Start With A Win - How to Lead Your Team During Uncertainty with Seth Mattison

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

In this episode of Start With A Win, Seth Mattison, CEO of FutureSight Labs, joins Win Nation to discuss how leadership has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. FutureSight Labs is an organization dedicated to helping leaders and their organizations navigate challenging moments of inevitable transformation and build a future-ready framework. Seth has studied leadership and the ongoing future of work for 15 years. Seth opens the conversation by reflecting on some of his key leadership takeaways during the early weeks of the initial COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. He emphasizes how keeping yourself grounded during uncertainty enhances your adaptability, enabling you to lead with more confidence and devote energy to others. Seth explains the concept of a leader’s role to “normalize the struggle”—how leaders confront challenging situations and implement a plan to resolve them. He elaborates how the transition of the workplace structure (remote, hybrid, in-office) will vary for each organization—dependent on organizational values and goals—and how it will require intentional and strategic planning regarding its future framework.Seth addresses how the pandemic has impacted mental health. Studies have shown that many individuals are experiencing languish—a mental state between depression and flourishing. He further discusses how others have begun to reflect on who they are and their sense of purpose personally and professionally. Seth outlines two fundamental skills that significantly impact how people navigate challenges:1) Learning agility: Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do; how you navigate uncertainty and challenging situations2) Maintain your agency: Believe you have control over your life; simply believing in your actions and claiming your path will lead to higher performance and improve quality of life.Seth explains the concept of psychological safety—creating an environment where people feel safe enough to show up and express their true selves while confidently asking questions and asking for help. Genuine curiosity creates understanding and unity, which is crucial in multi-generational workplaces. He emphasizes how love creates an essential foundation in leadership dynamics and workplace satisfaction. Leaders must have solid self-love as it enhances self-awareness and love for other people. Connect with Seth:https://www.sethmattison.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethmattison/https://twitter.com/sethmattisonhttps://www.instagram.com/sethmattison/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Every day is filled with choices. You're here because you're choosing to start with a win. Get ready to be inspired, learn something new, and connect with the win nation. And coming to you from Denver, Colorado, home of REMAX World Headquarters, it's Adam Contos, CEO of Remax with Start With A Win. How you doing, producer Mark? I am doing so good. I love it. Life treating you well this summer?

Yeah, you know, we've been on some major road trips, been to the pool a ton, went to the beach out of town and just feeling blessed. You know, it's been a beautiful summer. Awesome. Life is great, isn't it? It is so good. It's all what you make it. You can find the beauty in the small things. That's right. Exactly. So speaking of making life great and doing some amazing things, we have an incredible guest, longtime friend, Seth Madison, internationally recognized thought leader, author, advisor, top-rated keynote speaker on change and innovation. I've known Seth for quite some time. Seth talks to us about sales and influence and leadership and the future of work. He's the CEO of Future Sight Labs, which basically they focus on transformation that supports future business and helps business leaders prepare themselves and their organizations for it.

So he does a lot of research, training, advising, coaching, helps with digital tools and thought leadership. He's had involved himself in case studies. He's driven meaningful outcomes in organizations. Seth, you've done so much over the years, man. It's great to have you on the show. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Adam. I need to bring you with me on the road as my hype man out front because nobody gives

a boost like you do. It is very much appreciated. And I am, of uh, super grateful for the opportunity to come and have a little conversation, hang out today. Hey, it's, it's my pleasure. I love your set there. So if you guys, if anybody's listening to this podcast, make sure you find the video because you got to see Seth set. I mean, this, this guy's on video all over the world all the time and he knows it and he shows up like he's on video. So, I mean, just- I appreciate that.

Just looking good, my friend. Yeah. If people go to YouTube, you'll see a lot of the videos that we're putting out here in this studio space. And like I think a lot of people over the past 18 months, it didn't start out like this. We were doing minimal virtual programming at that time. Yeah, we were putting out some video content, but not to the level that we are now. And like a lot of people, I didn't know how to use these tools. I started out presenting to the laptop camera and had to come to grips of if the world doesn't come back, you know, in those early days of the pandemic, this is, this can't just be a, be good enough to get through, you know, let's just get through it to get back to in-person. I had to make a mindset shift of like, how do I get excellent at this? How do I figure out how to do virtual really well? And I didn't understand the technology.

And so I forced myself to just start to play and experiment and learn and grow. And, you know, like through all challenging times, there were so many growth lessons, but I think that was a big one of them of just like giving myself permission to experiment, to try to lean into the discomfort of like, I was terrible at first. How do you talk into a camera lens and be impactful and influential, which, you know, you've experienced as well, Adam, you know, how do you keep your teams together and the entire organization aligned, especially in those early days when you can't physically be with these people. So I'm glad to be here and still be standing, you know, now in, you know, the summer of late summer, fall of 2021.

Agreed. Agreed. And you touched on, I mean, just to dive headfirst into leadership here and organization, I mean, just because you touched on a lot of great things there. And it was a lot of the weaknesses that you and I both saw across industry globally. You speak around the world. I speak around the world. You know, we touch businesses. What we all found is we all had the same problem like overnight. I mean, it was, you're shut down. You can't be with your employees. You need to find a new way to communicate and instill confidence in your organization to not go under. And it was challenging. And we saw some leaders leading and like you said, giving themselves permission to do

so. And some leaders hiding. 100%. Were you feeling the same way that I was? And I'm like, what happened to these other CEOs? They went away. I mean, what went through your mind when you started seeing people disappear? Yeah, there was definitely a group that went silent, especially in those early days. And I understand why. It's fear fear based. And in full transparency, there was even a little bit of that for me, you know, in the early days, we do about 80 live events a year, then that's sort of split between fortune 50, internal leadership teams, and then associations that represent different trades and industries. And in those first couple of weeks of the pandemic, I watched, the team watched as about

75% of our projected revenue for the year evaporated, you know, right before our eyes, like sand falling through your fingers. And, you know, you're just in reactionary mode and you're trying to remain calm. And one of the things that I recognized, and I've seen it in other entrepreneurs that we were supporting other leaders, is that as leaders, we have a tendency to just like shove all of the emotion that comes up down in order to slay the dragon at hand, right? It's like, you can't even allow yourself to feel the weight of what's happening, because you've got to project confidence, but we got to power through this. And for me, you know, it wasn't until maybe July or August of 2020 before I even let myself feel the weight of what had happened, the weight of the loss. Because, you know, even the elements of like despite all of the personal work I've done on myself to detach who I am from the what I do, which is hard for all of us, especially as men.

And then all of a sudden the work I'm doing has been taken away. Who am I? What's my value to the world if I don't have a stage and audiences in front of me to be able to make an impact on? And so I had to confront big, painful, hard lessons. But once I did that, once I got myself whole, then I was in a position to be able to pour into other people. So I think part of the lesson here for leaders is like, how fast can you get yourself to bounce back? And the more rooted and grounded you are, right? I love, you know, just your work around

starting with a win, the routines, rituals, and habits, the communities, the things that you put around yourself in times of plenty and abundance and good times, they prepare you for when the storms come so that you can get through them. It's fascinating you say this because, you know, when we all got hit by this bus called COVID, you know, in our businesses, personally, whatever it might be, and likely, you know, a lot of people listening to this got COVID. A lot of people did not get COVID. I never got it. But the reality is,

you know, I'm locked in my house. I'm like, you know, my wife and I are staring at each other and our kids moved back in. We're like, the hell? I thought they moved out. And, you know, I'm locked in my house. I'm like, you know, my wife and I are staring at each other and our kids moved back in. We're like, the hell? I thought they moved out. And, you know, it's, I love them to death that we had a lot of great times sitting around reading books on leadership and things like that together. But the reality is a lot of people stop taking care of themselves first in this depression reaction. Yes. What did you see with leaders? How did you, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and go, I can't let myself go that way. I mean, what was the realization for you that other leaders needed to hear from you on or started understanding? Yeah, it's such a great question. So it really does come back to,

you know, prior to the pandemic hitting, you know, I'm a, call it a self-improvement, self-exploration junkie. I always have been. I would consider myself deeply spiritual. I have a strong meditation practice. I had routines and rituals in place going into it. You know, the pandemic then forces, it's, there's a bit of shock to the body and you have to respond to the moment. But they absolutely pulled me through. And one of the pieces of advice that I give to leaders and this continues even to right now, because whether or not you're in an industry or a sector that's that's flourishing and thriving right now or you're challenged, we're all going to have these moments. You know, everyone wants leaders to speak from this place of authenticity and transparency and realness. And I think our fear as leaders is

like, you know, I need to normalize, you're asking me to normalize the struggle to, and when I say normalize the struggle, I mean, talk about the challenge of, and the pain and the hardship. And leaders will say, I get people want me to do that, Seth, but at the same time, I need to project confidence. I can't let my people lose faith and trust in me that I can see us through. And so the tip to that is, you have to be able to normalize the struggle, say, here's what I'm navigating,

but then you must follow it up with, and here is what I'm doing about it. Here are the specific strategies I've put in place to pull myself through, which is a part of why I really appreciate the work that you're doing, because you're in the work. So you can say, here's the pain, here's the hardship, here's what brought me to my knees. In August of 2020, when I finally let myself feel the weight of having lost this gift that I've been given and I didn't know who I was anymore,

the only thing that pulled me through were the routines, rituals, and habits I had in place. And now when I share that story, it's made me a better presenter. It's made me be able to connect with my audiences in a deeper way because I've felt real pain with them. But if I hadn't done the work, if I was just lost out at sea,

I wouldn't be here to be able to share the stories. Awesome. I love that. Well, let's jump into business, Seth. You're featured in just about every business publication on the planet, and you've spoken to business leaders around the world over the past couple of decades. What advice do you have for business leaders specifically? Much like their customers, businesses faced a great deal over the last year, including a great deal of loss. How did businesses recover from something like this? It's been one of the most fascinating moments in history to be in this work of studying the future of work and change and transformation. COVID has essentially served as an accelerant

to all of the trends that we had been tracking. And one of the biggest sort of transformations organizations went through that you alluded to was that they got thrust into a hundred percent remote environment. And so then what were then became the new leadership skills and competencies to be able to curate, hold, maintain, and elevate your culture when you can't physically be with your people. And so we had to go through that. And then now over the last six months, we've been shoulder to shoulder in the trenches with our clients as they've started to think about what will work look like in a post COVID or with COVID world, right? The return to the office plans. Are we going to bring everyone back full time? Will we offer hybrid? Will we be a remote organization? And the biggest piece of advice, the overarching piece of

advice that I'm telling everyone is that you have to approach this like scientists. There is no one single blueprint. Number one, you have to know exactly who you are, your values, the behaviors that drive your organization, because that will shape some of your decisions about do we physically need to be together? Do we know how to leverage technology so that we could offer flexibility? You need to know who you are and you need to know where you're going, number one. Number two, all of the research points to, and people got exposed to this, we want flexibility. People want the ideas, you can trust me to do the right thing. If you got thrown into the remote environment and then now we arbitrarily tell people they need to come back to work or we just set a random number. We say three days a week we're going to be in the office. Well, why three? Well, because culture is important to us and we

feel like we need to be together to do it. Okay, I get that, but is three the optimal number or are we just saying it versus having an actual framework to think through how we'll design work moving forward. And that's the work that we're in right now to really help organizations understand and think about what's the future we want to claim. Because if you just default and go back to what work looked like pre-pandemic, your competition is going to smash you. And the customers, our clients in the marketplace expect a different experience from you moving forward. And you're not going to be in a position to deliver it. You have a book called The Future of Leadership. And you talk a lot about how business has evolved. We've had a lot of forced change over the last 12 months or so. What do you think is important

for leaders today in order to be an effective leader over the next 12 to 24 months? Yeah, of course. Of course. You know, there's the fundamentals, but 100%, you know, high EQ leadership, heart-centered leadership, truly caring and loving about loving your people. It's an absolute requirement. This is a, you know, we collectively went through real trauma as a society. Not to mention it has been a, I would call it a collective existential experience for all of us. There's not a single person that over the past 18 months didn't ask themselves the kind of big questions of like, who am I? What do I want? What brings me joy? Why am I doing this work? And if as a leader, you're not equipped to be able to be in those kinds of conversations,

to be able to help and shepherd people who are struggling with mental health. I mean, we look at just the overall mental health numbers across the country today, people are suffering. And even if you're not in a state of depression, right in psychology, we look at mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing. And the number of people who are stuck somewhere in between in this, this no man's land called languish is unbelievable right now. And so if you don't have the skills and the competencies to be able to deeply care, show up, even something as simple as your presence, right? So what are my skills with being able

to actually break the barrier of my camera and this screen so that you feel like I am here in this moment with you? And maybe for nothing else other than asking great questions and being present to what you need so that I can then coach you through this moment. High EQ, high coaching. And then the two other, if we wanna talk specific skills, Adam,

I would say, number one, it's the skill of what I call learning agility. So learning agility, Korn Ferry put out a great piece about 15 years ago on how they define learning agility. And I see a lot of fortune 50 organizations. This is one of their top skills, but what the heck is learning agility? And my favorite definition is this. It's essentially knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. And I think it is so important in this moment when we, when we don't know what the future is going to be,

there's not a roadmap. So what's my move when I don't know what to do? Do I default into a fixed mindset? Do I retreat? Or do I have a growth mindset and I lean into it and I trust myself that, you know what, I'm not going to be perfect right away, but I'm going to keep leaning into it. So learning agility and then maintaining your agency. And what's agency? Agency is essentially believing that you have some control over your life. You're not on the sidelines. You're not a victim.

I get to dictate and decide. I claim I am the creator of my reality. And there's fascinating research. Angela Duckworth put out beautiful research on whether you believe you are in control or you don't. It doesn't matter whether you really are in control. The research shows the people who believe they're in control have a higher performance and have higher quality of life because of the belief. So we can argue all day long about, are there systems of oppression?

Are there structures that you have no control over? It's irrelevant. What do you believe will dictate the experience that you have? So let's talk a little bit more about your book. You've got a book coming out in 2022 called The Heart of Business. We talked about the heart of the human being here, emotional intelligence, EQ, things of that nature. What can we expect from your book, The Heart of Business, coming out soon? Yeah, I appreciate it. So this has been a bit of a passion project. I've been essentially studying the future of work and leadership now for the past 15 years.

And I've been very fortunate to be able to be inside some of the world's largest organizations, most progressive leaders to start to see and understand like, what is the formula? What's the makeup? And for a long time, it just felt like it was this intangible. And Adam, you're one of those leaders where you're just, when you're in the presence of these people, it feels different, but it's easy for people just to sort of cast it aside as if it is charisma, right? The person is, they're a charismatic leader and so they naturally, people are naturally magnetized and gravitate towards them and that's not what it is.

The more we looked at it and the more we talked to what brings people to an organization and want to stay there, it comes down to this word love. And it's not a word that feels like super appropriate in a corporate setting. And I just don't care because I just, I keep coming back to this place of the best leaders. They, when you distill it down, they love people. They love their clients.

They care deeply about the people around them. But, you know, in order to love other people, you also have to love yourself. So what does that mean? You know, that means as a leader, we have to be deeply introspective. And people, you know, that's, again, the whole idea of starting the day with a win, like your routines, rituals, and habits. Who do you have around you that is helping you to elevate your level of self-awareness?

If you can love yourself, then and only then can you pour love into the people around you. And it's freaking rocket fuel for businesses. Totally. I mean, there's so much energy that comes out of that. It's funny you say this, Seth, because I just finished a four-session series with a bunch of law enforcement leaders. They've been through some tough times. I mean, the department I was talking to, major, major department, spent a lot of time dealing with social unrest and things of that nature. They've had, I mean, they've had officers suicides. They've had all sorts of craziness going on. And they're out there trying to keep the community safe at the same time. And that was one of the things that I talked about that I not only see on that side, but you just mentioned it on the corporate side, is that love. And in a paramilitary organization, you're like, aren't we just supposed to do what we're ordered to do? But these people care about each other and care about the community. They hold hands and cry with people. There's nothing worse than delivering bad news to a family, which the cops

have to do as well. Unbelievable. The reality is you're right. And you mentioned loving ourselves also. Do you find that, and I know what you're going to say to this. I'd love for you to put it in your words and echo this. We as leaders should recognize when people are having trouble at home and themselves. If you and I were talking, I'd be like, Seth, how you doing, man? Are you okay? If you're struggling at work, because you talk about love. Love is unconditional giving. It is caring about their feelings and your feelings and how those things work together. Tell me about how does a leader go from KPIs to how do I love my employees and care about their feelings outside of the workplace? Because workplace is like, you know, one eighth of your life. You do have to thread the needle because the KPIs still

do matter, right? You're still running a business. We're still in pursuit of growth. But I believe that this also fuels that when we do it right. And it is thinking about people from a holistic fashion, especially when we're living now in more of a hybrid type environment where the lines between work and life are virtually completely blurred. I mean, you're operating in the real estate space where that's probably always historically been true. There were no lines between work and life. And so we have to look at the individual as their whole self

and create an environment where they feel safe enough. It comes back to this theme of psychological safety. You know, psychological safety, it's not a small thing. Psychological safety is essentially created environments where people feel like they can show up and they can reveal their true self, that they can question, they can challenge, they can push back, they can raise their hand and say, I'm struggling and I need help. And the way that you create psychologically safe environments is as leaders, you have to go first. You want to show people that it's okay to

talk about the challenges. It goes back to that idea of, I call it, normalizing the struggle. And you're in a position from a leadership perspective to do that from a place of strength if you then follow that up with, and here are the lessons and the things and the routines and rituals that have pulled me through these dark days. Such a great answer. That takes me to my next question because there are generational trends, generational gaps going on with all of this as well. I mean, it's, you know, one of the biggest challenges as a business leader is now you're leading five generations of human beings. Yeah. I mean, literally you have five generations in the workplace. You have people who are in,

at one end of that spectrum who don't even have living relatives at the other end of the spectrum. And they just don't understand the way people are brought up, the thought processes, historic inputs and pressures and things like that, that the different generations face through different stages of their lives. How do we take all of this that we're talking about and create some normalcy to how people feel around each other and care about each other in a perspective of equality and equity and inclusion and things like that? I think when you first start from a place of being naturally interested and inquisitive about why other people are the way they are and whether we're talking generations, whether we're talking demographics, whether we're talking across the political spectrum, right? A part of the deadlock and tension in our society and the media does not help this is it fuels divisiveness and an us versus them.

And we stop pausing and asking why. Instead of arguing over, are you vaccinated? Are you not vaccinated? Why did you vote this way? You know, you voted. It's like, tell me why. Help me understand. Let me understand your history and your story

and your perspective so that I then can see through a new lens. And generations are just another layer of that, right? When we talk about generational theory, we're talking about the events and conditions that take place during a particular cohort's formative years. Formative years are pre-teen, teen years. And so you think about the shifts from our baby boomer generation and the civil rights movement of the 1960s to Gen Xers and the collapse of our economy and sort of the question mark on can we trust institutions and government figures. Millennials, especially younger millennials, first being exposed to digital technologies, but then graduating into an economy of the crash of 2008 and now bearing the brunt of COVID as they're just

trying to either buy homes or start families. And then our latest generation of Gen Z that was, their formative years have been the past 20 years of tumult between 9-11 to COVID. You think about what they've experienced and we're watching it unfold in real time as to how that will shape them. And so to come back full circle to your question of like, what do we do with all that is to show up from a place of true, genuine curiosity, to understand why the way they are and how that's shaping them. And then it doesn't mean that I have to totally change who I am. It's saying, how might I just adjust to meet people somewhere in between because I come from a place of service and it ultimately helps me elevate my influence and impact out in the world?

Excellent answer. And thank you for that insight. It's fascinating because we as leaders, we pride ourselves on putting aside preconceived notions and any sort of unintentional bias or anything like that, that you have to recognize those things and put them aside and say, okay, how can I, you know, as you said, gain that perspective from looking at things through a different lens. Was it okay to talk about in the workplace as far as telling people it's okay to, hey, don't come in with your beliefs, Come in with curiosity and see how other people live life and believe things. And really, I think you're going to be surprised at what you

find because we all walk the earth on the same way. And we all have these same intrinsic needs and self-actualization is the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, doesn't matter what country you're from or what generation you're from. And then you look at the bottom. Everybody has physiological and safety needs and things of that nature as well. So, I mean, is that a conversation you encourage leaders to have? Because we can't hope people to learn about this. It's a great question. And my response back to that is I don't believe there is one right or wrong answer. I think it comes back to you as a leader. What are the values that you have claimed are going to be most important to you and the organization?

And if it is in alignment with your values and who you say you are, then you absolutely must and should help facilitate those conversations, even if they're uncomfortable, even if they push people outside of their comfort zones, because it advances us as a society. But I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone that they absolutely should or must. I would simply say, who are you? Where are you going? And if it's in alignment with that and who you claim you say you are, then you absolutely must. So well put. And just, you know, there's one word, I guess, that comes down to this, and that's safety. You know, if we trust each other to be safe around each other, there's nothing we can't overcome. I mean, that's the beauty of this. A hundred percent. Safety, you know, that idea of deep psychological safety, which leads to trust, is so incredibly important. And I think collectively as leaders right now, you know,

we have to navigate the byproduct of that. You know, we're looking at the, probably the lowest levels of trust in authority figures in institutions in history. I can't wait to see where Edelman has been tracking. They have what they call their trust barometer that they've been putting out for, now this will be their 21st year. I'm curious to see when we see the numbers in January, always comes out January, February, where the numbers will actually land. But early reporting, which is not a surprise, trust is at an all-time low. And so there's residue that carries over from people when they don't know who they can trust. The CDC makes a change on mask guidelines, and it's easy for a group of people to be like,

can I believe them? Even if the other group might say just trust is science, I'm not here to debate whether it's true or not. But every time that happens, it's just another little erosion of trust. And we have to then deal with that as leaders. Yeah. And I'll tell you, you mentioned the trust barometer. I've watched that thing. Also, you look at that and you go to the conference board and look at some of the economic leading

and trailing economic indicators and things of that nature. This type of research and data science in industry and society is incredibly powerful for leaders. So if you're not into those things, I encourage everybody to go take a look. Seth, this has been a deep conversation and very, very powerful for leaders because ultimately, you know, we run businesses and we create results, but we have to influence people to do that. And we have to enroll people. I think enrollment is one of the most powerful leadership words now. We have to enroll people to do that. So thank you for all that you do in your business and helping leaders and organizations capture these thoughts

and create a greater workplace for everybody. So Seth, I have a question for you that I ask everybody in closing out this show. I've known you for a long time, man, and you've got some great answers. This question is, Seth Madison, how do you start your day with a win? Great question.

Starting the day with a win is about dropping into silence, meditation, so that I can connect with my highest self. And from that place, when I show up and I create content and I speak and I lead and I coach and I advise from that place and not from a place of fear and scarcity and lack and limitation, I tap into a source of power and knowledge and insight that I think helps me operate at my highest potential, but it starts from dropping into the silence. So meditation, quick little drop in, connect with that. We're off to the races, my friend. Awesome. Thank you so much, Seth. We appreciate you being on Start With A Win. Thanks, Adam. Yeah. Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A win uh if you'd like to ask adam a question or tell us your start with win story give us a call leave us a message at 888-581-4430

don't forget the start with win book comes out soon so head over to startwithwin.com you can pre-order your copy there and uh also be entered uh to potentially get some incentives some some perks if you will. You can follow Adam on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And remember, start with a win.