Full Transcript for Are You Solving the Wrong Problem? How Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Find What's Really Going On (with Teresa Gregory)

not aware, we're on autopilot. And what we don't do enough is slow thinking. 8 00:03:34,915 --> 00:04:14,570 Relly Nadler: So this podcast asks provocative questions. We want you to think slow. We want you to apply what is going on. How does this fit? Because the slow thinking, Daniel Kahneman wrote the book Thinking Fast and Slow, how often do we do it? 2% of the time. And it's only worse now with AI. Nobody needs to think. So, I like to say around the AI issues, we've outsourced our thinking. It's too hard to think. Let me ask Chad. Let me ask Claude. So, anyway, that's kind of what the challenges. And so, hopefully, we'll help with Teresa Gregory here today to unpack some of those and give you some tools and tips to move forward. 9 00:04:16,010 --> 00:04:54,475 Cathy Greenberg: Well, I'm very excited today to welcome Teresa Gregory to the show. We will obviously have a dynamic, interactive conversation, but let me make sure our audience knows a little bit about Teresa if they haven't already gotten to know her through her contributions to a book called Wired to Win, A Masterclass in Winning Strategies from Top Experts. And that is an edited volume by Marion Jones and Suzanne Evans. There are about 20 some contributors, and one of those top experts is our guest today. 10 00:04:54,475 --> 00:05:31,135 Cathy Greenberg: Teresa Gregory is a dynamic speaker, a podcaster, and leadership strategist known for helping audiences break through the hidden biases and mindset barriers that limit their performance. With more than twenty years of experience leading global learning and development initiatives, Teresa brings a rare blend of credibility, energy, and real world insights to every stage and every step that everyone takes with her into the future. 11 00:05:31,135 --> 00:06:05,485 Cathy Greenberg: As the founder of G Squared Consulting, Teresa has partnered with industry leaders, including Microsoft, Kaiser Permanente, which has a soft spot in my heart because my daughter was born there over forty years ago major corporate teams to design high impact leadership programs that evaluate culture, accelerate growth, and equip managers with the skills needed to lead confidently in this ever changing world. Her work spans executive coaching, inclusive leadership, and mindset transformation. 12 00:06:05,485 --> 00:06:37,100 Cathy Greenberg: And as I said, the Amazon number one bestselling book, Wired to Win, highlights her practical frameworks for unlocking human potential. I'll tell you, one of the things I really want to go a little deeper on today with Teresa is the autopilot. Relly, you and I talk about that all the time. If you stay on autopilot, you're going to stay average. Teresa's signature keynotes include Unpack Your Biases, lead with intention, and unlock your leadership advantage. 13 00:06:37,100 --> 00:07:27,060 Cathy Greenberg: We're going to get into it with Teresa. She's known for her engaging presence and actionable strategies, and she

delivers more than motivation. She delivers transformation. You can learn a lot more about Teresa if you go to Square— let me spell this for you: squaredsuccess.com. That's squaredsuccess.com. It'll be in the notes. So squaredsuccess.com. You can also email her directly, Teresa, T-E-R-E-S-A-G at g2-c.com. And again, all this will be in the notes. So, to the show, Teresa. 14 00:07:27,380 --> 00:07:30,660 Teresa Gregory: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today. 15 00:07:31,380 --> 00:07:48,115 Relly Nadler: Well, Teresa, it's good to have you. And what we always start off with is to give us a little bit of background, like some of the kind of key influences that have helped you. We just heard your bio, which is great, and now we'll get more back into it. But what are some of the influences that kind of led you to where you are today? 16 00:07:48,835 --> 00:08:29,160 Teresa Gregory: I think one of the key influences to where I am today and the leader that I have become today is one of my first mentors in business. Her name is Marilyn and I will never forget. She took a chance on me and I, I sometimes I think they're like, Who was the defining person? She was because she took a chance on me. I didn't... I came from retail and it was my first office job and she was the office manager and she was like, I will teach you everything. I need you to have an open mind. I'm like, Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I just soaked everything up in a sponge. She was amazing to kind of my first foray into the business world. 17 00:08:30,615 --> 00:09:05,325 Cathy Greenberg: That's such a nice memory, especially when women are enabling other women and supporting other women. I think you and I come from that same generation, Teresa, being in the business for over twenty years. I'm sure many of us can remember what it was like Having that female mentor and that person that holds you up and says, I'm going to be there for you, is so meaningful. What does solving the wrong problem look like? How can we make sure it's the right problem? 18 00:09:06,125 --> 00:09:40,660 Teresa Gregory: I think what happens for a lot of leaders is we get wrapped up in the tasks. So we're not leading, we are managing the tasks that need to be done. And when we think of the word leadership, it's actually around letting people make decisions and do the work. And so I think sometimes when we get stressed, we become hyper fixated on the tasks that are being done. And often what I find is leaders don't know what the actual tasks are, because they're not a follower of that work, right? 19 00:09:40,660 --> 00:10:15,100 Teresa Gregory: They're leading the work, but they're not necessarily in the weeds to know these are the tasks that need to happen. And so we make assumptions about, Oh, that could be more efficient, but we actually don't know that because we didn't know that the two systems don't talk to each other. And this happened at Microsoft. John Connors, he was the CEO or CFO at the time, and he asked for a report to be run and he needed it by 8AM the next morning. And he did not know that it would take 12 people, twenty four hours to build that report because this is back in 2000. 20 00:10:15,180 --> 00:10:44,100 Teresa Gregory: The systems don't talk to each other. Everything's done manually. So everybody's got to pull the report. You got to run this data mining thing. It takes hours to do it. Then you pull the report together. The next morning we get into the meeting. He didn't even touch the report. So for twenty four hours, over a dozen people worked on this report and he didn't even use it. Right. And nobody told him. And it happened again and nobody tells him because they're afraid to go to him, right? 21 00:10:44,100 --> 00:11:00,535 Teresa Gregory: Because he's the leader. And so sometimes you have to take the courage to say, Hey, do you know that this takes this long? But sometimes he's trying to solve a problem thinking that report's going to help him, and he's actually solving the wrong thing. He doesn't need that report. He needed something totally different. 22 00:11:00,935 --> 00:11:20,965 Relly Nadler: That's a beautiful example. And I'm sure, Cat, you've seen this all the time. I think in executives preparing for board meetings, I've seen this exact same thing happen. Hey, so what about this, this, and this? And then they don't realize that for days all their people are working on something that may interesting to them. 23 00:11:21,365 --> 00:11:51,805 Relly Nadler: I think some of that also happens, like we talked about so much stress that we have, and you talked about, Teresa, the focus on the task. When we have a lot of stress built up with cortisol, we have more tunnel vision. And it's kind of putting what you're saying into the neuroscience world, that we zero in on what we think it is. And if you see my hands, we miss this peripheral vision that's out. Because of stress, we have tunnel vision about 20 degrees. 24 00:11:51,805 --> 00:12:09,800 Relly Nadler: Richard Boyatzis, who's really one of the key people in emotional intelligence talks about that. And if someone's relaxed, and Cat, you know this with the folks that you're working with, if they're relaxed in the moment, you just have more access to not only your peripheral vision, but more ideas and more things that come up. 25 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:45,560 Cathy Greenberg: You know, it's funny that we're talking about this. There's a new movie out, I believe it's on Netflix or Prime. It's called The Beast. It's about an MMA fighter. It's a fascinating character analysis. Relly, you'll remember when we opened our book Emotional Brilliance with the story of Conan Silveira, right? Famous Olympic cage fighter who now works with award-winning Nunes, who's back on the circuit. In this movie, the coach, who's played by Russell Crowe, is speaking to the fighter. 26 00:12:45,560 --> 00:13:20,085 Cathy Greenberg: He says, Why do we

need to breathe? He's got the fighter saying this mantra, and I see Teresa shaking her head, so chime in here. The coach says to the fighter, And why do we breathe? So I can think. And why do you think? So I can win. So, it's such a beautiful analogy of what we're talking about here because the neuroscience clearly shows us that when our oxygen is not getting to the brain and to our lungs, when we hold our breath, we're holding back our thought. 27 00:13:20,085 --> 00:13:51,525 Cathy Greenberg: And when we're holding back our thought, we do, as Teresa beautifully articulates, we focus on the wrong problem. And we don't think about it because we're not focused on the right things. And those tasks can eat us up alive. So, this is really a great conversation. I just want to add one more piece, Relly, before I toss it back to you and Teresa. In the 1900s, late 1900s, early 2000s, I remember doing an interview with Stephen Burke, was the CEO of Comcast at the time. 28 00:13:51,525 --> 00:14:24,065 Cathy Greenberg: He's now well known for being the senior executive of NBCUniversal and how he brought that organization together in the past decade. But I remember people being very suspicious of him because he didn't need reports to validate what he was focused on. He used his emotional intelligence and the patterns of information. He could tell when the patterns were off, then he'd ask for the data to validate that thinking. 29 00:14:24,145 --> 00:14:57,730 Cathy Greenberg: But remember, audience, for those of you who've been around as long as we have, in the early 2000s, what it took for people to have the courage to approach a leader to tell them that their thinking might be off is a totally different environment than the one that we're working in today. So, it's an interesting mindset shift. I obviously want to learn more from you, Teresa. So, tell us a little bit more about how emotions shape the stories that we tell ourselves about other people's behavior. 30 00:14:57,730 --> 00:15:34,480 Teresa Gregory: Yeah. I like to, so I went and got coffee this morning at my favorite coffee shop. And I walk in and there's a line. There's a few people online. And I find myself every single time, it doesn't matter, I create a story of what's going on in their lives based on what they're wearing, how they're standing, if they're smiling or not, and we do this naturally. This is a natural, everybody does it. And people who tell me, Oh, I don't do that. 31 00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:56,280 Teresa Gregory: I'm like, Yes, you do. I know you do. If you really tap into it, you created the story. And then they order that very complex, very long drink with all of the inclusions and everything else. You're like, put that in the app girl, do you not know how to use the app and now you want to step in to help them understand how they can make their custom thing in the app and you don't have to stand in line? And I don't have to stand here with you? 32 00:15:56,280 --> 00:16:29,680 Teresa Gregory: And so we create now a negative story. And so biologically, we are all wired to do this. This is a very natural piece. It's this bias that we carry with us. We'll create a story. They don't even say anything. They say something and it reinforces the story. This is what happens every single day. As a leader, when I think about it, we attach emotion to a lot of different things and how we are feeling inside is going to be projected. If I'm having a great day, everybody's having a great day. Everyone's having a great day. 33 00:16:29,680 --> 00:16:52,280 Teresa Gregory: If I'm having a bad day or the weather is not what I want it to be like, that will then cloud my emotions for the day. So I always say to people, what am I adding? So what do I see? What do I know? And then what am I adding? What are the things I am saying internally or maybe even externally that I'm adding to that conversation that are not even there? 34 00:16:53,080 --> 00:17:34,045 Relly Nadler: That's beautiful. And it goes to, for most of us, that dialogue, that story goes on all the time, and we don't realize is on. So, we don't really step back and say, Oh, I'm having a story. Both my wife and daughter are using this term. My daughter's now a therapist. And I got to do this more. The story I'm telling myself. Just that distancing. A lot of times in psychology, they talk about distancing. How do you have distancing? 35 00:17:34,045 --> 00:17:58,080 Relly Nadler: The story I'm telling myself, which at least opens up a little bit that, Okay, tell me about the story versus we see our things as fact. We think our thoughts are facts. So tell me, how do you kind of deal with that, these assumptions that people are making when you're with them? How do you get them to maybe first look at it and then maybe second challenge it? 36 00:17:59,255 --> 00:18:32,215 Teresa Gregory: I always start with the question of what do you know? What do you know? And then they'll start to repeat to me, this is what I know. And you're like, all right, what is the fact in that? So now we're processing it right together in real time. So we're going through and saying, okay, so I sent the email on Tuesday. It's Thursday. They have not responded. What is, and then they're saying they're not listening to me. Okay. What is the reality? Reality is they haven't responded. 37 00:18:32,215 --> 00:19:13,510 Teresa Gregory: That's all you know. You don't know anything else. You've created the context and everything else. You have no idea what else is going on. You've created emotion. You've added something to it. That's not necessarily there. So then what I tell leaders is now what can you do? You need to check what you think. You need to check what's going on. So you just do a simple follow-up and say, Hey, I sent this to you on Tuesday. I'm bringing it to the top of your mailbox. Is there something you need from me or more direction that's needed to answer this question or whatever

it is? And that's how you can check without adding emotion to the conversation. 38 00:19:13,510 --> 00:20:00,915 Cathy Greenberg: I love this because, and you've heard me say this before, recently in the past six months, I have been using my little chat GPT as a test drive for a little bit of a coach. So, I feed my ChatGPT the situation. They will come back to me and say, You know, Cathy, I think at this point, the best thing to do is nothing. Yes. Then it'll feed me back the data and give me the reason why. I think it's a really interesting way for us to use a strategic pause in our own emotions to get us to stop all that stuff that you're talking about. 39 00:20:00,915 --> 00:20:18,850 Cathy Greenberg: You saw me kind of go like this because that's what we start to do. We start to make up all this emotional nonsense that we think is going on for somebody else. Then we just add more, if you will, fuel to the internal fire that we've started inside our brain. 40 00:20:19,635 --> 00:20:47,000 Teresa Gregory: And it's a challenge for people because often we're moving at the speed of light. You know, I always tell people, someone will say to me, Oh, AI is going to revolutionize our workplace and it's going to do all these things. And I'm saying, AI can do tasks. It doesn't have emotion behind it. It's not intelligent. It's artificial. That's why it's called artificial intelligence. It data mines. It's a faster way to data mine. 41 00:20:47,000 --> 00:21:11,330 Teresa Gregory: And I remember when I first brought out Power BI at Microsoft, and we thought, you know, data is king and you've got to be able to search it. But if you didn't know how to create the query to see the data, you didn't see the data. The data is missing. Artificial intelligence does the same thing. Depending on the prompt you use is going to be the dataset you get back. It's not going to give you, you have to use discernment. 42 00:21:11,330 --> 00:21:44,150 Teresa Gregory: I always tell people, you always got to use your judgment and discernment to be able to really analyze what it's telling you. And you do that with your people as well. I always tell people don't rely on what someone is saying because everybody's going to agree with you. Oh, you look great today. You're doing great. But if their eyes tell you that your outfit looks hideous, that's what you need to listen to. You got to look at both what they're saying and then their nonverbal cues to really get the full picture of what's going on. 43 00:21:45,430 --> 00:22:15,390 Relly Nadler: Right. Well, a couple of things that just that we're talking about here is just with AI, we try to tie some of this together about slow thinking. So, always say with AI, we don't think as much. But I think, Cat, you're bringing it up. Teresa, you're bringing it up. We can use AI for slow thinking. And that is really helpful. Then on two things with AI, because we've outsourced our thinking, if we can give it the right prompt, here's

my ideas, or here's what I'm thinking about, give me some background on this. 44 00:22:15,715 --> 00:22:54,425 Relly Nadler: And it can do that process that we don't like to do. But then I think on the other side of the AI is how do we validate what the AI has said? And so we just take it, Oh, I talked to chat, And chat's my best friend. And are we also getting some validation? Are we also asking chat, So give me what a contrary view would be. Give me what someone would argue against this. And again, maybe it's another couple of minutes, but now we are letting them do slow thinking for us in a fast thinking way. 45 00:22:55,065 --> 00:23:20,935 Teresa Gregory: Yes, absolutely. I teach this right now. I have a lot of clients that have come to me and they're like, Oh, we're getting into chat. We're doing these things. And I'm like, All right, first off, do you know which each data model is built on? And the answer is always, I'm like, okay, well, let's take a step back. You're going to use different AI models for different things. They don't all do the same. They're not all created equal. They don't all work the same. 46 00:23:21,415 --> 00:23:53,460 Teresa Gregory: And so I recommend the slow thinking piece. If you don't know anything about a topic and you are a leader, so I sit on a board of directors and we will get a ton of information. I will use chat as a way to be able to say, okay, this is the problem. Give me pros and cons. Give me a list. What questions should I be following up on? So it helps me kind of really refine my thinking about that topic. I may know a lot about it, or I may know nothing about it. 47 00:23:53,460 --> 00:24:19,435 Teresa Gregory: And now I go into a work session or I go into a conversation and I'm asking intelligent questions and that's how I'm using it. I'm not using it to tell me what to do. I'm using it to help my thinking on that process. And that's what it's best for, right? To be able to automate some of the tasks I want to do and then really be my friend and my encyclopedia, as I like to say, of what other information I need. 48 00:24:20,410 --> 00:25:07,625 Cathy Greenberg: This seems to be an ongoing underlying issue with the use of ChatGPT or any of these, if you will, models because I think many of us remember garbage in, garbage out, right? In the early 2000s, people were starting to recognize that if you didn't put the right information into your query, you wouldn't get the right information out of your query. Now, we're in a situation globally where we're not practicing judgment, or as you beautifully called it, discernment, And we're not practicing human agency. 49 00:25:07,625 --> 00:25:46,415 Cathy Greenberg: In addition to our emotional intelligence, there's general human intelligence, and then there's, of course, the technical intelligence we're going to use to extract that information. I think one of the things we'll talk about... We're going to take a quick break. But one of the things we'll talk about when we come back, which I think is an interesting piece of information that you have some answers to, is when have you had to challenge your own assumptions as a leader to be the best version of you for those you serve? Don't go away. Come right back. You're listening to Leadership Development News. 50 00:25:48,770 --> 00:26:31,715 Relly Nadler: Welcome back to Leadership Development News profiles and practices of top performers. We're talking with Teresa Gregory and really getting deeper about are we solving the wrong problems? What can emotional intelligence leaders do? And it's a lot about these assumptions in our thinking. And I'm just going to do a little call out to one of our friends, Dr. Nottingham, Ed Nottingham, who is writing a book on self coaching around contentment, and he's an expert on these irrational beliefs and cognitive restructuring, a lot of what we're talking about. 51 00:26:31,715 --> 00:27:05,615 Relly Nadler: I'm reading his draft right now, which is pretty exciting. And I know he's listened to probably every show. So, I'm saying this because I know he's smiling as I'm doing this. Absolutely. So Teresa, idea is there an example of where you have challenged a leader or challenged yourself in your assumptions? That all gets into that gap. We think our thoughts are facts. And so that's why we're all fans of this and saying, how do we unpack that? Our thoughts are not facts. They're stories. 52 00:27:06,975 --> 00:27:37,315 Teresa Gregory: So I, as a leader, was brought on board and in a typical fashion, we were talking about the employees that I'm going to start managing and the executive said to me, Oh, well, if you have an Excel issue, you should really go to Cathy. Cathy is going to be fantastic. She's going to help you with your Excel issue. And if you need a reporting piece, Brad is the reporting guru. Like those are your two kind of people that you need to go to. 53 00:27:37,670 --> 00:28:12,490 Teresa Gregory: And I was like, Okay, good to know. Then I'm taking notes and, you know, we talk about everybody else. And then I had an Excel problem. And who did I go to? I went to Cathy. And about three months go by and we've gotten along really well and I think she's amazing. I've given her some stretch assignments and I've done some other things. And she came to me and she said, I was concerned that you were only going to use me for Excel because I want to move up in the company And I've been pigeonholed. And I was like, Woah, what? 54 00:28:12,490 --> 00:28:43,805 Teresa Gregory: Have I pigeonholed you? And she goes, No, you're the first manager that didn't hear I was really good at Excel and that's all I could do and she goes and then the other day, you know, you let Nicole do the reporting and Brad didn't do it for the very first time and I was just impressed that you really allowed us to like move forward. And then I confessed to her that I used to be the Cathy on the main team. I was the one

that people would go to for the technical support of everything, and I was pigeonholed. 55 00:28:43,805 --> 00:29:08,780 Teresa Gregory: So as a leader now, I really look at how I was treated when I was in my younger career, and I make very big conscious decisions not to allow that on my team. So if I'm working with someone and someone has biased me to them, I always have to check that. I always go, Okay, that's good to know. But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, What else can they do? Because they don't just do that one thing and that's it. 56 00:29:10,300 --> 00:29:58,260 Cathy Greenberg: I think that's so important. And I remember several conversations with Relly and myself over the past few years talking about how important it is to ask people what do they value in their work environment. What makes them feel like there's meaning in their work and to feel purposeful and engaged in their work? I think that to some degree, when a leader comes into an organization and they're given, if you will, a staff or a team of individuals, they make a lot of assumptions about how those people got to those roles and whether, in fact, those roles are making them happy. 57 00:29:58,260 --> 00:30:20,485 Cathy Greenberg: And they make assumptions that if they're doing that job, that's what they must want to be doing when in fact those are big assumptions. So, challenging those assumptions is really important. How can leaders maybe distinguish an accountability issue from unclear expectations or missing support? 58 00:30:22,770 --> 00:30:50,975 Teresa Gregory: So, I ran into this problem and I always tell people it's never my bias now for myself is, I use that term intentionally, it's never an accountability issue. I never assume someone's coming up to work and doing a half job, right? Nobody wakes up in the morning and be like, I'm going go to work today and I'm only going to do part of my job today. I don't care. It's very rare that I've only encountered that one time in my career. 59 00:30:51,470 --> 00:31:24,290 Teresa Gregory: Most of the time people are coming in and we, as leaders do not know the scope of what they're doing. I had a team that was running a report every single week that nobody, it took eight hours and two people to get this report out and they had to get it out by 8AM on Friday and nobody looked at it. And they'd been doing it for years and nobody looked at it, but it was a job task that needed to be done or so they thought leadership needed it. Nobody looked at it. I said, you know what? 60 00:31:24,290 --> 00:31:56,440 Teresa Gregory: This week, let's not do it. Let's not do this report. Nobody's crickets. Do you know it was twelve months before someone asked for that report? Twelve months. Nobody's looking at it. So often what I tell people is as a leader, almost always never an accountability issue. It's unclear expectation, or they think they're supposed to be doing something that's not needed anymore and they don't have the

support to get all the other stuff done. 61 00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:39,365 Teresa Gregory: So they're trying to manage and juggle these things, but you're the new leader and nobody's explained it to you. And that's why I always tell people, if you are a leader and you are new to an organization, you need to go job shadow and you go job shadow every single person. And then you sit down with them and say, What are we doing well? And what can we do better? And what can we get rid of? And then use data to back it up because nobody's doing this. Nobody looked at the report for a year. By the way, they still don't do that report. I'm just going to let it never came back. That report went away. But that's the challenge. People are working on stuff that we don't know they're working on because they think it's part of this bigger process. 62 00:32:41,050 --> 00:33:14,830 Relly Nadler: Well, Cat, I shared this earlier with Teresa. You know, we had Rudy Tanzi, who's the co author of Deepak Chopra. I share this in coaching all the time around expectations. And he said, Stress is unmet expectations. And I recently shared that again in this supervision class I do for College of Executive Coaching. People were being trained to be coaches. And two people spoke up with some other great things around expectations. So one is unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments. 63 00:33:14,830 --> 00:33:44,830 Relly Nadler: So not only unclear expectations, but it's premeditated resentments. And someone else said, Oh, I had this boss. And what they said is unarticulated expectations are seeds for future resentments. Both of those are saying even more of a consequence that is unclear and stress. But not only stress is people are going to resent you because they're working on the wrong thing, Teresa, like you're saying. 64 00:33:46,295 --> 00:34:06,030 Teresa Gregory: You want to be part of the process. Everybody's like, I don't want to be a cog in the wheel. I want to be a cog in the wheel as long as we're moving the organization forward. And the cog is part of the process. I don't want to be a cog in the wheel over on the side that nobody pays attention to. I want to be part of the process. 65 00:34:06,190 --> 00:34:17,895 Cathy Greenberg: I use cog to describe my amazing assistant Shiloh, and I use the word chief of goodness. So get in there and be the cog, but make sure something's happening when you're— 66 00:34:17,895 --> 00:34:44,100 Teresa Gregory: Yeah, make sure you don't want to be like on the, you know, you don't want to be on the board and nobody looks at you. Right. You don't want to be, you don't want to be sitting in the room and nobody pays attention. So you don't want that being having a seat at the table means you have equal seat at the table with equal conversation in all of that things that it entails. You don't just want to be at the table because, we need to reset the table. 67 00:34:44,775 --> 00:35:12,280 Relly Nadler: Right. Right. Well,

so give us some tips then. How do people separate facts from assumptions? Like, what's the languaging of that? And like we all have said, if it's your boss, it's too easy to nod your head. And we said this earlier, I'm agreeing when maybe I'm not agreeing because I don't know how to challenge them. So how can you separate facts from assumptions? Or what do you tell people? 68 00:35:13,075 --> 00:35:40,355 Teresa Gregory: So I always tell people this. The first thing I tell managers is never ask, Does anybody have any questions? At the end of the meeting, I want everybody to erase that question. You're not allowed to ask that anymore. Never ask that question because nobody is going to challenge you. Nobody's going to sit and challenge. So as a leader, the very first thing I tell people is we're wrapping up the conversation. Okay. I want to take us a moment. Have we missed anything? 69 00:35:40,435 --> 00:36:05,370 Teresa Gregory: Is there any assumptions we need to challenge? Is there something else we need to do? Don't then wait for someone to say something, say, turn to your neighbor and discuss it. That's great. Turn to people in your neighbor. And now the person who's willing to say something can be, oh, we just had this discussion. Now it's not them saying it. It's now a team or a group that has come up with this idea. 70 00:36:05,370 --> 00:36:41,305 Teresa Gregory: And we think this now you're having a dialogue, you've created the environment for a dialogue to challenge what you're thinking in a way that everybody gets to participate because you're turning to someone to act, to say, Oh, I think we're missing this or that. So that's one way to do it as a leader. As an employee, the question has come, does anybody have any questions? You restate that and say, can you clarify for me what are the top two things we need to work on right as we leave this meeting? So you're asking the leader now to clarify. 71 00:36:41,305 --> 00:37:03,960 Teresa Gregory: You're not saying, I have a question about, or I'm concerned with what your direction is. You're clarifying to have them restate it. And now again, you create that opportunity as a dialogue. So as an employee, you can ask, Can you clarify for me what are the next two? What's your expectation? What does success look like is another way to ask that. 72 00:37:04,655 --> 00:37:42,485 Cathy Greenberg: This is not only helpful at work, it's helpful in your personal life. This is helpful in your personal life. We had a guest on not too long ago, Relly, I think you'll recall, a military professional who was a pilot and he talked about how important it is for doing the callback. That's my audience, military and law enforcement. It's important to say, Good copy, strong copy, copy period. Then you ask them, Tell me what you just heard, or Repeat what I just said. Of course, use military language to do that. 73 00:37:42,485 --> 00:38:22,770 Cathy Greenberg: But it's so everybody in the mission truly understands what they need to do in the moment because lives are at risk. Something you said earlier, Teresa, in the show about seeing, knowing, and adding is one of our natural predispositions. And looking at people and checking in with them on how they look and getting them to explain to you how they feel how they're feeling in that moment is not only critical in my community, it's a difference between sometimes life and death. 74 00:38:22,770 --> 00:39:15,860 Cathy Greenberg: Because if you can't engage that person and understand what they're dealing with, they could just be going from one thing to the next saying, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. And our data with 5,597 officers and 708 peer support people clearly indicate that in terms of their dysregulation, it is proportionately different. We're talking about having been in an emotional energy crisis currently since 2018, according to data from sixseconds.com and their state of the heart report every year, we are still in a human energy crisis. Recognizing that our questions around clarity are all the more important because what we're hearing and seeing may be very different than what other people are saying and sharing with us. 75 00:39:16,100 --> 00:39:46,805 Teresa Gregory: Yeah. I had an employee, a top employee, wonderful. She was amazing. Always, you know, you could pair her up with somebody. She loved to train people, loved onboarding, and then slowly she was late to work, which very rare. And I was no longer managing her at this time, but I'm... You know, we're talking, managers are talking, and they're like, oh, I think she's disengaged. And I was like, What? This is like the top performer, and I don't understand. Why do you think she's... 76 00:39:46,805 --> 00:40:12,645 Teresa Gregory: Oh, she's late to work all the time. She's always stressed. She's never smiling. She's going through these things. So what has happened is the new manager has now created a story. We haven't checked in with them, etc. And I said, You know what? I would check-in with her and find out what's going on. And come to find out her car broke down and she cannot afford to buy a new one. So she's been taking the bus, which is a two hour bus ride for her every day to get to work on time. 77 00:40:12,725 --> 00:40:37,180 Teresa Gregory: And sometimes that bus is late and that's why she's five minutes late. And I went in with her manager, with her new manager, and I said, You know what? Let's adjust your time thirty minutes. We're going to give you thirty minutes to get to work, adjust your schedule until we can get you a car and, you know, until you can get a car and afford it. And she said to me, she goes, Oh no, I don't want to do that. I'll be in trouble. I said, No, no, we can. 78 00:40:37,180 --> 00:41:04,540 Teresa Gregory: That's in our purview. We can adjust everybody's schedule thirty minutes. We're going give you an extra thirty, always on time after that. That thirty minute window allowed her to

be on time every single day, almost back to her normal self, still had stress. Coworkers found out. Coworkers said, I have a car that's sitting in my driveway that nobody drives because it was my old daughter. My daughter got a new car and now we have this car and it's just sitting there. She was able to buy a newer to her car and she's able to drive to work. 79 00:41:06,220 --> 00:41:20,995 Teresa Gregory: Problem solved. But what was the assumption? The assumption was she's looking for a new job. She's not happy. She wants more money. All of these things were put on top of this conversation when reality is she doesn't have a reliable way to get to work. 80 00:41:22,275 --> 00:41:49,825 Relly Nadler: That's great. Well, just to kind of summarize some of the tips, because on our show, Cat, we're talking about we always want to give tips and tools, and I think we can kind of summarize some of those. So, one of the things that I thought was brilliant that you just said was, so what are some of the things that we're not thinking about or unintended consequences? So, as a question, as a prompt, we want people to think. But I think what you said is go have that conversation with the person next to you. 81 00:41:49,825 --> 00:42:20,265 Relly Nadler: So, that's using facilitation skills. So, now everybody has an idea because it's two on two. You could ask that question to the big group, and you're going to hear from the same two or three people who are the extroverts and stuff. So, that was brilliant. And I also just want to add one more tool that I share all the time, and this comes from Nike. And you said it beautifully. Well, you got any questions? And no one's going to have any questions. 82 00:42:20,265 --> 00:42:55,520 Relly Nadler: So, and being deliberate, the leader should say, So, before I go on, ask me two questions. You just wait through the pregnant pause. And for the leader, do not say anything. And you may need a prompt. I want you to think. You all have good ideas. So, instead of saying, Do you got any questions? I want your answers. And so, I will stop and I say, Ask me two questions. And I'm not going on until I get questions. And then you get them thinking, and it's a simple little tip and tool that people can use for that. 83 00:42:56,240 --> 00:43:07,395 Cathy Greenberg: Well, I think we're almost at the end of the show today, Relly, and it's been an engaging conversation with you, Teresa. Thank you for being with us. Any closing thoughts, Relly? 84 00:43:07,395 --> 00:43:18,515 Relly Nadler: Yeah. So, let's say three questions. I'm just looking at one of our last ones. Three questions listeners should ask before tackling their next leadership challenge. Again, some practical tips from you, Teresa. 85 00:43:19,580 --> 00:43:33,225 Teresa Gregory: The first three, and here they are. What do I know? What am I adding? And how can I check? So, what do I know? What am I adding? And how can I check? 86 00:43:33,545 --> 00:43:40,025 Relly Nadler: Beautiful. All right, let me just have one of our lightning rounds. So just fill in the blank. 87 00:43:40,185 --> 00:43:40,985 Teresa Gregory: Got it. 88 00:43:41,065 --> 00:43:42,425 Relly Nadler: Leadership is? 89 00:43:42,825 --> 00:43:45,625 Teresa Gregory: Followership. You have to be a follower before you can be a leader. 90 00:43:46,290 --> 00:43:49,330 Relly Nadler: Beautiful. Okay. And at work, it's all about? 91 00:43:50,290 --> 00:44:00,530 Teresa Gregory: Looking at what is being spoken and what is being unspoken. So what are they saying and what are their actions? What's their nonverbal cues to me? 92 00:44:01,115 --> 00:44:11,275 Relly Nadler: That's great. And then the last one, because we all talk about on other shows resilience and how do you recharge. So what do do during the day to recharge in your work? 93 00:44:11,275 --> 00:44:22,170 Teresa Gregory: You have to go outside, 100%. You must go outside. It doesn't matter if it's raining, snowing, I don't care. The weather's going to turn nasty. You have to go outside at least fifteen minutes every day. 94 00:44:22,410 --> 00:44:50,250 Relly Nadler: That's great. Well, let me just share this last tip of Cat before we end here, because now we have notes that our listeners can go to. We didn't have notes before, and with our new platform, Podcasts That Matter, we have notes. So one of the tools, and I have this blog on Psychology Today, and there's an article called Snapshot Management. And it's exactly what we've been talking about, that people take the shortcut and they make a judgment, and it's a snapshot. 95 00:44:50,490 --> 00:45:16,360 Relly Nadler: And if the two or three snapshots are the same, that's who you are. Forget it. That's who you are. That's it. And so it goes through a series of what we're talking about here of other questions. The challenge are snapshots, because that's not who the person is. The other part of this is a collage. Instead of these five snapshots, you need 25 snapshots. Reality will be somewhere in those 25 shots versus five. 96 00:45:17,480 --> 00:46:04,695 Cathy Greenberg: Beautiful. Well, thank you, Teresa, for being our guest today. And really, you for being my go to person for over twenty years on Leadership Development News. I want to make sure everybody knows how to reach Teresa. You can go to squaredsuccess.com. You can also find her email, Teresa G at g2-c.com. It's all in the notes. And grab your free copy of my forthcoming book in 2027, Global Leadership Future Proof, our second generation twenty fifth anniversary edition of the award winning book, Global Leadership Next Generation, with Marshall Goldsmith, Alastair Robertson, and Maya Hu-Chan. Take good care, everybody. Until next time, keep tuning in to tune up your performance right here on Leadership Development News. 97 00:46:08,460 --> 00:46:31,865 Announcer: You've been listening to Leadership Development News: Profiles and Practices of Top Performers with your hosts, Cathy Greenberg and Relly Nadler. We sincerely hope that you gained some great ideas and inspiration on how to elevate your leadership skills. Podcaststhatmatter.org.