Your Transformation Station - 39. "Managing Versus Leading" Noa Ronen w/ Favazza

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Together Greg and Noa will compare their history of military service, leadership methodology as well as cultural differences between the United States and Israel during the college age. Noa will give her account of the best types of leadership as well as leading vs. managing in teaching others.   Support the showPODCAST INFO:Podcast website: https://ytspod.comApple Podcasts: https://ytspod.com/appleSpotify: https://ytspod.com/spotifyRSS: https://ytspod.com/rssYouTube: https://ytspod.com/youtubeSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Check out the sponsors below, it's the best way to support this podcast- Outgrow: https://www.ytspod.com/outgrow- Quillbot Flow: https://ytspod.com/quilbot - LearnWorlds: https://ytspod.com/learnworlds- Facebook: https://ytspod.com/facebook- Instagram: https://ytspod.com/instagram- TikTok: https://ytspod.com/tiktok- Twitter: https://ytspod.com/x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to know what is the difference between a leader and a manager in your eyes? Oh, that's a great question. It's actually in my book. It starts there because people told me you have to start a conversation there. Wow. So actually leading when you look at the, I like to look at words, especially when English is not my first language. So the etymology, that's how you say it's right. The etymology of the word is path.

How can you create a transformation in others if there's no transformation in yourself? Join your host, Greg Favaza, as your voice on the hard truths of leadership, your transformation station connecting clarity to the cutting edge of leadership. As millennials, we can establish change, not only ourselves, but through organizational change, a dream transparency that goes beyond the organization and reflects back into ourselves. Extracting. Extracting. Actionable advice and alternative perspectives that will take you outside of yourself. Hey, Noah.

Hey, what's that? It's just another day getting after it. I like your, is this your office? I see a lot of tags you got going on back there. Yeah, it's my. business plan. It needs a bit of, it needs a bit of an update, but yeah. Like that. Is there a system on how that works? I don't know if you mind like sharing that. That's the color scheme, everything. It's just really interesting. Yeah. It's how I mind is how my brain works. And I like to do

color coding. So that's that's the way I work. I take an idea and then I go with it down the flow deeper and deeper and deeper. Yes. So it's kind of like my business, then the sub areas, and then I start to brainstorm and decide what I want to work on. Interesting. I can see that as far as with the color. It's almost like a mind map, but even more finite.

Yeah. Color coded. And then you said with subtopics, I'm assuming you have like top things are huge. We shouldn't even be focusing on this. Yeah, you see that the yellow is kind of like the areas that I work. And I try to go with the Zen concept of less is more because I'm an idea tour. So I can have a lot of ideas. And I learned along the time that too many ideas don't take me anywhere.

So I do less and I achieve more. That's my. I just came to that realization by that minimalistic kind of approach as far as to think less, but just to act more in the moment rather than trying to just think about it and stuff. But I want to look at you. You were from Israel. Did you? Yes. You grew up there?

Yeah, I grew up there. Okay. I was there until my 30s. And so 15 years ago, now you know how old I am. 15 years ago, we moved from Israel to New York City for two years. two years adventure and 15 years after we are here citizens with free vicious teenagers. The reason why I asked, I trained Krav Maga for about five and a half years and originally from Israel. And I'm just curious with your community there,

is it mandatory for everybody growing up by age 18 to join the military to serve? Yes. That is very interesting. interesting to me because I want to know how the mentality it was like there and what if that's a possibility we can apply that into our culture, not the military, but to have that understanding of all those principles and what it takes to be an individual there and somehow integrate that over here as far as what it takes to be a citizen, a more of a yeah. It's, you know, there is that you're Israeli and that's what you need to do.

You know, it's kind of like when you're a child and the parents say, you don't have a saying, you just do it. But Israel evolved, right? Israel is a young country. So it changed a lot. So years ago, like I can say 20 years ago, and people didn't want to go to the army for mental health issues. other people in the society saw them as kind of like you know kind of like betrayal

why do I need to go to the army when you don't go right but there are now different solutions to the idea to volunteer you can give a year of service as a volunteer some people are religious so they say I will not fight because I'm religious

some are not Israelis they are Arabs so they don't want to be in some of them don't want to be in the in the Israeli army. So there are other paths right now for you to volunteer and give your time. And actually, when I have now a child that is almost 18, is a senior and a daughter who is junior and another child, but the two older ones, I actually really pushing them because I'm a coach and because I work with people and because I see how confused they are when they are 40 and they're, you know, 50,

not only when they are in their 20s, because they were so much in that industrial path, right? You finish school, you go to university, in Israel, you go to the army. And actually in Israel, after the army, a lot of people work, they save, and then they go to a long travel around the world. And it gives you a perspective. So most young people in Israel start the college when they are 22, 23. I was a baby. I was after the army. I was 20 and everyone called me the baby in the college.

Most of them have some perspective when they come to college. Doesn't mean that all of them will work in what they study, but I find that it gives people a bigger perspective, not just, you know, what do you know when you are 18? Like I look at my kids right now. Seriously. So that army service, I didn't fight. I was kind of like a leadership coach in the army. I learned so much. I met people from different populations that I didn't meet before. And I didn't live in a place where you're just like one kind of a population.

But still, I was exposed to a lot of different people and opinions and challenges. And I thrived in the army. And actually, when I look at my siblings, kids, how they are before they joined the army and afterwards, there is that maturity that you sometimes don't see. Not because, and again, most of them, like I have siblings that are in the cyber unit, right? They don't fight, but it just creates that different perspective and that taking that time off

from school and that chain of life that so many of us are being sucked into. and don't take a moment to look back. I call it, you know, Cheryl Sunberg talking about lean in. I actually invite the people and my kids to lean back. Lean back. Get perspective. Be quiet. Listen.

Be curious. Don't talk all the time like I do right now. But lean back. We're catching that. That's really interesting. A lot of people don't catch that in the moment. I feel like it takes a certain individual that is starting to rise up today and starting to lead the next generation that will lead this planet. And those are starting out of the bushes.

But what you said with the Army, I have a couple questions with that. What was your MOS and how long did you serve? I'm not sure. MLS is like what I did in the Army. That's what you. Sorry, sometimes still. Yeah, I was in the military myself also. armed half years. I did active duty.

Half than one with the National Guard. So I was in the Navy, the Israeli Navy. I didn't serve on the ships. I was in the base itself. And I worked with the officers to help them with some leader, you know, kind of like executive stance. Because what we say is that for you to want to follow your leader, right, your officer, into the moments that most of us don't want to go into, we need to trust them. And the officer needs to learn how to do that.

So that was kind of like my role to teach them how to do that, to help them how to create lesson plans when they need to talk in front. Because part of what we believe in Israel, that the officer role is also to teach their soldiers, not just to tell them what to do, but also to be an educator. And that's for many different reasons. I served in the army for two years.

That's the judge, yeah. Yes, Bim. Let me stop you. The reason why I'm cutting you off is you said something very interesting. I want to know, what is the difference between a leader and a manager in your eyes? Oh, that's a great question. It's actually in my book. It starts there because people told me you have to start a conversation there.

Wow. So actually leading when you look at the, I like to look at words, especially when English is not my first language. So the etymology, that's how you say it's right. Etymology of the word is path. So leadership leader is path. And the difference between the manager and the leader is that manager focuses on getting results. That's their job. They have results and they have things they need to achieve and they need to make sure people get things done. Leader has some aspects of management. They need to make sure people get results. But there is a path that you take people with you. And I believe that beyond that, that's why I call it beyond leadership, we are always on

that path. It never stops. So it's never like there is a point that I get there. There is an understanding and that's, you know, I see you kind of like smiling. You understand that it never stops. It never stops. And the same with leadership. It's never like, now I'm making. good leader. It's that that constant ability to understand, that ability to understand that you're in a constant learning to help your people become better and help yourself become a better person. Yes. So that's where I come from.

I really liked that. And one, I saw your book. I saw for maybe 10 seconds and I did not even come across. But what you mentioned as far as the position, you were and where you were serving and what you brought up brought that question to mind that I believe that you knew exactly what that would be like if I were to ask you the difference between a manager and a leader, which is why I brought that up. I completely agree with the leader. It's a standard. It's a mentality that will ripple out

into everything. It's accountability. It's all these strong principles that you adapted from your service that you are now applying into your life. And that's what I have done in my time. And now I'm trying to get a call to action to everybody else out there as far as we need to adapt. We need to evolve in the society that we have deemed acceptable in today's life. that is unacceptable. The way we're living is something that was years ago. It's time to adapt to what's happening. We have new technology.

We have so much things that are happening. Yet we're living with this old school industrialized mindset that takes us nowhere. It's sad. It's very sad. You know, I have to share with you something. So a few days ago, we got an announcement from the education, you know, from the principal of the kids at the high school, that he was promoted and he's giving the school.

And it's sad because it's really, it's an amazing school. It's a public school. He's doing an amazing job, diversity. And I was surprised to see that we got a survey from the education board or whatever you want to call it to hear the voice of the parents and the students. And they asked, what? you think is important that the new principal will focus on. And what came into mind for me was,

I want to see a principal that asks the kids, what school you want to have today? And let them create a system where the kids lead the school and not the principal and the teachers. And that's what I'm missing right now, because we don't really know what's not working in the system, right? We are in, you know, I say we're first aware less, then we're in the aware mess, and then we move to the awareness.

So we're in that awareness phase, understanding that college doesn't work. It's too much money. Ridiculous. Schools don't work, right? A lot of the industrial stuff that doesn't work. We see now with the COVID that going to work every day, 9 to 5 is not relevant anymore. So it's time to change how we lead things. So for me, it was like, oh my gosh, I want to see that my kids leading this school.

I want them to be engaged. I want them to take ownership and not complain about the teachers all the time, which they have amazing teachers. I wish I had their teachers, right? But so sorry, I got excited. But for me, leaders today, that's where I kind of like got when I stepped into leadership roles in the last few years. and I really try to bring that into awareness with the leaders I work, is not that the focus is on you. The focus is not on you as the leader.

You can lead from, sometimes you lead from the front, but you can lead from the side and you can lead from the back. And when you are really a mature leader, is when you let go for your ego and you raise people, I call it the next generation of leaders, to step forward and you can just be in the back, have fun. Yes, sometimes you will be next to them.

Sometimes you will take the front, but it's not all the time in the front. And that's for me, that's my perspective right now about, you know, hearing what you shared right now about the industrial situation that we are trying to figure out how to get out of. Yes, ma'am. I love that you just, you have that understanding. And that's, it's, there's a lot of different complexities and why we are not continuously adapting, why our school system is garbage and why we could go down this rabbit hole for, for day.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the issue it really comes down to is it's a top down approach. And it's not looking at everybody. It's actually looking at it. if we look in ourselves internally and address what am I doing wrong every day? Why do I feel this way? Well, you're not happy with yourself.

You don't give yourself any value. Thus, if you don't give yourself value, why should we value you? Why should we value your work? That's all over. If everybody's doing that, we have this fucking hectic society that we're living in. There's definitely a lot that goes into that where we can micro scrape away the contextuals. So tell me more about yourself. It's just that I will understand.

And kind of like I can get the gist of who you are, you know, just from this conversation. And sorry if I sounded a bit more podcast like, but I wasn't sure. Like I didn't want to mumble and jumble when I saw the recording and I realized that sometimes, you know, I go in a conversation. And it's all we started the podcast. Okay. Yeah. I like to not just say, hey, it's wrong. You know, I just want to have it roll as we see.

Yeah, me too, but I would love to hear about you. Oh, no. And in the non-formal way. I'm the youngest of seven kids, seven siblings. Awesome. Parents are still together. I grew up in a household. I would say I'm a first generational student.

Did an associate's degree. Didn't know what I was doing. Kind of just got a degree just because I did. I grew up being the youngest of those seven and they never passed along anything to me. No guidance, principles, values, anything to share because everybody kind of just, there was a lot of, a lot of drama that led to very deep issues that I don't like to share as a, but those issues led me into where I am today. I either at the time when I was younger, I would either let them take me down or I would rise above it and from a neutral perspective and make my own story rather than the story that happened. Yeah. Happened was just a perception of my reality and what my truth is is what I believe in.

And that's really deep and we don't need to go into that. No, no, no. I totally am the youngest of four. I live in the U.S. They are in Israel, right? Yeah, I get it. And actually I went through a process with myself that brought peace in my heart, at my heart, whatever, however you say that, to find peace with my siblings and with my parents that I didn't realize that I need to find. A great book to check out around that is the, if maybe you know it, the anatomy of peace. No, I have not heard of that book, but I'm always opening to the family books. Very, very, very, very quick reading, very deep.

They also have, I don't know if they still do that, but I also went through some courses with them. It wasn't expensive then. It was like 100 bucks or something, like very cheap. But I went through a process of two years of finding peace in my heart. And it came again from that Israeli background of how can I bring that more into the world. but first I have to understand that about myself. So it was very impactful and allowed me to find peace in my core family with one of my kids, with my son, then with my siblings.

And it wasn't like, you know, like this. It was about two, three years of fish, a very, very slow process that I was willing to go into to get there. So totally get where you come from. Did you find that helpful as far as implementing a slow process versus a drastic change in your environment and everything you're doing, you're eating, everything? Did you find it much better for you for slow integration versus a 180? It really depends. I believe that sometimes it's easy to go. Like we decided to just go clean and do the whole 30.

So it's like 30 days. You cut everything. You're done. And since then we mostly follow that. I can't say I'm like too strict, but there is no sugar in the house. You know, like all that stuff. We just cut it. And I asked my husband to go on that with me because he had some health issue, not to lose weight.

And it's actually solved a lot of problems for him from health, you know, health perspective. So there are some things that I find that when you cut. they work. But there are some things that I believe I just finished reading the atomic habits. So he talks about all those little. Well, James Cliff, that is a book.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great book. And I do believe that a lot of little changes bring that big change. And actually in that course that I mentioned, I went through kind of like, it's the first time I said, I have to get certified with everything they talk about

because it's philosophy. It's not, it's not all the, there is a lot of BS out there. As a coach, I see a lot of BS that people try to sell you certifications for this and that. And for me, the idea, they are Arbinger Institute and Arbinger Institute. They really come from from the philosophy of Martin Buber, who is a philosopher, of how we look at people. And, and in that, in that class, one of the leaders of the class, she tried to push me to find peace with my siblings.

And she said, you have to do that. And I said, no, I'm not ready yet. It will happen. But not now. I still need to go through some stuff with myself. And she kept pushing me. And I kept saying, no. And that's something that I also do a lot with my clients.

I tell them if you are not ready to find peace with someone, it's okay. Give yourself permission to say I'm not ready yet because it will come when you're ready and if it will take you two years and if it will take you 10 years you can't, there are some things you can enforce. I can relate to you on that

with reading a particular book maybe two years ago there was a specific little thing that caught your attention And now two years later, you come across something else that is in a completely different topic. It resonates with you from that specific thing two years ago. That is what connects clarity into your life and allows you to address something much larger than the thing that you just connected. It allows you to almost detach from yourself to see something that occurred in your transgression.

and allow you to go very deep into the root of something that you created internally that affects you to this day for no apparent reason that you don't understand. Yeah. And it's just meeting people where they are. And sometimes we need to meet ourselves where we are. And that's why sometimes I have problems with people that push toward when people are not ready. I do believe that we need to meet people where they are and dance with them. and not the other way around. It's okay to poke and say,

hey, I see you hiding, but if the, you know, the feedback I get is I'm not ready yet. We can have a conversation. Maybe you are lying to yourself. Maybe you're not.

But if you are real with yourself and you know that it's not the time, so it's fine. And we need to work with us, not against us. So I find that sometimes I say something to someone, you know, someone that knows me. I say something and then they come to me two years after and they say, you were able to see something I was not able to see.

Now I see it. I want to work with you or I decided to go on that new path. And that's really fun for me to see. And it's that they kind of like I wasn't able to understand what you were saying then, but now I can. So it's fun. I don't even remember that I say it, but. Which is difficult. It's like I would struggle.

Like, this is what you have to do. Trust me. I've been down this road. I combed the desert and I found nothing. But, yes, I would like to transition this out. I want to respect your time. I appreciate it. Happy holidays to you and.

Oh, thank you. Your love months. Okay. You too. Thank you soon. Bye. You've been listening to your Transformation Station, your voice on the hard truths of leadership. We hope you've enjoyed the show.

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