John Register: If you've ever wondered what it takes to achieve remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, you're in the right place.
Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change.
John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and Combat Army veteran and author.
Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser.
John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity.
Kat Koppett: We are here with you, live now, as you know, and then this will magically be transformed into a podcast which is available on Apple, Google, any place where you get your podcasts. So please search and download those episodes.
John Register: Yeah, I'm always. I can't believe we're actually there. I hit the episode and we're there. Kat, I'm like, Kat Koppett: I know!
John Register: I'm on a podcast. So if you've been enjoying these episodes, please hit the notification bell, because we want to share it with a friend and we want to know who you are. We want to want to dive in. So let's speaking of diving in, we have a great guest. Why don't you introduce us to our guest today?
Kat Koppett: Oh, my goodness, I'm so excited. I feel like since we started this podcast, this is a guest I've wanted to have on and to introduce you to John. Her name is Nitya Shekar and she is. She has so many areas of expertise. She blends her legal background, her executive coaching work and her interest in neuroscience research to expand what is considered possible in leadership and team effectiveness. Her specialty is building values driven company cultures with strong focuses on career mobility, change, agility and communication. She's joining us from New York City and you can tell already just from that intro why I'm so excited to have her here, Can't you?
John Register: Oh my gosh. So once and, the one, the only, the amazing Nitya Shekar!
Kat Koppett: Nitya Shekar!
Nitya Shekar: Hi yay, Hi Kat, Hi John, Thank you, what a wonderful intro. I want an intro like that every time I enter a room. Thank you so much.
John Register: Right, we also have an intro.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, John has good like theme music, right, you like yeah, what would your theme music be?
John Register: Mine? Or no, Nitya's?
Kat Koppett: No Well, I know, what is yours, John? That will give us time to think about what our answer might be.
John Register: My amazing virtual assistant who fired me. It's good, to go work with a larger company, because I'm a company of one. She, she, she was, wasn't working out, she wanted to come back and she's an artist and she gifted me with a theme song that does my entire life. It's a little rap. It's amazing. I was like is this ego, or is this me? You know me, or is this really good? And so I sent it out to my kids and they loved it. I was like, dad, this is fire, this is awesome. And so now I have this whole theme that you can actually get. You can go to the website and go pick it up. It's on Spotify and everything. It's called Inspire. It's got my little picture on it and she made it. I didn't ask for it. It was fantastic, it's fantastic.
Kat Koppett: Amazing.
John Register: So find yourself a theme song. That's Jalisa Wilson, go to her. So get your theme song.
Kat Koppett: Yeah. I asked the question what's your theme song? I don't have an answer, so I don't. I'll have to get someone to write for me. Do you have a thought, Nitya, about what your theme song would be?
Nitya Shekar: I think this is a very New York City answer, but I would have to say that mine is would be Empire State of Mind. If that is playing when I walk onto a stage that that'll do it.
Kat Koppett: Fantastic that's good, so I, so you know, we said before we started, there are going to be so many things to talk about. We're not going to get to everything, but maybe we can just start with the most obvious question, which is you're a leadership expert, and so how do you? What insights do you have about leading change?
Nitya Shekar: Well, I like, first of all, the way that you put it, which is leading change. When you're in a leadership position, you're leading change, whether you're the one who initiated the change or not. Sometimes the change is coming from you. It's something, an idea that's sprouted in your head that you're now trying to implement. And sometimes the change is coming from beyond you. That could be from above you, from your own senior management, or it could be just from the outside world, something really not in your control at all, but it almost doesn't matter in that moment, because when you're a leader, you have to lead the change, and that's one of the hardest things about it is that sometimes you're excited about it and the work is in bringing other people along, convincing other people, moving the work forward. But sometimes the work actually starts with you, as a leader, buying into the change yourself when it's not coming from you, and that is a step zero, if you will. That sometimes gets lost or sometimes gets forgotten in this process and you just kind of dive in and start to do it, and then you're 10, 20% of the way in and you think I actually don't really like this. Either or I don't agree with it, or I'm seeing consequences that I'm not sure how to handle, or whatever it is. That's understandable in some sense because, especially in the maybe more traditional corporate setting or even in the startup setting, you're not really given the time or the space to process the change yourself. You just kind of have to go. You know it's go time and time to implement and implementation is rushed, and so then you as a leader aren't doing the work yourself to to buy in or do what you need to do to really feel the change. So that's probably where I would start with insights.
John Register: You know, what's coming up for me is I had a lead, a massive change. Lots of staff had been kind of gutted. We're down like half of half what we had. We had a very short window of time to get a funding source in and coming into that environment. When you're talking about leading the change, but you also have to push the change fast, you have to do something fast. What are some of the strategies that you employ when a leader does come into a situation like that and does have to move quickly?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, you're right, sometimes it really is an outside in type of thing. You start doing the work and then, and then the buy in comes later. I would say that when you do have to move quickly, to lean on your people and to really empower the people around you to move fast. So, in other words, if you actively manage people, if there are people reporting into you, count on them, lean on them, depend on them to start pushing things forward, because a lot of times they are going to have a lot more context on what the consequences are of this change, what the actual implications are, what are some of the dependencies that you're going to have to take into account. They are going to know more than you I can almost say that as a blanket statement and so lean on them a whole lot more and don't put it all on your shoulders, because you're not going to have all of the answers. That's one thing, and then I think a second thing I would say is to trust the process a little bit. So, as you're rolling out a change and starting to see what comes out of the change, a lot of the feedback will just come from that. Yes, people are going to give you feedback on how the change is being received, but the feedback will just come from the work too, and so trust the process and listen to that.
Kat Koppett: Yeah.
John Register: That's good.
Kat Koppett: I just love so much where you started with it. I think the way I heard it was you have to start with yourself, and that's easy when it's easier when you're motivating the change. Sometimes we talk here about change that's thrust upon you versus change like John's injury versus change that you're choosing, like moving to a new place or getting married, something like that. But this idea that I have to, that whether, whatever kind of change it is, I have to start with me, it resonates for me when we talk, especially in organizations, about skipping that point, like that okay, here's the change. How am I gonna communicate it? What am I gonna say to other people, as opposed to really investigating? Where do I feel confident? What am I unsure about? Where am I resistant? So how do we help ourselves? Let's do that.
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it does take patience for one, and patience with ourselves, because I don't think a lot of times leaders stop to give themselves permission to feel whatever it is they're feeling, whether that is resistance or total disagreement or sadness or anger these aren't really words that I don't know that every leader gives themselves permission to feel or use out loud in the workplace, and a lot of that is traditional workplace culture puts leaders in a position of needing to be super human rather than just human, which is what they are, it's you're a leader, so feelings and all of that like leave that at the door or manage it outside of this place and don't bring it in here. But actually sometimes the best thing a leader can do is to really feel whatever it is they're feeling and not resist the resistance. If you resist the resistance, I think as we've probably heard in other contexts it starts to drive you and then you don't get good outcomes later because then it's just bottled up and it comes out in less healthy, less productive ways, whereas if you allow yourself to feel it and express it, even then something can be done with that. Then suddenly a channel is open for some kind of action to be taken, even if you can't really avoid the change and you don't really have a choice but to implement the change. Now you've been heard. Now communication channels have been opened and it really is unfair sometimes the pressure that we put on leaders to not do that and to sort of model this almost robotic perfection in front of their people and that's just. It's not helpful at all and people are smarter, I think, than we give them credit for, in the sense that people that we lead, they can see it, we're pretty transparent and they're not really gonna be inspired or motivated to move that change forward if they're not really convinced that the leader is behind it or at least being honest about the fact that this is hard.
John Register: You know that's interesting. I'm going back a couple of questions. What you said earlier when I was asking about how do you manage it in a very short period of time, and that I was thinking that's exactly what I was doing. I was just trying to empower because I had no clue of what was the holes and the landmines and all these things that were there to lean on the people. And then at the same time there was a group that tried to like can take advantage of that space as well. So almost like trying to I won't say sabotage, but I will say trying to grab for power and to show that they are the ones looking good. But now here you are trying to empower others and now they're trying to take that power in and shift it around. When you start seeing that as a leader, how are you managing that dynamic of the team to ensure that everybody's rolling in the same direction and, you know, kind of establishing yourself as we are going this way? I'm the one that's coming in here, but at the same time I need all of you to move us forward.
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it is interesting what you bring up, that in times of great change, sometimes you see what really motivates people these, these, you just have to phrase grabs for aha. Yeah, we think we know people and then everything's shaken up like a snow globe and then you see, oh, this is what this person is really after or this is the choice that they are deciding to make in this moment. A lot of that comes out of the word work during times of change, so I'm not suggesting in any kind of extreme way that we have to hold that against people forever or something right. I mean, you know people have their moments, but it is data. It is data on how people show up during change. So I do want to put that out there. It is relevant. As far as how to handle it, I actually think that and it may depend on who the person is right. Is this a person who, in the traditional sense, reports into you? Is it a peer? Is it a stakeholder, is it? I think that that is material to my answer, but, assuming it's somebody that you have enough of a trusted relationship with that you can pull them aside. I think having a real conversation about it and calling it out is important. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but I am suggesting that it's important to do, to share what you're noticing. So not in like an accusatory way. But let's say it's cat. I'm just going to pick on cat for a second is my example, if it were cat, for me to pull cat aside and say, hey, cat, it's a lot going on right now. We're in transition. X and Y and Z are happening, and this is what I'm noticing in you. You know so, not saying cat, you're being this or cat, you're doing this Because we don't know. Wait, that's. Those are statements that are filled with assumptions and interpretations, but, cat, here's what I'm noticing. Can you help me understand what's going on here? I think that has to be the preface, john, to the statements you said around hey, actually need us all going in the same direction, or I need all of you here in order to move this forward. It requires a hold on, stop. I'm noticing this. What's going on? What's motivating this? Can you help me understand? And then that can lead to a conversation around. Well, here's what I really need to be motivating you. Here's where I need your head at, kind of.
John Register: I could have used you, like last year. Where were you? You're doing this. I didn't do that, so, but I but yeah, that's, that's good, fantastic. Thank you for that, that amazing answer. Go ahead, Kat.
Kat Koppett: Oh, so much. I guess you know. One of the things that I'm hearing in this conversation is how much sort of bad advice leaders get about how to be leaders or how to lead change. So I'm curious what are your least favorite standard bits of change or leadership wisdom?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, you're so right. There is a lot out there that has just kind of hung around for a while. You know conventional wisdom, because somebody wrote a book 40 years ago and we're all still reading the same book. You know, it just hangs around. And I'm not here to say throw out all conventional wisdom by any means. A lot of it really has its place and has actually informed later wisdom. But we need a critical eye towards the stuff because otherwise what are we doing here? You know, if our thoughts on leadership aren't evolving, then we're not evolving. So to answer, your question. I generally think I'm generally fairly skeptical when I see any kind of leadership, wisdom or frameworks or models that are a little too binary in their nature, where there's some sort of you know it's this or that and you know, choose one, or anything that shows a lot of just black and white or extreme type of thinking, where there isn't that much room for gray, where there isn't that much room for nuance, I tend to be skeptical of. So I think one example is what we were saying earlier around. You know, leaders have to be strong for their people and be advocates of if they're working at a company, whatever company they're working for, they have to be the ambassador and so therefore, you know, they have to embrace the message and bring their people along. It's true, right, but it's sometimes taken to an unhealthy extreme, which is that leaders become such an ambassador of wherever they're working that they don't question anything that's going on there. You know. That's one example. Another example would be when people talk about, you know, leaders, the whole kind of leaders, eat last thing. I like it a lot in a lot of ways, right, that you know. Put your people first and think about them first, and if you're empowering them and helping them, then that pays dividends later and that pays dividends. I really espouse that in a lot of ways. But I think again, I see leaders who take that kind of advice to literally and they not only eat last, they kind of forget to eat at all and and forget self care and things like that. So I worry a bit that a lot of leadership is taken a little too literally, it taken a little too extreme. The same can be said for, you know, hustle and grind culture and I think, cat, you know how I feel about that, and john, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of it. It really doesn't have its place, you know it. Leaders very often have to be the ones who are carving the path, and that takes work, it just does. And that said, it can, it can spiral into patterns of behavior that just set the wrong precedent for the people that were leading, that we don't take care of ourselves, or that the you know the work before, I think, kind of thing. So that probably is sort of an umbrella of leadership wisdom. That that I I really question these days.
John Register: You know there are two things that came up with your answer. Actually, there's a lot more than two and I want to be clear. One is around binary leadership and want to talk about that Second and the first is you were, you're talking about this kind of in other worlds, right. Where are we pulling from? So when you, when you look at so you were noticing earlier I had a gentleman background has some artwork here and what other? Where can we find other things outside of our scope? Sometimes in companies, we might bring in a third party that has nothing to do with the business that we're in to help us look at our business different or differently. Where do you go find those sources? How do you help leaders to see that that might be of value for them and the organization?
Nitya Shekar: And I think that's this question because it is so important to look outside of the bubble that we are leading in, whether that is the company that we're working at or just corporate culture generally, whatever that may be, leadership lessons can so often be drawn from and have no exposure to and really nothing to do with. I know that in my past workplaces One of the things I've really enjoyed is exactly what you said, john drawing leadership from other worlds that aren't our own. So I myself have worked in tech companies and more recently in financial services, and leadership is thought of in a kind of particular way in those places. And then you look at worlds like you know the, the, the world of. You know music, for example. I think you look at the worlds of theater, the world of and I certainly don't need to tell you, john but the world of you know professional athletics. There are so many lessons that can be drawn from those places that we just don't have a lot of exposure to in a traditional type of workplace, such as you know what is actually the purpose of setting a goal. You know in isolation in a workplace, a goal is a thing you put into a spreadsheet, right at best, and then maybe you're reminded of it around performance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly goal tasks of tasks right okay, ours is that.
Yeah, it's a like check the box. They, you know, in many places. But then you look at these other places. Certainly I know, having worked with athletes like yourself, john, understanding that a goal is so much more than that. A goal, in many, many times, is an actual physical location, first of all, to try and get to, or it is a personal best in terms of what your body is capable of doing, and pushing your body very specifically to do something that you're entirely sure if it can do, or pushing your mind towards that, to really believe in something. So it just kind of puts into perspective what it means to set a goal right, and I've learned, certainly from working with people in these fields, that a goal needs to be something that feels at least a little bit challenging and a little bit scary, for sure, but also something that you feel that the right support you can do. It's a little scary and yet achievable. You know, it's a. That's a kind of perspective on leadership that I don't know that I would have gotten. Just talking to people who work in tech, for example, right, and I think the same goes for the world of music. I've talked to people who lead orchestra, as lead symphonies, for example, right, or who you know sing professionally for a living, and leadership there has a lot of the same lessons as a traditional workplace, but also some pretty unique ones. So, for example, what is, what does perfection mean? You know, I mean, we all know, I think perfection can be a trap for people in a different setting. What does perfection mean there? Because it's an, it's an artistic pursuit, it's not a corporate pursuit, it's not a scientific pursuit, it's artistic. What does perfection mean? Is that? Is that even the right way to think about it? And can we think about our personal kind of improvement in a way that's motivating and that isn't, you know, holding us back? What does it mean? To really listen? Right in the sphere of music, we talk about listening and like one on ones or team meetings and things, but when you are standing in front of a 200 person, you know orchestra, with singers and with people playing different parts, you know you're really listening. And what are you even listening for? You know, are you listening for it like sounding pretty good? Are you listening for mistakes? Are you listening for you know a story that's being told or something else? All the others like these are. These are all things that we can, we can and should, I believe, bring into traditional leadership structures, because in those fields people are asking questions that I think a lot of companies just aren't even asking or no to ask.
John Register: Are you listening to phrasing what? Yeah, what's the story? I love that. What's the story in the music that you are hearing? Or resonating, even with you. I've learned so much in that the I don't go into the group I was leading. I learned so much about myself and I generally tend to put myself into one of two camps as far as myself. Either we're talking about NASA earlier and I was I shared with audiences about under the water or an outer space. If we don't have an atmosphere to take us into that environment, it might cause panic, and so, not without going to story, I asked myself the question am I, am I adding oxygen to this environment or am I taking it away? I can see the panic or I can see the elevation of the group. How do I manage in that is, as I'm hearing you say, how do we as, as leaders, take that self assessment to see if we're adding the oxygen or take me away out of an environment?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it's absolutely true. I mean, and sometimes we have to be prepared for an answer to that question that we don't really like. It requires a little somewhat maybe surprising amount of humility to be able to not only ask that question but to answer it as, oh, I'm taking away the oxygen here and, oh boy, I now need to correct that or, you know, do something about that. That just, I think that that's the natural next step, that maybe some people aren't really ready for, that, that need to ready themselves for and I'm putting myself in this category, john Whenever I have asked myself a similar question that realization that actually I might not be helping here and might actually be maybe holding something up, being a bottleneck or I don't know, just annoying people or stressing them out a little bit more. It's not really an easy realization to come to, because it requires looking inward and saying in and acknowledging that, like you're not adding value here and that's tough for the ego, you know. I'll just put it out there.
Kat Koppett: Absolutely. Thank you. I resonate so much with this conversation. After years of teaching leadership and management, all of a sudden I had employees I had, and it was so different to actually be a leader, right to actually lead as opposed to understanding theoretically. Leadership, yes, and this idea of like when am I the problem, it feels really really resonant.
John Register: I mean it's so real. I mean I look at you and say all of a sudden I realize I had employees. It looks like you had employees.
Kat Koppett: In a previous podcast that I did actually I with my first set of employees. I remember this moment where I had I've been going off and teaching management leadership for years I'd been designing at the social media company that we worked at and where we met. I designed all of their front, their first line manager training, right. For years I'd been doing this and I had this realization that maybe I wasn't always practicing what I preached. It was harder to put into practice and so on the podcast, I was talking to my one of my employees and I said I said that. I said wow, I realized that whenever I go and facilitate these programs, I think about what I'm actually doing with you and maybe I'm not living up to my standards. And what I expected him to say was wow, that's so vulnerable you are. Wow, that's such great insight that you have about yourself as a leader. And instead he said managers, learn about managing. He said there's being for managers, which was shocking on levels because it was our business.
Nitya Shekar: But what I knew?
Kat Koppett: about it was. It was such a wonderful moment because I was so focused on myself and I assumed that my people were, look, think, assessing me as a leader, thinking about me or a leader, or knowing that I was thinking about leadership, and they had it was not on their radar at all. Yeah, wow, right. So I think, if we just circle back to this idea and we're gonna play a game in a minute, but I guess you know just sort of in summary, there's something about the theme for me, as we're talking feels like it's about really being having self-awareness and taking care of yourself and then somehow matching that with, or figuring out how to bring that to the people that you're serving in change. How does that land, or what would you add?
Nitya Shekar: I love the way you put that in, that self-awareness even though it's double edged and you might not necessarily like what you become aware of, it is the necessary first step to serving others. And that is, you know, if you believe that leadership is, at the end of the day, serving others, which I absolutely do. But if you're not starting with hold on, how am I showing up right now? How am I equipped to serve? Am I equipped to serve? Do I need different tools? Am I using them right? If you don't start there, then you're not necessarily setting yourself up to do it. But I also like what you said, Kat, about the spotlight effect thing of like. We sometimes think everybody can see every single thing that we're doing or thinking about or that's motivating us. And a lot of times people are leading our trying to get through the day right, trying to finish whatever it is they're doing, and they're not necessarily so focused on this, which is all the more reason I think that we as leaders can and should be motivated to make their day and their lives and their careers as hopefully as easy as possible, you know, so that they don't have to think about it.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, beautiful.
John Register: So beautiful. Just put things together in great perspective. I'm just geeking out right now, so that's that.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, I think we're gonna have to go back because we can't possibly.
John Register: Benny Campbell is on. He was how do we navigate? No, put up here. How do we navigate self-awareness, self-consciousness and self delusion? Oh, Brenny, I said I'm sorry I did my glass on Brenny, not Benny. Brenny Campbell, sorry about that. Thanks for being on, Brenny, appreciate you.
Kat Koppett: Hey Brenny. Well, what do you think about that? How do we, how can we be clear about when we're being self-aware and when we're deluding ourselves?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, I think that the practice of self-awareness, self-consciousness, is not a solo practice. It's okay if it starts as a solo practice you know people reading the leadership books and all that kind of thing but it is not a solo practice. It does involve other people and so this could be that you get a coach I certainly have a personal bias in favor of that right Someone who is professionally equipped to help you with this and call out things like self delusions and what you might not be seeing. You know blind spots and such. But whether it's a one-on-one type of coach or not, just getting feedback in some way from people around you is, I think, probably one of the best antidotes to two self delusions or just anything unexpected that comes up when you're in that self-awareness practice is just getting other perspectives. Now the key is not to get too caught up in other perspectives or latch on too much to this person thinks this about me but more just see it as data. You know incoming data, just getting a lot of data, so that it's not just your own perspective on yourself that you have, but you have this wide range of ideally diverse perspectives that you can then step back and build into a picture. This is where a coach can be really helpful. Actually, that even if you don't have a coach, just doing that data gathering and saying, okay, here's how I see myself and my strengths and what I need to work on, and then here's what other people think. There are formal ways to do this and something like a 360 assessment or whatever. It doesn't have to be that. It can just be talking to people you know and asking them you know, how am I showing up, what can I be working on? And as long as you're doing that in a way that's genuine and in a way that they can trust you, hopefully you'll get a lot of good information and build the right picture of who you are as a leader.
John Register: Oh that beautiful. Thank you, Kat. Wanna play a game.
Kat Koppett: Yes, and in the background I've been thinking about. I had a plan, which is always dangerous, and I've been listening to our conversation and thinking what actually is a game that can sort of get at what we're talking about. So I'm modifying on the fly a game that I would typically do with a larger group of people, but we're gonna just see how it works. So one of us is gonna say here's the phrase, like my name is whatever and something that's true about you, and then, if it's true for the others of us, we're just gonna like raise our hand, you know, to sort of chime in. It doesn't? There's no good or bad if we're the same or different, but we're just learning about each other. And then the next, and then you'll call on the next person, right? So if I went first, I might say, okay, Nitya could call on either one of us and we're just gonna play for a while. And I thought maybe we could. We can just start with whatever is true about us, and then maybe at some point I'll say, okay, now let's talk about leadership and we'll see about things that are true for us around leadership. Okay. So I'll start and I'll just say my name is Kat and what's true about me is that I'm most comfortable being second in command, but having someone that I can pass the buck to or get advice from Anybody Okay, I'm unique. All right, Nitya, you go next.
Nitya Shekar: Are we allowed to comment on those or no? We'll just keep going.
Kat Koppett: I'll just keep going for a little bit and then we can comment at the end, unless you have something to say and I wanna hear it, no, not really All right.
Nitya Shekar: All right, I'm Nitya, and what's true about me is that I really enjoy diving into the minute details, not from a place of micromanagement, but I just love the little details and specifics. No, definitely not. You're right, turns out, I'm also unique.
Kat Koppett: Okay, when are we gonna make a good team so far? I'm gonna call you John.
John Register: I was just gonna go very simple. My name is John. What's true about me is I love chocolate.
Kat Koppett: Yes.
Nitya Shekar: Thank you, john, thank you?
Kat Koppett: Who are you gonna call on?
John Register: Let's go back to Nitya.
Nitya Shekar: I'm Nitya, and what's true about me is that I love listening to podcasts. I'm a podcast fiend.
Kat Koppett: I am a podcast fiend. Are you still doing your podcast, Nitya?
Nitya Shekar: No, we are kind of on indefinite hiatus, I would say, because since we've been talking about change this whole time, we've all gone through quite a bit of change, so we're just evaluating.
Kat Koppett: Well, there's some past episodes that are great on leadership, that's right.
Nitya Shekar: That's right.
John Register: Can this be like books on tape too? Cause I've been doing like I date myself, saying books on tape, but my audio, that's a good chance. Okay, good, cause I listen to now my drive to.
Kat Koppett: Are you chilling on, Nitya? We'll do a couple more rounds. I'll call on you, cat. My name is Cat and I have an amazing kitten sleeping on my feet. So I guess I'll just say I have a cat, I do, oh, okay, I do, okay. I'm gonna call on you, john, once you start sneezing. Okay, you wanna bring us home, john? You can do one more for us.
John Register: Okay, yep, oh, okay. My name is John, and what's true about me is I killed 10,000 chickens a night.
Kat Koppett: You killed 10,000 chickens a night, a night. Anybody else have that? No, but we wanna hear that story, no.
John Register: I used to work for a Tyson's Chicken in the live hang and it was the job that told me to stay in school. So I counted one night. I counted one, because it was a rope thing. I counted for an hour how many chickens were coming through Me personally was hanging up and then I multiplied that by the eight hour shift and that's the number I came up with.
Nitya Shekar: Wow.
Kat Koppett: Wow.
John Register: Wow, is right.
Kat Koppett: I guess what I wanna say. Thank you all for playing. So two things about this. One is, if you're, there are lots of ways to scale this in virtual space. You can have people cover their cameras, like with a post-it note, and then reveal themselves. If it's also true about them, it's a great way for groups to get to know each other In person. Sometimes we play in a circle, like in musical chairs, with one person in the middle and then everybody switches places and tries to find a new chair. But, as you can see, even just in a little bit we did it's so quick to learn about each other and where you're unique and wonderful and where are their connections, and so I really appreciated how much of our conversation today, Nitya, was about knowing yourself as a leader and being authentic, about where you're coming from and what you care about and what you need so that you can. That's what made me think of this game.
Nitya Shekar: You know, I love what you're talking about with Nitya about the third way.
John Register: You know another way, Jason Saul has a book called the Third Way and just gather more information. And, Kat, you know your brilliance of what you just always share and just how you just think about things different and push the conversation. Fascinating. I know we have more, at the top of the bottom, like, is it top or bottom? Let's well, it's
Kat Koppett: Middle of the hour.
John Register: Middle hour. We're at the middle of the hour.
Kat Koppett: Into the hour.
John Register: Um, and so, thank you so much, Nitya, for being on with us. What just golden nuggets you have given us to think about, to consider. If you're on, you're watching. We have Brittany Campbell, we had Morris Parsons on. Share this, go out. You know. If you have a leader that needs to hear some of these this podcast, please go back and share as well. So, we're come to another end of performance shift. We hope that today's conversation has left you feeling inspired and ready to embrace the change that's in your own life, and we'll be back with another episode coming up on your your nearest podcast channel, and you'll probably have Nitya on with you because she loves podcasts and we will talk a little bit later. Any closing thoughts from you?
Nitya Shekar: I just want to thank the both of you because this has been such a fun and dynamic conversation and I just love geeking out about the stuff with the both of you and thanks for having me.
Kat Koppett: Thanks for being here. More to come. I hope we will see you all soon. Cheers!
John Register: Cheers, bye for now.
Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change.
John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and Combat Army veteran and author.
Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser.
John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity.
Kat Koppett: We are here with you, live now, as you know, and then this will magically be transformed into a podcast which is available on Apple, Google, any place where you get your podcasts. So please search and download those episodes.
John Register: Yeah, I'm always. I can't believe we're actually there. I hit the episode and we're there. Kat, I'm like, Kat Koppett: I know!
John Register: I'm on a podcast. So if you've been enjoying these episodes, please hit the notification bell, because we want to share it with a friend and we want to know who you are. We want to want to dive in. So let's speaking of diving in, we have a great guest. Why don't you introduce us to our guest today?
Kat Koppett: Oh, my goodness, I'm so excited. I feel like since we started this podcast, this is a guest I've wanted to have on and to introduce you to John. Her name is Nitya Shekar and she is. She has so many areas of expertise. She blends her legal background, her executive coaching work and her interest in neuroscience research to expand what is considered possible in leadership and team effectiveness. Her specialty is building values driven company cultures with strong focuses on career mobility, change, agility and communication. She's joining us from New York City and you can tell already just from that intro why I'm so excited to have her here, Can't you?
John Register: Oh my gosh. So once and, the one, the only, the amazing Nitya Shekar!
Kat Koppett: Nitya Shekar!
Nitya Shekar: Hi yay, Hi Kat, Hi John, Thank you, what a wonderful intro. I want an intro like that every time I enter a room. Thank you so much.
John Register: Right, we also have an intro.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, John has good like theme music, right, you like yeah, what would your theme music be?
John Register: Mine? Or no, Nitya's?
Kat Koppett: No Well, I know, what is yours, John? That will give us time to think about what our answer might be.
John Register: My amazing virtual assistant who fired me. It's good, to go work with a larger company, because I'm a company of one. She, she, she was, wasn't working out, she wanted to come back and she's an artist and she gifted me with a theme song that does my entire life. It's a little rap. It's amazing. I was like is this ego, or is this me? You know me, or is this really good? And so I sent it out to my kids and they loved it. I was like, dad, this is fire, this is awesome. And so now I have this whole theme that you can actually get. You can go to the website and go pick it up. It's on Spotify and everything. It's called Inspire. It's got my little picture on it and she made it. I didn't ask for it. It was fantastic, it's fantastic.
Kat Koppett: Amazing.
John Register: So find yourself a theme song. That's Jalisa Wilson, go to her. So get your theme song.
Kat Koppett: Yeah. I asked the question what's your theme song? I don't have an answer, so I don't. I'll have to get someone to write for me. Do you have a thought, Nitya, about what your theme song would be?
Nitya Shekar: I think this is a very New York City answer, but I would have to say that mine is would be Empire State of Mind. If that is playing when I walk onto a stage that that'll do it.
Kat Koppett: Fantastic that's good, so I, so you know, we said before we started, there are going to be so many things to talk about. We're not going to get to everything, but maybe we can just start with the most obvious question, which is you're a leadership expert, and so how do you? What insights do you have about leading change?
Nitya Shekar: Well, I like, first of all, the way that you put it, which is leading change. When you're in a leadership position, you're leading change, whether you're the one who initiated the change or not. Sometimes the change is coming from you. It's something, an idea that's sprouted in your head that you're now trying to implement. And sometimes the change is coming from beyond you. That could be from above you, from your own senior management, or it could be just from the outside world, something really not in your control at all, but it almost doesn't matter in that moment, because when you're a leader, you have to lead the change, and that's one of the hardest things about it is that sometimes you're excited about it and the work is in bringing other people along, convincing other people, moving the work forward. But sometimes the work actually starts with you, as a leader, buying into the change yourself when it's not coming from you, and that is a step zero, if you will. That sometimes gets lost or sometimes gets forgotten in this process and you just kind of dive in and start to do it, and then you're 10, 20% of the way in and you think I actually don't really like this. Either or I don't agree with it, or I'm seeing consequences that I'm not sure how to handle, or whatever it is. That's understandable in some sense because, especially in the maybe more traditional corporate setting or even in the startup setting, you're not really given the time or the space to process the change yourself. You just kind of have to go. You know it's go time and time to implement and implementation is rushed, and so then you as a leader aren't doing the work yourself to to buy in or do what you need to do to really feel the change. So that's probably where I would start with insights.
John Register: You know, what's coming up for me is I had a lead, a massive change. Lots of staff had been kind of gutted. We're down like half of half what we had. We had a very short window of time to get a funding source in and coming into that environment. When you're talking about leading the change, but you also have to push the change fast, you have to do something fast. What are some of the strategies that you employ when a leader does come into a situation like that and does have to move quickly?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, you're right, sometimes it really is an outside in type of thing. You start doing the work and then, and then the buy in comes later. I would say that when you do have to move quickly, to lean on your people and to really empower the people around you to move fast. So, in other words, if you actively manage people, if there are people reporting into you, count on them, lean on them, depend on them to start pushing things forward, because a lot of times they are going to have a lot more context on what the consequences are of this change, what the actual implications are, what are some of the dependencies that you're going to have to take into account. They are going to know more than you I can almost say that as a blanket statement and so lean on them a whole lot more and don't put it all on your shoulders, because you're not going to have all of the answers. That's one thing, and then I think a second thing I would say is to trust the process a little bit. So, as you're rolling out a change and starting to see what comes out of the change, a lot of the feedback will just come from that. Yes, people are going to give you feedback on how the change is being received, but the feedback will just come from the work too, and so trust the process and listen to that.
Kat Koppett: Yeah.
John Register: That's good.
Kat Koppett: I just love so much where you started with it. I think the way I heard it was you have to start with yourself, and that's easy when it's easier when you're motivating the change. Sometimes we talk here about change that's thrust upon you versus change like John's injury versus change that you're choosing, like moving to a new place or getting married, something like that. But this idea that I have to, that whether, whatever kind of change it is, I have to start with me, it resonates for me when we talk, especially in organizations, about skipping that point, like that okay, here's the change. How am I gonna communicate it? What am I gonna say to other people, as opposed to really investigating? Where do I feel confident? What am I unsure about? Where am I resistant? So how do we help ourselves? Let's do that.
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it does take patience for one, and patience with ourselves, because I don't think a lot of times leaders stop to give themselves permission to feel whatever it is they're feeling, whether that is resistance or total disagreement or sadness or anger these aren't really words that I don't know that every leader gives themselves permission to feel or use out loud in the workplace, and a lot of that is traditional workplace culture puts leaders in a position of needing to be super human rather than just human, which is what they are, it's you're a leader, so feelings and all of that like leave that at the door or manage it outside of this place and don't bring it in here. But actually sometimes the best thing a leader can do is to really feel whatever it is they're feeling and not resist the resistance. If you resist the resistance, I think as we've probably heard in other contexts it starts to drive you and then you don't get good outcomes later because then it's just bottled up and it comes out in less healthy, less productive ways, whereas if you allow yourself to feel it and express it, even then something can be done with that. Then suddenly a channel is open for some kind of action to be taken, even if you can't really avoid the change and you don't really have a choice but to implement the change. Now you've been heard. Now communication channels have been opened and it really is unfair sometimes the pressure that we put on leaders to not do that and to sort of model this almost robotic perfection in front of their people and that's just. It's not helpful at all and people are smarter, I think, than we give them credit for, in the sense that people that we lead, they can see it, we're pretty transparent and they're not really gonna be inspired or motivated to move that change forward if they're not really convinced that the leader is behind it or at least being honest about the fact that this is hard.
John Register: You know that's interesting. I'm going back a couple of questions. What you said earlier when I was asking about how do you manage it in a very short period of time, and that I was thinking that's exactly what I was doing. I was just trying to empower because I had no clue of what was the holes and the landmines and all these things that were there to lean on the people. And then at the same time there was a group that tried to like can take advantage of that space as well. So almost like trying to I won't say sabotage, but I will say trying to grab for power and to show that they are the ones looking good. But now here you are trying to empower others and now they're trying to take that power in and shift it around. When you start seeing that as a leader, how are you managing that dynamic of the team to ensure that everybody's rolling in the same direction and, you know, kind of establishing yourself as we are going this way? I'm the one that's coming in here, but at the same time I need all of you to move us forward.
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it is interesting what you bring up, that in times of great change, sometimes you see what really motivates people these, these, you just have to phrase grabs for aha. Yeah, we think we know people and then everything's shaken up like a snow globe and then you see, oh, this is what this person is really after or this is the choice that they are deciding to make in this moment. A lot of that comes out of the word work during times of change, so I'm not suggesting in any kind of extreme way that we have to hold that against people forever or something right. I mean, you know people have their moments, but it is data. It is data on how people show up during change. So I do want to put that out there. It is relevant. As far as how to handle it, I actually think that and it may depend on who the person is right. Is this a person who, in the traditional sense, reports into you? Is it a peer? Is it a stakeholder, is it? I think that that is material to my answer, but, assuming it's somebody that you have enough of a trusted relationship with that you can pull them aside. I think having a real conversation about it and calling it out is important. I'm not going to suggest that it's easy, but I am suggesting that it's important to do, to share what you're noticing. So not in like an accusatory way. But let's say it's cat. I'm just going to pick on cat for a second is my example, if it were cat, for me to pull cat aside and say, hey, cat, it's a lot going on right now. We're in transition. X and Y and Z are happening, and this is what I'm noticing in you. You know so, not saying cat, you're being this or cat, you're doing this Because we don't know. Wait, that's. Those are statements that are filled with assumptions and interpretations, but, cat, here's what I'm noticing. Can you help me understand what's going on here? I think that has to be the preface, john, to the statements you said around hey, actually need us all going in the same direction, or I need all of you here in order to move this forward. It requires a hold on, stop. I'm noticing this. What's going on? What's motivating this? Can you help me understand? And then that can lead to a conversation around. Well, here's what I really need to be motivating you. Here's where I need your head at, kind of.
John Register: I could have used you, like last year. Where were you? You're doing this. I didn't do that, so, but I but yeah, that's, that's good, fantastic. Thank you for that, that amazing answer. Go ahead, Kat.
Kat Koppett: Oh, so much. I guess you know. One of the things that I'm hearing in this conversation is how much sort of bad advice leaders get about how to be leaders or how to lead change. So I'm curious what are your least favorite standard bits of change or leadership wisdom?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, you're so right. There is a lot out there that has just kind of hung around for a while. You know conventional wisdom, because somebody wrote a book 40 years ago and we're all still reading the same book. You know, it just hangs around. And I'm not here to say throw out all conventional wisdom by any means. A lot of it really has its place and has actually informed later wisdom. But we need a critical eye towards the stuff because otherwise what are we doing here? You know, if our thoughts on leadership aren't evolving, then we're not evolving. So to answer, your question. I generally think I'm generally fairly skeptical when I see any kind of leadership, wisdom or frameworks or models that are a little too binary in their nature, where there's some sort of you know it's this or that and you know, choose one, or anything that shows a lot of just black and white or extreme type of thinking, where there isn't that much room for gray, where there isn't that much room for nuance, I tend to be skeptical of. So I think one example is what we were saying earlier around. You know, leaders have to be strong for their people and be advocates of if they're working at a company, whatever company they're working for, they have to be the ambassador and so therefore, you know, they have to embrace the message and bring their people along. It's true, right, but it's sometimes taken to an unhealthy extreme, which is that leaders become such an ambassador of wherever they're working that they don't question anything that's going on there. You know. That's one example. Another example would be when people talk about, you know, leaders, the whole kind of leaders, eat last thing. I like it a lot in a lot of ways, right, that you know. Put your people first and think about them first, and if you're empowering them and helping them, then that pays dividends later and that pays dividends. I really espouse that in a lot of ways. But I think again, I see leaders who take that kind of advice to literally and they not only eat last, they kind of forget to eat at all and and forget self care and things like that. So I worry a bit that a lot of leadership is taken a little too literally, it taken a little too extreme. The same can be said for, you know, hustle and grind culture and I think, cat, you know how I feel about that, and john, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of it. It really doesn't have its place, you know it. Leaders very often have to be the ones who are carving the path, and that takes work, it just does. And that said, it can, it can spiral into patterns of behavior that just set the wrong precedent for the people that were leading, that we don't take care of ourselves, or that the you know the work before, I think, kind of thing. So that probably is sort of an umbrella of leadership wisdom. That that I I really question these days.
John Register: You know there are two things that came up with your answer. Actually, there's a lot more than two and I want to be clear. One is around binary leadership and want to talk about that Second and the first is you were, you're talking about this kind of in other worlds, right. Where are we pulling from? So when you, when you look at so you were noticing earlier I had a gentleman background has some artwork here and what other? Where can we find other things outside of our scope? Sometimes in companies, we might bring in a third party that has nothing to do with the business that we're in to help us look at our business different or differently. Where do you go find those sources? How do you help leaders to see that that might be of value for them and the organization?
Nitya Shekar: And I think that's this question because it is so important to look outside of the bubble that we are leading in, whether that is the company that we're working at or just corporate culture generally, whatever that may be, leadership lessons can so often be drawn from and have no exposure to and really nothing to do with. I know that in my past workplaces One of the things I've really enjoyed is exactly what you said, john drawing leadership from other worlds that aren't our own. So I myself have worked in tech companies and more recently in financial services, and leadership is thought of in a kind of particular way in those places. And then you look at worlds like you know the, the, the world of. You know music, for example. I think you look at the worlds of theater, the world of and I certainly don't need to tell you, john but the world of you know professional athletics. There are so many lessons that can be drawn from those places that we just don't have a lot of exposure to in a traditional type of workplace, such as you know what is actually the purpose of setting a goal. You know in isolation in a workplace, a goal is a thing you put into a spreadsheet, right at best, and then maybe you're reminded of it around performance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly goal tasks of tasks right okay, ours is that.
Yeah, it's a like check the box. They, you know, in many places. But then you look at these other places. Certainly I know, having worked with athletes like yourself, john, understanding that a goal is so much more than that. A goal, in many, many times, is an actual physical location, first of all, to try and get to, or it is a personal best in terms of what your body is capable of doing, and pushing your body very specifically to do something that you're entirely sure if it can do, or pushing your mind towards that, to really believe in something. So it just kind of puts into perspective what it means to set a goal right, and I've learned, certainly from working with people in these fields, that a goal needs to be something that feels at least a little bit challenging and a little bit scary, for sure, but also something that you feel that the right support you can do. It's a little scary and yet achievable. You know, it's a. That's a kind of perspective on leadership that I don't know that I would have gotten. Just talking to people who work in tech, for example, right, and I think the same goes for the world of music. I've talked to people who lead orchestra, as lead symphonies, for example, right, or who you know sing professionally for a living, and leadership there has a lot of the same lessons as a traditional workplace, but also some pretty unique ones. So, for example, what is, what does perfection mean? You know, I mean, we all know, I think perfection can be a trap for people in a different setting. What does perfection mean there? Because it's an, it's an artistic pursuit, it's not a corporate pursuit, it's not a scientific pursuit, it's artistic. What does perfection mean? Is that? Is that even the right way to think about it? And can we think about our personal kind of improvement in a way that's motivating and that isn't, you know, holding us back? What does it mean? To really listen? Right in the sphere of music, we talk about listening and like one on ones or team meetings and things, but when you are standing in front of a 200 person, you know orchestra, with singers and with people playing different parts, you know you're really listening. And what are you even listening for? You know, are you listening for it like sounding pretty good? Are you listening for mistakes? Are you listening for you know a story that's being told or something else? All the others like these are. These are all things that we can, we can and should, I believe, bring into traditional leadership structures, because in those fields people are asking questions that I think a lot of companies just aren't even asking or no to ask.
John Register: Are you listening to phrasing what? Yeah, what's the story? I love that. What's the story in the music that you are hearing? Or resonating, even with you. I've learned so much in that the I don't go into the group I was leading. I learned so much about myself and I generally tend to put myself into one of two camps as far as myself. Either we're talking about NASA earlier and I was I shared with audiences about under the water or an outer space. If we don't have an atmosphere to take us into that environment, it might cause panic, and so, not without going to story, I asked myself the question am I, am I adding oxygen to this environment or am I taking it away? I can see the panic or I can see the elevation of the group. How do I manage in that is, as I'm hearing you say, how do we as, as leaders, take that self assessment to see if we're adding the oxygen or take me away out of an environment?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, it's absolutely true. I mean, and sometimes we have to be prepared for an answer to that question that we don't really like. It requires a little somewhat maybe surprising amount of humility to be able to not only ask that question but to answer it as, oh, I'm taking away the oxygen here and, oh boy, I now need to correct that or, you know, do something about that. That just, I think that that's the natural next step, that maybe some people aren't really ready for, that, that need to ready themselves for and I'm putting myself in this category, john Whenever I have asked myself a similar question that realization that actually I might not be helping here and might actually be maybe holding something up, being a bottleneck or I don't know, just annoying people or stressing them out a little bit more. It's not really an easy realization to come to, because it requires looking inward and saying in and acknowledging that, like you're not adding value here and that's tough for the ego, you know. I'll just put it out there.
Kat Koppett: Absolutely. Thank you. I resonate so much with this conversation. After years of teaching leadership and management, all of a sudden I had employees I had, and it was so different to actually be a leader, right to actually lead as opposed to understanding theoretically. Leadership, yes, and this idea of like when am I the problem, it feels really really resonant.
John Register: I mean it's so real. I mean I look at you and say all of a sudden I realize I had employees. It looks like you had employees.
Kat Koppett: In a previous podcast that I did actually I with my first set of employees. I remember this moment where I had I've been going off and teaching management leadership for years I'd been designing at the social media company that we worked at and where we met. I designed all of their front, their first line manager training, right. For years I'd been doing this and I had this realization that maybe I wasn't always practicing what I preached. It was harder to put into practice and so on the podcast, I was talking to my one of my employees and I said I said that. I said wow, I realized that whenever I go and facilitate these programs, I think about what I'm actually doing with you and maybe I'm not living up to my standards. And what I expected him to say was wow, that's so vulnerable you are. Wow, that's such great insight that you have about yourself as a leader. And instead he said managers, learn about managing. He said there's being for managers, which was shocking on levels because it was our business.
Nitya Shekar: But what I knew?
Kat Koppett: about it was. It was such a wonderful moment because I was so focused on myself and I assumed that my people were, look, think, assessing me as a leader, thinking about me or a leader, or knowing that I was thinking about leadership, and they had it was not on their radar at all. Yeah, wow, right. So I think, if we just circle back to this idea and we're gonna play a game in a minute, but I guess you know just sort of in summary, there's something about the theme for me, as we're talking feels like it's about really being having self-awareness and taking care of yourself and then somehow matching that with, or figuring out how to bring that to the people that you're serving in change. How does that land, or what would you add?
Nitya Shekar: I love the way you put that in, that self-awareness even though it's double edged and you might not necessarily like what you become aware of, it is the necessary first step to serving others. And that is, you know, if you believe that leadership is, at the end of the day, serving others, which I absolutely do. But if you're not starting with hold on, how am I showing up right now? How am I equipped to serve? Am I equipped to serve? Do I need different tools? Am I using them right? If you don't start there, then you're not necessarily setting yourself up to do it. But I also like what you said, Kat, about the spotlight effect thing of like. We sometimes think everybody can see every single thing that we're doing or thinking about or that's motivating us. And a lot of times people are leading our trying to get through the day right, trying to finish whatever it is they're doing, and they're not necessarily so focused on this, which is all the more reason I think that we as leaders can and should be motivated to make their day and their lives and their careers as hopefully as easy as possible, you know, so that they don't have to think about it.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, beautiful.
John Register: So beautiful. Just put things together in great perspective. I'm just geeking out right now, so that's that.
Kat Koppett: Yeah, I think we're gonna have to go back because we can't possibly.
John Register: Benny Campbell is on. He was how do we navigate? No, put up here. How do we navigate self-awareness, self-consciousness and self delusion? Oh, Brenny, I said I'm sorry I did my glass on Brenny, not Benny. Brenny Campbell, sorry about that. Thanks for being on, Brenny, appreciate you.
Kat Koppett: Hey Brenny. Well, what do you think about that? How do we, how can we be clear about when we're being self-aware and when we're deluding ourselves?
Nitya Shekar: Yeah, I think that the practice of self-awareness, self-consciousness, is not a solo practice. It's okay if it starts as a solo practice you know people reading the leadership books and all that kind of thing but it is not a solo practice. It does involve other people and so this could be that you get a coach I certainly have a personal bias in favor of that right Someone who is professionally equipped to help you with this and call out things like self delusions and what you might not be seeing. You know blind spots and such. But whether it's a one-on-one type of coach or not, just getting feedback in some way from people around you is, I think, probably one of the best antidotes to two self delusions or just anything unexpected that comes up when you're in that self-awareness practice is just getting other perspectives. Now the key is not to get too caught up in other perspectives or latch on too much to this person thinks this about me but more just see it as data. You know incoming data, just getting a lot of data, so that it's not just your own perspective on yourself that you have, but you have this wide range of ideally diverse perspectives that you can then step back and build into a picture. This is where a coach can be really helpful. Actually, that even if you don't have a coach, just doing that data gathering and saying, okay, here's how I see myself and my strengths and what I need to work on, and then here's what other people think. There are formal ways to do this and something like a 360 assessment or whatever. It doesn't have to be that. It can just be talking to people you know and asking them you know, how am I showing up, what can I be working on? And as long as you're doing that in a way that's genuine and in a way that they can trust you, hopefully you'll get a lot of good information and build the right picture of who you are as a leader.
John Register: Oh that beautiful. Thank you, Kat. Wanna play a game.
Kat Koppett: Yes, and in the background I've been thinking about. I had a plan, which is always dangerous, and I've been listening to our conversation and thinking what actually is a game that can sort of get at what we're talking about. So I'm modifying on the fly a game that I would typically do with a larger group of people, but we're gonna just see how it works. So one of us is gonna say here's the phrase, like my name is whatever and something that's true about you, and then, if it's true for the others of us, we're just gonna like raise our hand, you know, to sort of chime in. It doesn't? There's no good or bad if we're the same or different, but we're just learning about each other. And then the next, and then you'll call on the next person, right? So if I went first, I might say, okay, Nitya could call on either one of us and we're just gonna play for a while. And I thought maybe we could. We can just start with whatever is true about us, and then maybe at some point I'll say, okay, now let's talk about leadership and we'll see about things that are true for us around leadership. Okay. So I'll start and I'll just say my name is Kat and what's true about me is that I'm most comfortable being second in command, but having someone that I can pass the buck to or get advice from Anybody Okay, I'm unique. All right, Nitya, you go next.
Nitya Shekar: Are we allowed to comment on those or no? We'll just keep going.
Kat Koppett: I'll just keep going for a little bit and then we can comment at the end, unless you have something to say and I wanna hear it, no, not really All right.
Nitya Shekar: All right, I'm Nitya, and what's true about me is that I really enjoy diving into the minute details, not from a place of micromanagement, but I just love the little details and specifics. No, definitely not. You're right, turns out, I'm also unique.
Kat Koppett: Okay, when are we gonna make a good team so far? I'm gonna call you John.
John Register: I was just gonna go very simple. My name is John. What's true about me is I love chocolate.
Kat Koppett: Yes.
Nitya Shekar: Thank you, john, thank you?
Kat Koppett: Who are you gonna call on?
John Register: Let's go back to Nitya.
Nitya Shekar: I'm Nitya, and what's true about me is that I love listening to podcasts. I'm a podcast fiend.
Kat Koppett: I am a podcast fiend. Are you still doing your podcast, Nitya?
Nitya Shekar: No, we are kind of on indefinite hiatus, I would say, because since we've been talking about change this whole time, we've all gone through quite a bit of change, so we're just evaluating.
Kat Koppett: Well, there's some past episodes that are great on leadership, that's right.
Nitya Shekar: That's right.
John Register: Can this be like books on tape too? Cause I've been doing like I date myself, saying books on tape, but my audio, that's a good chance. Okay, good, cause I listen to now my drive to.
Kat Koppett: Are you chilling on, Nitya? We'll do a couple more rounds. I'll call on you, cat. My name is Cat and I have an amazing kitten sleeping on my feet. So I guess I'll just say I have a cat, I do, oh, okay, I do, okay. I'm gonna call on you, john, once you start sneezing. Okay, you wanna bring us home, john? You can do one more for us.
John Register: Okay, yep, oh, okay. My name is John, and what's true about me is I killed 10,000 chickens a night.
Kat Koppett: You killed 10,000 chickens a night, a night. Anybody else have that? No, but we wanna hear that story, no.
John Register: I used to work for a Tyson's Chicken in the live hang and it was the job that told me to stay in school. So I counted one night. I counted one, because it was a rope thing. I counted for an hour how many chickens were coming through Me personally was hanging up and then I multiplied that by the eight hour shift and that's the number I came up with.
Nitya Shekar: Wow.
Kat Koppett: Wow.
John Register: Wow, is right.
Kat Koppett: I guess what I wanna say. Thank you all for playing. So two things about this. One is, if you're, there are lots of ways to scale this in virtual space. You can have people cover their cameras, like with a post-it note, and then reveal themselves. If it's also true about them, it's a great way for groups to get to know each other In person. Sometimes we play in a circle, like in musical chairs, with one person in the middle and then everybody switches places and tries to find a new chair. But, as you can see, even just in a little bit we did it's so quick to learn about each other and where you're unique and wonderful and where are their connections, and so I really appreciated how much of our conversation today, Nitya, was about knowing yourself as a leader and being authentic, about where you're coming from and what you care about and what you need so that you can. That's what made me think of this game.
Nitya Shekar: You know, I love what you're talking about with Nitya about the third way.
John Register: You know another way, Jason Saul has a book called the Third Way and just gather more information. And, Kat, you know your brilliance of what you just always share and just how you just think about things different and push the conversation. Fascinating. I know we have more, at the top of the bottom, like, is it top or bottom? Let's well, it's
Kat Koppett: Middle of the hour.
John Register: Middle hour. We're at the middle of the hour.
Kat Koppett: Into the hour.
John Register: Um, and so, thank you so much, Nitya, for being on with us. What just golden nuggets you have given us to think about, to consider. If you're on, you're watching. We have Brittany Campbell, we had Morris Parsons on. Share this, go out. You know. If you have a leader that needs to hear some of these this podcast, please go back and share as well. So, we're come to another end of performance shift. We hope that today's conversation has left you feeling inspired and ready to embrace the change that's in your own life, and we'll be back with another episode coming up on your your nearest podcast channel, and you'll probably have Nitya on with you because she loves podcasts and we will talk a little bit later. Any closing thoughts from you?
Nitya Shekar: I just want to thank the both of you because this has been such a fun and dynamic conversation and I just love geeking out about the stuff with the both of you and thanks for having me.
Kat Koppett: Thanks for being here. More to come. I hope we will see you all soon. Cheers!
John Register: Cheers, bye for now.
