds, to get them to do something, but then you've got a horse that's kind of full of bottled up emotions that is unpredictable. Because they're not, they're not call, they're just complying. And they're complying in the face of that. Well, that's better than what the alternative is, as opposed to saying, Okay, well, I'll do this for you.

Kendall: 25:52

Boy, my mind's just spinning with this analogy. I got to talk to you more about that, because it's a great, great way to think about it. One of the things on the leadership development side, Lynn, I don't know, I want to ask you about this. If you've seen this, I see the skill of empathic listening or dialogue in our leadership almost declining, or it's a lost art. And so you we have a conversation with an employee and she's struggling about something and what do we typically do we try to solve or we try to move the conversation along, or we give our examples of when we were that age or whatever.

Lynn: 26:30

And whatever you do, please don't cry. Exactly. I remember being that that later.

Kendall: 26:37

Right, right, because we're, we've got things to do. And if you take up my time, then I got to do my work at night. The reality is, most people don't need us to solve their problems. But they definitely need to be understood and heard. And that, that takes a long time. So back to your analogy with the horses. If I try to give that my employee that 15 minutes, so to speak with your example, when reality she needs, let's just say 25, another 10 minutes. She's gonna feel just like that horse, she's gonna feel rushed, she's going to, and pretty soon she's gonna clam up. And we will never have solved the problem. But as a leader, I've walked away thinking, nice job. Another problem solved. Yeah. And it just goes underground.

Lynn: 27:26

And then I wonder why are why turnovers at 30%? Right?

Kendall: 27:30

Because she's not going to come back to me again, she was trying to be authentic and real and open. But so that's on the employee side of listening and understanding, how do you have you seen the same, same herend

Lynn: 27:44

I absolutely have. And I attribute it to the number of inputs we have, which creates a lot of noise. So an overload, an overload coupled with all the pressure that we're under. And I, this is my next book, dancing the tightrope, the core premise is what to do under pressure. My, my fundamental purpose of dancing, the tightrope is you can either reach for your tools, one of which is listening, or you can reach for your rules, which is the way we we think we're supposed to solve it because of our past history or because of our socialization, or because of the culture of the organization. So for example, we're under certain pressures to be a certain way or be that certain person, get that project done. It's not acceptable to get a project done in nine months when it could have been done in six. But it's more like if you would give me all the time in the world, I can actually get it done in three because I'm taking the pressure off of people and giving them a chance to breathe. And then they will give me what I've been asking for or demanding of them. There's there's a set, I was listening. This is a guy that I've had on my podcast and I was on his Warwick Schiller interviews people not as a horse trainer but more as their journey because the parallels to me are just stunning. And this guy on his podcast, Josh Nichols said his view with the horses dune he said he feels like the horses are saying to us do not take what is mine to give. And you know it to me that aligns with something years ago, I was working with a with a client in a big fortune 500 financial company. And we were talking about the why she was running around with their hair on fire. And I said, you know, you can't do this many projects. Because you can't do any of them well, and she says but you don't understand we're not allowed to say no. And I said if there is no ability to say no then you also cannot say yes. There is no Yes.

Kendall: 29:57

Especially no burning Yes. Right, right,

Lynn: 30:01

you have, basically what you're doing is running around looking like you're trying, which somehow satisfies the beast. But you're actually not getting anything done. And had she had a little space, she could have offered up her best, you know that back to that saying, do not take what is mine to give

Kendall: 30:21

your you're making me think. And I want to ask you about this too, because we're playing in the same space. So many times in your book, The elegant pivot you you spend a lot of time describing, from your own experience, how our responses often come from a protected space, a reactive space, right? And so while you were talking about the horses, I don't know, I don't, I don't work with horses. But I was envisioning this idea that in corporate America, now we find so many of us that are protecting, or we haven't healed our Inner Inner wounds. And so we're, we're walking around with a shell that's protected. Similar to the horse don't take Yeah, what did you say don't take what is mine to give mine to give. So I'm forcing, I'm pushing through change, I'm pleading I'm adding fuel to the, to the fire here, when reality many of us are, are protected. And this idea of listening or sitting with me, or helping me through those emotions, is probably one of the few tools to break down some of those walls and really get into what's happening for me to like the horse, then give you my Yeah, my Oh, is that are you experiencing that too, that is upside I

Lynn: 31:49

have, I've absolutely experienced that. And it's, it's the thing that I'm most have experienced in that protective thing is the inability to allow for mistakes. Which we all know, we have to have to do anything new. When I was doing the credit training program, redesigning it at Bank of America, the there was a lot of talk, because they asked me to take it from one year to 10 weeks. And the one year program the way we'd always done it, and they said we've decided to do it differently, we're gonna take some of the work out of that year, but we want you to, you know, in 10 weeks do it and I decided to go with a really different accelerated learning process. And my boss and I sat down and talked about this, and it was different it was we were bringing emotions in, we were gonna make it a lot more experiential, it was a very different way of training. And, you know, my reputation was on the line because I was doing this for the entire country. And we sat together and talked about what was expected. And, and he said, he said something to the effect of, you know, this has to work. And I said, here's the thing I said, If you give me if you tell me it has to work great the first time out of the chute, then it's going to be I drew up a square on a piece of paper, I said, it's gonna only be this big. And this, you know, I'm just giving you a relative size. If you tell if you if if you tell me LAN, make it work, but you've got three to five times for it to work well. I said it can be this big. Because that gives me space to learn and to try things that won't work and then correct. And he says, well, we need it to be this big. And I said, then you're going to have to let me make some mistakes. Right, right. And it was transformative. I had people come back that had been receiving our trainees for years as bankers, you know, we would train them and then they go out into the field and do their thing. And he said, I have never seen people as capable as these guys coming out of your program. But it's because we had space to make mistakes, I actually had to negotiate for the ability to do something new, which by definition is gonna have mistakes, but I had to negotiate for it. Because if I hadn't, then I was going to have to be back to that protective thing. I was gonna have to have a wall that said, Okay, well, if you want perfect, quote unquote, or flawless execution, then it has to be very small.

Kendall: 34:20

So when I take that to the idea of, of change, whether we're talking organization or individual, you and I both coach executives, there's, there's some psychological safety that has to be in place that I have. I have a net under my tightrope, and I can try on new behaviors otherwise, cuz you're as often a leader is asking. We're asking them to write with their left hand when they're right handed, and that's uncomfortable. That's a new behavior. It's a new mindset. It's a new way of doing things. And yet we get we get impatient might I say, with our employees who haven't had That runway that your boss gave you with your leadership program to make some of those mistakes. And so they're going to protect us, they're going to have to, they're going to clam up, they're going to put a protective layer on. And then we don't get the head, we don't get the hands, we might barely get the feet as they're walking, you know, walking, so to speak.

Lynn: 35:22

That's what I think most people are. And I think that's why we're seeing the great resignation. I think people have been dead men walking, and they're kind of waking up to saying, Wait, I don't have to do things the way they always was. Things always were, but I think a lot of people are just doing it out of desperation. It's like, I just can't do it anymore.

Kendall: 35:41

So how much of that I don't have the answer to this I've been, I've got a client playing around with this idea that we're going to explore is from the generational differences, because we still have so many baby boomers that we're trying to lead. And we have so many from Gen X that are moving into leadership positions, as well as Gen Y, and Z and etc, etc. And the motivation is different. The desire is different than some don't want the corner office and some don't want the gold watch. They want more time and, and space and chance to connect and do things differently. How much do you think this resignation is based on these generational differences? Or how much do you think it's based on a disconnection with with our own purpose? And finding that connection with resonant with the purpose of an organization that we want to want to give our time and attention to?

Lynn: 36:44

Cost? That's such a big question. Well, the thing, here's where I look at the generational differences, as I see it as a swing of the pendulum, okay. And another one of the big principles I've been thinking about is sort of where is the balance point, which is always moving. So I learned this in waterskiing, because, you know, in competitive waterskiing, we're going around buoys not unlike what they're doing in the Olympics right now, where they're going around gates, right. Right. And the balance point is never one place. It's it's an infinite set of places relative to in my case, it's the boat, the speed of the boat where the buoys are. So I think of it as like a dynamic alignment. And I think this is one of the things that happens in our society is, the baby boomers were the product of the environment, we came out of where the parents and the grandparents had been through the Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fear of nuclear Anala, and annihilation, which we did in the 40s. And so there was a, there was a point at which it's sort of like, we're all kind of glad to be alive. And, you know, we're going to work really hard so we can keep our houses and all that kind of stuff. And we got too far off balance, going one way, and our kids watched that, and they saw us work 12 hour days, and they saw us, you know, give up sell ourselves to the company store. And then companies started shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. You know, the the general corporate mantra of constantly adding efficiency and cutting costs, leads to where we we've ended up which like, I pulled out my foil and the, you know, my brand new aluminum foil, and it's not the same foil I had, when I was a kid, they've cut it so thin to save money, it's not even useful anymore. And there's so many products like that. And so we've we've all done that, you know, and a race to the bottom, and our kids are looking at that going well, that's not a great fulfilling life. So they've gone the other side of the pendulum, almost to the point where as a baby boomer, I look at it and go, you know, if I get judgmental, I say, well, that's irresponsible. But I can see why. And so I think we're just correcting back towards the middle. And I don't know that we ever, as a culture, as a big culture can ever like find that tight place of tiny correction, instead of huge correction. Like if you watch a new water skier, how much they're out of balance, you can see them just making these giant swings trying to get into balance. Whereas the the really top level pros, you can watch them they're making corrections, but they're at a very fine, granular level. So we almost don't see them. So they're out of balance a lot, but they're not out of balance quite frequently, but not in huge degrees.

Kendall: 39:34

Also their old chaos or stuff. It's

Lynn: 39:37

there was a I read a book, and I don't remember which book it came from. But George Leonard wrote two books that I read, and he's written probably more mastery and in the way of Akito. And one of those books there's a quote where the master and the student are speaking after leaving the dojo and the student said, But Master, you are in balance all the time. How can I ever learn to do that? And the master says, Oh no, I'm out of Balance much more than you are, I just regain it more quickly. Oh, nice. And so the place I went when we talked about the generational is it's not I don't see it as a age or anything like that I see it as the pendulum swings. And, you know, there's, there's gonna be another pendulum swing, we've had a lot of years of really good times. And if you look at our ancestors, they've had a lot of really rough times, much rougher than we are. And so I feel like it's just a swing.

Kendall: 40:35

This is reminded me of a conversation I had last week with one of my consulting friends, Dave Jennings. And we were talking about not not with this language of, of balance, but where it led me he was talking about with leaders, asking them what they do versus what they own. And as I've pondered that, over this last week, as I'm designing a new leadership development program for new client, I thought, why, what, what significance will that bring. And I think, and I'm still exploring this limb, but I think when I have the paradigm of what I do, it's pretty transactional, it's pretty to do list, it's pretty, it's pretty much how I grew up functionally, in my area of just doing it at a higher level, whether I'm in sales or it or operations, whatever. When I make the transition, though, to what I own, then, boy, I think differently, I own the culture, I own the translation of the strategy, hmm, I own the alignment of my team, even if it's dysfunctional around me, I own the engagement of my team members. So boy, I'm going to spend my time differently, I'm going to do a lot less of the transaction that to dues kind of things. And I'm going to spend a lot more time in creating a culture and maintaining the culture and reinforcing it and aligning around it so that it's so that it's ongoing and translating the strategy because if I go back to what we're talking about on, on the pendulum swing, I don't know which I'm dealing with it, because I can't just be by age, it can be by attitude, or whatever. And so I've got to engage at that level with them to create that kind of team that they want to be part of. But if I'm just so heads down, and I'm doing my job, and like I've always done, we're going to have a great resignation whenever people leave teams. In fact, people the research says people don't leave jobs that leave leaders. So I've got to change my mindset as a leader to what I own, versus what I do.

Lynn: 42:51

Well, and when I find you said, Where do I Oh, and I was like, are you talking about his car? And his? No, my wife was that? No, no, I get that. Because it's, you know, what you're talking about is what I can do something about. And that's when I when I'm thinking about it, when I'm under pressure now. You know, what I when I say how do I reach for my tools, instead of reaching for my rules, the tools are things like listening, hearing patients, timing, feel, problem solving, you know, those are the things that change how we approach the problem we have in front of us to solve as opposed to covering up the mistake, you know, working through a situation like this is this is gonna, this is gonna sound like a trite thing. But it was something I just experienced yesterday, I was getting a new piece to add to the bridle of my horse. And I've never seen one of these pieces before. And I had to figure out which direction it would go. And I back to the go slow to go fast. I kind of people who know me know this, I've kind of always in a hurry. I just am bored fast. People will often say listen, you need a lot of energy. I have a lot of energy. So but what I as I've been through this journey and learning about using these tools, and I pulled the bridle down and started working it like a puzzle. And I got it on one way and then I imagined it being on the horse's head and I was like no, that buckle is going to be in his chin that's uncomfortable. That's obviously backwards. And then just step by step went through the process of putting it on rather than fumble fingers going as I was doing it and that would have been my normal way of going about it. You know, sort of frustrated and in a hurry and throwing it up and asking somebody to come get it and I feel like a lot of times we don't give people space and breach Room to just sort it out. We asked them to be in a hurry.

Kendall: 45:06

When I'm seeing it translated to leaders. Yes. Because when we tell them and we give them in their performance review, you need to be more strategically. How many times have you and I've been told that you need to be more or

Lynn: 45:21

more coaching p i get coaching clients, can you please help my chief information officer be more strategic, right.

Kendall: 45:27

And so but, but you don't get to participate in the corporate strategy, and you don't get to participate in the business unit strategy, but we want you to be more strategic. What I've been thinking a lot more, though, and this is reinforcing what you said is in it, let's chat, let's play with the two words of strategic versus tactical, if I'm strategic, I lift my head up, if I'm tactical, I put my head down, and I get to work. If I'm strategic, I have I find space to think about those things that I own. If I'm tactical I, I find time to do the things that I do. Mm hmm. And it is such a mindset set shift. You and I both worked at a company at different times, same company Novations group, and the the company you worked at was results based leadership. They had this model called innovations model, you remember that? I do. And the research

Lynn: 46:23

data describe that model because it was one of those wonderful takeaways from that experience for

Kendall: 46:29

me. And I use it with all leadership development programs. I do and I think about it for myself a lot. They did research about Weiss the research question by two Harvard professors, Jean Dalton and Paul Thompson. That then came to Brigham Young University, which is my alma mater, and started innovations group was this. Why are some people more valued in organizations than others? It's a great question, right? Why do we, why do we think Lynne is a superstar and Kindles B plus. And they, they did the research and they could find no correlation to time or tenure, they could find no correlation to position or training or schooling or background. Now those those kinds of studies drive hard for professors nuts, because yeah, you can't publish that. So when they were here, in a beginning university, they they interviewed 1000s of people, and they discovered two things. The first part isn't that interesting to me, but I'll tell you anyway, that there's four stages that a person goes through in their career. I don't care if they're four, three, or six or 12. But the four were dependent, meaning I, I'm, I need you to show me where the printer is the bathroom is how things get done around here. And most of us take six to nine to 12 months to go through that stage. There's an independent stage where we can do kind of 90% of our job without much supervision without much coaching or help or leadership, and it doesn't really require a lot of interaction with other people. Stage three is interdependent, which is where synergy happens. This is learning to work with and through other people. And then stage four is representing the firm externally, outside the firm, and again, remember that didn't say that has anything to do with position. This is why you and I have coaching employment because we have a lot of CEOs that are in stage two mm, there that are independent, not interdependent. Now, here's the second part of the research that I was fascinated by, which was the value differentiator happened between the the Novation, that word means transition between stage two and three, that the gap happened as the people learn to work with and through other people. But the problem is, like that book that, who's the great coach wrote, What Got You Here Won't Get You There?

Lynn: 49:00

Oh, yeah. Malcolm Gladwell, right? No, it was not Oh, no, it's not Malcolm Gladwell. Book show, I'll find it. Okay. We'll find it. I'll have it.

Kendall: 49:10

We'll have it in the show notes too. Now, that is a great title to a book. That is a great title. So what got you here to stage two will actually hold you back in stage three and four. Because being tactical and working on my own, I develop a skill set that actually inhibits working through other people. And in collaboration. So if I go back to this be strategic. Many of us are stuck in stage two, because we're rewarded based on expertise, knowledge, deliverables, execute Marshall

Lynn: 49:42

Goldsmith, there we go. That's who I was actually thinking when I said Malcolm Gladwell, famous

Kendall: 49:48

as Marshall Goldsmith, Marshall Goldsmith, yes. But if I'm going to be more strategic, I've got to shift up above the tactical and the doing and the execution. I've got to think about culture and engage ment and strategy translation and alignment and not tripping my players on the way out of the dugout kind of thing. And that's a, that's a hard shift for many of us to make.

Lynn: 50:12

It is a really hard shift, you know, that comes to me to control. Tell me more. And there's a, there's a dynamic. And this is coming from a very controlling person talking about this. But when you're going through that dependent, independent, interdependent, those phases, you are giving up control. Because when I am, you know, a lot of people like that independent the most I can just do my job, nobody's there to help me. I can control everything. And this was always often an argument when I would be working with people in leadership, coaching, or when they were negotiating for Well, if you're going to ask me to whatever, you've got to give me that division to run. Because if I'm not reading it, I can't help you. And they mean, if I'm not controlling it, I can't, because of all the pieces, right, not thinking about all the stuff we talked for a lot in this conversation about which is that sort of soft stuff, which is more the influence that goes to the influence versus authority game, right. And again, to me, that goes to the tools versus rules piece. And there's an assumption in there, which is we have more control, that we have this control, when I think we actually don't have as much control as we think we do.

Kendall: 51:35

I might add the word comfort to that. I really like what you're saying control, and to try something new, as kind of uncomfortable. That's the left hand right hand thing.

Lynn: 51:47

It is. And actually in this, this has been one of the biggest breakthroughs I had in the getting back on the horse journey, as I was working with Bruce Anderson, who I've had on this podcast a couple of times. And he puts he puts you in a round pen with a horse. And in my case, I didn't know how to do anything. But my idea was to change his direction. So for example, he's sitting there doing this, my job is to change him from sitting there grazing on grass to walking in a certain direction or whatever. Now, what's at my disposal to do that. You think, Well, if the horse is trained, then there's something that you can tell me to do. And he will follow my rules. Isn't there a control even though I don't have any reins on him or any connection? And Bruce would be like the horse tell you what to do, when to do how to do you be the conduit? And I would look at him like he was a crazy man.

Kendall: 52:37

Well, plus, if you if you're standing next to tons of muscle, yeah, 1500 pounds, that might even be taller than you that's uncomfortable.

Lynn: 52:48

It's uncomfortable. And this was the present. This is what he began to slowly but surely, it's almost like he was knocking off layers of scales and protection as we went through these exercises. Because it was sort of like, you think that you're always going to help you because you're trying to seek comfort, but that's actually more dangerous. So if you can begin to let the horse tell you what to do, when to do how to do and tolerate those feelings, not as something's wrong with you. But that that discomfort that you're feeling is a signal for you to read and then take appropriate action.

Kendall: 53:28

You're reminding me Lin of an exercise I'll sometimes do with with clients to try to identify the horse so to speak, I don't have a horse in the room to use that. But so I have them sit at their chair, sit up straight and extend their right leg and turn the right leg in a clockwise direction. Hmm, see if you can do it. Let's do it.

Lynn: 53:54

I'm doing it.

Kendall: 53:55

Now take your right index finger in the air, I want you to draw six while keeping your right leg turning in a clockwise direction. Can you do it?

Lynn: 54:05

I can but no, my foot is not. It's not doing that started drawing a six with my finger.

Kendall: 54:11

So so what else I'll have to do is I'll use all the normal push push hype kind of stuff. Come on. We're XYZ organization. You're the best leaders and all these things. Well, yeah, the reality is someplace North I've lost the study, but someplace north of 90% of us. Physiologically we'll never be able to do that exercise. There's something about the right index finger in the right foot. The brain just can't do it. Uh huh. Unless eventually somebody will show us to draw a six. Not from the top of the six to the inside, but from the inside out. So it's Hmm. Does that work this

Lynn: 54:54

thing? Let me let me get my foot going. Oh, yeah, that's super easy.

Kendall: 54:59

Yeah. So It's easy, right? So there's something physiologically Well, if I'm not willing as a, as a leader or a horse person to understand that I don't care, what I coach, encourage, pay you to do or fearful to do that horse, so to speak that right foot, so to speak, is never going to turn, it's never going to change. Unless in your vernacular, we find a different tool, do it differently. And we often need somebody to help us see that through to now it's comfortable that you could do that exercise. Now it's comfortable to turn that force. Yeah. So that's another reason we, we think we have control. So we just buckled down with a problem that I see in corporate America is, if we don't then show the six inside out. What do what are the adults? Do? We ask, can you do? Oh, yeah, I can do it. Sure. Yeah. They just keep the leg under the desk, because this too shall pass. We've talked about that.

Lynn: 55:57

Exactly. I've got this, I call it my I've got this face. Yeah, I've got

Kendall: 56:01

it. Don't worry, this initiative will pass. And no other crazy consultant is going to ask us to turn our foot in a clockwise direction that'll that'll go away in six months. So we last them out, we last the CEO out. And so we're not making the progress we could because we're not dealing with these challenging issues in an authentic way.

Lynn: 56:23

Well, and we make people feel like there's something wrong with them that right, that you're bad if you can't make this happen. And that's the core of everything to me, is when we feel uncomfortable. Is it that I haven't learned how to draw a six yet? Or is that because there's something wrong with me? And that's where the cover up starts happening is we start trying to cover up well, I feel like something's wrong with me. And I can't let anybody know this. People call it the imposter syndrome. And in the elegant pivot, I didn't call it the imposter syndrome. But I did talk about it a fair bit, which is, if you can just recognize that no, I just feel uncomfortable. And that is a signal to do something different to to pay attention. Then if I begin to learn how to read those signals, not as a problem with me, but as a guide, to go ask another question. I mean, I used to talk about this all the time in meetings, when I would, I call it my little gray cloud, I'd leave a meeting and go, I am not sure I got all the data I needed. Although I couldn't even put that into words. It would just be this little feeling as wispy as a gray cloud, that something was off. And then many moves later, I would go you know what, it's this, this is happening now, because of that little gray cloud. If I had just asked one more question, or if I had just listened a little longer, we wouldn't be here now.

Kendall: 57:51

I'm glad you brought this up. Because I'm I'm rereading your book and I'm right there on

Lynn: 57:55

the poles. Oh, yeah. The negative positive pole

Kendall: 57:59

negative negative positive pole. And you and I were talking the other day about the negative pole. That it might not be that it's wrong, but there's a little niggle. Might I say,

Lynn: 58:11

yep, like, it's like an electric charge. Okay. And it's saying,

Kendall: 58:15

it's saying Don't, don't proceed or hold off or pause a little bit longer. Tell me about the positive side. What's the positive charge? That's also an electric charge?

Lynn: 58:26

Yes. Well, let me give it in contrast, so people who are listening who might not have read the book, and I'll give a couple of really quick stories of exactly how this works. I decided to buy a new car recently. And online, I found the interior, I won't go into all the story about why I decided I wanted this particular color of interior. But I found one locally, and they were still offering a pretty good price for it in this environment where we're not supposed to be buying cars. So I walked into the dealership in the worst condition possible for buying a car. I wanted that car. No, dang, I had zero negotiating power. My emotions were 100% online. I'm just buying that car. And the second I sat down in that car, the answer I my negative pole went to attend negative calm. And this was exactly what I thought I wanted. Now, almost instantly, my brain started looking for reasons that my negative pole went up. And it was there was it was a brand new car, but they had let the person driving home the person at the service desk so she had left her charging cord in there. So that might be why my poll went up because this isn't a used car. I mean, this is a used car if somebody's been using it, right. Another part was that it was darker than the interior. I thought it was the pictures, you know, were a little different. And I'm for several days, by the way I considered like you know, getting over those hurdles. And I actually gave myself the option I ended up In a different car, lighter interior, love the new car. But there was a part of me that had the question. And I was literally thinking about going back to the original car. And I was like, Wait, remember how you felt in it? The answer was no, you don't have to know why. So that's a negative pole store. So

Kendall: 1:00:17

let me interrupt here, because the noise of everything going around the emotions, and you're all in how did that negative poll resonate or have enough volume to make it through the noise of all the other?

Lynn: 1:00:33

Practice? Okay. So I have, and one of the things I practice often is thought exercises, right? So I take my vivid imagination and take it into the future, or I take it through different scenarios. And so the scenario was, put yourself back in the car and imagine it's your car and you're driving home, how do you feel? And no amount of cleaning up the car was going to change it? I don't know. I'll never know why. But it doesn't matter. Because now I have a very clear no to that car. Interesting. And so that's the feeling side on that on the other side. In November, I got a phone call from my friend, Tammy Tappan, who is a phenomenal artist. And she is actually showing in Scottsdale, now she lives locally has a couple of horses, that she was in a dilemma about what do I do about these horses? And she called me and first thing she said in the call was I have a I have a proposal for you and I have an automatic negative pole to anybody's proposal for you. Because it's usually like, oh, no, no, no, I don't want to get involved. But in this case, she said, I have a proposal for you. I am not going to haul the horses to Scottsdale, I have decided to board them locally. Would you be interested in working with them? While I'm gone? With the trainer that I'm boarding them with? And my positive pole went up to a 10? It shot up like up like it was like a 10? Yes. Now, the interesting thing about a tin in that way, is I'm back in the position I was when I was going to buy the car with no negotiating power. It's like but still take it frame by frame. But before you say 100% Yes, there's some due diligence to do. So be sure the location is going to be reasonable. Be sure that you like the trainer, be sure that you can manage, you know, and I had to like look at my schedule and say, Can I fit this in? All those questions had to be answered. But that's, that's an example of the positive pole.

Kendall: 1:02:38

So it's such a great teaching. What do you how do you teach this to your those your coaching?

Lynn: 1:02:44

I'm actually still working with it, and how to teach it because I can't you know, I learned it in the round pin. So what what Bruce would have me do is he has this exercise, I'm writing about this a lot in dancing the type called Finding the middle. And you go through this elaborate process to find the the middle of the round pan using different colored flags. And then one of the things he does intentionally it says, Okay, once you think you're at a place that is you can say this is it, which by the way, the round pen isn't round, it's made of paddle pants, so it's not round. And you know, then he asked you to step away and feel into that negative positive poll. And I can see that he's had people that wouldn't even do it. They don't want to tolerate that level of discomfort. But it's a way to train people to start tuning into the sensation. So that then you can start tuning into the correcting of the sensation. How do you then take the pole down? And it's a very difficult thing to teach because we always want reasons

Kendall: 1:03:51

Yeah, and we want we're very Brainiac in our in our leadership we want rational we want rules we want push this button do this and this is what will come out. You're talking about leader know yourself find yourself in some yeah to intuition. That's the art of leadership, not just the science of it. And some of us aren't comfortable having that part of our repertoire.

Lynn: 1:04:21

Which is the point of why I think we've ended up where we are and I'm I'm Case in point number one of MIS analysis Brainiac Yeah, of having to make this shift. Because to create a balance, we need the brainiac stuff, but we also actually the art of leadership is based on feel. And I can't tell you how many people have come to me and asked me to bring to their repertoire help them develop their executive presence. Mm hm. Well, executive presence is about the most damn intangible thing you can try to define. But it's also you know it when you see it. It's a calm under pressure, for example, that people carry in their energy field. And if we don't work on what we're carrying inside, we put fear and doubt and you know, lead with our discomfort in our energy field, instead of saying, Okay, I see the danger, but I can handle this.

Kendall: 1:05:29

I'm reminded of when I was a brand new consultant out of graduate school, and I was put on a big project, Amoco oil. And I was the junior Sherpa, so to speak, I was lucky to carry the partner bags. And so they didn't put me up in front of the client, hardly at all, maybe a few breakout groups kind of thing. So I got to watch the senior partners and junior partners and senior consultants presenting and I didn't know how to ask the question back then. But my question was, how did you develop your style? Hmm. Because obviously, and you and I have worked side by side in the same client organization, your style with the client is a little different than my style. And that's why they hired us both, right? I think today, my question would be not style, because style to me is at the superficial level, sometimes manipulative, I'm trying to do this for you. So you'll do that. The question I would ask is what you just said, How, what's your presence? How did you figure out your presence? And it took me a while to figure that out. Because I had to be comfortable in my own skin that what I had to offer was valuable, while also just getting in touch internally with what are my values? And where Won't I be crossed? And how will I stand toe to toe with a CEO and she's pushing in a different direction that I know is not good for the organization. That's presence, right? That's that energy field you're talking about. And I think it takes work internally. And also learning to not have imposter syndrome, but being comfortable with what the gifts you have, like in yours, in my case, yours are so different than mine. And yet so similar. And yet, we had a great time working together in that client or

Lynn: 1:07:20

agent. And and we can create harmony, because we each bring something different. You know, I look at we have only so many letters in the alphabet. There's only 20 What is it? 26 letters, 2400 2626 letters. And yet look at all the millions of books that have been written, yes,

Kendall: 1:07:40

24 letters, those combinations, and then all the different combinations.

Lynn: 1:07:44

And, you know, I remember that you've mentioned boundaries as a part of presence, which is a huge piece. And one of my early experiences, kind of as I was getting into more significant leadership roles, was having an argument with one of the executives about something and to do with our credit training program. And he was in Texas, he had been my boss once upon a time now he was sort of my internal client. And he had a point of view, and I had a point of view. And, in my mind, his point of view, it was he was arguing a decision that was already made. And we went around and around and around. And there was a part of me There was noise going on in my head that was like, this is a senior executive, he's over me, he could get me in trouble. But this is a crazy and at one point, I finally said his name. And I said, here's how it's going to be. We're going to do this, and you're going to pay for it. And he goes, okay. And it was the end of the conversation. Like I finally put my stake in the ground as opposed to trying to convince him. And all of a sudden that argument was over. The boundary was had and he actually relaxed and he he and I had a great relationship much better after that, than we

Kendall: 1:09:00

just had to know your boundary, you just had to know that you were was just seeing if

Lynn: 1:09:03

he could push me around. He wasn't intentionally trying to push me around. He was just, you know, he was just doing whatever he was doing. When I just made it really clear. This is my edge, you're not going any further. And I didn't say I'm going to go get somebody else to put, you know, run my fence line for me here on the boundary, I'm putting my fence line it was it was a whole new game, and in tremendous respect, shared respect that we had. And here's what's really interesting, that translates with horses, because they can be pushy, and that 2000 pounds or sometimes 2000 Sometimes 1500 pounds of muscle and teeth and hoofs want to get all in your space. And you have to back them up and and then you look for signals of are they intimidated? Or are they relaxed? And they have physical signals for that and I've learned to read them. And would you believe I've never seen a horse that I set a boundary with it didn't get relaxed, more relaxed after the boundary than before.

Kendall: 1:10:00

But I think the key word though you used right there in that example was respect. Yes. So with the horse, if you don't respect them, they don't respect you, etc. But what you're seeing with your senior executive, what's what's troubling to me about our, our national dialogue right now, and it's it's leaking into our corporate dialogue is that we fight over each other's boundaries, we, we yell at somebody for having a value or a different perspective or a different point of view. And I love about that executive example was, it was like, almost like he was looking for, and trying to find where your conviction on it was. And if you were, if you were convicted, so to speak, then he was okay. But if you were wishy washy, but the word you used in both that example in with the horses was Respect, respect. And I think we can have these tough conversations, these dialogues, if we can respect that you might look at it differently than than I do, and that I'll learn in the process. But if I'm just going to push and fight against your decision, your value your position, we're in trouble as an organization, because innovation happens at these different knowledge domains. Mm hmm. But it requires a friction. And when there's friction, there's heat, and eventually there's fire and a new idea comes out. Yeah, but that's not a safe space all the time, if we're not willing to respect each other. So so what we don't engage in, in the frictional conversations, so therefore, we don't get innovation. And that's where we stagnate. So we take it right down to that level. We got some work to do around respect, listening and understanding and engaging in a meaningful way. So the big ideas can come out.

Lynn: 1:11:51

I think it all comes down to our own confidence in who we are. And I won't say that at that moment with that executive, I was really strong in myself, but for a moment I was I found a space. But when I'm engaging in that friction, if I have a question about am I okay? Am I Am I do I bring value outside of whatever this is, is if I if I don't have a subtleness about my own inner sense of self, then all of this other stuff calls that into question even more than I'm already doing. My self doubt becomes my leading basically, it's my leading way of armor is I'm going to my self doubt means I have to armor up and then I have to even attack you know, I go from being a pastor by as you called it to the rock thrower. For the sake of my own inner comfort with myself. And that's where it all comes down to me if we we all owe it to ourselves to do our self discovery and understand that we are worthy. And we can live as if we are worthy.

Kendall: 1:13:03

Like that question. Am I okay? Am I okay? Emotionally? Am I okay? Physically? Am I okay? With my skill set? Can I find another job, it changes my mindset for me to speak up, it doesn't mean that I have to be harsh about it. You know, you didn't say, Hey, if you don't like this idea, just go talk to George the CEO about it's not like you're going to take your marbles and go home. But it gives you this stability, this foundation upon which when the winds blow you can you can you can stand up and hold your own

Lynn: 1:13:37

stand your ground Exactly. And stand stand knowing they could have I mean, that could have been a firing offense. Right? I mean, but I recall, there was a moment for myself in my journey where I was questioning, we had moved to like lower. I was still working with results based leadership, but I'm about to change. And actually, it was right about the time I changed to go out on my own. And the question that I had is, is what if this doesn't work? What if I'm not question, of course, because I you know, I was in business for myself for the first time and I had always been sort of a corporate person. But all of a sudden, I said, Wait a minute, I have earning power. I know how to go get money if I need it. If I have to go run a bank branch somewhere close by or, you know, I had all of a sudden I was like, I have a lot of ways I can make money. I want to make money this way. But it doesn't mean that's the only way. And when I acknowledged I had earning power, it changed how I was willing to take risk. It was freeing. It was very freeing, and I think where we are in tune with who we are that's the ultimate freedom.

Kendall: 1:14:55

Yeah, I'm playing with an idea right now from from some of the church stuff that I do as well. I haven't thought this through all the way. But you're you're, you're touching on identity? Yes. So am I identified as a consultant? Or am I identified as a bank teller Am I identified as a father, and we have lots of identities, we have lots of hats that we wear. But unless we find that bigger identity when you take one of them away, and I'm fearful, and the house starts to teeter a little bit, then I'm in, then I'm not safe. I don't feel like I'm okay. And so we've got to find the bigger, yes, to be able to say no to those smaller nose. Or it's more than just a decision point, you're messing with my identity, identity. And that's psychologically and emotionally unstable. And so I'll avoid it, I'll pull back

Lynn: 1:15:56

the this morning, this, the Olympics are going on while we're recording this. So if you're listening, you know, many, many months later, you'll know this, but the Winter Olympics in Beijing are going on. And this morning, I heard an athlete saying exactly what you just said. She said she had to take a break, she actually gained a bunch of weight, lost a bunch of weight, had an eating disorder. And had to take a break because her identity was caught as an athlete, and who am I if I'm not a great, whatever thing on snow she's doing, or ice, I guess I don't know what she's working on. But it's something wintry. And I was thinking about that exact thing you were just talking about, which is who are we without our external identity, my role as a consultant or as a coach or as a skier. And the idea of for me of raising our pressure threshold, which is what the idea of rules versus tools is, is recognizing that it has nothing to do with my identity of an external thing. But my ability to reach inside myself to my god given abilities and talents to deal with whatever's coming at me. It's sort of like my inner winter clothes, or my inner summer clothes, like we did a trip to Glacier National Park in August. And it turned out to be not a summer trip, it was a winter trip. We arrived with the the coolest week they had had in months and rain the whole week. And we got in the car and somebody said something about the you know, in our van to take us to where our first stop was. And I said there's no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothes. So as long as we all brought the right clothes, we're cool. And I feel like that's the case with our tools. There's no such thing as a bad thing happening. It's just only can we do we have the tools to reach for and under pressure. Because we can all walk a straight line. But if I ask you to walk, I said wait, we all can unless without too much or whatever. But but most of us can walk a straight line, you know, on a 12 inch wide path, no problem. But if I say take that 12 inch wide path and make it a beam 100 feet in the air, very few people can do that. Because the pressures change, yeah, the pressure has changed. And the consequences have changed. In the Olympics, the consequences are different. You know, some of our engagements are consequences are different. So the thing we can do with ease elsewhere, we cannot even you know, we all know the person including me that has frozen and can't say the right thing in the moment because we're locked up. What does it take to free that I think what it takes to free that is have confidence within yourself that you are bigger and more worthy than just this moment. So if you fail, so what

Kendall: 1:18:48

I was reading a book, atomic habits, Life, Family read that. And it's interesting. There's a lot of good research in there. Putting it in our vernacular, in this conversation is I got to find what it is internally that wants me to do that habit to exercise or to lose weight or to learn to ride horses or whatever it is. But there's also that external clothing that might not fit right. And so I've got to adjust the external systems as well. So if I say I'm going to exercise every morning, at a certain time, but then you and I have a podcast together and have this great conversation right on top of that time. Yeah, then I don't exercise today. So I've got to change inside out outside and I've got to change me I've got to change the family dynamic and structure my systems. And I don't care what the order is. But we've got to work at all. All those levels. And it's the same with my identity. I can say this is my identity. But if I don't work on the context of it, that I can operate in that identity, the same pressure no pressure, then I'm not that consistent leader, I'm not that consistent self, that consistent person. And that's, I think, way back to what was one of the questions you asked in the beginning. That's where the messiness of, of what we're doing in changing ourselves or our teams or organization comes in. And I've got to deal at all those levels.

Lynn: 1:20:22

I question for you, how do you find your internal motivation?

Kendall: 1:20:31

That's a great journey that I've that I've been on I, I read a lot of wisdom literature. I start every day reading in scriptures. And I'm not a good, I'm not a good meditator. I'm not patient enough to sit there. And I haven't, I haven't studied it well enough to understand how to calm some of that noise. And so instead, I find other ways to be still. And that's through reading in scripture or reading in, in talks from leaders that I've that I value or espoused values that I'm trying to become. And then I try to translate that into some behaviors that are I can repeat. And so I've been working that for a lot of years have redefined not redefining the purpose, but saying these are the values kind of like Benjamin Franklin would have is what he's working on that I'm that I'm trying to, to espouse. Like, you talk about assuming positive intent, I call it giving the benefit of the doubt. Right? When I don't do that, boy, I'm a great storyteller, in my mind, of all the reasons that person has just crossed me and they don't deserve my love or my race or whatever. Right?

Lynn: 1:21:54

We are all great storytellers than we really are.

Kendall: 1:21:57

So, so I do that. And then I try to I work for Franklin Covey. years ago, and I've read a lot about time management. I think it boils down to a couple of things. What are my what are my roles that I hold near? And dear, like being a father? What do I need to do in that role this week, just one thing. And then do I put it in my calendar? If I do that, every week, I live my values, I'm the better me than if I don't otherwise, I just react to everything else. And the things that I'm trying to be better at are the relationships that I'm trying to improve, are the priorities that I think are, are as important as my clients priorities, never find the light of day. So it's a combination of spending time being still riding my bike for a long time and, and getting away from my phone and my computer and just pondering on that, and then trying to implement some of that into my calendar, so that I'm not just overwhelmed with all everybody else's priorities.

Lynn: 1:23:06

You kind of just described them. I'm sure you've read this book, the book essentialism.

Kendall: 1:23:11

It's a great book by Greg McCune,

Lynn: 1:23:12

Greg McCune. Yeah, really good. And he's got a great podcast as well. And he has this

Kendall: 1:23:17

great phrase in there that struck me that said, I won't quote it right. But the idea was, if you don't own your priorities, somebody else will. He's talking about kind of being an agent to yourself. And it just really struck me that it's not that anybody my clients, my family, my friends don't have any ill intentions. But they have needs and, and wants and, and some demands of me as well. And if I don't own that, then I become grumpy. I become a shell of myself, I become, I wake up in the morning and think we're where is this train going? Mm hmm. And he really does a nice job of putting it down into learning to say, no, it gives you phrases to say no talking about boundaries. And yeah, so it's a worthwhile read.

Lynn: 1:24:11

It is i i did not read it before I wrote my book, The delicate art the art, say no and unleash your performance. It's a small book. I did not read his book before I read it. But his after I read his book, I was like, I should have had a whole chapter on here's how to say no. Here's the language because he does a great job of describing it. But you know, what you're talking about, again, is finding that balance between our personal needs and our needs with our community. Because nobody lives in a vacuum.

Kendall: 1:24:40

Well, in corporate America to let's be real, you and I do have a little bit more flexibility in what we say no to because we're not stuck in the corporate American system. But that's right. Boy, the thing that I think's the demise of leaders is a shared calendar.

Lynn: 1:24:54

I hate that worse than anything. I can't believe they ever allowed it like I think I would have blocked my home. calendar off after a while, if I had still been in that world

Kendall: 1:25:03

when I was in corporate America, I did not give it access to my shared calendar and I had to fight it for five years, I believe it because people will fill up your calendar, I just need a minute or I need you in this meeting. And the end of the day, I've worked on everybody else's priorities except for my own. So all night, I have to do my projects. And you do that night after night after night, pretty soon you're burned out and you're not adding value because you're you're spent. And I feel bad for my, for my leaders, my friends who are in corporate America, who can't create the space to do the things that we've talked about, because it's being overridden by someone else's. Yeah, also very important priorities, but they become urgent instead of important. So the importance gets driven out.

Lynn: 1:25:50

It's, it's horrendous in a lot of those meetings, you're expected to go to, and then just sit back and listen. And if if you're just going to give me a lecture, record it and I'll listen to it in my own time. Right. It's a terrible thing. So I am I just looked at there we are, we talk about a quick conversation. I feel like we started five minutes ago,

Kendall: 1:26:12

I haven't even looked at the clock. This has been

Lynn: 1:26:15

we've been almost going an hour and a half. So I want to, I want to wrap up. I want to wrap up with a question I often ask my guests, which is, if somebody is listening to this, and they're thinking, Okay, what should I be doing in the way of, you know, I think you could put everything we've talked about under the heading of either living with change, or leading change, what would you ask my audience to think about or to do in order to be better in whatever their change game is, if it's, if it's losing weight, if it's leading change, if it's trying to get used to living in a new town, whatever it might be?

Kendall: 1:26:56

I had a different answer if it was corporate versus not. But then as I just as I'm thinking, I think it is probably the same answer. When I personally fail, it change. I haven't considered inside out or outside and I haven't considered the impact on me personally, the impact on my family, the impact on my extended family, or the impact on me or my team or the organization or take it the other direction. Men many times I'll start with a strategy. And this is where my my company's going to go. But I don't translate that into therefore what is this word group two and this word group two, and therefore, what does it mean to those individuals, the emotions that change. So the learning for me having failed many times, both individually, and as a leader, and as a consultant, is, if you're not willing to deal with all three of those levels, or those buckets or those components, pick your pick your poison, you're going to be unsuccessful, you're going to get about half of what you wanted. That's what the research shows in my own life experience as well. It's longer, it's harder, requires more effort. But pay me now or pay me later, I think, pay it, pay it up front and get the results you want. Otherwise, it'll breed this lack of motivation. And here we go again, and I can never change. So that's probably what I would say whether you're working on yourself, your family, your team, or you're the senior strategist of your corporation.

Lynn: 1:28:35

That's really, really great thinking. I like it. I think that would help anybody to just realize is sort of pay me now or pay me later. Go slow to go fast. You know, it's the answer to the question why a lot of what we try to do doesn't work. Right. So wow, this has been great. I am so grateful. And as I as I'm, I actually just realized, I promised to say I will send you a tool that I've sent out to my newsletter, the coaching digest we talked about, we didn't even get to talking about competing priorities. Oh, I love it. I'll send you a couple of those things. And for people who are listening, if you are looking for these kinds of tools in my coaching digest, which you can sign up for Atlin karns.com. I am constantly putting out blogs and podcasts such as the one you're listening to. So if you're interested in more on this, you can go there. With that I will say so long and see you on the next podcast.

Kendall: 1:29:31

Thank you.

Lynn: 1:29:32

Thank you, Kendall. Thank you for listening to the creative spirits unleashed podcast. I started this podcast because I was having these great conversations and I wanted to share them with others. I'm always learning in these conversations and I wanted to share that kind of learning with you. Now what I need to hear from you is what you want more of and what you want less of. I really want these podcasts to be a value for the listeners. Also if you happen to know someone who you think might Love them please share the podcast and of course subscribe and rate it on the different apps that you're using because that's how others will find it now I hope you go and do something very fun today