The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ron Reich, Founder of RLB Training and Development on Leadership, Successful People Building & Better Companies
Episode Date: August 28, 2023Ron Reich, Founder of RLB Training and Development on Leadership, Successful People Building & Better Companies Linkedin.com/in/ron-reich Ron has 30 years of training and development and consulting... experience. His background is broad based, having worked for some major organizations such as Toshiba, The Chubb Corporation and Organon Pharmaceuticals. He’s done consulting work in many industries including medical, assisted living facilities, manufacturing, high tech, retail, pharmaceuticals and banking. The majority of his work through these years has focused on leadership/management development along with corporate training and organizational development. An avid reader Ron loves to share the latest thoughts and philosophies about these topics with the groups with whom he works. He’s passionate about the work he does and makes the workshops as interactive and fun as possible. His only request is for participants to arrive ready to participate and have some fun along the way.
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We had an amazing gentleman on the show, and we were talking to him about one of my favorite subjects, or several of my favorite subjects, businesses, running them, how to do them, et cetera, et cetera.
We're going to talk about leadership, what challenge companies face, how to build better teams, how to encourage staff to do more,
et cetera, et cetera, listen, all that sort of good stuff. We're going to get into some of the
deets, as the kids say. Do the kids say the deets? They don't. I don't even know what the kids say
anymore. I'm old, man. So we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He's joining us. Ron
Reich is on the show with us today. He's the founder of RLB Training and Development. He has
over 30 years of training and development
and consulting experience.
His background is broad-based,
having worked for major organizations
such as Toshiba, the Chubb Corporation,
and Organon Pharmaceuticals.
There you go.
I gave that one a swing.
He's done consulting work in many industries,
including medical, assisted living facilities, high tech retail pharmaceuticals and banking
majority of his work through these years has been focused on leadership management development
along with corporate training and organizational development he's an avid reader and he loves to
share his latest thoughts on philosophies about these topics with a group for whom he works.
He's passionate about the work he does and makes the workshops as interactive and fun as possible.
His only request is for participants to arrive early.
I'm sorry, I just invented that.
I don't know what I was thinking in my head.
His only request is for participants to arrive ready,
which, you know, counts as early, too,
to participate and have some fun along the way.
Welcome to the show, Ron.
How are you?
Well, I'm fine, Chris.
Thanks for having me.
Good to be here.
And it's wonderful to have you.
I'm just going to just make up stuff in your bios, too, as well.
So there you go.
But usually it's good stuff.
So there you go.
Give us a, where do you want people to find you on the interwebs
to get to know you better?
In order to get to know me better, Chris,
probably the best thing to do is to go to LinkedIn.
Just very simply, Ron Reich, RLB Training and Development.
And I'm also on, oh, God, I'm losing my train of thought.
Facebook, Instagram?
Instagram, thank you.
There you go.
I'm on Instagram, RLB underscore thank you. There you go. I'm on Instagram, rlb underscore leadership development.
There you go.
So people can contact you there, get in touch with you, et cetera, et cetera.
Give us like a 30,000 overview of what type of consulting and help you do.
The 30,000-foot view, Chris, very simply is I help leaders and managers do their jobs more effectively through education,
training, coaching. And that involves just so many different things. You know, like what you
had mentioned before, we get into, you know, organizational development relative to culture
development. We get into delegating, we get into emotional intelligence, psychological safety, feedback, listening, just anything to do with leadership, management, and organizational effectiveness.
There you go.
And why do companies need to be more effective and better at what they do?
Is that an important thing? Well, you know, I think a lot of times it's just
been my experience over and over and over is that the leaders in organizations will send people to
training. You need the training. And, you know, the individuals, you know, I'll work with them
and say, Ron, great. This is wonderful. This is wonderful. The people upstairs are the ones who need this as well.
Actually, they need it more probably. Right. I don't know.
I think I've worked with some corporations like that. Like I'm like,
maybe we should get the CEO in here. Cause, uh, this is actually for him for him. But that's mostly what my employees tell me.
They're like, I think you need the training, Chris.
And I'm like, I'm potty trained.
I don't see what you're talking about.
So what are some major things that when you work with companies and people right now,
what's one of the top things that you're seeing that people are really challenged by? I think one of the
biggest challenges is that a lot of leaders today don't realize or they focus too much
on results and they forget that, you know what, you're dealing with human beings. It's fun because one of the first activities I like to do
in a session is very simply break people into small groups, throw some flip charts up on the
wall. What's your role as a leader? Again, you know, 30,000 foot view, just write down what are
your major responsibilities here? And the debrief always comes out. Take a look, folks, how much
technical information is on that flip chart. I realize not very much at all. That's right.
So what's your role? To be human. That's what your role is. And I think a lot of times people
lose sight of that as we need results, we need results. We need these numbers.
And if we don't get this done, then it's like, okay, the results are important,
except your job is to get the results through the people with whom you work.
There you go.
So maybe you should treat the humans better.
It's kind of like that analogy of like putting a gun to someone's head
and if things don't improve around here, no one gets hurt.
Right.
Yeah.
Like, that's a hell of a motivation there.
And then if that doesn't work, then they just go, hey, we have pizza lunch.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the ping pong table is free.
Let's go, guys.
It's like, oh, wow.
Okay.
Whoa.
I just want to work away there on the hamster wheel for that.
Um,
so yeah,
that's,
it's interesting.
Uh,
do you find that a lot of leaders,
cause you,
you talk about leaders,
ship leaders and ship leaders that own ships basically.
Um,
what are,
what are some of the biggest challenges that they're facing and do they need
to be more self-reflective
and and realize that maybe they need some more training as opposed to the rest of us
you know chris for me well you know all kidding aside whatever is that i think you just hit on
one of the biggest biggest biggest things is that for anybody, regardless of role, particularly the top-level people and the managers,
if you want to be effective,
one of the most important things to do,
get to know yourself extraordinarily well.
The better you know yourself,
then the more effectively you will work with other people.
There you go.
I believe that with every fiber I have.
I try to get to know myself better,
but I have about 10 different personalities,
according to my psychologist.
So we're still discovering the other ones,
and that's still a work in progress, as we all know.
It was six prior shows, so I just make up a number every time.
It's a great callback joke for multiple shows.
You know, leaders today have a lot of challenges.
Are you seeing challenges with the remote work population?
I know job hires, availability for job hires are stressed.
So people need to kind of start treating their people better because it's getting harder to hire people.
And from what I understand and seeing in the tea leaves,
it's not going to get easier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No,
absolutely.
And I think,
I think that is one of the challenges.
And I think both sides,
you know,
the,
the,
the leaders,
the managers along with,
for lack of a better term here,
their,
their colleagues,
everybody needs to be flexible,
you know, relative to absolutely,
you want to work from home two or three days a week. I'm good with that. That's fine. We also
need you in the office, because there is no replacement. And I also believe this with every
fiber I have, there is no replacement for the face to face contact for the you-to-face contact, for the getting a cup of coffee together,
the just passing in the hallway.
There's no replacing that, none.
That's true, especially when you want to team up together.
I mean, sometimes just being in a boardroom together
with people is much better than trying to talk over Zoom
and you've got kids running and screaming and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, so much of it is too. trying to talk over zoom and you got kids running and screaming and stuff yeah yeah well i mean so
you know so so much of it is too that the the banter that takes place before the meeting
and and whether that is for you know a professional conversation just a personal conversation
looking looking somebody in the eye seeing somebody's body language, noting exactly, you know, and,
and just seeing the whole person is just more effective from my perspective.
And I, I totally agree with you. In fact, you give me a little bit of epiphany here.
Um, you know, we've had, we've had people that, uh, our brain people on the show that talk about
how, uh, and the word escapes me starts with an m but basically
there's there's certain signals that we give to each other when we work with each other and
two-dimensional screens don't really work when we handshake uh when we you know it's why politicians
kiss babies and hug people you know there's a there's a certain touching and like you mentioned
the body language we watch each other's body language and how we work.
And so having that in real life is very different than having it on the screen when you're watching it.
And our brains really don't adapt well, according to these scientists, to this two-dimensional sort of format. But also in team building, we're kind of a tribal sort of people especially men where you know we're used to going
out and hunting stuff down and patting on the back hey way to go joe or high five whatever you
can safely do according to your hr department these days um you know or you can just look at
each other for five seconds ago cool job dude and then look away so you know nothing happens um i'm
doing jokes people but i think i am. I don't know.
But so having that for team building and camaraderie and building that spirit of we're working together, let's go kill the woolly mammoth in business.
I think that's really important.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's no doubt.
And again, going back to getting to know yourself extremely well, and the research shows very clearly as well, the better you know your colleagues, both personally and professionally, the more effectively'll give you an example. And I think this is one of the reasons, candidly, that I'm very good at what I do.
It's that, number one, I am always, always in a training room well before we start.
People are coming in and I'm ready to go.
My flip charts are up.
Everything's there.
And the reason I'm saying that is, as you come into the room i said good morning
hi i'm ron and we can start a conversation and instantly my goal for that and anybody else who's
going to be in the class is to let them know hey this guy is human he's a nice guy maybe this won't
be as bad as i think you know you, given the assumption that maybe they're nervous,
whatever it might be. That makes a big difference. Opening activity. I always ask them,
name, and this, again, I do a lot of work for the American Management Association, AMA,
where there are people from different companies. Opening activity. your name i want you you know company job location a passion you have and a challenge you hope to address and everybody's sitting there okay
i can do that is oh wait a minute there's a there's a twist to this everybody stand up let's
take the next 20 minutes or so and i want you to start introducing yourselves to each other, using this as your
platform, using this just as a platelet, if you will.
Oh, really?
I participate, and at the end, I always ask them, how does this opening activity help
us?
I don't feel alone.
I feel like I know the other participants.
Wow, we all have similar challenges.
And instantly, Chris, we have established the basis for a relationship.
And that's what it's all about.
Wow.
And you get to know each other better.
You know, that's brilliant, dude.
I love that.
It probably is even more necessary in how disconnected people have gone with COVID and these Zoom meetings.
You know, there's, there's real, like everyone should do that.
And you're like, who are these coworkers I used to be in an office with three years ago?
And, uh, and, and then understanding what people's passions are and their motivations
are, are really important too, because, you know, like you mentioned earlier in the show,
you're just not, just not a cog in the wheel.
You're just not a, you're just not, I don't know,
a body filling a chair. You're a human freaking being and, and you deserve,
you deserve free pizza day. I don't know. I'm just doing a joke there.
You know, one of the things we've talked about and it's kind of a running joke.
You see some memes on it every now and then LinkedIn is companies, you know,
we'll use this. We're a family language. You know, we're a big family.
We love you.
And we have a family environment here and everybody's.
And then, you know, like one day you're like, hey, you're kicked out of the family.
You're fired.
Here's a pink slip.
And you're like, wow, man, this is a rough family.
So what do you think of that?
I mean, a lot of people cap on that sort of stuff i i am all for uh you know
having a fun open atmosphere if you will manager clients have asked me over the years how close
should i get with my colleagues and my answer always is i believe very strongly, you should be friendly with everybody. And I say, be very
careful about becoming friends with anybody, because that can be that can be an issue.
Let's go out over the weekend, let's, you know, let's go to dinner, you know, whatever it might
be, that can become problematic. I will be friendly with everybody I care about everybody You can talk to me about anything
I don't want to be your friend necessarily
There you go
Yeah, you don't want to be too friendly
Otherwise HR gives you a call
And you have to do one of those trainings
Those retrainings or something like that
You talk about how to get people to listen to each other more
And how to improve that.
And that's probably really important in a business because especially if your boss tells you to do something, you might want to listen to what he told you to do.
How do you help companies maybe facilitate some of that?
Relative to listening is what you're saying?
Yeah.
What?
No, I'm just kidding i i'm very very fortunate very blessed that i'm certified
to teach seven habits of highly effective people oh wow steven covey there you go habit five seek
first to understand then to be understood and essentially that's what that that's that's the
listening model that i share with my clients is that you need to listen carefully for the message, for the experience that the person is describing to you.
In order to be able to do that, Chris, and I say this all the time to people, and actually, let's link it back to being face-to-face or being in the same room together.
Because we listen with three different
things we listen with our eyes we listen of course with our ears and we listen with our heart
listening with the eyes body language yeah what's the message you're sending me body language wise
run you know or you know chris what do you think about launching the product next week?
Oh, yeah, we're ready.
Yeah, we're ready.
And that's, you know, that's part of listening with your ears. Of course, what is the person saying?
How is the person saying it?
Then with your heart, what are the emotions involved?
And in order to understand the message listening again eyes ears heart
translate that's just what I say translate what you're hearing the person
say Chris it sounds like you're excited it sounds like you have it feels to me
like there are some concerns lurking beneath the surface is that right mm-hmm
there's a lot of concerns linking been lurking beneath my service it's it's incredible there were the
responses I get from people in fact sadly I don't know how many years ago it
wasn't my it's over a decade it's in my notes for one you know one of the
courses that I facilitate I always ask what was it like to have somebody
listen to you really carefully natalie a participant in a class many years ago her
hand went up real slowly ron it scared me i was i scared you how so she said well nobody listens
to me at work and to have somebody listen to me like that was just like what are you
doing what are you doing you're actually paying attention and listening to me it's so yeah yeah
yeah it's it's it's it is sad and i think it's cool you're you're uh you're you're um uh certified
to train in the covey thing we had cynthia co-Haller on for the last book of Stephen Covey
after his death.
It was kind of the final memoir.
So we had her on the show, and it was great.
She was wonderful.
You know, listening to people, building up each other,
and understanding each other, you know,
communication is a great hallmark of business.
And if you can't communicate or your teams can't communicate,
then I don't know how you're getting anything done.
Right.
That's right.
Well, and, you know, part of it, too,
when we talk about communication here,
and all these companies say, all of them,
oh, you know, we're honest and we're open
and we're transparent.
And, you know, 98% of the time,
it's just something up on the wall is that
yeah we want to be honest with each other and where i'm going with that comment is part you know a big
part of success within any organization or within any department is psychological safety and people
feeling safe relative to hey can i ask you ask you questions, boss of mine, colleague of mine?
I feel dumb asking you about this again, except I don't understand this process.
I don't understand this procedure.
And people need to feel safe doing that.
Additionally, one of the other big things is that the psychological safety is tiered.
The next tier is being able to contribute. And then when I am ready to contribute, the
key thing is, let me do that. You don't need to watch me. I don't need a mother hen here.
I know what I'm doing.
I've got 30 years of experience.
I'm wide open to feedback.
And I mean that.
I really am.
I'm not perfect.
I never have been.
I never will be.
I also don't need somebody watching me every minute.
Yeah.
And the last thing, and this is really my point, the last part of psychological safety is challenge. It's feeling comfortable challenging
your boss, challenging a co-worker. I don't think this is smart. We're not ready to launch this.
This is not a good idea. We haven't done the research yet. You know, whatever it might be,
instead of, you know, does anyone have any questions? No, no boss, of course not. You're
the be all end all. Because if I, you know, if I say I have a different opinion, I will get my head
torn off. That's true. You know, I like the psychological safety measure you talk about.
I never really identified as that, but that gives me an epiphany to start calling it that we always i always you know i learned very early on in business that the one person who maybe
they didn't quite get everything through training you know or they missed some stuff you know we all
have those moments of training where we're like you know and uh we we just our brain tunes out
we're thinking about i don't know mcdonald's or something and uh is everyone have that mcdonald's anyway um but we tune out and or chris sauce does too too many segues and then we
lose track of what's going on but uh that's another matter uh let's stop it chris so we tune
out and they don't learn the stuff and i want the one thing i've learned is that guy in training
or maybe they don't understand their job fully
and what they've been put under,
that will be the person that melts down a $20,000 or $30,000 machine
or cost me $20,000 or $30,000 in some sort of snafu.
The person who doesn't understand exactly what's going on.
And so I just get that.
You can't yell at people and go, why didn't you say something?
And so we used to try and create an environment around our office where i i would tell people the only dumb question
is the unasked question so if you don't understand something please ask and then also creating a safe
psychological environment like you talked about where it's okay to ask me if you didn't understand
something or you want to get that feedback we're not going to beat you up we'll beat
you up if you screw something up and you didn't ask but no i'm just kidding uh but you know that's
so important and setting that standard of culture where people feel free to go hey chris i i didn't
understand and you're like what they're like any of it and you're like okay well we'll fire you
next week but let's try and retrain you and you know what
chris part part of this too though is also for any good leader having the ability to ask good
questions and and not and not along the lines of ron do you understand this well are you you know
are you ready for this presentation rather Rather than that, and this is one
of the reasons I love to read so much, because I pulled this out of a book I read a number of
years ago called Leadership as Language. Rather than asking, are you ready? Ron, on a scale of
one to 10, how ready are you for this presentation boss i think it's an eight okay great what's
preventing it from being a ten how can i help you instead of are you ready yes boss i'm ready to go
when maybe i'm not and i mean it's it's it's these little subtle things that make such a difference
and again it's not like you know know, let's go back to tone of
voice. Well, I think
I'm probably at an 8 right now.
How come it's not a 10?
Oh, yeah. I'm going to
be answering you real comfortably.
I'm not sure about
the slides yet or whatever
it might be. So, I mean, all of
these things tie together.
Yeah. It's more important to be prepared than not. I mean, I mean, all of these things tie together. It's more important to be prepared than not.
I mean, you know, if you don't want to, I mean, yelling at people, devaluing them, demoralizing them, you know, is it going to do better?
And helping people.
You know, I think that comes into, you know, you mentioned, you know, how can I serve you, I think, or something of that implication.
And, you know, we, or something of that implication.
And we talk a lot about servant leadership.
A lot of people, they really don't get that being a leader is servant leadership. You're not just sitting up there as a king, barking orders at everyone, except in my office.
I think that's how my office works, but that's just me, which is probably why they have torches and pitchforks outside the door,
and they have a guillotine they've set up, but I've locked myself in my office.
Anyway, moving on.
So let's talk about servant leadership.
How important is that, and why is it important to take things from that perspective in leadership?
I am a believer in servant leadership, and I think sometimes people misinterpret that.
I read something about this the other day.
There's another term out there, and I am not going to remember it.
I know I'm not.
And people were countering the term servant leadership.
As a leader, absolutely, positively, I am here to serve you.
I am here to help you.
In addition, I'm also here, and I am being paid by the organization to produce
results. So we do need to produce results. This is not just how can I be nice to you? How can I make
you feel good? And part of that comes from, I'm going to help you to grow. I'm going to help you
to develop. I'm going to coach you. Eventually, absolutely,
I'm just going to delegate to you and I'm going to let you run on your own. I'm going to give you
regular feedback. I will, you know, I'll give you recognition when you need it. I'm also going to
give you developmental feedback. You know, is that because I'm not just here to serve you. And I think
a lot of people misinterpret that. There you go. There you go.
And Christian, if you don't mind, I do want to add something to that.
No, because we've been talking about how important relationships are and we need to be human.
Part of having a good relationship is both parties feeling safe with each other
and that we can indeed have difficult conversations with each
other without damaging the relationship there you go yeah otherwise you get a damaged relationship
and everyone resents everyone and it just gets ugly from there and then i think it's done and
people sabotage and stuff so yeah it's uh you know certainly leadership is interesting to me because like i said some
people think of paradigm you know and they go full uh narcissistic uh megalomania uh
machiavellianism once they are given a title and they think that that's leadership you know
i'm the boss no i hate people use the term boss i really. I don't like it at all. To me, boss connotates someone who's, well, de facto and bossy,
which is a variation of the word boss.
So it's just, I'm your boss.
I mean, that's quite a thing to say to somebody.
I've tried to say that to my two Siberian Huskies,
and they just walk off and pee on the carpet.
They're just like, we'll show you who's boss, buddy.
Try telling your teenagers who's boss.
And so these are some really important aspects.
So in talking about leaders,
how can leaders make more consistent decisions in the best interests of the
company?
And yeah, let's do that one.
And then I'm going to do another one
my direct experience has been in order to in order to make decisions the best decisions in
the in the interest of the organization there needs to be a mission statement a very very clear
mission statement and that's your north star that's your North Star.
That's your North Star.
Well, you know, we strive to, you know, for me, Chris, the mission of my organization, even though I'm on my own and it's just me,
to provide my clients with the latest education tools and resources to make them as effective as possible.
And if I have a major decision to make, that's what I need to turn to.
That's what I need to think about in order to make the best decision.
I had a discussion, quote unquote, years ago with an old boss,
okay, at a pharmaceutical company. And, you know, the mission statement of our department
to be the number one provider of education and training for all employees within this organization.
Department came to me and said, Ron, could you please help us with some etiquette training and this and that? This is in the pharmaceutical industry years ago when they could take doctors
out to dinner and all this other stuff. And, you know, we had some etiquette training. My boss said
to me, no, you're not doing that. There are too many other important things we need to do.
And I was like, Joe, what are you basing this decision? Because as I see it, this is providing,
we are being the number one provider of education and training, and it is going to help this
department to be more effective. He thought about it, and I give him a lot of credit. And he said,
you're right. You're right because there there
needs to be a north star and without that I mean I can give you another example I was talking to
I was talking to a friend of mine years ago and he runs a for-profit uh hospice facility
and he was telling me that yeah he goes I've run into some trouble here my marketing is not that
good i'm not sure what's going on here and he was just kind of you know telling me what was going on
and i said to him say dave let me ask you something what's the mission statement of
your organization oh we don't have one okay on what do you base your decisions? When you have a big decision to make, on what do you base them?
He goes, how things are at that time from a revenue perspective.
And I was like, okay, do you find yourself making inconsistent decisions?
Oh, all the time.
I was like, yeah, no surprise.
Sounds like me.
Needs to be that North Star. Needs to be that North Star.
Needs to be the North Star.
You know, the one thing, and I like the story of how the CEO
admitted he was wrong, you know, and some people have a really hard time
doing that, especially if they're in technically power or they're in a
position of authority, you know, being able to admit that they're wrong.
But your staff needs to see that they need to see that you're a good judge
and jury and that you can admit that you're wrong. You know, I learned a long time ago to,
you know, start begging my employees for help and advice and tips and, and feedback because
I learned very quickly that I am not the, uh, I don't have the corner in the
world on all the greatest ideas and thoughts and stuff. And, and, uh, like we joked earlier,
you know, sometimes I have, I don't do things right. Um, which is most of the time, actually
people that know me, they're like, what the hell are you doing? But, uh, that's, that's what I'm
talking about. Psychiatrists about that right now. Um, and. And he says that most of the time during the session.
What the hell are you doing?
I'm like, I don't know.
Why am I here?
And so there's that.
But, you know, so we asked our employees for feedback, input.
I admit when I'm wrong.
If an employee comes to me with, hey, Chris, you know how you spent 500 hours building this whole system for this one part of the business throughput.
And I'm like,
yeah.
And like,
Hey,
you know,
you can do a little bit better here.
I'm not like defensive about it.
And like,
what do you know?
You know,
cause I've had people do that.
They'll walk into something and go,
Hey,
you know,
I could see some ways you can make this better.
And you're like,
really?
Always.
Cause I'd like to know,
cause I'm always trying to figure,
you know,
businesses are a constant state of improvement.
There's never, you know, the only thing I learned in business,
there's never like a point where you're just like, okay,
we improved everything.
Now we're done.
We can just kind of ride this.
That's exactly right.
We can ride this train out, you know.
It's like as soon as you get stuff done,
it's like when you put out your first book, they go, okay,
so what's the next book about?
And you're like, I just put out this one.
What do you want from me? You know?'s right what's it all that that that goes to the difference at least
for me between a mission statement and a vision statement for an organization because a vision
statement should be unattainable because otherwise if you reach it it's like where do we go from here
it's not really a mission at that point right exactly you're like we're done plant the flag
over whatever there you go hey so let me ask you this so one of the things you talk about is
how leaders can work with people with different personality types That was one of my biggest challenges in having hundreds of employees
is understanding personality types.
I mean, I didn't understand
that becoming a CEO of large corporations,
you basically had to become a psychologist.
I didn't, I should have went to college for that, I guess.
And, you know, you have people come in
and, I mean, I had to fix people's marriage problems.
I mean, I didn't really fix them, but, you know, you'd have to hear of, and I mean, I had to fix people's marriage problems. I mean, I didn't really fix them, but you know, you'd have to hear of it.
And they're like, like, why, why are you having trouble work today?
And I'm having divorce problems or marriage home problems.
And I'm like, well, I don't know, just send all the kids to military school and everything
will be fine.
Okay.
Now get back to work.
No, I'm just kidding.
I probably did tell somebody to do that.
But you, you end up being a psychologist. So
how come leaders deal better with different personality types?
I am a huge, huge, huge believer in the DISC personality assessment.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
To me, the best instrument on the market, number one, it's easy to understand.
It's easy to use.
And, I mean, it's understandable.
And just very, very simply, it gives you a blueprint of how to deal with, talk with, communicate people who have different styles than you do.
And it's just so clear.
I mean, the dominant style in the disc, results-oriented and fast-paced.
So if you're a D, no matter what style I am, if I want to deal with you effectively, that's what I need to do.
I need to come to you.
Chris, this is what you asked me for. Here it is. If you have any questions,
let me know, and then I leave. There you go. Because you're the D.
Now, on the other side of that, if I am more of
the I, the influencer, fast-paced, people-oriented,
if that's your style, then when I come to you,
I need to be a little bit more
personable. I probably want to chat
with you a little bit before
we start. And again,
people say, well, how long do you have to chat?
Not long.
Not long. Again, just go back to the...
Don't worry yourself, people. Hey, Chris,
how was your show yesterday? How did it go?
Well, well. What's going on? How are the dogs?
They're doing good. And they've been into the home what's going on how are the dogs they're doing good
and there are the other styles there i don't need to get in i don't need to go through all four i
can the point is again it's easily understood and i mean i i have had organizations i i actually did
the keynote address uh for a medical device company back in March.
And I took them through the desk.
And just everybody was like, oh, my goodness.
Oh, my goodness.
This has just opened up so many different eyes for me.
Because it's not only within your own organization.
This is applicable to customers, vendors, your wife, your husband, your children.
And I mean, one of the nicest compliments I've gotten over the years, I did a two-day class
for Santa Fe, Venice, the big pharma. We finished up, a guy comes up to me and, you know, Ron,
thank you so much. I got so much out of this
Oh, you know, you're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed it and so forth
He leaned in and I could tell he was gonna say something quietly because it was something else, too
I thought I knew where he was going with his comment, but I said well, what was that Randy?
He was a crime. It was two days of fabulous marriage counseling.
I was like, yeah, because everything we talk about here is applicable in your personal life as well.
There you go.
You know, that's true.
I think we all, you know, I think there's a bit of personal, a minor narcissism that we all think that everyone is like us.
And, you know, you have to realize, you know, know like for me that not everyone's as cool as i am but uh wait what uh anyway i'm
just kidding people uh disc um the model they have foundation for this so people have it and
they can google it the disc model is a tool that classifies people's behavior into four types
dominance influence steadiness and conscientiousness um i think there's a fifth one it's called disca and it's asshole and i think
i'm the a i'm just kidding my employees tell you a story about that too please do that sounds good
i was and you know actually it is applicable i i I've been coaching this guy, Matt, who is a computer technician at the high school near us.
And I took him through the desk a number of years ago.
And he absolutely just ate it up.
He just ate it up.
He goes, oh, this is fabulous.
This is fabulous.
I was talking to him a number of months ago.
And he was like, oh, we've got a new IT director. And I was talking to him a number of months ago and he was like,
oh, we've got a new IT director and I can't figure him out, Ron. I don't know if he's a D or if he's
a C and he's going through it. He goes, he'll stab you in the back and then he'll do this.
And it's like, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, time out, time out, buddy. There's no category on there.
And I won't use the word I used in public.
There's no category for jerk.
Yeah, there you go. Some people are just jerks.
Somebody called me a variation of jerk is the D, but that's another story.
So there you go.
You've been a big one.
That or I'm an arse, an asshole.
So these are really insightful, but people need to recognize this
because you've got to figure out people's different
Personalities so that you can
Motivate them because everyone has to be
Motivated differently am I wrong or right
Exactly exactly we are
All so different and you know
The beauty for me Chris
Of the disc instrument is that
You can figure out very
Very very quickly
Someone's style.
It is as simple as, is this person faster paced or slower paced?
Once you've made that decision, then you take a look.
Is this person exhibiting more task behavior or relationship behavior?
Put it together, and you have your style.
Boom.
There you go.
It's so important to understand the basics of all this stuff um and and what it's about and where it's going etc etc uh if you can't figure out people's
personalities their types if you can't listen to people if you can't motivate them um you know
you're not going to accomplish much you're just going to end up with a lot of people pushing
paper around and and filling in
the blanks and just phoning it in.
And that can make a whole difference in your organization, assuming you get anything done
at all.
How do you keep people interested in their job?
That's another question I had for you.
How do you keep people constantly interested in their job, doing it well and performing it well? I think the key is, Chris, and again, let's go back to the word. It's coming up
over and over, communication. Leaders and managers need to keep talking to their employees about
what's going on with you. how happy are you here how content
are you in this job what's what's you what you know what's making you unhappy you know what
whatever it might be because things change things change you know it's like all of a sudden you know
so you know someone has a baby at home now just taking that out of the air and all of a sudden, you know, so, you know, someone has a baby at home, not just taking that out of the air. And all of a sudden, it's like, I can't put all of these hours in anymore. I can't do it. Or so,
you know, someone's performance is starting to drop. And it's like, gee, I don't know. It's like,
well, maybe it's because they've been in the same job for five years. And you haven't talked to them
about what else would you like to do maybe we can move you to a different
department what are your interests i mean it all goes back to and again what we've been talking
about getting to know each other and continuing that relationship it's not a one and done
there you go in building relationships are really kind of all what we've been talking about during the show.
Building healthy relationships with people, listening to them, understanding them.
And the more we understand each other and even from a personal level, like you talked about in the show, getting to know maybe what someone's personal interests are and how they operate.
It's much easier to gain rapport that way too.
I used to have that with buyers and sellers when I wanted to sell somebody
something,
you know,
I go to a buyer and you know,
you,
you try and gain rapport with them first.
I would see a picture of a dog or something on the,
Oh,
you're married.
You got a dog there.
There's a picture of wife and kids,
nice kids.
You know,
you see all that sort of thing.
And then you can build rapport.
And if you, you need to have that with co-workers
so you can understand what they're about
and people who
understand each other and have rapport with each other
tend to do better with each other
otherwise you're just looking at MMA
cage match fist fights over there in the corner
next to the water cooler
those don't go well but they're fun
to watch
Ron anything you want to tease out with us before we go Right. Yeah. Those don't go well, but they're fun to watch. So there you go.
Ron,
anything you want to tease out with us before we go?
No,
I don't,
I don't think so.
I mean,
I think,
yeah, again,
I'll,
I'll close with one of the,
one of the best things any leader can do.
Get to know yourself extraordinarily well.
The disc helps,
you know,
getting feedback from other people just all
of these things the better you know yourself the more effectively you will work with other people
and really true i mean i know i i've seen people try and be leaders that have no clue who the hell
they are uh and they have no clue how their behavior operates or how they come across the
people uh whether they're demotiv operates or how they come across to people,
whether they're demotivating or people.
They just think that since someone gave them a title, they're just the Lord of the Flies. And so they're just running around operating in some sort of Lord of the Flies sort of leadership position.
And they usually create environments that are like Lord of the Flies.
I love that reference.
And it doesn't go on the end.
It's kind of nice if somebody's
paying your bill for that but eventually someone's going to figure out that you're just
you're not you're not a good leader and usually usually the sad part is is a lot of people leave
the organization move on from the organization quit and I think there's a statistics out there
like I'm just going to fly this out I don't know if if it's accurate, so don't yell at me, but like 95% of people or 85% of people,
I think leave a job because of poor leadership.
Exactly.
They just don't like the management.
I could be wrong on the number.
No,
no,
Chris,
I'm not sure of the percentage.
The number one reason people leave organizations is their relationship with
their boss.
Wow.
Absolutely. Yeah. There you go. with their boss. Wow. Absolutely.
Yeah.
There you go.
There you go.
Well, it makes all the difference in the world.
This has been a great discussion, very insightful and stuff.
How can people reach out to you, work with you, talk about working with you, and get to know you better?
Chris, again, probably the best thing to do is just to go to LinkedIn.
Very simply, Ron Reich, RLB Training and Development. And, you know, the real
important thing that I'd like to get across to Chris, and it's what we've been talking about,
and I mean it, is that if anybody wants to chat, I welcome the chance to do just that. Just chat.
It's not going to be, oh, well, I can't share with you any resources unless we work together.
You know, this is what the cost will be.
Hey, I'll be glad to talk to you.
If we decide to work together, all the better.
I mean, I just welcome the chance to talk with somebody.
There you go.
And they can reach out to you on LinkedIn.
There's some contact info, too, if people do that.
RLB Training and Development
as well. Thanks, Ron, for being on the
show. We really appreciate it and great deep dive
into business and hopefully everyone
listens and I love your idea of
how leaders need to know themselves better
because there's nothing worse
than poor leadership. I've done enough of that in my
life.
Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Thanks, Ron,
for being here. We certainly appreciate it.
Thank you.
My pleasure.
There you go.
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Great show.