Your Transformation Station - 112. Mastering the Art of Organizational Culture

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Join me for an enlightening conversation with organizational culture expert, Dan Freehling. Through our discussion, we dissect the crucial distinction between leaders and followers - or rather, team members - and spotlight the importance of self-awareness in maneuvering within various organizational cultures. EPISODE LINKS: Dan's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfreehling/ Meet Dan: https://www.contempusleadership.com/about OUTLINE: The episode's timestamps are shown here. You should be able to jump to that time by clicking the timestamp on certain podcast players. (00:00) - Leadership and Organizational Culture  (10:37) - The Importance of Intentional Organizational Culture  (22:19) - Privacy and Coaching in the Workplace  (39:21) - Career Development in a Changing World (55:58) - Importance of Organizational Change and Leadership PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com⁠⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/apple⁠⁠⁠ Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/spotify⁠⁠⁠ RSS: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/rss⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/youtube⁠⁠⁠ SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/facebook⁠⁠⁠ - Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/instagram⁠⁠⁠ - TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/tiktok⁠⁠⁠ - Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/x⁠⁠⁠ - Pinterest: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/pinterest⁠⁠⁠ - Linkedin: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.ytsthepodcast.com/linkedin⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I can't fucking give that to you. Now it's rehearsed and I don't want to give you a rehearsed answer. Right. That's the whole point, right? What's really, why does this matter to you? It matters to me because this organization represents my identity. And what I want to illustrate is authenticity, embracing vulnerability in its finest, especially under fucking pressure. You're listening to a podcast that encourages you to embrace your vulnerabilities and authentic self.

This is your transformation station, and this is your host, Greg Favaza. Dan Freeline, welcome to your transformation station. How are you doing? Thanks a much. Thanks for having me, Greg. How are you? I'm doing all right. I can't complain at this very moment. But I was looking into your background, and I just got my Bachelor's of Science in Organizational Leadership, and I've noticed you have a Master's of Arts in Organizational Leadership. So literally this conversation is going to take a lot of twist and turns from different perspectives. The art and the science of it.

Yes. Yes. Indeed. Now, you just released a book. We're going to go into that, but not right off the bat because this is where I like to pick your brain and see what kind of an organic conversation we can get into. You okay with that? Let's do it. I'd much prefer that.

Beautiful. Now, to start things off, a common question that a lot of leaders will be asked is what's actually the difference between a leader and a follower and what comes first? So, as you probably are aware from your Bachelor of Science Studies, there's a big literature on followership. I think it's misnamed. I think it sounds, nobody wants to be a follower, right? Nobody wants to be considered not a leader. I'm a follower. But being a follower in the context of followership is super important. I've long thought that we should change it from being followership to being a good team member.

And I think there's the difference of beating and being a good team member is much easier for people to get their head around. So there'll be times when somebody is going to be the captain of the team and that's the leader and they're calling the shots and they're bringing others along toward their common vision, common objectives. And then there's being a good team member where you're not going to be changing the direction of where things are headed. Your job is to really slot in, bring your A game to it and help to achieve the leader's objectives. So in that sense, I think it's it's something that is much more easy to grasp for people. I think when it's the strange, like, leader follower dynamic, it gets a little weird, you know, get people bought into it. It's mutually constructive. I mean, the leader reacts to and is energized by the follower, why the followers respond to and are directed by their leaders.

Totally. It's a process and it's an interaction. a relationship there. And I think that's critically important to keep in mind you can't lead in a vacuum. Leadership's about people. It's about bringing people together towards something and requires that buy-in from the followers as well. Interesting. I like to look at leadership and leaders kind of as cultural teachers per se.

I mean, with today's organization, the big focus is establishing a, healthy culture within the organization. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, so I was just talking to a former classmate and friend of mine about he has a concept that he's coming up with a book on soon on growing a culture rather than constructing a culture. So this idea that you as a leader, you don't get to just say this is the culture. The culture is something that's organic that comes up and is expressed in the day-to-day interactions of people. There's a phrase, I don't know who said it,

but there's an expression of culture is what you tolerate. Culture is what is allowed to happen. In the organization, it's not this aspirational place to get to. It's what on a day-to-day basis is rewarded, is accepted, is expected at the organization. So that's how I like to look at it. Interesting. Yes, the context of the expectation. is based all values behind their behavior.

Right, exactly that. Like, what do you, what is the vibe of this place where you're working? And what are the unstated assumptions of how you're going to work together and what's accepted, what's tolerated? All of that goes into it. Okay. So if we, for somebody that understands, like, understanding themselves, like, how would you explain to someone what they need to know to have a good handle on understanding one's behavior?

Understanding one's behavior in the context of culture or in general? Correct. Correct. Yeah. I think in the context of culture, your job as someone who is strategic about their own career, strategic about where they want to bring their leadership to, is this a culture that, I can get behind is this culture that's here something that will elevate what I bring to it, will allow me to be my best self, will allow me to do my best work, will allow me to have these relationship, these connections. And there's all kinds of different cultures.

I think that's another sort of myth out there that there's like a good kind of culture. And it's, you know, everyone should do this culture that this famous CEO put out in this book. And that's the one culture that is correct. I tend to look at it more like looking at different kinds of restaurants, for example. So it's kind of a funny analogy for it. But it's like saying that, you know, the best restaurant is this fancy steakhouse. And you think about that for a little bit. And you're like, oh, that does seem to make sense.

They have a really elevated standard and you know exactly what you're getting. But then you're like, wait a second, that, you know, that cheap pizza place down the street is really great for what it is. And sometimes you want that instead of that fancy steakhouse. Sometimes you want the Chinese restaurant. Sometimes you want that, you know, Italian food. And it's going to be different depending on what you're looking for at that time, what's going to satisfy you at that time. I think organizational cultures are similar.

There's so many different ways that it can work. And there's so many different ways it can go bad. And it's all about figuring out, like, really what you're going to want at that point. You brought up some interesting points I want to go a little more deeper into. Like with having this set of values and a standard, but do they actually believe in it is the real question? And when you talk about culture inside an organization, is it a learning organization? Are they up to date? Is it a psychologically safe work environment?

How are the leadership styles? Are they autocratic or are they laissez-faire? And when we go into communication and the communication channel, I mean, that that's the biggest key for employee disengagement, don't you think? It's all of this is spot on. So I think there, you know, there are some key elements. Well, there's differences, obviously, between and among organizations. There's some key elements that are really critical to be a solid culture. And I think a psychological safety is a big one, like you mentioned, of.

You know, is it okay to not even okay? Is it encouraged to have real conversations where you can voice differing opinions, where you can feel heard, where you won't be railroaded for bringing up a divergent point of view. And then there's that culture fit element of it too, which is that, you know, some people are more comfortable working in more of a hierarchical culture, right? You know what you're getting. I know you have a military background, too. So sometimes there is an element of this kind of more rigid, more structured environment that might be good for some people.

They might be looking for that. Sometimes people might be looking for that like Silicon Valley, freewheeling. You know, we're not going to have any levels of hierarchy. Everyone's kind of coming at the same place. I know Zappos, the shoe company has this halakracy concept and this idea that they, this idea that there's no titles and positions. Everyone's basically the same exact level coming in. So there's that elements of it too. Yeah. So it's going to be like really where do you fit along that? There's also this element of culture at. So not just slotting into an existing culture. But what will you joining that organization bring to it that will enhance, grow, change, shape that culture in a positive direction?

Okay. So I think that would come down to understanding expectation management within ourselves, but also looking at the solutions for employee disengagement. When an employee is disengaged, exactly, first off, who is really the one that's disengaged? Is it the leader or is it the follower? And then if it is the leader, then obviously that is rippling. out to followership and what are some factors that leaders can start implementing to start eradicating this employee disengagement? What a great question again. It's there's an element of being intentional with culture as a leader of what culture are you trying to foster and having a culture that has certain people, disengaged with it is not the worst thing, right? If you have a strong culture, you're going to get some people who are fully bought into it.

You're going to get some people in the middle. You're going to get some people who are really turned off by it. As long as you're intentional with it and up front with people on it, I think it's fine to have almost whatever kind of culture you're going to lay down as long as it's not crossing these lines of being abusive or dangerous to be a part of. or hostile to be a part of. So, you know, there might be, I know the head of Netflix

released a book on their very specific Netflix culture. And it's very different than a lot of organizations. They pay people a lot of money and they give people a lot of freedom and they expect people to perform at this super high level and

they're very fine with firing people. And they do it all the time. And it's a really, strange concept for people, right? Like a lot of people don't want that. And very understandably so, I wouldn't want to be part of something like that. But where they do it intentionally and very upfront, that actually turns into being a strong organizational culture, even if you might not want to be part of it yourself, there's going to be people who are attracted to that. I think where leaders run into issues is when they allow the culture to not be intentional. They allow it to be

just kind of the, you know, survival of the fittest. These people have their strange, you know, little fiatts over here where they're, they have this really toxic environment and they're stepping on people. And it's just not a great place to be. Or there's just like this bland generic culture that doesn't inspire any camaraderie. Doesn't inspire any loyalty is replaceable with any other corporation that's out there. The Netflix, like that kind of culture where you're getting fired, I can understand that

because it's kind of making you feel like you're a part of something greater and that's kind of establishing that flow state to challenge you. Now, I don't know exactly the pressure that's being applied, but understanding the situation as a leader, it takes listening. So how would a leader actually, like, what are some, like, key aspects that a leader can do as far as listening? I know you got to be present, minimize distractions, give cues that you are. Ah, yeah, agree. What do you hear, yeah?

Or, and direct statements into questions. Like, could you go into that for us? Yeah, so there's some tactical elements of this. So a lot of the ones that you mentioned, I'm a coach. I come from a coaching background. So there's a number of tactical elements that you can bring to have a coaching mindset and skill set as a leader. So basically, you know, listen more than you speak. Ask for the second and third and fourth levels behind what somebody is saying.

Establish that environment of trust and safety so people feel comfortable sharing with you. not letting a comment pass without interrogating it. So if somebody says something, you know, ask what's behind that? You know, what do you mean by that? What does this mean to you? What's important to you? Wouldn't the why, like the why statement be more, it'll establish more emotions behind it. And that's what you don't want to do, right?

So there's a debate on asking why questions, as I'm sure you're alluding to here. So. So there's never an absolute in a coaching conversation. So occasionally there will be a moment where why makes sense and is a good question to ask. The reason that you don't want to lead with why a lot of the time is that it puts people on the defensive. So you don't want to be viewed as an interrogator, right? Why do you do that? You know, what's wrong with you?

But occasionally someone will say something in the context of a coaching conversation or as if you're a leader or supervisor and having a conversation with someone using coaching skills, that a simple why might be the best question you can ask there. But yeah, in general, you want to start with generally what questions.

And the idea is actually that you want to get below the surface level of what somebody is saying. So they'll lead with what you call the story, right? So it'll be, you know, you know, working on this very

kind of tactical level goal thing or I'm having this problem with this person. They're so, you know, they're so stupid. They don't understand what we're supposed to be doing, right? And it's really digging under to like, what is behind this? What's this person's values? What is important to them? And by doing that, that's how leaders can really cultivate this culture of people speaking up. I mentioned that the sort of tactical elements of this purposely.

And I think it really comes down to very simply being interested in people and being able to have strong relationships with the people you're leading. And we can get lost in a lot of tactical level issues of, you know, how do you structure questions and what's the best way to approach this and all of that? I think if you care about people and lead with that, that solves a lot of the challenges. communications. Oh, good. I'm ready to challenge that now. Wouldn't you think, like, somebody, like, you want to portray, to me, that I feel like that's portraying this identity that you are putting people first when naturally, wouldn't you just want to ask yourself, am I the fucking problem? Am I the problem? It's a great, it's a great question. So I think, So the way that I define leadership is that it's enabling people.

So you have this like first element of it. And this combines a lot of the different leadership theories into one. So there's this enabling people. It starts with people. But there's the two. What are you enabling people to do? And that's to advance your common purpose. So it's both, right?

There's the you have to, you have to deliver. you have to bring people together towards something. But there's always that element of you're not just enabling people. You're not just loving everyone around you for no reason as a leader, right? It's all toward that hopefully positive common purpose that you're all working together on. So I think that part of it is just key. You can't get lost in the things that sound too good to be true. of just we want everyone to be, you know, wonderful and a part of this and for no other reason

than to just have that. It just came back to me when I was asking you a question, two questions back. I got caught in a moment. I couldn't recall it, then took it to one direction. Now it's here. But when we look at the hierarchical view of the organization, some people like that. Now we're talking about the social indifference between individuals. Did I say that right?

were personalities and it's like looking at it through an individualistic lens. There is certain types of people that prefer it and certain people that don't. Well, then if I'm the dude that's in charge of a team and I'm trying to motivate whatever style that I'm using that is either autocratic, transformative, servant style, and it's not working. When do I decide what the fuck am I doing wrong? Yeah. So there's a concept called full range leadership development that I really like a lot. I'm not sure if you've come across that. It's by Ovolio.

He's one of the people that was part of the transformational leadership in the 90s. And then he's since expanded that incorporating parts of authentic leadership incorporating other elements into this full-range leadership development model, which I highly recommend people look up. But what it does, which I think is brilliant, is it puts various kinds of leadership behaviors on a scale of effectiveness. So there's the four elements of transformational leadership that everyone is sort of accustomed to in the leadership development space.

But then there's also those kind of transactional leadership, the nuts and bolts of, of, you know, how do you work with people? How do you engage with people that are not great to use too frequently? But sometimes you're going to have to use them. And it's, it's thinking of it in, you know, at what point is this the appropriate leadership style to use to accomplish my goals and to maintain relationships with the people I'm working with and to grow the relationships with people I'm working with? and grow the relationship with people I'm working with.

It's not part of this exact model. There's another article that I think has a good analogy for leadership, which is on, like, thinking of it as a golf bag. So, like, much less of, you know, I lead in this one style and more of like what style should I use at this moment. Okay, I'm pausing you right there. Please. Okay, you brought up, you're a coach,

and now I'm recalling the hybrid model now back, Right when we came back to work, there is a huge disengagement. And if we look at gender specifics, I can say it, but female has gone down as far as not feeling appreciated. Now, I'm not picking on women. That's literally what the statistics say. I have sources that I will link into the show notes. But if we go deeper, do you think the reason behind that is it's a transactional leadership? when you are at home and he is at home and you're not understanding their own environment that they're in.

Yeah, do you mind expanding on that a bit? I'm not sure if I'm fully grasping. Sure, sure. So with how things are going with disengagement and people that are applying, are working the hybrid work models. Now, the context that leaders are not taking into account, management, people that are in charge of a team, is the fact that their home, that they're living in is now their work. So that is another context that you're going to have to automatically apply, and that comes with understanding who your people are, knowing about their personal issues. Now, when do you draw the line?

Like, do I not need to know? Like, you're experiencing some medical shit? Are we allowed to understand that? Where does HIPAA come into play? Like, I need to know, but when do I not need to know? Yeah, I think you're getting toward the level of, so there's so many questions in this. I think there's part of it that's the level of control that you feel comfortable with as a manager, as a leader. I think we're moving broadly away from control being an effective leadership component.

toward that enablement being the effective components. So in a situation like this, my recommendation to a team leader would be get to know your people individually and understand how obviously you're not going to want to violate HIPAA or some other. There's these like hard red lines that you can't cross and you shouldn't cross. But there's also these nuances in here that are, you know, this person, and I know this from working with them very closely and asking questions, what I'm interacting with them and being genuinely interested in their life is a little more

reserved, doesn't want to share a lot of personal details. And I'm going to respect that. And I'm going to work with them in a different way than I would work with this other person who loves sharing these kind of details. Again, as long as they don't cross those red lines that are out there. But this person wants more of a hands-on approach from me. They want me to ask how their weekend was, where they went with the kids, you know, how that, you know, how so-and-so's sports game went or something.

So it's really that figuring out who each individual person on your team is and how you best work with them that's key. So there's a lot I want to go into with just this hybrid shit. The fact that if you're not on these Zoom meetings or these video calls and you're responding with email, I'm horrible with emails. I wish I could just stare at my computer and tell it exactly what I want the message to say and it would come across exactly as I say it. But for some reason, it still does not portray me because it does not catch the inflection,

the tonality, and it comes off very dry. and you can't tell if I'm pissed off or if I have no idea what I'm saying. So how do we literally I don't, how do we understand like the situation of hybrid as people and what can we expect? I got another question that's going crazy. So like the fact that with a mental health, all right, if I'm having issues now they're like hey we we have free counseling

well now if I take that up is that's going to be in the system and now are they going to use that shit against me and does that go to third party stuff like I want to be open but where's this line where you're not going to turn it

and use it against me it's a really standpoint that I think there's certain bad actors either organizations themselves or within organizations that are using all of this technology and resources that we have available against people. And so I think there's the level of being an organizational leader,

like an executive level. First, just stop with the nanny state. I'm going to monitor and track everyone and insist on them doing things in a certain way. I think that just breeds resentment among your workforce. It breeds distrust. It ruins psychological safety. From the maybe middle management, team leader level, or just even the employee level for this kind of thing, I think it's really up to you to interrogate how comfortable you feel with your organization.

Is this an organization you can trust? Is this a leader you can trust? for that example of like taking them up on a mental health resource. That's going to be so situation specific for, you know, do I think this company is going to try to use this against me in any way? And it might be a point to zoom out and just think more broadly. If I think they might do that, is this the environment for me? Should I start moving elsewhere?

Good save. Like, yes, I agree. Now, let's look into your coaching skills a little bit and open up your book. And you have this understanding with millennials. So now, dissect me. I'm a millennial. Like, what can your specialty help me with and applying towards the podcast, towards the shows, individually?

however, just your broad understanding of me. Yeah, so I think the benefit of coaching is that you don't work in generalities, right? Like you would work together. I say that we partner with top rising talent. So this idea that it's not me as the coach being an expert in all these different facets of leadership and management. And my job is to say, you know, Greg, this is. what you need to be doing to lead your team better. You should go and do that now.

Fuck, no. You apply it yourself first and then let me see the results. Exactly, right? You get that kind of an internal pushback, right? As a coach, your job is to create the container that is so rare in our society now, where you get generally an hour. You can do all different kinds of time. But to work with that person and you as the client,

it bring what you want to focus on to the conversation. And then my job as a coach is to ask you questions, hold that space for you to really think through what it is that's going on, what you want to do about it, what insights you've learned from it. And it gives you that space to think both strategically and deeply personally about the issues. And it's not this sort of, you know, I'm going to give you. you what I think you should do here and you should go and do that because you get exactly that. It's not your idea. You don't have ownership of it. You get pushback. And that's what's

beautiful about coaching. Interesting. So like let me be the guinea pig. Like what if I wanted to illustrate this podcast is a learning organization? How would I, how would I illustrate that? What is it about a learning organization that you'd want to illustrate? that we are adapting to technological advances in the audio industry, and we are staying up to date with the latest trends, fashion, and information sources and experts to deliver to the audience in a timely fashion every Monday. What is it about demonstrating that that's important for you? demonstrating that would be

hmm no it's connecting the clarity inside I can't fucking give that to you now it's rehearsed and I don't want to give you a rehearsed answer right that's the whole point right what's really why does this matter to you

it matters to me because this organization represents my identity and what I want to illustrate is authenticity embracing vulnerability in its finest, especially under fucking pressure. What's led you to want to do that? I would say childhood issues. So this is, and this is also a great illustration of where the limits of coaching are.

So when you're getting into like the childhood issues and the digging into the past and all of that, that's definitely the realm of mental health professionals. and therapists and all of that kind of stuff. And it's a great point of pausing at that moment and seeing if that's probably a better medium for that. Okay. Where the way to look at it is basically, if you're looking back and digging into trauma

and uncovering that, that's definitely the realm of mental health professionals. And then if you're starting from here, and looking at what you want to be doing differently, that's definitely the realm of coaching. And they work really well hand in hand. And what I've noticed is a lot of clients will work with both simultaneously. So they'll be doing your own self-inner work on past drama and dealing that.

And they'll be looking forward. But then why stop the conversation if I'm being that open to begin with? I mean, we are making progress. I mean, was it the intent at the very beginning to the question? No, because now we're actually digging deeper that's linking to the question and why I can't understand the question in the first place. Kaboon, motherfucker. No, it's exactly, it's a really interesting observation, right? It's just that that's such a fraught space to be walking without the specific training that the mental health profession has.

Interesting. Yes. I wouldn't want to be presenting myself as able to do that. And I wouldn't want to be doing unintentional damage to you as a result of having that conversation. So that's an important safety line in the coaching space is when it's getting it something that. might be better addressed by that, that we would encourage you to seek out people who are like really qualified to do that. I like that, that you're willing to admit that out loud, and that would illustrate

that my psychological safety is number one, which is great to know. Thank you for, yeah, thank you for sharing it and taking it in that way. That's the way I definitely intended, and that's the point of doing that. The whole coaching only works when there's psychological safety and trust. And if you can't be fully authentic as a coach as to what your limitations are, then how do you ever expect a client to do that? Yes. And I always play devil's advocate.

Like, well, shit, you don't have the certification that you suck. Right. You're right. Exactly. So there's certain things that are going to be better done with a therapist, with a psychiatrist, with a mental health professional. and there's going to be certain things that some people use their mental health professional for like a lot of people do career strategy and stuff with their therapist and I just think

that doesn't make a ton of sense that's not their specialty that's not their training it can work they're a person who can help you do that but that's really where working with a coach is key because that's a lot of what people who specialize in career coaching or leadership coaching do is that that career strategy and that career thinking of, you know, from from here looking forward, what's my big vision? What do I want to accomplish with this? What do I want my impact to me? What's important to me with this? Those kind of questions are really the realm of coaching. So here's a weird question, like the fact that people sharing their thoughts and their career paths with their therapists, now I understand that coaches, therapists, counselors, have ethics.

that are linked to each other in those professions. So I wonder the key questions that are being asked are bringing up this theme that it relates to their occupation. Yeah, can you say more about that? Yeah, well, because I've dissected counselors and their ethics that they have to keep their questioning around and same with therapists and coaches and also psychologists. It revolves around a certain, God, I had it now.

I'm losing it. It revolves around key questions and key terminology that's being used to draw out this information from an individual. And I feel like this unsathing. feeling is coming from work related, which is why that gets drawn up and brought into these conversations, regardless of the specialty or specialists that we're referring to. Yeah. And I think it speaks to the complexity of being a human, right? of there's not going to be of one specialty that's going to be the only path to your advancement as a person, right? To figuring out what you need to heal up, where you need to be going, what you want to be doing.

It's going to be drawing on a bunch of these. And I would personally encourage people to figure out what specialties they want to be pulling in people from and going out and going out and doing that. and it'll often be working with more than one type of person at a time. And just as an example, like, as a just a pullback example, like, you know, you might be working with a personal trainer or something on your fitness routine. It doesn't mean you don't, you don't have to then see a dentist too, right? Like, there's these kind of all these different elements. Got to get some teeth in, you know, on Tuesdays.

Exactly, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tuesdays are molar days. Yeah, but there's all these different areas. you have to pull and it's part of being a well-rounded person that you're going to be drawing on different specialty strengths. And I think it's important for professionals in these different areas to not overstayed their expertise to really, you know, be open to having conversations, but to not

cross these lines where they're out of their depth and they're not the correct person for it. Yes. Otherwise, it turns into like a pharmacy or like a pharmaceutical commercial. Oh, I guess you are bipolar because we. just somehow link to that and now I need to subscribe that. Right. Exactly. I talked to a doctor about it.

No. So like what you were illustrating now, it sounds like this is part of your book with the career, like tools that we need to know. Go into that. Tell me a little bit about it. Yeah. So the purpose of the book is particularly for millennials, also for the incoming Gen Z workforce, it really applies to everyone too. But we're at this point in our careers where

we're making a lot of these. Yeah, so if you're old, you're fucked. All right. You're already down with your career so you don't need it. So it is it is like totally universally applicable to. So like you can be even in retirement and these things all still still apply if you're interested in it. My target demographic for coaching the people I work most closely within coaching are fellow millennials and it's coming at a point where we're still making these career shaping decisions a lot of the time and it's just particularly relevant for it but there's this big sweep of that i mentioned earlier of where we're moving away from this industrial era mindset and economy into what the future holds so a lot of the sort of low-hanging fruit of you know

I know what we have to do as an organization. I already know as the leader what it's going to take to accomplish that. And my job is to say, okay, go do it. I'm going to divide up the work in this way. I know my standards. You're going to meet them. You're going to not meet them. End of list.

That worked great for earlier on when you were building a Ford factory, right? And it was going to be, I know exactly where we're going to put out. And your job is to do it. My job is to enforce compliance. Now we're moving into this world of, unknown of complexity of innovation of um you know it wouldn't matter how well run a magazine was in 1995 if they didn't see the internet coming and let me let me ask you this real quick so what you're with the tools that you're giving us is it's like what i forecast for the future is it's it's

similar to the industrial view, where we all have to choose a job, choose a profession. If you don't, you're already making a choice by not making a choice. And with that, you become an expert. Now, we go forward 20 years, whatever is past digitalization. I imagine we have to take these malleable concepts that you're teaching us and not just apply to one specific thing like a job. Now it's becoming more things where everybody's establishing a following to be an expert and just the thing on the side, but then also the thing for the job and then the thing for something else because inflation is going to fuck us. And now we need to make more money and now everything's digital and now what the fuck

am I doing with my life? I don't even need to leave the house because I just put on this headset and I'm somewhere in Europe when I haven't left. It's all of that playing into it. Right. So, like, what I say is we know now that you have to be more adaptable than ever, right? So all of this stuff that you just talked about is happening. And you can't just be stuck in one place or one mindset of my job is to do X. You've got to really be super adaptable. There's this flip side to that too where you can't just be a replaceable cog who has no unique skill sets. You're talking about getting followers, right? And the only way to do something like that is to put out, not the only way.

The best way to do something like that is to be unique, to have a different perspective, a different voice, something that's uniquely you. And the challenge for our generation and the following ones is going to be. how do I both be more adaptable than ever and more of myself than ever? And that's how you succeed in career development. And it's not fucking multitasking, that's for sure. It's not multitasking, right? And you don't want to be, and that's the thing.

It can really, it can really be something where it feels pointless to people, right? Like there's so much change, so much disruption. My whole industry is going away. My company's doing a ton of layoffs. You know, it's pointless. is how do I don't even know what to do. I'm just going to not do anything or I'm just going to, you know, let the cards fall where they're right. And a lot of my, a lot of purpose of my book is to help people with a very approachable way to think strategically,

to think, what do I actually want and how can I start moving in that direction without this idea of, you know, what I actually want is this particular job 20 years from now. and I'm going to take all the steps that I need to do to move in that direction, because that very well might not exist. Interesting. So, yes, when I was looking into, if I go 10 years back, I had this understanding where I wanted to do law enforcement. So it's like, all right, I'll do the military. And then I'll do two years out of community college and then transfer that over to a university. And I didn't plan on being online.

And then I also didn't plan on not change my major fucking three to four different times. And then now all of a sudden, I got organizational leadership. But for some reason, I can look back all those choices that I planned on, but then took a turn equals up to support this identity that I have created for myself. it's so well said and the idea so like what would be a specific position in law enforcement that you would have thought that you wanted way back then it would be SWAT definitely wanted you sticking indoors right so say say back then and this might not be the best example of exactly what it is for people but I think it's less important to say you know way back then okay I want to be on a SWAT team and that's the only thing I want to do and if I don't do

that, then it's not worth it. And I'm going to take every single specific stuff to get to that space. I think it's much better and more essential now to approach it as, I think that's something I want to do. What are the general characteristics of why I want to do that? How can I move in that direction? And you're going to be shifting and changing along the way. And you might end up doing a podcast on your organizational leadership. That wasn't something you could have ever. thought of 10, 15 years ago, right? Fuck no. Like, literally all I understood was there was probably 10 to 30 jobs that I'm aware of.

Everything else does not exist. It's just, there's a postman, a cop, fucking teacher, banker. That's, that's it. There's nothing else in the world. It's exactly right. And that was largely the way it was even in corporations for so long, as you know. So, like, there'd be, okay, I get, there's a limited number of corporate jobs I can have. I can be this and they're going to be interchangeable.

And you generally know the steps you have to take to do that. And like I was saying on the magazine example, that would be a really terrible career strategy. If you were back in the 90s saying, okay, the best way to be to advance by careers to become the senior editor of whatever, whatever, you have to be building these kind of skills to move you in a direction that's adaptable, but it's still you.

Interesting. Now, if I wanted to, let's let's put your work to the challenge here. Sure. Let's say, I've gotten the experience. I gotten the degree. I have literally self-taught. I got situational knowledge. I got previous experience. I got academic. Am I qualified? And what am I qualified? What do I deserve and how should I be valuing myself? and not shoot myself short. So I think that's a lot less clear than it used to be, right? There used to be these check. I got a degree check.

I've got this position check. I've got this. How I define career advancement in the career resign map is confidence in yourself and from relevant to others. So it's a combination. It's both am I doing the work to put myself out there to build up all of these skills to get this education, all of this kind of stuff. That alone is not enough because it requires you putting yourself in a position where

the other people around you who are important to your career advancement will recognize that as something that's value added for their organization. So, but the problem is that I'm seeing, we all have the access to the information. So if I rehearse and regurgitate, does that make me an expert? And that's why I deserve the job over somebody else who has is the certs or has this something because I can say anything perbatim. Like, what the fuck are we doing? Yeah. So I think that's, it's much less of this industrial era mindset of checking boxes now of, you know, this job requires these certs.

And then you've got it. And now it's much more nuanced where it's, am I putting myself in positions where I'm going after what I want? And are the people around me going to take the holistic view of everything that I've done or what I'm putting out to them and say, this is adding value. And I want Greg on my team, for example. Ah, yes. Indeed. Well, now let me ask you this. What about these gatekeepers or people in this position?

What requirements should they have to represent today's industries? I know there's so much technological advances. I mean, are they, where is the standard in digitalization? What knowledge should we already have? I mean, back then you needed Microsoft Word. That was it. Now you need the fucking suit. You need Adobe.

You need to have a mixed martial art background. You need to have everything. So where's the standard lie today? Yeah. So I push you on the standards again. So I don't think there's going to be this idea of standardization being as common as is. And your questions alluding to this, right? Yes.

It's not going to be something where it's, you know, very simply. you need this degree and these four experiences and this certification and then check your you're blessed to be this position. It's going to be much more. So if you're if you're the gatekeeper, you're the person who's the hiring team, the hiring manager, first thing you should do is what is actually moving the needle in this role? What is something that we actually need? not what is a proxy for what I think we should need, what is something that HR has and their standard job description for this. It's like really what do we need in this position?

And then go out and really look at your applicants, look in your networks, look at other people who will be able to do that and understand that it's going to be in different ways. But there's basic questions that they'll ask you. Do you know how to utilize fucking PowerPoint? And a lot of people can say yes. But now we're in this virtual environment.

Do you know how to edit audio? Do you know how to create graphics and put them on overlays? So you can give presentations that are far more advanced than our competitors. Well, no, I don't know. I didn't take a content creation class. So now my degree doesn't mean shit because I can't make pictures. And what can be taught on the job, right? Developmental role, right.

Yes. Should you be screening people out for that? Probably not. Probably not for something like that where you could learn it in a few days at a basic level. You know, it's going to be much less of like setting arbitrary standards and excluding people than it's going to be about what do we really need in this? What can be learned on the job? What can people have brought in from other life experience?

And in the realm of people we could hire for this, in the realm of vendors we can hire, in the realm of tools we can use, is this person the best bet? And flipping that from a job seeker or a career advanceder's perspective, that's what smart companies and organizations and hire managers are really asking themselves. It's much less of, do you check the boxes? it's much more of do I think this person has what it takes to succeed. Now, teaching on the job, do you think it should be a, I get, it's a developmental role, but are we developing people in a way to handle the job by memory, or are we teaching them critical reasoning to look at their position in a cross-culture way but also as in a individualistic way,

but also the perception of how others would perceive it, whether it's as the corporate entity or whether it's as just a consumer. I mean, there's various understandings you need to have when you uphold a position. Are we teaching people how to critically reason and apply so they can move on to something greater, excuse me, or are we just telling them, hey, read the fucking manual and just memorize everything and then it'll come naturally. Otherwise, we're firing you. This is, this is exactly the shift that's happening, right? So it was a lot of the time in this industrial mindset. How do we use training to impart the discrete skills that are, we think,

are required for this particular role. And now it's much more of that holistic, yeah, how do we develop critical thinkers? How do we reward people for their intercultural competence? How do we make sure that people are communicating well with each other? So there's just so much, so much more that smart organizations are shifting to now, that is so much less of this rigid training mentality and much more of that developing people who can be adaptable and agile.

You said smart, or you mean learning organizations or just? I think the learning organization's concept is key, right? So that's coming in. And that's, in my mind, that's going from something that's really wonderful and nice to have to something that's wonderful and nice to have. And if you don't develop that as an organization,

you're at a distinct disadvantage. Yeah, because I think that illustrates the culture. I mean, that illustrates the leadership, that illustrates the identity, the values. I mean, it all is an encompassing saying, are we a learning organization or not? Then how do we define ourselves as that way? Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's just not, it's not a perk to be a learning organization anymore. It's something where if you're not this, then you're not going to be having the kind of people in your organization who can allow you to take advantage of technological disruption, aren't able to innovate, aren't able to lead, and are just able to be cogs and machine, which is

not what you need now. That's true. That's very true. So I'm going to ask you just a couple more questions than the floor is going to be open. Sure. What about addressing barriers for change? if we're trying to establish change, whether it's in behavioral modification or social stratification or just organizations in general, how do we do that? It's a million dollar question. Yes. There's so many change management theories and frameworks, as I'm sure you're more aware than anyone.

Like, there's a million of these, right? Yeah. And everyone says, theirs is the one that. breaks through, it actual causes organizational change. I think you can't separate organizational change from culture, from leadership. It has to be something that is part and parcel of the way that your organization operates, that it embraces change that's moving toward this new direction that you want to go to. It's not something you can outsource and say, we're going to go through a nine-step change

management process, and then we're going to be changed as an organization. This has to be something that leadership is bought into. It has to be something that the organizational culture will support. It has to be something that you can get the staff excited about and they can be part of it. And unless it really has those elements, then it's not going to work. Fascinating. No, that's really interesting. Take it away.

If you want to share something about your book, you want to share, how can our audience get in touch with you if they want to learn more? about you? Yeah, so the book is called the Career Design Map. It's really short and it's purposely short so that people can actually read it and actually use it. I've stripped out any of the extraneous personal stories and all of that, which is all all nice to have, but this is really designed to be something that you can read in an hour, really put into practice, see yourself on it. So if people want to check that out, they can buy that on Amazon, they can order it from their local bookstore. I have a free quiz that goes along with that. It's called the Career Design Quiz.

So you always love the free quiz, right? And it lets you see where you currently are on this map and where you think you want to go. And I can talk about the distinct elements of the map, too, if that would be helpful. But it lets you see basically where you are, where you want to go, and the general strategic. direction that would move you in that desired direction. So people go to career designquiz.com and take that. And then by coaching practice, it's called contemptus leadership.

So they can visit contempusleadership.com to check that out. Beautiful. And yeah, give us a little snapshot of it. I know there's the, God, I've got to get this thing tighter. It's always in the way.

Contributor, go-getter, expert, and executive, right? Yeah, exactly. So there's, think of it as those, those two axes that I talked about earlier. So basically the x-axis left to right is career advancement. So that's that enabling, that's the confidence in yourself and from those around you. So if you're way too low on self-confidence and confidence from those around you, you're in what I call the dangerous seat. So there's these four dangeracies of, invisibility. So this is when you're not putting yourself out there, you're feeling dejected, people around you are not noticing you, that's a, that's a batswant to me, that's too low on career batsmith. Moving further in from that, there's the, I call it. Then it sounds like you need therapy if you're too low. That's what you need. And again, I don't want to apply that that is what anyone would do. Bingo, yeah.

What it goes into, it's something that you definitely want to make sure you're understanding yourself. And, you know, is this something that would make sense for it? There's the contributor, which is one of these meaningful four career types. So this is basically when you want to be a team player, when you want to be, you know, working to live, not living to work. And you're doing enough where you're part of a team and part of an organization. value, but you're not like going way above and beyond on career. You're not going way above beyond being a leader. Further along is the experts. This is when you're like pretty advanced in your career. You're valued for your skills and contributions to what you can bring and you can be

making a lot of money in this. This is something where like you're, there's a real expertise there. And then when you're actually too far on career advancement, it's something I call arrogance. So this is another one of these dangerous seas. Think of like the, you know, the rock star that hasn't put out a good album in years because they're just surrounded by yes men all day, right? And they're like, oh, your music's amazing. And they're not in there doing the work. Yeah, or you're just too old and the book doesn't apply for you.

Again, I've had my, so my parents are in a pickleball league. And they're, you know, they've been, they've been giving it out to people there. And a lot of people who are retired or loving it, they're saying, wow, this is, this is actually really amazing. So I really figured out why I want to remove the ageism implications from this. But this is broadly applicable. And it's especially written for people at our age range. I like that. Yeah.

So then leadership is the other axis here. So this is that enabling people to achieve a common purpose. if you're too low on leadership, you're in the danger of disengagement. So this is when you're, you don't really care about what the organization is doing. You don't feel like you're part of it. You don't feel like you want to be leading. You don't want to be enabling a team to achieve a common objective. That's disengagement.

Lase-a-fair style, it sounds like. Lase-fair style, exactly. And that's, as you know, the least effective. It's not even technically a leadership style, right? It's so, it's the lack of leadership. You're like their friend pretty much getting paid as a leader. Exactly. And that obviously does not work well.

And yeah, that's definitely in that too. I think disengagement can also be when you're an employee or a team member. And like you were mentioning earlier with like, is my organization going to dig me for like accessing these resources or something, right? And that can be like, I don't trust this organization. I'm not part of it. I don't feel like they get me. I don't feel like they're looking out for me at all. So I'm just going to not, I'm not going to be part of this team.

I'm not going to really do anything. Go above and beyond for this. Dangerous place to be for both leaders and for subordinates to be in that place. If you go further up on the levels of leadership, there's basically one called go-getter. This is one of the meaningful four career types. This is when you're really hungry, you're getting after. after it, you're going above and beyond. And this is a transitional state where you have to really decide.

There's very few people who were in that hungry, you know, I'm going to go above beyond and prove myself state for too long. And that's where you have to really decide, do I want to become an expert? Do I want to pursue expertise? Do I want to go back to being just a contributor and work might not be the most important thing for me? Or do I want to go to this final meaningful four, which is executive? So this is when your career is advanced and your leadership is advanced and you're leading an organization and you're requisitely specialized in getting the benefits to come along with that.

Ooh, I want to caveat that. So if we go back down to the third one, I'm imagining me just grinding it out for 14 to 8. 18 hours a day and not even taking care of my own health. So I probably could do that two days, maybe three days. By the fourth day, I literally am going to go into a coma for two days and then have to reset. And so I'm understanding that that's probably where we need to establish life balance. And then the fourth one is where we would have to look at working on the business, rather in the business. Exactly.

That's a great way to put it with executive. You presage the final dangerous C, which is actually called burnout. And this is when you're too high on leadership. And that's something that people can balk at a lot of the time. What do you mean too high on leadership? I'm not you couldn't be too high on leadership. Exactly what you just said, right? You can do that for two days, three days.

You're doing that four days, five days, six days, seven days. a week, 20 hours a day, you're trying to put the whole team on your back and carry this organization forward. That's when people run into issues with burnout. And it's something that is, it's something that the culture doesn't talk about enough of, there's this idea that like, leading more is always good. And you should always just, you know, winter's never win, win, win, winers never quit. Just lead, lead, lead, more, more. And we're seeing this epidemic of burnout in organizations now. And a lot of that is that people, are trying to really pull together the aims of the organization themselves at an unsustainable

flip. Okay. All right. Here comes another food for thought, kind of an approach. What if they are pushing themselves constantly because they're running from something that they haven't addressed and they feel that if they consistently push themselves, that it would magically disappear. And that's why the specialist that was referring to earlier are having the,

these ethics and approaches with the questioning to draw out the real issue which is actually mental health? It's all, I think you might have it. You're pulling it together. No, I tend to agree. I think it is a lot of the time linked and there is a mental health component and it's a growing, whether that's, there's more mental health issue. coming up in society, whether people are more open at actually looking at them and sharing them, I don't know. But I think it is something that is definitely all linked. And if you're feeling like that's something that would be useful for you, I'd encourage you to definitely look into those resources. And it's not something that's going to be solved by getting that promotion. It's not something

that's going to be solved by, you know, getting that next million dollars. It's going to be something that is best addressed with with the requisite professional support. Yeah, just stopping and spelling the roses is an old cliche saying, but or just dealing with your shit. It's, yeah, both. Yeah. The smelling components on both. Yes, beautiful.

I mean, I feel like we hit a lot of great stuff. I mean, do you have anything else do you want to add? Because I feel like we really touch a lot of great stuff, Dan. I don't know what else to ask you. No, you've had some amazing questions, Greg. And thanks for being so open from your end and asking these. These are so thoughtful. And it's obvious that you give us a lot of care and attention and thoughts.

So just thank you so much. No, definitely. So I will say this and I will leave you, Dan, I appreciate you for coming on your transformation station. And I take it to heart, especially from an individual that has focused their attention on understanding organizational leadership. I love that. That is great. And I definitely want to have you back. So I appreciate you coming in today.

I'd be happy to come on anytime. Thanks again for having me. Thanks for joining us on this adventure of growth and discovery. If you're ready to achieve a sustainable transformation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And hey, if you've enjoyed the show and want to support it, take a moment to leave a podcast review on Apple or your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected with us on social media for behind-the-scenes sneak peeks, inspiring quotes, and the latest updates.

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Just search for YTS the podcast. Until next time, remember, change is constant. and transformation is inevitable. Embrace the journey and keep rocking your way towards a better you. Stay bold, stay curious, and stay true to yourself. See you next time on your transformation station. It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers.

But here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply.