Ep08
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Tim Arnold: [
00:00:00] Tensions are just like breathing. You know, with breathing, you know, 21 or 22,000 times say you're gonna inhale and exhale, but you, you can't pick a side. The moment you choose inhaling or choose exhaling, you're gonna be blue in the face pretty quickly.
And the reality with these tensions is the moment I choose one side, regardless of my personal bias, I love change, but when it comes to change and stability, if I only ever always choose change and I neglect stability and tradition, I'm on a one-way path towards chaos and confusion. You know, I, I value both task and relationship, but I'm biased towards task accomplishment.
Welcome and Guest Intro
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Dominique Glanville: [
00:01:00] Welcome to the podcast. Today our guest is Tim Arnold, keynote speaker, bestselling author. Tim has spent more than 20 years helping some of the world's most complex organizations, including the United Nations, UPS, Stanford Medicine, World Vision, and even Canada Public Health, navigate something that most leaders have never been taught: the difference between a problem to solve and a tension to manage.
His life's work is built on a single paradigm-shifting idea he calls both-and thinking, the ability to hold two competing values and tensions without collapsing into an either-or choice. That idea anchors his bestselling books, Lead With And and The Power of Healthy Tension, and it's what drives every keynote he delivers and every workshop that he designs.
I first met Tim through our shared connection with Donald Miller and the StoryBrand workshops, [
00:02:00] and I can tell you firsthand, I see him act this out and live it better than anyone. He's been a client, he's been a colleague, and I'm so excited to have him on our podcast today. You're gonna love this episode.
Tim Arnold, welcome to the podcast
Tim Arnold: I am very excited to be here. This has been on the calendar for a while, so here we are
First Time Meeting IRL
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Dominique Glanville: Here we are, and for our listeners, a fun story. So Tim and I have worked together and collaborated together for a number of years, I wanna say maybe since 2020, and it feels like we've known each other forever. And yesterday Tim was actually in Dallas, and we got to meet for the first time in real life. Tim, as you put it, we could breathe the same oxygen in the same room. I loved that phrase. I love that phrase. But both of us had this moment where we were like, "Wow, I feel like we've met before.
Is this really the first time we're meeting?" And then it was so fun to be like, "I'll see you tomorrow virtually on the podcast."
Tim Arnold: It was kind of [
00:03:00] unreal and, and I think because we are on screens often and keeping in touch with each other through social, it was the morning of that I'm like, "I don't actually think we've ever met in person." And that was astounding to me, but how cool was that? And,
Dominique Glanville: So
Tim Arnold: was yesterday, and here we are again
Dominique Glanville: I know. I was telling my husband after I got home, I was like, number one, I was like, "I wish you'd been there for our meal because you would've loved Tim. He's fantastic." So my husband will be the first person to listen to this podcast episode, just a spoiler alert. But I was also remarking on the fact that I feel like in '21 and '22 and '23, we had a lot of those experiences where we'd met people during the pandemic,
Tim Arnold: Hmm.
Dominique Glanville: meeting them for the first time in real life.
But rarely in 2026, 2027 are we meeting people
Tim Arnold: It's true.
Dominique Glanville: working with them for a number of years. So it's fantastic.
Problems vs Tensions
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Dominique Glanville: Well, Tim, I'm one of your biggest fans and greatest champions. You have been on such an amazing journey. You have such an awesome background, and I love that you have really focused in on leaders and teams and really [
00:04:00] reframed the conversation around the things that they're facing from a problem to solve to really identifying tensions to manage.
So a lot of leaders are walking into a problem just ready to solve it. You're saying that instinct is actually the source of a lot of pain. How do you help someone who's in a leadership position recognize that what they're staring at isn't a problem, it's actually a tension? What does that look like?
Tim Arnold: Yeah, that's a great question. And I believe strongly that problem-solving or either/or thinking is actually how we're taught to succeed, and yet and thinking, leaning into tensions, is what it takes to lead. So knowing the difference between the two is very important. Problem-solving requires, as I said, either/or thinking.
It's this or it's that. It's right or it's wrong. It's good or it's bad. And I mean, we're conditioned and rewarded throughout our entire life to be great problem [
00:05:00] solvers. You know, we can choose right from wrong when it comes to facts and formulas and policies and procedures. We can kind of lean in onto the right side.
And because we're great problem solvers, many times, you know, it gets us opportunities and promotions, and for lots of people it's, it's their amazing problem-solving skills that allows them to finally move into roles of leadership The challenge though, is that once we start leading, now the things on our desk are hard and complicated.
Now we're wrestling with situations that aren't necessarily right and wrong, they're right and right. They're situations where, you know, sometimes I say they're chronic issues. They're things that just surface over and over. We still have to make decisions, but these underlying tensions don't seem to go away.
They're situations that require us to move from an either/or, this or that approach, to an and approach. You know, it's not change or stability, it's how do I lead with change and stability? You know, I need to [
00:06:00] focus on my, my team in terms of making sure they get work done. I gotta be task-focused, but I also need to build safety and trust through relationships.
So how do I manage the tension between task and relationship? You know, as a communicator, I wanna be clear and candid and truthful, and yet I also wanna be relational and diplomatic and tactful. So how do I come across in a way that's high truth, high tact? Well, these aren't problems that you'll solve. As I said, they're tensions that you manage.
And, and, and what is so important to be mindful of, tensions are just like breathing. You know, with breathing, you know, 21 or 22,000 times say you're gonna inhale and exhale, but you, you can't pick a side. The moment you choose inhaling or choose exhaling, you're gonna be blue in the face pretty quickly.
And the reality with these tensions is the moment I choose one side, regardless of my personal bias, I love change, but when it comes to change and stability, if I only ever always choose change and I [
00:07:00] neglect stability and tradition, I'm on a one-way path towards chaos and confusion. You know, I, I value both task and relationship, but I'm biased towards task accomplishment.
But if all I do is put my head down and get work done, my relationships suffer and my team culture suffers. So what I believe, and I've seen this play out in individuals' leadership development and their ability to foster a team, and even as a organizational corporate culture, as we move into leadership, we now have to not leave problem-solving behind, because we still solve problems every day, but we have to complement it with this ability to really lean into complexity and move from an or to an and
Dominique Glanville: Love that. And I think the thing that I've really appreciated about your framework is that humans are complex. We're
Tim Arnold: Kuhn
Dominique Glanville: very dynamic and complex, and it's interesting because we often don't realize kind of where we hit on certain tensions until [
00:08:00] conflict arises, until we're engaging with someone who maybe is sitting on the other end of that tension.
And, It's funny, like, the things that, the way our lives play out, I actually have a master's in conflict resolution, so I have not gone to work for the UN like I originally thought when I selected that master's program. But one of the things that you learn in basic conflict resolution academia is, you know, conflict is based on a difference of interests, is a lot of what the, the hypothesis.
Well, one side has certain interests, and one side has other interests, and if you can just uncover those interests, then you can solve the problem and come to either a consensus or some sort of negotiation or something like that. Fisher and Ury would be, you know, the Getting Past No and Getting to Yes and all of that.
Those are very, like, seminal books in that. But what I love that what you've done is you've said not everything is a matter of, like, his interests, her interests, or, or different sides. It's really we are engaging in matters of complexity, and there are tensions that, depending on the day or, or role or [
00:09:00] what's going on in the market or whatnot, we might sit on one side of this tension or the other, and often we're holding multiple tensions at the same time. And so it's just, I feel like this reframe is really helpful especially because I think as a human, our tendency is to, reduce things to very black-and-white thinking. Sometimes that's very satisfying for our brain. And you've done a masterful job of being able to identify two tensions, which also helps the brain.
It's like, "Okay, it's this and this, and this or..." I'm going from or thinking to and
and you're giving us a frame, but you're also inviting us into embracing complexity, embracing nuance and I think very few frameworks and, you know, leadership and team development consultants have an effective way of embracing nuance and complexity and just the human dynamic.
I think that's just fantastic.
Crux Tensions in 2026
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Dominique Glanville: So, today in 2026, as this podcast is airing, what is, what are some of the main tensions that you're [
00:10:00] seeing leaders, uh, wrestle with right
Tim Arnold: Hmm. So there, there's a... I mean, what's interesting, Dominique, is if I gave you the list of tensions that you as a leader are managing every day, you'd be overwhelmed because the list is very long. And I don't need to give you that list because you're already managing them. You're not, uh, you know... What, what, what I help leaders and teams identify isn't the long list of complexities that they deal with, but just identify one or two that really matter to you right now.
I call it your crux tension. It's make it or break it. If I can just kind of keep that in front of me, be mindful of it, you know, that's gonna help me really thrive in the season ahead. And it's different for different people, for different organizations, but I will say in the last year or so, there has been a few that I feel like I'm talking about every single week.
One is all around just the realities of AI, and that has kind of moved this [
00:11:00] change in stability or innovation and tradition tension to kind of top three list all the time. In that similar to maybe the beginning of the pandemic, there's this feeling of change is no longer an option. Like, I've got to innovate and change, and yet if I only lean into change and I neglect tradition and stability, this is gonna bite us in the long run.
And when we lean into this change, what are we doing to make sure that we don't have unnecessary vulnerability? How do we make sure we hold on to kind of what people know us for? So even though we're often weighted towards change, it's more of a season than ever for us to say, "Okay, how are we going to preserve and really hold on to elements of stability that we just can't let go of?"
And, and linked to that, I think, you know, AI is surfaced once again this whole human technology tension. [
00:12:00] And, I mean, this has existed since I think the print press became a thing, right? How do we lean into efficiencies and opportunities through technology and yet not lose our focus on the human advantage?
And I, I believe right now, leaders, teams, and organizations that are really being mindful of fully embracing technology while fully embracing what is maybe more clearly a, a competitive edge around the human advantage now than ever before. Th- those, those definitely surface. The other one that has, has become a, a tension that I find myself helping leaders navigate a lot in the last few years i- is the result of how our workplaces have changed since the pandemic.
You know, the reality is there's hybrid work and virtual and, and, and remote work, and sometimes we're in the office, and what that means is if we're gonna work well together, [
00:13:00] we've gotta be m- really skilled at managing collaboration and independence. We wanna, we wanna... And I think we're learning how to lean into independence better than ever, to say, "Hey, let's free people up to do what they do and do it well."
And at the same time, you know, if all we do is focus on independent people doing their thing in their own way, we will lose the benefit of collaboration. And that doesn't mean that we all have to be together and, as we said, share the same oxygen every day. We don't have to do that. But if all we do is focus on independence, we're gonna lose working off each other's strengths and, and the power of creativity and just actually having a environment where I'm part of something.
So really, I think leading edge organizations are saying, "Okay, let's not just come up with a one-size-fits-all answer. Let's look at, for our team or for our organization, how do we get all the benefits of independent work while making sure we're not losing the benefits of [
00:14:00] collaboration?"
Dominique Glanville: . Those three tensions, I mean, if there's a listener paying attention today that doesn't relate with one of those three tensions, they've literally been living under a rock. Because I feel like every day we're breathing that air of just like, "Okay, how do I manage autonomy and independence with
Tim Arnold: Hmm
Dominique Glanville: And beneficial teamwork?"
All of that.
Change Spectrum Metaphor
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Dominique Glanville: It's funny, as you were talking about this, I'm, I'm, I'm having a flashback to one of the classes I took in graduate school. I'll never forget this. It was around organizational change, and he gave this metaphor, maybe... This probably comes from somewhere that I don't know how to quote it, but it was essentially, like, people, like, kind of like animals, and as you think about change, there are, like, eagles up high, and those eagles up high are like your CEO, like, really forward-thinking CEOs who can see out in the future and are talking about, like, really where we're headed, right? Those people are, like, very change-oriented. Then
Tim Arnold: Sure.
Dominique Glanville: your squirrels that are along the fence and they're hopping or they're going tree to tree, you know? And so they are also up high, and they're
Tim Arnold: Yeah[
00:15:00]
Dominique Glanville: And then you've got, I forget what's kind of in the middle, but essentially you have your, like, deer that are on the
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: but they're fast and they're nimble and they can change, but they're on the ground, so there they have the current realities.
And then you've got, like, your rodents and then your snails, right? And so, like, as we think about change and stability or we think about AI, any of these dimensions, in our organizations, we likely have eagles, squirrels, deer, rodents, and snails. You're in the organization, you've got your weasels and your, d- that's kind of a nefarious animal, though. Let's just,
Tim Arnold: Yeah.
Dominique Glanville: moles. Um, but yeah, I think all of us can relate to the people that are really all about change, and then the people are very resistant. And a lot of times, we have a lot of just people kind of in the middle, but in a given day or
Tim Arnold: Hmm
Dominique Glanville: dynamic, they might be more of a squirrel or, or whatnot. And so as we think about these things, often we're surprised by where we end up on that spectrum or where others end up on the spectrum.
Customization vs Consistency
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Dominique Glanville: One of the things that you were mentioning [
00:16:00] in a previous conversation, I'm forgetting the name of it, but it was the tension between customizing things and doing kind of templated work. Can you speak a little bit about that? Because I feel like in a expertise business, in a service business, that's always a tension, right?
How much do we customize things versus how much do we have our proven model? What is that tension and, and how do you see that play out?
Tim Arnold: Yeah, that, that, it, and that actually is from my team, uh, one of our three, we call them crux tensions. It's those things that it feels like every single time we meet, we're talking about the same thing, you know? And you, you know that your crux tensions are surfacing when, you know, you're at a meeting and you're on a Zoom call and someone surfaces a q- question or concern, and you're thinking in the back of your mind, "Are we still talking about this?"
So, but you gotta pay attention to that because if you continue to talk about something and it won't go away, that's a pretty good indicator this is probably not a problem to solve.
Dominique Glanville: Yeah
Tim Arnold: However, there is probably a tension there, and [
00:17:00] if we can name it, we can tame it. And in our team, we have a few of them, and, one that has been really good for us to name is we want to fully lean into customization and consistency.
Dominique Glanville: Mm.
Tim Arnold: that's in my keynotes, that's in our workshops, some of our consulting work. And, and, you know, what's interesting about this tension is that like breathing, inhaling and exhaling, both sides have a benefit that's non-negotiable. You know, it's not a nice to have, it's a needs to have. So with, with customization, if I'm not leaning into that well, you're not get-- you're getting a one-size-fits-all experience.
It doesn't feel like I'm talking about your language. I'm not making it relatable and actionable. And yet, and, and again, go back to breathing. The moments, the moment that you over-focus on one side of a tension and you neglect the other, you're in trouble. So what we have found is if it's all customization and I neglect consistency, we find [
00:18:00] ourselves, first of all, scrambling because there's just no time to customize everything.
Biggest thing is I actually find that my confidence goes down because I'm now doing work that I'm not totally confident in, and, you know, it's trickier for the back end of the organization around systems and pricing. So, you know, consistency matters. I've written four books, so we wanna make sure that our programs are embedded in kind of our core frameworks and models.
We wanna actually have consistency so that we're confident. We do this well. We know this. But at the same time, if it's all consistency, you know, you're just kinda getting, uh, been there, done that. So what we have found is, is to really say, first of all, this isn't going away What we wanna do isn't meet in the middle or compromise, but operate in a way where we get all the benefits of customization and consistency, and we're gonna be really mindful of when we feel [
00:19:00] like maybe we're overdoing one side to another.
And what's been helpful is that language has resulted in us being able to kinda help each other out to say, "Hey, I'm about to send this proposal, you know, what's your take on the level of customization?" Or do you th- and, and it creates a language around the tension as opposed to having like, you're on my side or I'm on your side.
Like, it, it's not as divisive relationally. It's more about, yeah, this is... If we can manage this tension well, we're gonna do okay
Dominique Glanville: And I think that for listeners hearing this that are in that space of working alongside companies, it's attention that they're walking out. I'm also thinking about the discerning leadership team that might be hiring a consultant
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: to figure out, do we need something that's really off the shelf, c- kind of more consistent with what other people are experiencing, or do we need something really custom?
Hiring the Right Consultant
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Dominique Glanville: And I'm curious your advice to a discerning leadership team member that's trying to figure out, okay, we're trying to grow, we're hitting some ceilings. We wanna bring ... We [
00:20:00] know we need to bring in some sort of outside support. What should they be asking or thinking when they think about hiring the right consultant and where that consultant might need to land versus, you know, in terms of con- customization or consistency?
Tim Arnold: Yeah, and, and it is tricky, and I'm sure that you've been in this situation many times where when you're trying to potentially move forward with with a new client, often what you'll hear is that they want it fully custom. You know, I want this to kinda start from the ground up. And, and you certainly just, you know, don't wanna respond with, "Well, we only do some customization."
Y- you want to invite them into the tension to say, "Here, here's what I've found. I've found that first of all, you know, if we can make sure that the work is based on," and again, I'd say, "my frameworks, the research I've done, like that's the piece that I wanna consistently do for every client I work with. So we're gonna start there."
I even find for me, I've gotten rid of the word customization and changed it with tailoring, and then [
00:21:00] what I'm gonna do is learn about you. I'm gonna sit down with you, ideally have some interviews with some folks in your team, 'cause I wanna tailor this core content so now we're speaking your language, and we're nuancing it to the challenges that you face.
So you, you have to have some kinda holding onto your ground around this is the foundation, this is kinda consistent, now we wanna make this work for you. And, and, and if, if, you know, thankfully over time we do learn from experience, if I'm with s- a client that's like, "We, we actually just wanna start from square one.
You know, we may or may not use your frameworks," for me that would be a, "Well then I'm probably not your person, because this is what we think we can do better than probably 10,000 other vendors. Like we do this well, but it's based on this foundation." And I think, and it rarely happens, I think when you can invite people into this healthy tension [
00:22:00] conversation, it, it helps expectation setting.
Dominique Glanville: Yeah
Tim Arnold: Uh, but the odd time you can say, "You know what? I think you're looking for more of a, an OD consultant. Like you're looking for, for, for a skill set that's not me."
Dominique Glanville: Well, I just love that example that you've modeled about how to kindly and diplomatically reassure the client that if they're looking for an expert, that expert likely has a proven process or has learned some things about how they understand that client, how they understand that business. You know, for Heights, we're doing, typically our first step is an assessment, a diagnostic, and a, and a roadmap, which you yourself have been through,
Tim Arnold: No
Dominique Glanville: fun. And so for us, if we have clients say, "Well, can't you just leapfrog that step and, you know, XYZ after that?" Our, our response is often, "When we have done that in the past, it has not served you or us in getting results. Like, we do this in order... Like it is, we [
00:23:00] have our proven process so that we can understand your business really carefully and then make tailored recommendations based on what applies to you.
But if we make recommendations before understanding your business, our recommendations will not actually be sound in what applies to your business." And so I think it's one of those things where for us, the, offer or the, the work together often gets a little more customized as we go
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: but we have to start off
Tim Arnold: Yeah
Dominique Glanville: what is proven to help us to understand and develop a great partnership together.
And so I think one of the things I'm hearing you say that we would agree with would be the right advisor, the right consultant might turn you down when you ask for something that is not in your best interest
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: doesn't help them to really do their best work, and that is something to watch out for.
If you're in a discovery call process with an outside advisor and they're just like, "Yes, absolutely, we can do it however you want," blah, blah, blah, blah, it's like, how, how can you trust that they actually know what they're doing if[
00:24:00]
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: leading the engagement
Tim Arnold: Yeah, 100%.
Keynotes vs Workshops
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Dominique Glanville: Okay, so Tim Arnold, many folks that are guesting on this podcast are engaging primarily as consultants with the companies that are hiring them. But you are a little bit unusual in that you are actually primarily a keynote speaker, and a lot of companies and event planners hire you to come in and speak about the frameworks that you've created, the books that you've written, Lead with And, Healthy Tension et cetera.
I would love to hear a little bit more about the keynote work that you're doing, where that's taking you, what you enjoy about that. And for our listeners, fun fact, Tim shared with me yesterday that he is gonna be on the stage alongside Brené Brown for a conference or summit in Australia coming up in the next few months.
So Tim, you are big time. Um, tell us more about your keynoting and what you're seeing as you speak on stages.
Tim Arnold: Big time. I, I need you to tell my kids that. The frameworks and the research and the books I've written, uh, [
00:25:00] ultimately you wanna bring this to organizations and in, in my small company, we do that in a number of ways. I primarily now do it through speaking. So whether it's with an executive team in a boardroom, or more often at a company-wide event or a summit I, you know, am doing the, the talk on one of the books.
And what I find as far as setting expectations is, you know 45 to, uh, an hour and a half keynote that's done well results in inspiration and a bit of a shared language. You know, so you can say, "Listen, let's just kind of align ourselves around this concept," and even be inspired and even motivated to, to keep this conversation going.
Out of the keynotes that I deliver, once I actually get on a call with a client, you know, sometimes I hear that they're looking for more than just a shared language and inspiration. They want skill development. And I'll have to be honest that that can happen, but that's more of a [
00:26:00] workshop. You know, that- that's at least three hours of us doing work together and application.
And, and, and often, you know, I get reached out to for a keynote, but then we realize, like, no, this is more of a workshop. So I still do lots and lots of really interactive and fun workshops, and I, I, I have found that just being super upfront with the client to say, again, inspiration, shared language, keynote.
Skill development, action, kind of putting the learning into action, workshop. And, uh, and that's been helpful to say. Th- both have huge upsides, but you need to know there's a huge difference. So I- I-- probably 80% of my requests are for keynotes, but once I chat with clients, workshops and keynotes are about 50/50
Dominique Glanville: Yeah. I would see that, you know, a company that is growing, that's having an all-company meeting or something like that, I mean, the right speaker that can then create common language, kind of breathe some energy and some new ways [
00:27:00] of talking about what's going on in the company, could be a real asset to a leadership team.
But then it's very close through, closely related to then, like, okay, who actually needs to work on this more in the room?
Experiential Workshop Design
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Dominique Glanville: One of the things that I love about the work that you do is you are second to none in terms of workshop experience and creating these fun but really productive experiential workshops.
I think a lot of people have in their mind, "If I bring in someone to do a workshop, it's gonna be like trust falls and all kinds of really cheesy things." Talk about what an experiential workshop looks like, what the benefit is. I would love to hear you
Tim Arnold: Sure.
Dominique Glanville: on that.
Tim Arnold: Yeah, and, and I mean, my background, I got into leadership development in the late '90s as an outdoor adventure guide, so I took corporate groups on high ropes courses and on paddling expeditions, and it was really around just team bonding. We weren't doing a lot of learning and development. It was more relationship [
00:28:00] building.
But in that season of my career, I recognized that, you know, Confucius said you can, You know, "I, I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." If you can involve people in the experience, it sticks. It la- it lasts. And, and beyond that, Dominique, at the end of the day, I think anyone can listen for a maximum of 10 to 12 minutes, and even if I continue to look at you and smile and nod, I've kinda checked out.
So you've gotta give people a reason to stay engaged, so you know, even my keynotes are super experiential with chances for you to connect with the person beside you, some fun large group activities that just pulls everyone in. And you know, it's funny, I was just, as you said, in Dallas yesterday, and we were doing some really deep work with this executive group.
And every new element of the day, I would do some sort of an activity. Again, not a trust fall, no holding hands um, but really fun, interactive activities [
00:29:00] to kind of bring the concept to life. And I got an email from the CEO this morning saying, you know, "Great day. We're already using some of the things we worked on yesterday."
Um, but he said, "The biggest win for us was the activity-based approach because our team just needs that." And
Dominique Glanville: Yeah
Tim Arnold: I hear that again and again and again. I can only be talked to for so long
Dominique Glanville: So I love what you're saying about experiential and activity-based learning, and I think we're all a little scarred from coming out of the pandemic and having the era of webinars and virtual learning kind of lag on longer than we needed to. And one of the things that we're talking a lot about with our clients is that, you know, people are constantly wanting more human experiences. There's this really, this reality paradox of, like, is this real? Is this AI? And people want to connect with each other. They want a sense of belonging. They want connection. Tell me a little bit about what you're seeing and how this experiential and in-person learning [
00:30:00] helps when companies are at growth ceilings or inflection points. Like, what does an in-person workshop or an activity-based learning experience do?
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm. So A few things come to mind around that. I mean, one is so long, and, and you would know this from the work that you do, so long as you choose the right outside voice, sometimes folks need an outside voice. I mean, so it's funny, I, I coach my my son's hockey team for a number of years, and every now and then a friend, uh, would come in to do a day of like skills training and, you know, he would or she would do some really good drills and skills, exactly the stuff I've been talking about all season.
And on the drive home Declan's like, "That's the best practice ever." I just... I'm never gonna forget this comment, and I'm thinking, "I say that every single week." But there's something about an outside voice, so long as the outside voice is [
00:31:00] truly aligned, and again, they're not there to be the hero, they're there to be the guide.
They're there to help move you, the team, the organization in the direction that you are already moving. And just having that outside guide can be a bit of a catalyst in getting some momentum. The other piece is that, you know, there's, there's usually at any given time, one or two key things that are holding us back from our less- next level of effectiveness, whether that's team effectiveness, you know, whether that is leadership effectiveness.
There's just a few things, and bringing people together to just say, "Listen, this is not, you know, the, the solution to all of life's problems, but for us to go one rung up in our effectiveness, we're gonna for the next quarter or the next half of the year really focus on that." And again, you bring that person in, or in my case, I, I say, [
00:32:00] "Listen, we're...
You all manage lots of tensions, but we're really gonna focus on one." I just worked with an organization yesterday, and they're, they're doing great. They also know though, as they're scaling, they've gotta be better at focusing on an executive team. They call it kind of the one team. You know, we as, as leaders being a unified group, while at the same time each VP has to focus on their team.
You know, and if all I do is focus on my team and I neglect the exec team, we work in silos. But if all we do is focus on the exec team and we neglect our individual teams, they're neglected, and we're not delivering on our responsibilities. So we were able to say, first of all, that is a make it or break it tension right now.
So let's unify that for the next, and we said quarter, we are gonna keep this front and center. It's not going away. There's no magical cure, but [
00:33:00] there are ways that we can manage it more effectively. And, you know, by the end of my work, we identified a few specific actions that we're gonna do to manage that tension more effectively.
And that, that's just what they need to take things to the next level
Dominique Glanville: Well, I think what you're talking about is really that we're all managing these tensions, but part of the value is bringing an awareness to what tensions are really in the forefront of this season right now. And if we cannot have productive discussions around that tension, we're gonna have a really hard time being productive and collaborating effectively
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm. Yeah
Leadership Tensions That Scale
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Dominique Glanville: So, so some of the work you do is on team dynamic and team tension. Some of the work that you do is leaders. I'd love to hear a little bit about we've talked a lot about teams and team dynamics. Talk a little bit about leadership tensions. In your books, you identify six unavoidable leadership tensions, things like optimism versus realism, profit versus [
00:34:00] purpose, confidence versus humility.
I, you know, I think when we think about leadership, we all maybe have a biased perspective a- against, like, what exactly leadership looks like, and then we're all executing our own kind of leadership style. When you think about a mid-market CEO or, or C-suite leader, they're growing really quickly.
Which of these tensions are blowing up for them internally and for their teams? Like, what are you seeing at the leadership level that's keeping people from growth or accelerating it?
Tim Arnold: Oh, that's a great question, and nice job listing some of those key leadership tensions. I, I think one that as we're trying to grow and scale, leaders have to constantly be mindful of in how they're living this out, but also in the culture that they're leading, and the language I have is expectations and grace.
How do I continue to set the bar high, [
00:35:00] potentially even continue to raise it? Expectations are high on myself. I'm having high expectations on others through, you know, dashboards and KPIs, and yet if all I do is create an expectation culture and there's no grace and understanding, it becomes a culture of burnout and high turnover.
So now we don't want a pendulum swing, 'cause if it's all grace and understanding and no expectations, we'll have a culture of mediocrity.
Dominique Glanville: Mm-hmm.
Tim Arnold: Th- th- what I need to find a way to do is be that leader who models and expects from my supervisors and managers high expectations with high levels of grace and understanding so that we still have that results-driven, kind of achieving, uh, success culture and a psychologically safe, amazing, thriving workplace culture at the same time.
That's one for sure, and I feel that as we grow, that [
00:36:00] expectations grace tension does become harder to manage.
Dominique Glanville: Yeah. Well, I think also depending on where we are relative to cash flow and sales and financial health, like the dial can be turned up on that as well, right?
Tim Arnold: Sure
Dominique Glanville: as you talk about that, it's interesting 'cause I think about how ourselves and then with others, we have biases in terms of that excellence and grace.
Often we, some people are very, have exacting standards on themselves, have a really poor internal mentality and game around when they fail, have a hard time recovering. Others give themselves so much grace or are really exacting on their team, and it's like, "Well, you don't hold yourself to that standard.
Why, you know, why are you expecting that of me?" And so we can have it, you know, both ways. It's like we're holding this tension in how we think about ourselves and how we're leading people around us.
Care for Self and Others
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Dominique Glanville: What's a tension that you personally are really working through as a leader [
00:37:00] right now?
Tim Arnold: Oh, we're gonna get personal now. I, I will say, and, and this is an answer for me, but it also answers the question you asked me before around leadership tensions, specifically for leaders that are trying to grow in scale.
Dominique Glanville: Yeah
Tim Arnold: Uh, in Lead With And, my second book, I talk about the tension of care for self, care for others.
And, you know, the fine print of leadership that a lot of people don't read is that leadership is an others-oriented role. The more I'm leading, the more I'm serving and caring for others. So when it comes to managing the tension between self and others, it's never gonna be 50/50. It's always gonna be weighted on the others: my team, our clients, stakeholders, sometimes boards, never mind all the people I'm taking care of outside of work.
And yet, if all I do all the time is focus on and care for others and I neglect myself, I don't actually show up well for anyone.
Dominique Glanville: That's right
Tim Arnold: And [
00:38:00] I see this constantly, especially with leaders that are , in a season of scaling or leaders that have been given more responsibility. They're all in and their heart is in the right place.
Six months later, they're either burnt out or they're bitter because they just didn't give themselves what they need. And, you know, it's not about trade-offs, it's about how do I, in an others-oriented role, integrate what I need so I can show up well for everyone who needs me? And I say that to leaders and I, I think I have some really good frameworks on how to manage that well.
But it's a reminder personally that there isn't a magical solution. You know, the, the, the... It's always a work in progress. And, you know, for me right now, coming just to the end of a very busy season, the busiest season of my year also kinda [
00:39:00] navigating some challenges with aging parents and some other demands that are really resulting in an others focus, it's what does that focus on myself look like?
Not to be self-indulgent, but to be kind of responsible so that I'm waking up with a smile and I'm actually bringing the best version of myself into all of the things that I have been given the gift to lead
Dominique Glanville: I love hearing that too. I think you frame that with really healthy words for us, that we're not ... It, it doesn't feel like woo woo self-care, but you frame it in terms of responsibility. Like, I have a responsibility to take care of myself so that I can take care of others. And, you know, the metaphor is often putting on your own oxygen mask before then you put on
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: the oxygen mask for others.
And I have found, just even recently I had ... We're in a really big season of growth at Heights, and [
00:40:00] my amazing business coach, Courtney, had said to me, "I notice a real difference in you when you neglect your personal disciplines and your morning routine in how you react to your team and how you navigate stresses in the business and client fluctuations. you know, do you notice that?" You know, just really trying to help build awareness in me, and it's so true.
I am on the mark with up, going to bed when I need to, waking up when I need to having the kind of spiritual and physical practices and emotional wellbeing practices, I am not unstoppable, but I'm close to unstoppable, Tim.
But the moment I let up on that for one excuse or the other, usually for good reason, there's a measurable difference in my ability to lead and handle stress and whatnot. And yet often that's the time, the excuse that I'm giving is often because there are additional pressures. Well, I can, I need to take my foot off the gas of the responsibility to care for myself.
And I think for leaders that are experiencing exponential growth [
00:41:00] or they've been growing and now they're stuck
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: sweating, I think it can be really easy to throw out the, the caring for self in trying to solve problems or, or move forward.
Tim Arnold: Yeah, I like your personal example of just some of those morning routines and, and, and things that may not actually take a lot of time, but as you know, a little goes a long way when that little element or pieces are done consistently. And, you know, I, I can completely resonate with that. I don't need hours and hours of focus on Tim Arnold every day, but I do need a little bit.
And some of those rituals and routines that work for me, the moment I let them go, you know, over a short period of time, I'm a different person. And I, I think I, you know, I have the privilege of working with a lot of emerging leaders and I say, "Listen, like, learn it now 'cause it doesn't get easier." [
00:42:00] Like, the, the, the paradox of leadership is your success means that you're focused more and more on other people.
So try to really be kind of mindful and even vigilant on those things that you need so you can show up well
ROI and Bottom Line Impact
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Dominique Glanville: So Tim, I'm curious about you know, a lot of times when leaders are thinking about growth, you know, they're investing in, you know, bringing in a keynote speaker or a workshop or, you know, they're gonna read a book. I'm curious about how you've seen the ability to manage healthy tension or lead with and affect the bottom line.
Do you have any stories and examples of how developing a common language as a team or a focus around a tension that we're managing well has really affected growth and the bottom line in a company?
Tim Arnold: Yeah, so I mean, the, the, the great thing about my work is that it's actually I don't find myself in a role where I have to, like, really convince you. The moment I start to name some of these tensions, y- you're like, "Oh my God, I [
00:43:00] deal with that all the time." Like, that you've just named something that I feel like I'm constantly wrestling with.
Dominique Glanville: I
Tim Arnold: So, so what I've been able to do is, again, are you able to kind of measure the long-term ROI on a one-hour keynote? That's tricky. That's hard to do. But I have a handful of organizations that I'm part of their learning and development and leadership development strategy, and, you know, we've done work that has really-- the, the, the core tensions that they manage have now from the front line to the C-suite, become a common language, and we've done some really good tracking on, like, what's the impact from that?
I mean, just this week, I chatted with a, a senior leader that was saying, you know, not too long ago we implemented some, call them red flags around profit and purpose, which generally is our team now is mindful of when maybe we're going a little bit too far on the [
00:44:00] purpose side and doing price breaks and accommodations that we really shouldn't do
Dominique Glanville: Right
Tim Arnold: because we want to be liked.
And it doesn't mean that we don't want to be purpose-driven, but now that we've got language about profit and purpose and a better understanding of the bottom line, he said we've been living, living out these kind of early warning signs and, and we've got action steps. We check in with people before we make rash decisions around purpose-driven work.
Anyways, he said in the last quarter I'm not gonna give specifics, but he talked about hundreds of thousand dollars that have been saved in contracts that they didn't need to discount, and they didn't actually need to go above and beyond because they were able to do the work at their normal rate.
They just, they, the, the, having that tension gave them the boundaries to not keep over-focusing on one side for which for them, they're good-hearted humans, they over-focus on purpose, and they neglect the bottom line. So that would just be an, a, a, an [
00:45:00] example in the last couple weeks that I've chatted with a, a VP around.
Uh, one organization that comes to mind, when I started to work with them, they were in the process of redoing their mission, vision, values, and what we decided to do together is actually communicate their values in pairs. So rather than we're all about change and we're all about teamwork, it became we're about, they call it disciplined innovation, which is actually change and stability.
You know? We are about, They call it a, a stewardship value, which is again about profit and purpose.
And when I started working with the organization, and it was number of years ago, but they were just a small Canadian organization of about 400 people. But they have rapidly scaled. They're about 4,000 people now across four continents, and I mean, their bottom line is, uh, is, is incredibly pr- im- impressive.
That's not because they identified three tensions, but the ability to [
00:46:00] orient their mission, vision, values, and they call it their operating system, around a few key tensions, I think has been a huge catalyst. And their CEO would say has been the catalyst in them 10X-ing
Dominique Glanville: Well, I think what's interesting about the work that you do too is, like, some people say, "Oh, I come in and I help companies move from here to here or whatnot." And I think the interesting thing about the work that you do is that it's at the intersection of mission, vision, and core values, communication,
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: teamwork.
Like, there's just so many areas that if we can develop a common language around tensions that we manage and what is actually going on in our company, it is just gonna enrich all these layers. And as you were talking about profit and purpose, I loved what you said about people making rash decisions versus the transformation of then being like, okay, okay, in every sales conversation or client [
00:47:00] negotiation conversation, we're managing this profit and purpose. What are our values? What have we agreed upon as a team? How do we proceed with something like this? And, you know, one example that I was thinking about too is, you know, developing standards, right? It's like we're going to implement these steps so that we're not just having rash giveaways all over the place as people have inklings, but this is our process
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: an opportunity to be more purposeful and maybe reduce our profit on things.
You can see how then that would create not just greater profit, but actually, like, people get buy-in in the fact that that decision was made based on a value, based on conversations, based on alignment.
Personal Generosity Example
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Dominique Glanville: And just a silly example of that is my husband and I love to be generous. Like, we have a goal with our budget of how much we wanna give away per month.
Like, our idea of wealth is we wanna give X away per month. We set, like, a radical goal. Like, what if we could give away this [
00:48:00] much per month? Okay, so that's, like, how silly and geeky we are about generosity. And so you can imagine if I have a door-to-door solicitor on my doorstep saying, "Would you like to give to the Texas Environmental Relief Fund or the Tree Planting Fund?"
You know. So we have organizations that we give to on a regular basis that are a part of our plan, but when an opportunistic opportunity comes up, in the moment, I'm like, "Okay, but I do like... I do live in Texas, and I ex- experience the benefits of the environment, so shouldn't I be a contributor to the
Tim Arnold: I like trees.
Dominique Glanville: know, like, I like trees. Yeah, like, I'm a plant lady. And so in the moment, I'm thinking, I'm wrestling with this tension of being generous in the opportunity that's presenting itself and courteous to the person in front of me and believing in what they're saying, but also being a good steward of the finances that my husband and I have together and our plan for generosity and for our finances and et cetera.
And so I'm walking this tension out of like, what do I do? And the way we've solved this is that we have, we only [
00:49:00] make decisions around our generosity together. And so when I'm in face-to-face with that door-to-door solicitor that comes by and asks me if I wanna give, or even the, uh, grocery checkouts, like, "Would you like to add five cents to this and five cents to that?"
Like, we're just, we're planned givers. And so I just tell them, I said, "You know, I would love to do this. Can I have some material? And we only make decisions together as a
Tim Arnold: Great
Dominique Glanville: and so I, I'm gonna get back to you. I can get back to you within 24 hours, but we only make these decisions as a family." Even if it's a small donation, and then that helps me reduce the pressure of making an, a rash decision or, or feeling like I'm going against my family's commitment to that, but I'm also living out my value of generosity, and it cools the...
But you can see how that often happens maybe in companies in a sales process or a desire to discount, win this customer over, that sort of a thing. And I think our teams are navigating that tension of being faithful to the priorities that we've set as a [
00:50:00] company while also being generous and purposeful and whatnot,
Tim Arnold: And it, and it, it allow... I, I love that example because it's a great example of you've identified a tension, and it, and, and you found a way to say, "Hey, this isn't going away, but here's some, some systems, some habits, some commitments that are gonna allow us to just manage this a bit better. The tension's still there, but now I feel like it's not running me.
I am overseeing it." And the other piece that I think is worth noting is that when it comes to, you know, individuals, leaders, teams identifying that one or two tensions that are, like, really important to them, language really matters. So in our team, we talk about profit and purpose, but in a home situation, it's not really profit and purpose.
It might be generosity and responsibility. I wanna be fully generous, and I wanna be responsible to my family and to my commitments. And, and that language of generosity [
00:51:00] responsibility is like, okay, this is guiding how I'm making individual decisions. It's great
Dominique Glanville: Right. And when we don't have that, it can create conflict. It can create malalignment,
Tim Arnold: I sure can
Dominique Glanville: et cetera. Part of what I was noodling on when you were talking about, I mean, how do you put the cost of a one-hour keynote, you know, or the benefit? And it's like, but the alternative is often when we don't identify these tensions, it is miscommunication, malalignment, the things under the surface we can't quite name
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: that are just feeling like, "Ugh, I just wish this was better," you
And if we have, like you're saying, a common language to talk about the tensions that we're managing and how we're making decisions as a team or as a leader things get better,
Tim Arnold: Yeah, they do. And I mean, the, again, so long as you have alignment around this is actually something we want the organization to understand and be aligned around. I just did an event last week, and it was actually quite humbling. The, I, I walked in and someone [
00:52:00] came up, a leader in the group, and they said, "Do you remember me?"
And I'm like, "I'm sorry, I don't." And she goes, "You did a keynote 10 years ago
Dominique Glanville: my
Tim Arnold: for this or-", it was a different organization. She's like, "I was in that group." And I'm like, "Oh, my gosh." And, and, you know, I wouldn't have known that. But she says, "You know what? To this day, expectations and grace is something I think about every single week."
'Cause she says, "I'm all about grace and understanding, and, like, empathy is my superpower." But she said, "It was really impacting me as a leader because I was neglecting expectations." And I mean, she's telling me all this, and I'm like, wow, that was a, that was a keynote 10 years ago. But if people leave with one thing, that was the thing they needed to hear.
Like, that's a massive win in that person's individual leadership development
Dominique Glanville: Yeah.
Closing Takeaways and Where to Find Tim
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Dominique Glanville: I love that, and so as we think about kind of gearing towards the end of our, our session today, I'm thinking, you know, to just challenge our listeners to write down even one tension that they are managing today [
00:53:00] that they could share with a
Tim Arnold: Mm-hmm.
Dominique Glanville: colleague a family member. How could we make these tensions more visible?
I mean, that could be just one really helpful takeaway from this podcast. Uh, and also picking up your book and following you, Tim.
Tim Arnold: Sure
Dominique Glanville: a little bit about where our listeners can find you.
Tim Arnold: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. I think the easiest way would just go to, timarnoldleadership.com. So T-I-M, not Tom, Tim Arnold, A-R-N-O-L-D leadership.com. And there's information there around how I can come alongside you or your team or your organization with a keynote or a workshop. There's also, though, a really fun but insightful quiz on how effective are you at knowing the difference between a problem to solve and a tension to manage.
Like, do you have that skill set? Is there work to be done? And if you do the 10-question assessment, it will also give you a list of some common tensions, and from that list, there may be one or [
00:54:00] two that you're like, "Ooh, I, I need to keep that front and center." So yeah, and, and, if anyone's on LinkedIn or Instagram, I'm at, , Tim Arnold Leadership is the best way to, to, to connect with me
Dominique Glanville: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Tim Arnold, for joining us on the podcast today. We appreciate your work
Tim Arnold: No, thank you. And I, uh, I thank you for the years of support that you and your team have provided. As I have scaled and grown and evolved you have been my trusted guide and, uh, and it's been working. So, uh, you're a great a great resource and, and I'm so grateful to have you and your team alongside
Dominique Glanville: I love that. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thanks, Tim
Tim Arnold: Take care
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00:55:00]
