Decoding Leadership and Building Relationships with Robin Lukason

Whenever I have a conversation with Robin Lukason, I know it's going to be a good one. Robin is an executive business coach and one of my co-authors of "Cracking the Rich Code". Robin's insights into corporate leadership and her emphasis on relationship-building and understanding varying personalities are enlightening and provide actionable advice for improving communication in corporate settings. We discuss managing through influence, techniques for handling different personality types, and the significance of active listening.

We talk about the importance of setting boundaries and managing energy in the workplace. Robin and I share our personal struggles with prioritizing our own needs first thing in the morning and how the concept of energy management can have a profound impact on our intuition and overall well-being. Tune in for all this and much more. Don't forget to share and leave a review!

To learn more about Robin visit https://www.robinlukason.com/

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:07

Welcome to the Communication 24-7 podcast, where we communicate about how we communicate. I'm your host, jennifer Furlong. I have a special guest with me today, robin Lukasen. She is an executive business coach. I asked her to be on the podcast because she and I met. We are co-authors in a book called Cracking the Rich Code. You've heard me talk about this book before.

Speaker 2: 0:47

I was really lucky in that I happened to be in this same book as Robin. We decided, hey, let's have a little chat, just get to know you. We ended up hitting it off and we had so many things in common. Our conversation lasted a very long time. Finally, I was like we need to get this on to the podcast because we talked all things communication. I really think she has a lot of really insightful things to say about communication and relationships and things that we can do in order to improve our communication skills.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Robin, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so happy to see you again. Thank you, jen. I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, why don't we get the audience caught up? You and I have already had great conversations, but they need to get caught up on where we are. Do you mind just tell us a little bit about. I know you started your own business not too long ago, but catch us up to the career you had before you started your business and how that helped you make the decision to go the path that you're on now.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Sure, I like to refer to myself affectionately as a corporate dropout. I spent 26 years in mortgage banking. All of my background is running operations, so sites across the United States and even partners overseas. And then the last probably six to 10 years I really started to focus on more strategic efforts. I would be in a chief of staff role. I started getting really involved with financial partners so P&L building comp plans, working with the sales partners, really chief of staff type work, so the operations leaders could do what they needed to do and I could work behind the scenes. Having been in roles like them, I also spent a lot of time in data and performance management. I live my life by Excel. I love organization, so who is a great fit?

Speaker 1: 2:52

About three and a half years ago, when I was working at my last corporate job, I got connected with a woman who ran a mortgage and real estate coaching firm out on the East Coast. She was based out there, she was an ex sales leader, got connected to her. I immediately became a coach, and every coach wears a certain hat, if you will, so everybody specializes in some area. I became the relationship coach, and not necessarily to work on personal relationships, but just how you build relationships in the workplace. Working corporate, I could only really moonlight, so I did hours from four to seven and I found that even after the longest days. So, mind you, this is March of 2020,. I started a new job and started coaching right when the world went sideways.

Speaker 2: 3:40

I was working a lot.

Speaker 1: 3:41

What's going on. I was working 10 to 12 hours a day and then coaching at night, and what I found was that was what really energized me. I felt better after those sessions than just about anything I was doing in corporate. All those years, I was unofficially coaching people. I've had hundreds of leaders under me that I've helped and worked with and developed, so I was already doing it unofficially. This was just the first chance I got to be in the role and I really fell in love with it. When the mortgage market really started to have challenges in 2022, I was laid off and I thought to myself I was going to wait two and a half more years to pursue this full time when my son graduated high school, but I felt like this was the right time. Last summer, I decided to in tandem. I still work for that firm. I pursued my own business and that's what I'm working to grow right now as an executive coach.

Speaker 2: 4:40

That is fantastic. One of the things that, as an executive business coach and I think with your background in the mortgage industry and being so much of a chief of staff, really as a chief of staff you really do have to deal with all kinds of different personalities. You have to really see the big picture and how the different pieces of the puzzle can fit together. What do you think was the most challenging part of all of that? As you were figuring out yeah, you know what I'm doing more of the relationship management type of things. What was challenging about?

Speaker 1: 5:23

that for you, the hardest thing you learn when you are a leader and you have to partner with others is the concept of managing through influence. I'm in a VP type role, if you will, and I have a really small team of people that are working under me and partnering with the business, but I'm facing off with all the senior VPs and the C-suite as either the ambassador for my boss or running my own initiatives, building relationships with all of those people for them to understand my credibility and my experience. As we used to have the saying, you don't walk into rooms guns blazing and telling everybody what you want to do. It's a slow burn to introduce yourself, share what you've done, and it takes time. So it's sitting back and listening for a while, not being the first one to speak. That's a hard thing for me sometimes. The thoughts in my head it was really working to build relationships. In the beginning I would reach out and set up 30-minute calls with a lot of these peers and partners before I ever had to work with them More, to understand what their role was, how long they've been with the company, what had they done before Professionally. It was important to me to know what their role was where they had challenges, how we might be able to partner. But I tend to ask a few personal questions if I feel like it's the right environment.

Speaker 1: 6:56

The company I was working for was based in my home state, in the town where I went to college. I'm very familiar with the area. I knew where a lot of people lived. We had this commonality of geography so we could start there. And then it's children and pets and hobbies. You just start to slowly build rapport. The next time you talk to them. I think it's always important to remember things that people told you about their personal life. It was really just working to build that relationship, offering my help as much as possible, getting involved in as many things as I could, so I could really understand the corporate culture, the landscape of responsibilities when I started to offer help so either help them on something or offer some expertise that started to build the bond and then people got to understand what I was capable of. Then I didn't have a shortage of work. Let's just say that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:55

Yeah, I'm sure it was something that was sorely needed. I think a lot of people, especially in corporate America. They're almost starving for a way to be able to make connections with others. I think we all feel so disconnected now. We could blame social media, we could blame having to work from home, especially during the pandemic. There are so many different things that are competing for our attention.

Speaker 2: 8:28

I've heard from a lot of people who work in the workforce going into the office on a daily basis. Even though you're in there and you get to see people, it's easy to feel somewhat disconnected from them, especially if you are uncomfortable or maybe you don't know how to have those conversations. I'm sure there's a cultural component to it as well, as far as leadership modeling, that type of openness and willingness to have those types of conversations to build those relationships. Did you have any conversations with the higher echelon to let them know that you were doing this, you were having these one-on-ones and having these conversations to build the relationships, or did you just say you know what? I know this is the right thing to do. I'm going to do it now rather than ask permission.

Speaker 1: 9:23

It's interesting. I felt like when I was brought in I was introduced to someone that had a lot of expertise in the industry. My boss was really good at giving me that initial ground cover and really punting a lot of things. Robin can do it, robin can do it. I was brand new to the company. Some of those C-suite leaders were some of the people that I really pursued having conversation with. They were part of that as well when they found out some of the things I could do and then they started to come to me.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I would try to do the same things, try to build that rapport, understand about them. What can I help them with? Because to me, the more minds you get in the room without getting too big, because then there's too many opinions those differences are really important when you make decisions. Sometimes people get nervous when outsiders come in because they're worried we're going to change the culture or the decision paths we've been on will be disrupted. My belief has always been let's just share different perspectives and let's land on the best one, whoever it is. Some people are really open to that and others it takes them a little more to realize the whole concept of someone being a threat to your job. That's one you always want to overcome.

Speaker 1: 10:45

I found that when I would start to detect people that would potentially omit you from a meeting or don't want your opinions, those are the ones I work harder to let them understand. My runway for work is not 25 years and I'm trying to build more steps in my ladder. I'm completely content where I am. I'm here to help you achieve your goals, and let some of my experiences be a good guide for you. I mean, 26 years is a long time to be in management. I think that's why it's helped me as a coach. If I can help other people avoid some of the missteps I've had, that's success in my book too.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Yeah, do you ever have conversations with leadership or even just managers, and how they can also use this as a way to connect with their employees? Do you talk to them about having one-on-ones and the importance of that?

Speaker 1: 11:44

I mean, that is literally not to little tongue-in-cheek here. One of my number one things I tell people when I meet them is what are your rhythms and routines with your team? Whether you are a first-line manager, a manager of other leaders, there's multiple checkpoints in my opinion. You take just a manager that's maybe got 10 or 12 people. I always was a fan of a little huddle in the morning. 15 minutes set the day. What were the results from yesterday? What's the tone for today? Once a month, is it possible to spend 15 minutes or 20 with each of your team? Because getting to know them on a personal level, that is not attached to a problem which is generally when you bring people to your cube or in your office. It's just let's talk. What do you like about working here? What could we do differently? And walk the floor. If you are in the kind of environment where you're able to be out and be seen every day, that's so important.

Speaker 1: 12:43

And when you get to management level and you've got different layers of managers underneath you.

Speaker 1: 12:49

I used to meet with my managers once a week, if I could, or at least once every two weeks, so twice a month and we have our list of things they want to work on.

Speaker 1: 12:59

We have the list of things that I've got, but it always starts with the personal and I think the thing that made me different as a leader and one thing I like to coach about is at the end of a lot of my sessions, once we got to know each other, I would ask them what do you wish I did more of and what do you wish I did less of? And initially people are concerned to share a criticism of their boss to their face. But when you build the trust and the rapport, they can say I hate those follow-up emails about that same topic every day, or I hate when you step on my desk when I first walk in the door, whatever it is, and I always, like I will do my best to accommodate because everybody needs to be managed differently. So one-on-one time, not just to talk about business results, but just the person that makes all the difference in the world.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Yeah, and I think there are so many leaders who are action-oriented and they can be so focused on the next goal, what it is that we're working toward. This is the mission. You know, I see where, exactly where we need to be. So these are all the things that we need to put in place. Go, go, go, go go. Let's go for it. And it's really easy to forget to make time for those things. So you recommend, you know, just once a month for about a half an hour, have those personal conversations, just kind of get to know you and how's it going.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Yep and it's follow-up more about how their time is going in their job, what is happening with the peers and partners they work with.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Do they like the dynamic on the team? And sometimes, if they are comfortable, you can ask them about their relationship with their manager, if this is something like a manager that's starting to talk to staff on the floor, and I think that is one thing that I have watched over and over again in companies as senior leaders rise through the ranks their ability to stay connected to the front lines, whatever the job is, whether it's customer service, manufacturing, mortgage. I understand how busy we can get, but even when I had sites of a couple hundred people, it was important to me to connect two people every day, because who knows better about making decisions and what is happening than the people that are doing the job every day? And their voice matters and you know if you've got multiple layers of management between yourself and the front line. People manage up right. They tell you what they think you need to know and as a senior leader, you sometimes can be missing critical information.

Speaker 2: 15:41

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Speaker 2: 16:23

It helps to smooth out the conflicts that are inevitably going to happen in the workplace. I mean, we're a bunch of people getting together. At some point there's going to be a disagreement. Somebody's going to say something that somebody else didn't like, or you're going to do something that steps on their toes. You know we can't help it. Sorry, the human animal. We are prone to conflict. You know we all have different likes, dislikes. You know ideals and beliefs, and so being able to establish those relationships I think is so important because down the road, when the conflict does happen and it's going to happen I think it just makes it a little more. It just helps smooth the way a little more so that you can have those difficult conversations that you're going to have to have. You got to build that trust in order for that to happen. That's so critical.

Speaker 1: 17:18

I have a funny story. I had a friend here yesterday for the 4th of July and she was a manager that worked for me. At one point she was here with her husband and we were, you know, just kind of catching up on things. She's still in the industry. She made a funny comment to her husband about one of the biggest lessons that she'd learned from me as a leader was know your audience. You've got to be really cognizant of how casual you want to speak and who is sitting in that room, you know. And she said I remember being called to the principal's office once or twice. But she said it has served me so well and I think you're very right that when you've built the relationship, difficult conversations don't have to be difficult. I mean as leaders, when you write people up or when you have to address behavior or any of those tense things that can happen. I never felt like those were difficult conversations to have. I'm not saying I didn't get nervous once in a while.

Speaker 1: 18:19

But I felt like I was really good about setting expectations and touching base so that if we get to a point where things are really going sideways, you're not surprised. You've known all along. We've offered you all the solutions. You know it's really the balls in your court, so how do we help you get there? Yeah, it doesn't have to be tense.

Speaker 2: 18:39

I'm so glad that you said it doesn't mean that I'm not nervous when those conversations happen. Can you say a little more about that? Because it sounds like it's the preparation If you've set the expectations and you know you really do want to set them up for success, so the expectations and how to get there is so critically important, but yet you still can get nervous at having those conversations. Were there things that you would do to kind of work through those nerves? Because I know there are a lot of leaders out there in managers who really just they absolutely loathe having to have these conversations with their employees.

Speaker 1: 19:24

You know it's funny. I can think back to so many times when people needed to be put on a warning or performance improvement plan or even an determination, and I always felt like those were the reasons building relationships was so important, because if we got to that place, the first time they're seeing me wouldn't be when we're sitting across from the table from one another and I'm about to walk them out the door. I never would want that to be the experience of people that work with me. You know, unfortunately, part of the solve is it takes time and you have to sort of hone your craft. What always worked for me, to your point about being prepared, was does everybody know what's expected of them before we get to conversations of you aren't meeting expectations or you're falling way below? What do they already have in their possession? What do they already know? Let's make sure the playing field is level for everybody and that we've given them a few fair conversations before we're getting to something more permanent. That's going to be on the record. Let's say so by the time you're actually sitting with somebody. We've had some informal conversations. They are aware you've offered things to them. What more can I do to help you? Is it training? Is it? Do you want to shadow somebody? Is it? Do you need to go into the lab? Whatever it is, it's having all your ducks in a row.

Speaker 1: 20:44

And I think the thing for me is not only we've got the baseline of conversations, we always have to document things because that's always important for our HR partners. To me, it was just staying calm and I will say your tone, the pace at which you talk in your body language, are so important when you're talking to anybody, for that matter, but especially intense situations, I found I can speak fast when I get excited and happy and I was very calm going in. I lowered my voice and I really slowed down and I had dialogue with a lot of these people like okay, so here's why we're here today. These are things we've talked about before. Now, unfortunately, here's where we're at.

Speaker 1: 21:33

It's a very calm environment because we're talking about a lot of things that we've. Just, it's a very calm environment because people are so nervous when you tap on mom's shoulder or you call them unexpectedly, or you put it time on their calendar that they weren't expecting to meet with their boss all the different ways that you can get surprised. So it's sort of I don't want to say disarming, because I'm not trying to trick them, but it's for me. And then what I taught others was just how these are people. So let's just be sensitive, do the right things up until this point and just let them always know that they are in control.

Speaker 1: 22:09

It's their ability and resources to either improve or here's what's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Yeah, you said something so important there, talking about being aware of your own emotions and how that is going to impact the way you're communicating. That's going to impact that message that they're receiving. The message you send may not necessarily be the message received. So, being mindful of that and just pausing for a moment and recognizing putting a label to how am I feeling in this moment, because I know if I don't take a deep breath, calm things down a little bit and, like you said, you can speak a little more slowly, which is going to give you the opportunity to think about what you are going to say next. Yeah, and it just kind of deflates the situation just ever so slightly.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Little things like that can have a huge impact on the outcome of those types of conversations. So, while you're recognizing how are my emotions having an impact on how I'm communicating, I think it's equally as important to think about the other person and how might their emotions in this moment impact how they're communicating with me? Because if they're hearing something that's not going to be comfortable, they're having to listen to this and take it in. It's not going to be very surprising if they snap back or if they feel like you detect a little tone, and they're always yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:45

And that's also why you feel prepared with evidence, information, things that are irrefutable and again, it's always trying to make somebody feel comfortable on how can we solve this, coming from the mindset of we want to fix this and work with you and improve things. We're not trying to take the steps for a negative exit, but I will tell you something else funny when I think about tone and volume.

Speaker 1: 24:10

It has served me well in settings where it's really senior leadership too, because if I'm talking too fast or I say too much and I love details I can watch eyes just sort of get glazed over. So it's to the point concise. I keep my tone slow and lower there too to keep attention. So I feel like it's worked in situations that can be tense. But also we talk about reading the audience and what they need and how I can get them to listen to what I want them to hear too.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Yeah, did you ever In your time, when you're having all of these conversations I know you spent a lot of time with leadership Were you ever in a position where you were able to coach employees on how to communicate effectively upwards so that they can position themselves, in order to just Get themselves into a position where they would be considered, you know, for for a promotion? Or you know anything in the workplace to have the leadership notice them? You know if you will.

Speaker 1: 25:24

I think that's you know, when I think back to my first company, I spent the first 11 years of my career at one company and I tell a story in my chapter in the book, actually about a gift I got from one of the managers. She was on my team but it was a little jar that had on the front written therapy fund and it was sit on my back table because people always would pop into my office and sit in that extra chair and ask for advice, and it really started with my team. You know, in mortgage, when you're trying to deal with difficult Decisions and difficult transactions with your sales partners and banking partners and it's that's where it initially started. But how do I type this email? How do I respond to that? You know it was coaching on language that in written form would be received. Well, right, or how do I talk to this person? They're so angry. Help me diffuse the situation. Then I started to have other leaders From other departments come and pop in and talk to me about their problems too, and it could be similarly. I'm having challenges with my boss.

Speaker 1: 26:32

As an executive coach, I have coached people that are really challenged with the relationship with their boss and and talking about whether it be same-sex or opposite sex. You know there's different dynamics that happen there in different personalities and Working with people of the opposite sex you have to think about potentially how you're going to talk to them people of the same sex and there's office politics and just general politics. So I Think often it's if I knew their managers, it was definitely a lot easier for me to help guide them and and teaching them to Work on emotional intelligence, which I didn't know that phrase up until a few years ago I think my instincts and how to read people and to manage myself. I didn't know it had formal name, but it's something I think I started dialing into which helped me in my relationship building and coach Others about.

Speaker 1: 27:29

You know this guy doesn't like to sit and talk for 30 minutes. If you want his attention, these are the steps he should probably take. Or this guy goes and gets coffee every morning at 10 15. If you're trying to catch them, pop into the coffee. You know it's always like the Help me, help you like help me get some information or some intel. Or I will share with you what I know and then we can start to make a plan on how to get you where you want to go, pay attention, attention to what everybody is doing and and thank you for highlighting that there are, you know, not everybody has the same communication style.

Speaker 2: 28:05

This is what I talk about when I go into organizations and work with teams Our different communication styles. You, this person, may not be the people oriented communication style and you're right, they don't want to spend 30 minutes talking about how little Jimmy did in his soccer game last weekend. You know, it's just and it's not that that's bad. I mean, there's no good or bad to the different communication styles, it's just different. So if you do know that this person is more action oriented and like earlier you said to the point, yeah, give them the conclusion first. Right your best two or three points that you want to highlight and be done with it.

Speaker 2: 28:52

Maybe provide a visual, because I know action oriented people love charts and graphs and they can see it right there on one, you know one screen, but it's it's really helpful to really learn your co-workers and the boss and everybody who's a part of this organization, because if you do end up having to have, you know, some type of a communication with them, you're going to be able to get a lot farther with them if you can adapt to their communication style and and I think that's incredibly important you know, in building relationships you seem like you're probably more of the people oriented type of communication style.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Did you ever feel at any point that you were overwhelmed with everybody coming into your office and sharing, especially early on, when you didn't realize that this was the path you're going to go on? You know, I'm sure at the very beginning you weren't like, yeah, one day I'm gonna be an executive business coach and this is kind of by practice to get to that point. Did you ever get overwhelmed with sometimes like I just can't have one more person walking into my office and In sharing something with me I'm too much overloaded?

Speaker 1: 30:08

You know it's funny. For me it was more about balancing. I have things I need to get done. As much as I would love to sit and help everybody, I still had things to do. And you know mortgage banking is a very intense Industry. We always joke it's either drinking through a fire hose or you know it's drip, drip and you wonder if you're gonna have a job, and most of my career were 12 hour days or 10 hour days. I should also note I'm not an early bird at all.

Speaker 1: 30:39

I'm not the kind of person that would come into the office really early to get a head start. I'd rather stay late. But I did adopt a practice early on when I would try to just make at least the first 45 minutes of my day about what I needed to get done to set my day up for success. It was difficult as a leader to walk into like hey, robin, hey, oh, can you do this? I need help, I need your signature, like whoa. That was difficult for me and I had to talk to my team and just say I will be available to you at any point after this time. Please just give me this space.

Speaker 1: 31:15

And Boundaries are a word that I feel like are coming up a lot in my one-on-one coaching sessions right now People feeling comfortable to state what their boundary is or offering solutions when somebody is encroaching on their boundary. The energy thing is something that is also new for me. So, in terms of overwhelm, while I'm really good at creating boundaries, mm-hmm, I have found since I've slowed down in my business life and I'm not, you know, chained conference calls and work output and spreadsheets a lot of energy I'm able to pick up on at like empathically, hmm, and so I have started to observe in crowds and lots of people. I do pick up a lot of Energy there and I work to manage mine, which is a very new phenomenon for me. I felt like I always had good instincts, intuition, and I feel like my intuition has bumped up to another level, probably because I'm tapping into all these new parts of my brain. It wasn't using.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Yeah, I think it's really easy for anyone in the workplace because it's kind of ingrained in our culture. Right, it's work, work, work and all these long days and we just go, go, go, and it's really easy to to mistaken working a lot for being productive, you know, and and it's also easy to mistake working a lot or always being accessible with being seen as a good leader or as a good manager. A lot of people are uncomfortable with asserting themselves though. You know, if there's something has come up, okay, I got to drop what I'm doing and deal with this, and that's not always the case. How do you help managers and leaders become comfortable with setting those boundaries because that is a critical piece, I think and being being an effective leader, just like you said. Okay, guys, guess what? Just give me my 45 minutes when I get in the door and I'm going to be a much better person to answer all of your questions, you know, after that. I think that was probably incredibly effective for your team, for them to know that. How do you, how do you build that, that sense of confidence to be able to say that to begin with?

Speaker 2: 33:47

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Speaker 1: 34:31

I think there's a few tricks I learned along the way to that I share with leaders. I'm actually coaching someone. We had a session Thursday talking about this very topic and just the concept of turning his teams off at 6.30 at night, because when people can see your green dot on teams that you're available, they don't hesitate to reach out and some people like quiet time. At the end of the day, you are entitled to have some time to get your work done and I think you know the key with any new leader with a team is you can't initially do that. You've got to learn the team, learn the process, dig in, spend the time Once you get comfortable and you started to build that rapport and you find what your working rhythm is with the people that work for you.

Speaker 1: 35:18

I think it's a lot easier to set some boundaries and I say boundaries with like a 90% if you're lucky adherence rate, because things go wrong and people still need help and there are emergencies and I always made it clear that this is how I prefer to operate.

Speaker 1: 35:36

Clearly, if there is a four alarm fire, you may come see me, things like that, but people get used to you being available when you make yourself really available and there were a couple tricks. So the first one I learned is teaching people how to solve their own problems. Start coming to me with your ideas on what the solution could be, because it's really tiring coming up with the answers all day, every day, and I don't necessarily have the answers all the time. I'm going to think it through, I might consult with somebody, but there's also more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. So what I started to do and I had a manager that did this to me so this is where I learned it Come to me with a possible solution for your problem and ultimately, I'm going to bless it or ask some questions, or maybe redirect you and, over time, guess what you might be able to solve your own problems and not even need me.

Speaker 1: 36:33

You can put a think on their own, which I really loved and that worked really well for me with my staff, and it only takes a few times of you asking them what do you think you should do or how do you think you should solve, which is so annoying when you're on the other side of that, but they learn.

Speaker 2: 36:51

It's like this is why I came to you. I don't want to have to think of it Exactly.

Speaker 1: 36:55

With your managers, though, so who I'm accountable to. You know you feel like it's really hard to tell your boss that you have a boundary. We spoke early on about our work hours, especially when I interviewed for the job. You know I don't start at 630. I like to say I started eight, and if I'm online at seven, that's Robyn's hour. I found when I got overwhelmed with work or I had too many competing priorities. I would just ask for what are her top three things she needs to get done? Or I would say, as she gave me things is this the today thing or is it this week? Like, let me figure out what I need to do today based on the things that are so important to you. So if you can help set timelines for me, then I know how to make the most out of my day.

Speaker 2: 37:45

Yeah, those are great questions for somebody to ask.

Speaker 1: 37:49

And you know that was pretty easy for me, because that's not threatening as an employee to ask a boss yes, I can get on this. I have these four things. Does this need to come to the top? I'll stop what I'm doing, or is this something potentially that can wait? I always asked for timelines when I was really busy. If I had the time to accommodate it, no problem. Yeah, clarity.

Speaker 2: 38:11

Clarity is the number one thing in communication and that's where it can go so wrong. Just in that scenario, you know you have a manager and the employee in the office and they're discussing the 150 things, you know, that have to get done. And if you're the type of manager where you're like, oh well, as long as you just get it done at some time, you know, and that's not really helpful if you're not sharing exactly when it is. I mean, if it's true that you know what the deadline is two weeks from today. So rather than saying, oh well, you know, if you get around to it in the next couple of weeks, well, that's not really going to be very helpful for me. But if I know, oh, the deadline is absolutely 100%, two weeks from today, now I can organize my calendar around that so I can fit it into the other 150 things to be done.

Speaker 1: 39:11

Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of people who are like that.

Speaker 2: 39:13

They're just kind of like oh you know, in a couple of days it's like well.

Speaker 1: 39:19

It's even challenging when you work in an environment where everything is what my mom always referred to as like instant gratification. Everything's like right now, yeah, yeah. Only there's only one thing that can come first. Something has to be second. So I think that's important and with people you know, when they start infringing potentially on your time or your boundary, I would always just say you know what, I'm not able to accommodate that today. But you'll be the first phone call I make tomorrow, that's right, or it'll be the first thing I do in the morning.

Speaker 1: 39:48

And I felt like as a manager, I tried to give good deadlines to my team too. When I would ask for their help, I'd be like this is not a today thing, put it on your list. We also kept project plans. So everybody every week kept a running list of all the things they were working on and we dropped it in a shared book so we could all see progress. So we didn't have to spend one on one time going through an Excel spreadsheet of all your projects. They just sent it to me every week. Yeah, things like that. I could just monitor and then inquire as needed. So that was a really helpful tool.

Speaker 2: 40:21

Use the technology that's available to us. It's so incredibly helpful. We use Google Sheets and Google Docs a lot where we can all just kind of log in and look at it at the same time and go back and forth. It saves on so much time being able to use the comment feature. There are things in place that can help that communication go a little more smoothly, but yeah, the clarity of it is so incredibly important. Just this morning I use Eisenhower's Matrix. Have you ever heard of that?

Speaker 1: 40:56

No, I haven't.

Speaker 2: 40:57

So you write that down.

Speaker 2: 40:58

It does come from Dwight Eisenhower. He used to use four quadrants, okay, and you know, in Quadrant One he would look at it is this urgent or not urgent? And then in the other axis he would look at is this important or not important? So in Quadrant One, if it's urgent and it's important, this is going to go in the quadrant that's labeled as do. So these are the things I need to do now and then, if it's urgent but it's not necessarily important, these are the things that I'm going to delay just a little bit, like maybe I need to put them on my calendar so that I can get to them after I'm done with the do. And then, if it's important but it's not urgent, these are the things that I can delegate. You know, let me find somebody who's really good at this. I'm going to delegate to this to them.

Speaker 2: 41:52

And if it's not important and it's not urgent, it's not something that's going to help you move forward, and whatever it is you need to do, then delete it, get rid of it, don't even look at it anymore, just kind of throw that in the trash. And I will tell you that really helps because I will have my to-do list, like a lot of people, but when that to-do list gets to be a certain number of things, that I start feeling, the anxiety you know building up in my chest like, oh, look at all the things, how am I going to handle this? And then I just I get out my quadrants and I start putting them in the appropriate quadrant, and then I can just sit back and go, okay, all right, these are the three things that I'm going to do today. This is all I'm going to worry about in this moment, and it's so incredibly helpful to be able to organize that, and then it helps me with everybody else. I love that. I had.

Speaker 1: 42:51

I worked with a coach, so I had my own coach and he shared in sort of a different format about the two concepts of urgency and importance, and so I wondered where he got it. Now I know, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2: 43:06

Thank you, dwight Eisenhower.

Speaker 1: 43:09

Appreciate your brains. I love the idea of trying to true what you can really delegate. I think that's something leaders really struggle with in one of two ways. Either they love to delegate everything or they want to hold on to everything because they feel like they can do it better than the rest of their team, or they don't have time to teach and show. And my theory was always it's just the initial extra time you just you put it in up front to teach. It will pay itself back in dividends. You just have to spend that time up front.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Okay. So that's what you, that's what you're doing to try to encourage them, because it can become a bottleneck If, if you're the one who has to have your hands on everything, there's going to come a time where just things are not going to get done because it's still waiting on you to give the okay on that. So you recommend that they spend a lot of time just teaching others how to take care of this and exactly how it should be taken care of, the things that they want, the expectations, and just baby steps.

Speaker 1: 44:18

Absolutely, and I think you know it depends on the skill. So I'll use my last job as a quick example. I was doing performance management, so we were building scorecards, and then I was in charge of building comp plans, but we sent out tons of data to leaders across the company. I was doing it for everybody until I brought a team in and taught them how I built things, where to pull it. But we built, you know, checks and balances. Initially it was they would do it and they would send it to me to check so we could get accustomed to it, because when you send something as important as data, you make any mistakes. People start to question your data now, so you have to be really, really careful in compliance and check your quality, and so it was. You know you give small pieces, you let them get to work on it and over time you built that trust and you teach the skills and then you can teach more. I got copied on all of their work so I could still look at it.

Speaker 1: 45:16

But work is a little different than communication too, and it depends on the audience. So to me, everything is just teaching in small steps. Let's say you want them to communicate to the entire senior leadership team. But the employee on your team it's still, you know, lower in rank, if you will. They're not comfortable, they're not always thinking about dialogue, they're not thinking about how it comes off and punctuation, I mean, just like the things that we take for granted.

Speaker 1: 45:43

Not everybody's written communication, it's stiller, and sometimes that requires double checking and making sure how they're communicating in the language is acceptable. I mean, when I think back to my very first job and I'm going to date myself we did memos oh, the memos, and I would type them and my manager would have to approve it and red ink would come back with margins, words, whatever. That's how I learned how to write professionally in a way that would be received well. So same things. But when you take on more and more as a leader, your bandwidth is finite. So your options are right. You can hire people, you can delegate, or you bury yourself.

Speaker 1: 46:35

So you got to find a way, and so that's where learning how to be a good hiring manager is really important too, but that's where, yes, building your team to support you so you can successfully delegate in the long run is incredible. That's building skill, right yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:50

Yeah. So if you are a leader and you are thinking about, okay, I need to build this team, I need to bring together a group of people who are going to help me achieve this goal, when they are interviewing, you know, for different positions, have you talked to them about how do you actually interview in a way that you can kind of pinpoint the things that you're looking for? You know, if I'm wanting to fill a certain position, are there certain things I might want to look for? You know, during that interview, do you ever coach them on how they're interviewing people, so that they can become better at discerning who might be the you know the right person for the job, versus just ah, well, let's just pick one?

Speaker 1: 47:41

Absolutely Small business owners. This is something they struggle with People that have worked for others, that are just starting on their own Right. They're not used to all the things required to have a successful team, even if it's just a couple of people. So a word we talked about earlier preparation have interview questions that I create for every role that are designed to dig into what they might know, because what's important to performing well in that role the phrase behavioral interviewing is always what comes to mind. So you do not want to ask questions that can allow your candidate to just answer yes or no, Right, Because while we wish everybody was truthful all the time, when you want a job you might say you have skills. You don't. You might say you have experience and things you don't.

Speaker 1: 48:30

So I write all of my questions where they are open-ended and they have to come up with examples, and you know you love the phrase. Tell me about a time. It's situations that they can describe with detail, so you get a sense for do they have the skill? Tell me about a time you had conflict in the workplace with one of your peers. What was it about? What were your first steps? How long did you let it go on. Before you decided to take you know, did you go to your manager? Did you all the questions you can ask about things that are important to that role I love one of my favorite questions is asking people.

Speaker 1: 49:08

If I were to call their manager today, which always kind of puts them back what would they tell me are your best attributes or what have you improved in the most? And what are they going to tell me you're still working on? Yeah, and that working on or your weakness always seems to trip people up. They're always so scared to tell the truth. Right, I actually really want to know the bat, not the bad thing that you turn into a good thing. Yeah, that's how people, I think are coached. I'm a little different. I really want to know what do you think is your weakness?

Speaker 2: 49:47

Yeah, yeah, I love how you phrase that, though If I were to call your manager, what would they tell me about your, how well you did, or what are some of the things that you're working on? Just, I think just phrasing that in that way gets you to think about it in a different way. I do think a lot of people do get stumped when you ask them that question about strengths and weaknesses, because if you give them a framework, how does my manager look at me? Or how would a former manager look at me? In this aspect, I think that that's actually a really great way to ask that question, because it does force them from the outside in yeah, what were some of the things? What was my performance like?

Speaker 1: 50:41

Well, it's the growth mindset too. I mean, when you are hiring for roles, we get really pigeonholed into the have to have this certain experience to be really good in this role. I have done that too. Admittedly, that's one of my flaws. I was looking for certain things in my earlier years of trying to hire Right. I had leaders who put me into jobs that I wasn't sure I was ready for and they were like we know you can do this. Yeah, I was really inspired based on just their confidence in me, and so I've tried to pay that forward too. You find someone that maybe doesn't have everything you're looking for but has some of these core skills and you can see hunger and you can see discipline and you can teach a lot of things, yeah. But you can't teach motivation and you can't teach drive. And so people that have a core set of skills, even if it's not how to use this computer program or maybe their communication needs a little tweak. There are things you can always teach, but ability and attitude, we know that's right.

Speaker 2: 51:48

And to be a model that you had mentioned former leaders who have been so influential in how you move about this world. I remember when I worked for Fairfax County Public Schools many, many years ago. I was a communication specialist there and my boss there to this day I still think she is one of she should write a leadership book. She did end up becoming superintendent of the school system, but I had interviewed for the position that frankly, I didn't think I was qualified for. But I applied for it anyway and I had to come in and I had to do this presentation and it was down to me and this other woman who already worked there and she had already had her PhD like she had a huge leg up on what I had to offer. But they liked how I did the presentation.

Speaker 2: 52:45

And later on, when I went into her office and she made you know the offer and then she told me how you know how much the position was going to pay, and I was like okay, and I think she could tell that I was still so young in this.

Speaker 2: 53:01

She took that moment and she said you know, this is a pay range and you can ask for more If, if, if, you think you deserve more. And I was like that never would have occurred to me in a million years. And I was like, really. And so what a lesson to learn, though, for someone you know, coming into an industry and not very familiar with it, you know how things operate that was such a pivotal moment for me in recognizing, wow, this is something like she really was looking out for me, and so to this day I have so much admiration for her because every single time you know I would come into the office, she just I had something new to learn from her. So it's, you know, don't underestimate the power of those, those conversations that you could have and just just be giving you know of the knowledge that you have.

Speaker 1: 54:07

Well, it's interesting you say that because, as you're talking, I'm thinking of this parallel theme that many people and I won't specify which gender here, but are not comfortable in the art of negotiating.

Speaker 2: 54:22

Yeah, yeah, it's your self-worth.

Speaker 1: 54:23

It's your own discomfort, and HR representatives have reported how many people just accept the salary and the package that's offered. I've coached people on you know career counseling and how to manage the interview process for that reason, and you know what's the worst thing they say.

Speaker 2: 54:41

No, yeah, and if they say no, okay it's no, but if you don't make the ask, it's definitely going to be no.

Speaker 1: 54:51

It's a funny phenomenon and I think it's something I struggled with as a younger leader too. It's always imposter syndrome. It's knowing your value and your worth and, you know, being willing to stand up for yourself and what you believe in and ask for those things. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:08

I think another lesson there that I learned from her is don't assume that the people who are working for you know. Just don't assume that they know. Whatever it is that you know you're thinking about and just you know. Like the pay range is just one example, there are just so many things that we work on in any given day. If you just assume that they know, I think you're inviting you know trouble and then you know and I think that builds trust as well If you just take that moment to let them know that you want them to know these answers, because it's really going to help them downrange, right.

Speaker 1: 55:50

Well, I'm making them feel comfortable because things you do every day that are so second nature to you. I mean, my house has been in a small business owner. We talk about this all the time when you create material or you do things for the public and you think they know the inner workings, the lingo, the ju People that you need to write things. You know we always joke like for a second grader, but you need to write things and present things in a way that people can understand that know nothing about your business. And that's a really interesting point.

Speaker 1: 56:19

When you start talking in certain circles, you have to make people feel comfortable to ask questions and to what I call accept the table, like here's the context of what we're going to talk about. If anyone doesn't understand what, like, let's just cover it now. And people are always hesitant, right? They don't want to ask the question that might make them look like they don't know what they're talking about. How many times have you sat in a room with senior leaders who would say can you back that up? I really don't get what that like the senior leaders can do. It all the time I've seen this, but it's the ones you know that are on the front lines and the entry level positions that are like no, I can't raise my hand, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 56:57

I can't ask that question.

Speaker 1: 57:01

But the senior leaders have no problem. I don't really understand what that means. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 2: 57:06

Yeah, yeah. So if you're a leader out there, make sure that you are setting up the communication climate in your office in such a way that your employees feel comfortable and confident that they can ask the questions. It's just going to benefit everybody.

Speaker 1: 57:23

Well, the other thing I heard that I really liked Marshall Goldsmith tells some stories and some of his coaching online about when you're soliciting feedback from your team and you're trying to pursue more collaboration to make that environment safe. You thank people for their ideas. Back of your mind, you may think I'm never going to use this or this probably wouldn't work, but you never say that publicly. Yeah, it's always. Thank you for that suggestion. We're going to take that into consideration. Or thank you for sharing your opinion. That's a great thought, like just always making people feel welcome to talk because you never know what that might solicit in a domino effect from somebody else who might have a game changing idea.

Speaker 2: 58:05

Yeah, yeah. And if you shut them down immediately or embarrass them in front of the group, you know, if it's done publicly like that, then what you're going to do is the next time you have a conversation, the next time you have this brainstorming session and you're asking everyone for their input, they're not going to give it Hope. It'll be cringes, yeah, and they could have the best idea ever the next billion dollar idea could be stuck in their head. But they're like, nope, I'm going to keep my mouth shut, because last time, you know, I didn't like how I was treated. I was embarrassed or you know whatever. So it really doesn't do anybody any good To do that in public. I think that's a great piece of advice right there.

Speaker 1: 58:50

It's. You know it's always easier to poke holes in people's things. It is harder to be a generator. You know, when you create a presentation or you make a suggestion, everybody's got an opinion when they look at your things or they hear what you're suggesting. It does take a little more courage to be the generator of the documents, the ideas, yeah, but I think it's always a good place to start too, because we need people that can do that and then others can weigh in, and I have worked in groups where you get people that they ask to take the exact opposite opinion, tell us all the things that could go wrong, just to help think through an entire Solution, which I think is really fascinating, especially if it's the person that had the idea and it's a big one. Okay, you know, you're the one that has to poke holes in it and this group gets to decide why it's going to be good. So you have to sort of Attempt to defend your own idea by thinking about the complete other side.

Speaker 2: 59:45

Yeah, I think it's great, because you're not really aware of your own blind spots Until you're forced to pay attention to different perspectives. I think that's a great exercise to have for for any department, any organization. You know, we like to sit down and have those skull sessions where it's like, okay, we're gonna rewrite the mission statement. You know, we're gonna rewrite our value statements and I want everybody to have input, you know. Or, if there's something, some problem that has to be resolved, to be able to sit down in the group and Hear from all of those different perspectives. But if you are forced to really have to think about let's you know what could go wrong in this let's sit on this for just a moment, let this marinade for a little bit, you know, and try to come up with some, some different ways that you think that maybe this isn't the best thing that we could do at this moment.

Speaker 1: 1:00:40

I think one of my other favorite things in corporate when I do coaching is we have a tendency to Want to put band-aids on things. Yeah, not try to solve the long-term solution and the band-aids aren't always the best Mm-hmm and to think long term. Maybe it will cost a little more, maybe there's technology involved, maybe it's people like who knows what the elements might be. But sometimes band-aid solutions just create other problems and I think it's really important to try to do that whole champion, challenger, pro-con like think through, yeah, what the real solutions should be.

Speaker 2: 1:01:24

Yeah, in public speaking we call that mental dialogue. So if you could have a mental dialogue, if, if you're gonna create an argument for something, try to anticipate well, what is the audience thinking about that? If you have people in the audience who are not gonna agree with this, what is that disagreement? What are they gonna be thinking in that moment in time? And so that way you can craft your message in a way that you can address that concern. You know, right then and there in your Presentation.

Speaker 2: 1:01:55

So I like the idea of if you have a group sitting down, yeah, play, play the back and forth you know, have you do it, and I think it's a great exercise because it does force you to have those different perspectives which is so important.

Speaker 1: 1:02:11

We can't get stuck in a group thing, you know, especially when we talked about hiring people, people with different experiences, different perspectives. It's a balancing act, because that's important, and then the dynamic of the personality in a team. Yeah, so it's a combination of trying to look at the persona and the experience, because I know when I'm a leader, if I'm not good at something and it's my weakness, I would like to hire somebody that is really strong there. That makes my team better. Yeah, you know, you don't want to be threatened by your team. You want to celebrate their success. You want, you know, the best thing they can do is, potentially, you work for them and you've built such a great relationship. It doesn't matter anyway. That's right. Yeah, the best compliment is you take off for a week or two or you potentially leave a position because you relocate which I did and that team runs smoothly without you. Yeah, that's me is the best compliment.

Speaker 1: 1:03:09

I don't want to fall apart when I'm not there. I wanted you thrive.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

Yeah, because you did your job and making sure that everybody is is able to perform the way they need to perform.

Speaker 1: 1:03:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:03:22

Yeah, that's great. Well, robert, we've already talked of over an hour now. I think we did a good job, though we did a very good job at pretty much focusing on communication in the workplace and in leadership and in Managers. I'm pretty proud of us for staying focused in that area. We could very easily go in a hundred different directions when when we're talking about communication. Yeah, yeah, so the hour went by way too fast. There are so many other things that we can talk about, so I will have you back on the show so we can dive into some of those other topics, because I really want to hear what you have to say About those. But before we wrap it up, is there anything that you would like to say to the audience? You know any parting words of wisdom, if you will.

Speaker 1: 1:04:19

Yes, actually I have a good one. It's one you and I talked about and I think it's something that resonated with you in my chapter as a matter of fact. So we have this saying in my household over here, and it can be applied to Anything, whether it's personal, professional relationships. You make time for the things you value. That's right and so it's. You know I'm too busy, I can't call this person, I can't spend time with this person, I can't help this person. Anything you value you will make time for, and that even goes with Deprioritize your health and wellness. Is it your relationships? Is it walking, your whatever it is in life? That phrase has served me so well as my true north to keep me on track, for what are the things I value first of all? How do I make sure I have time in almost every day to act upon those things?

Speaker 2: 1:05:16

Yeah, I cannot tell you how many times I had that phrase stuck in my head, especially over the past several months. So that's where we'll pick up the next time I have you on on the show because, yeah, that phrase right there, it really did help with some of the personal things you know. Yes, we're going on, so I thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and I know somebody else is listening to this and I think it'll be an incredible help to them as well.

Speaker 1: 1:05:46

Good, I hope so.

Speaker 2: 1:05:48

All right, well then, that is it for today. Oh, before we, my dog is scratching on the doors, so we're hearing. If you're hearing any scratches on the door, so why don't you share with the listeners how they can get in touch with you?

Speaker 1: 1:06:04

Oh sure, so you can contact me directly on my website, which is my name, www. Robin, which is robin. I'm also on LinkedIn, so that's also my name. I'm also on Instagram, robin ML coach, so you can find me lots of different places and you can drop me a note or an email through my website If you feel like we might be a fit for coaching or interested in my services. It's all out there and you can connect with me that way.

Speaker 2: 1:06:31

Outstanding, I'll make sure all that information is available in the show notes. All right, thanks again, robin, for being a guest on my show. This has been such a great conversation for me and I'll be sure to have you back again. Great, I look forward to it. All right, thanks everybody. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.

Speaker 2: 1:06:53

Hi, thanks for listening, if you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast. Please share it with others, post about it on social media and I'll see you next time. Please share it with others, post about it on social media or leave a rating and a review.