Start With A Win - Riding the Waves of Chaos Through Inspired Leadership with Hamza Khan

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

Hamza Khan believes the hardest months of the pandemic, March through May of 2020, were a portal into a new world—one that required leaders and managers to reassess old systems and start making foundational changes from the top down. As many businesses failed and others thrived, conscientious leaders began to ask hard questions about the efficacy of a leadership structure that remained disconnected from human needs. What successful leaders like Khan have found is that productivity increases when employees are encouraged to prioritize holistic wellness. In a world of constant change, leaders must learn to accept chaos and work within it. This requires frequent, structured opportunities for employees to provide feedback about their work environment. Leaders have to ask the hard questions to which they may not want the answers and also foster a culture that encourages honesty and vulnerability. A lack of emotional safety in the workplace has led to global burnout and mass resignations. Maintaining calm within a work environment requires conscious management of time, energy, and attention. Encouraging employees to practice wellness at home and at work is an important step in building resiliency and increasing productivity.Main Topics:A brief overview of Hamza’s professional journey from education to entrepreneurship to empowerment coach (02:50)How the pandemic forced reassessment of leadership culture (05:55)Increasing levels of engagement from employees (09:26)Advice to leaders about accepting chaos and creating an emotionally safe work environment (13:55)Creating a culture of peace through intention and attention (19:17)  Episode LinksHamzakhan.caHamza Khan's TedTalk "Stop Managing, Start Leading”Connect with Hamza:https://www.instagram.com/hamzakhttps://twitter.com/hamzakhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/khanhamzahttps://www.facebook.com/HamzaKhanAuthorConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from Brand Viva Media headquarters, studios, whatever it is here in Denver, Colorado. Adam Kantos, start with a win, with my buddy, producer Mark. Hey, how you doing, buddy? So good. Awesome. Did you have, I know we're recording on a Monday. That's right.

Happy Monday. Happy Monday. If you're listening to this on a Friday or a Wednesday, hey, happy Monday to you, too. Yeah. Hey, I always look at Fridays, by the way. Yeah. People are like, it's Friday. I go, yeah, two more work days till Monday. I can't wait. I love it because I love what I do. Exactly. And I live every day like it's Friday, so it always works out.

That's awesome. Hey, we're going to dig into some leadership and management today. What do you say? I am super excited. Today we have Hamza Khan on the podcast, and he is a best-selling author and global keynote speaker whose TED Talk, Stop Managing, Start Leading, I like that title, has been viewed nearly two million times. As the co-founder of Skills Camp, a leading soft skills training company, Hamza is on a mission to empower organizations to thrive in the future of work. Hamza, welcome to Start With A Win. Welcome.

Gentlemen, thank you so much. What an honor it is to be here on this podcast with you. Well, it's a blast to have you. First of all, you're a friend from the North Canadian. I've got a lot of Canadian friends. When I was overseeing Remax, we, I mean, 42% market share in Canada. So I spent a lot of time there,

a lot of great, great friends in Canada, and you're a veteran as well. So thank you for your service. Likewise, sir. Thank you. So I love this topic, and you are killing it on TED. Everybody, if you have not watched Hamza on his TED Talk, go ahead and fire that into YouTube and check out the TED Talk on Stop Managing, Start Leading. It is really, really good. You're

a great storyteller. You get a lot of great points across. And something I've noticed that I want to dig into a little bit is how pertinent this is to this day and age right now. I mean, we always say now more than ever, but I truly feel that way. So I look forward to having that conversation with you. Yeah, same here. There's so much to unpack, and I don't know if we have enough time, but I'll do my very best, sir. Awesome. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself real quick and, you know, the journey to where you are today? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because I'm fresh off reflecting on this 10 to 15 year professional journey that I've had. And it's been all over the place.

If you look at my LinkedIn, if I were to tell you my resume in sequence, it wouldn't make any sense. It's a lot of odd jobs, opportunities here, there, everywhere. But I figured out a way to distill it down into three chapters, if you will. The first chapter was education, specifically higher education. I began my career in student affairs, which is supporting student transition and well-being, basically anything outside of the classroom. And then that transitioned into academia. So I was part of Seneca College teaching over there.

Then I taught at Ryerson University, which is now called Toronto Metropolitan U. It's a mouthful, but I'm quickly learning. And then most recently, I served as an academic fellow at Trent University. So that was the first chapter, education. Concurrent to that and what happened afterwards was entrepreneurship, this phase of starting companies and exiting from those companies. So the first company was Splash Effect, a purpose-driven marketing and communications firm. While Splash Effect was going on, then came year one, a publication about values-based leadership and moved on from that. And most recent company you mentioned in the introduction was Skills Camp, a soft skills

training company. So that was education, then entrepreneurship. And what has resulted, I think, from both of those chapters in my life is the new phase that I'm in, Adam, which is empowerment. I'm a fan of alliteration, you know, education, entrepreneurship, empowerment, the three E's. The current E that I'm on sees me writing books. I wrote The Burnout Gamble. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see it right behind me. Achieve more by beating burnout and building resilience. My most recent book is Leadership Reinvented, How to Foster Empathy, Servitude, Innovation, and Diversity. And I'm very fortunate, Adam, just like yourself, to also have

a podcast, do a lot of speaking, consulting, and coaching. So that's the current epoch that I'm very fortunate, Adam, just like yourself, to also have a podcast, do a lot of speaking, consulting, and coaching. So that's the current epoch that I'm in. Awesome. And you've listed a lot of valuable assets here, some different things that people can get to. And I know we'll have in the show notes where to find all of those. But just briefly, where on the internet can we find you? The easiest place to find me is at HamzahKhan.ca. That's H-A-M-Z or Z for my

fellow Americans, A-K-H-A-N.ca. Everything's over there in one nice and tidy place. Awesome. And you started getting into, I mean, with this progression, you can clearly see, you know, taking the academia and the study behind leadership and management and how to truly influence employees and grow businesses, building that into your entrepreneurship, which is fantastic because I'm also kind of an academic. I teach at the business school here, University of Denver, and I teach executive presence and executive leadership. So a few of the aspects that we're going through today. So I have a great deal of respect for both the academia as well as the experience

that you have. And I think it's safe to say the world of leadership has changed so much as of late. What perspective do you have on that? Give us a flyover of what you're observing in your mind, in your understanding of how leadership is changing. Yeah, absolutely. And Adam, I appreciate that compliment earlier about being an academic practitioner hybrid. I rarely get to see that reflected out in the world, so to speak. So that means a lot coming from somebody with as storied of a career as you have. So thank you for that. That's something, you know, talk about starting with a win. I'm starting this week with a win. How has leadership changed? Oh my goodness, how much time do we have? Give us a few key points. What are employees looking at? You know, what are they noticing

when it comes to that? You know, it's interesting at the top of the pandemic during the fear months, March, April, May, or the sourdough bacon competition months, as some of the listeners might remember. Strange time in human history. There's an author by the name of Arndt Duthieroy who helped me to conceptualize the transition that we're moving into. And she wrote something to the effect of, historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. And this one, COVID-19, is no different. It's a portal. It's a gateway between one world and the next. And that was the impetus for me to look at leadership very differently during the early months of the pandemic. And it has served as the

lens through which I now research, write about, speak about, and consult with, with regards to leadership. And it certainly, it served as the impetus for also writing Leadership Reinvented. Well, all of this is to say, I think the pandemic served as a bit of a short circuit for the world of work and for leadership specifically. It caused everybody to take a step back and critically assess the systems that they were putting up with, that they found themselves in, that were producing all sorts of imbalances at a macroeconomic level, but also in terms of employee well-being and engagement. How leadership has changed, I think we are gradually, and then I feel like we're now in the sudden phase of that curve where it's now suddenly we're having conversations about things like quiet quitting from the perspective of the employees as a result of greater empathy and vulnerability. What do I mean? I think there, you know, and Adam, you teach in a business school, I'm sure you're intimately familiar with the evolution of leadership and

management. It was rooted in a fear-based context. I mean, when you trace it all the way back, it began with military, it began with the Industrial Revolution. The Theory X style of management was the strategy du jour, if you will, for a very long time. It assumed the worst in people. It assumed that they were lazy, unmotivated, they disliked work, they needed to be micromanaged. But as I said, the pandemic was a short circuit that caused everyone to step back and consider that there might be a better way, because if we continue doing what we've always done, we'll get what we've always gotten. And all of these things, burnout, the great

resignation, et cetera, they're all symptoms of the exact same problem, which is disengaged employees. That is at the heart of most of the things that are ailing modern organizations. Interesting. And I do a lot of work on the, on the Q12, the, you know, the Gallup Q12 survey and how employee engagement is affected by emotional distress and, you know, how it lines up against Maslow's hierarchy of needs and things of that nature. And it's fascinating when you look at, what are we looking for as leaders? And that is higher levels of engagement. And that really hasn't changed over the years. No. So you've got, and I know a lot of people will be wondering about this that listen to the podcast, you have a lot of reflection going on at the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, where people are going through their employee reviews. They're having

discussions with their leaders saying, how can I build my leadership in the organization? How can I improve my engagement? You threw out that word, engagement. So what should people be looking for in themselves in order to maximize their potential in these areas? Ooh, Adam, are you referring specifically to leaders or just employees in general? I'm going to say, well, you're a leader, an employee comes to you and they say, how can I maximize myself?

What do you think the leader should be telling them? Because typically, traditionally, we've got the leader falling into the management mindset then, and they're saying, hit your numbers. Right. But truly, is that how you inspire somebody? No, not at all. And you just look at the, I mean, one of my favorite case studies of all time is the lost decade at Microsoft. Microsoft under Steve Ballmer for 14 years. Here's a leader that puts

everything before employee engagement and well-being, namely profits, and it produced counterproductive results. I mean, failed to capitalize on the five biggest tech trends to date. There's a reason, Adam, why you and I don't own a Microsoft phone. And if we do, it'd be pretty weird. I mean, it makes a great brick to throw at people or a Zoom device. And then you look at organizations that put people first. It's fascinating to see companies like Zoom, Airbnb, Clorox, Remax,

your alma mater, amazing organization that puts people first. So what could leaders tell their employees? There's a couple of things, but I think first and foremost, it's about prioritizing their wellness and their engagement and asking them the difficult questions about their levels of wellness and engagement, asking them, how are they doing? Not settling for the easy answer. I think there's the term is cognitive miser. And we do this all the time during one-on-ones. How are you doing? I'm good. You know, and we just brush past anything that might be really bogging us down. But as a leader, having those structured and frequent opportunities to connect at a human level with their employees

and ask them how are they really doing, what's getting in the way of them doing their best work, what kind of resources do they need, and really trying to address some of the upstream factors that produce disengagement and worse, burnout at the employee level. So asking them questions about their community, asking them if the work environment that they're in feels positive, or if not, you know, what about it is either toxic or why is it poor? Asking them if they feel sufficiently compensated, if they feel like they're receiving enough rewards, tangible and intangible, asking them if they have a balanced workload, and also creating the psychological safety necessary for them to give you honest responses, because that's ultimately what we need as a leader. As leaders, we're managing multiple priorities and workflows and our level

of resolution when it comes to information that is essential to the rate of change on the inside of the organization is directly tied to how honest our employees can be with us. And sometimes you might have leaders that are asking all the right questions, but they haven't necessarily created the culture in which their employees are giving them the feedback that's necessary. So what would I say? In sum, rather than saying things to your employees, ask them questions and ask them tough questions that you're possibly afraid to receive answers to. I know this from firsthand experience. The times when I've maintained radio silence with my teams is when I've been afraid to receive answers from them. But in the words of, I think, Carl Jung, that which we most need to find is often where we're least willing to look.

And so the answers that we most need to hear are on the other side of questions that we're the most hesitant to ask. Awesome. Awesome. Leaders ask great questions. I've heard that quite a few times. And you're right, we're battling against this lack of, or workers and the executives or what have you within an organization. And you always see these great leaders really do a wonderful job of breaking down those barriers. During COVID or the early days of the pandemic, you mentioned those three months, March, April, May. Fear months.

Yeah, the fear months. The reality is I saw so many leaders turn into hiders. That's a hot take, man. It was interesting because I looked at it, and I was on video two or three times a day. I was zooming around the world for 12 to 14 hours many days during the week simply because the entire globe, and we're in 120 countries, 110 to 120 countries, everybody was locked in their little box of life, and it was

chaotic. The chaos has not gone away. It's just changed since then. It's no longer, you know, I'm in fear for my safety. I'm going to wear a mask when I go outdoors, make sure I'm up to date on my vaccine or whatever it is. It has to do with, is the economy going to allow me to pay my bills? Am I going to have a job? Can I put gas in my, or fuel in my vehicle? Things of that nature. But we still have a lot of global chaos going on. How do you, you know, what little bits of advice would you give to leaders? Obviously asking great questions, but what little bits of advice would you give to leaders to recognize this chaos and allow people to step into it? And I mean, it's there. It's not going to change. Right. But we need to live with it. What should we tell them? Wow. First of all, just for the listeners, just before this podcast started, I was joking to Adam and producer Mark. And producer Mark, is that his legal name, by the way?

That's my legal name. Mark Labriola, the second. I was joking about how intimidated I felt coming into this podcast, but shout out to both of you for making me feel very comfortable. But Adam, also for asking questions that have really just taken me out of my body here. I'm now existing in the realm of that academic practitioner. And it's just so great to have this conversation because it's validating years, if not decades of work and research. And it's giving me great motivation for where we're moving with regards to the future of work. I mean, this feels right. Okay. So chaos, we have to accept that chaos is present. And I would take

it a step further. I mean, it's, we're really dealing with entropy, scientific concept that explains how if left unchecked disorder and randomness tends to increase over time. And I think parents of toddlers, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? And so if we're not careful, and if left unchecked, you know, leaders who give in to this chaos, who are unwavering in the face of chaos, who try to insist that it's not there, perhaps, they can be assured that their circumstances aren't going to get any better. It's essentially a law of the universe that they'll only get worse. Chaos is hungry for failing organizations, and it thrives when leaders are unprepared. But to wrap our heads around a concept as large as chaos, entropy, with regards to how that affects organizations, there's a couple of acronyms that I think are really helpful over here. So PWC,

they use ADAPT. And I think it's asymmetry, disruption, aging systems, polarization, and trust diminishment as characteristics of our ever-changing world. Another one that I liked that I picked up in Europe earlier this year was Bonnie, B-A-N-I, brittle. I was gonna say brutal, but that would have been just as salient here. Brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible.

And then one, Adam, that I know you're familiar with as a veteran, specifically with the Navy SEALs, VUCA, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity with origins. That term has origins in the US military college establishment or system, if you will. I love these acronyms because whenever I need to communicate what it is that we're dealing with, rather than speaking about in terms of chaos and entropy, you can just sort of like hone in on attributes of the economy, of organizational behavior, of leadership behavior that we can deal with at a granular level. So that's what we're dealing with right now, Adam. We're dealing with a world in which the only constant is constant change. And rather than resist it,

parry it, and fight it, I think that leaders should learn how to become comfortable with it, frankly, how to mimic it, how to emulate it, and you know what? How to anticipate and dance with it. Party with the beast. Party with the beast. Wow, that is beautiful. I've never heard about it in those terms. I'm writing that down. Party with the beast. Party with the beast. Wow, that is beautiful. I've never heard about it in those terms. I'm writing that down. Party with the beast. The beast is fear. It lives inside of all of us. And we can either choose to fight the beast or we can choose the party with the beast. Oh my goodness. Adam, are you familiar with the D factor of personality traits? No, I'm not. I got to send this to you. It's so refreshing to hear when we're able to, as human-centric leaders and thought leaders

in the space, really identify what the source of all the problems are. And you mentioned fear. And I'm 100% right there with you. And I'm like, why is this fear being produced? There's so much I want to say. I'm going to send you some resources afterwards. But we have to do an exchange program where you come on the podcast or we do an episode two. We have so much more to talk about, but yes, let's, let's stay on fear or wherever else you'd like to go here. And I'll follow up on the deep

factor later. My mind is just spinning over here. Love to, I want to, I want to go to the opposite side of chaos here briefly, um, which is calm. I mean, we have, we have this, this calm, and I guess that's the best word that I can use for that, calm or organized or clarity or what have you, you know, because chaos is just a defining factor of us assigning fear to change, I suppose you could say. So, you know, and that's just my perspective on that, not having done the academic study that you have on the topic. But maintaining calm in your business is a huge challenge for leaders. And a big part of that is, and I know we always talk about managing your time. You can't manage your time.

You have to manage your choices within your schedule. So yes and no on things and where I put them and who I allow in and things like that. But why is it important for team leaders to learn to deal with this calm? And do you have any tips for implementing the time, energy, effort, things like that into this? I've been taking so many notes over here, and you just reminded me of something that you said in the episode, a couple of episodes ago, the episode that you did with your wife, where you said something to the effect of expectations are avoiding surprises.

I think that was what you said verbatim. And if we're not managing our time, energy, and attention, if we're not creating a sort of predictable way, a baseline, then our day-to-day work is going to be full of surprises and emergencies. What's that adage? A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. And we might as well be talking about our future selves in that respect. So it's important to manage our time, energy,

and attention because those are the fundamental components of productivity. And when they're optimized, then we can be intentionally productive. And that's essentially aligning our attention with intention. And when you think about what productivity is fundamentally, it's about resilience. It's about sustaining productivity over time. And that's where I focus a lot of my efforts on right now. It's why are organizations tumbling into the chasm of time? Why are leaders losing their fire? Why are employees losing their fire? And it's because we're behaving intensely. We're behaving chaotically versus just prioritizing high achievement over overachievement and

sustainable productivity. So there's so many reasons why calm is better than chaos. But ultimately, calm employees get more done. If you just take a wider timescale, calm employees get more done. Brilliant. Brilliant statement. Everybody, I hope you're listening to that. Rewind it a little bit. In fact, go listen to this entire podcast again, because this is full of gold. I mean, it's incredible. Hamza, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. I do have a final question for you that I ask all of our amazing guests. Hamza Khan, how do you start your day with a win?

I could give you the whole breakdown. I could give you a rundown of my entire morning routine, but I'll give you how it begins. Just the tip of the spear, if you will. I start with an immediate task. As soon as I get up out of bed, I make my bed. And I think that's something, Adam, you and I both picked up from our time in the forces. Getting that bed made first thing in the morning initiates the productive flow that I carry with me throughout the day. Awesome. Hamza Khan, thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all that you do. It's great to see you, my friend, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate all that you do. It's great to see you, my friend. And we'll talk to you soon.

Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate it. Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A Win. We'd love if you'd subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you want to connect online, head over to adamkontos.com. Until next time, remember, start with a win.