Full Transcript for Behavioral Intelligence for Better Leadership with Jason P. Carroll of Aptive Index

that we want to be treated. What you mean, to be fair, is the golden rule. And it's not it's not the worst idea, but true leadership to leadership is the like the platinum rule. 00;05;46;29 - 00;06;03;25 Jason P. Carroll It's leveling it up. It's it's learning what what drives and motivates other people. How do I lead them the way they want to be a leader? Even if it's completely outside the realm of what I would want. How do I learn that about others? And then effectively do that? 00;06;03;28 - 00;06;42;29 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. I think figuring out that we are motivated by different things in of itself is a huge step. And then once we figure that out, it's okay. Now what do we do? Like how do we actually cater to these different motivations, styles and the different things people need at different times in their lives as well? I'm curious if, you could give me a little bit more insight, just kind of as a a follow up to that question into, maybe how you tackle that, how how you have, connected with somebody who maybe has a different motivation. 00;06;43;02 - 00;07;05;10 Jason P. Carroll Yeah. Yeah. I'll say so. I don't know if you've heard the term psychometrics just basically like fancy, scientific personality tests. Right? So, like, think you know, which Hogwarts house are you? But, you know, actually make it scientific. So I got I got introduced to the psychometrics back in 2016, and that changed the game for me. 00;07;05;10 - 00;07;31;08 Jason P. Carroll And I really started seeing what how we were wired. And we're talking real kind of like ethereal right now. But practically the biggest learning was with my colleague at the time. I was the head of the company, the president, my he was really my VP of ops. I ended up promoting admin to CFO, and we were, you know, if you looked at like, the charts that come from the psychometrics, we're a mirror opposites of one another. 00;07;31;10 - 00;07;44;20 Jason P. Carroll Like, everything that motivated me was the thing that would drive him nuts. So he, you know, he looked at me and he's like, this is like some wild car guy who's going to jump out of the plane with no parachute. And I'm looking at him like you're a stick in the mud. You're not going to try anything new. 00;07;44;22 - 00;08;22;02 Jason P. Carroll You just want to do things the way they've always been done. And and that's a real tension. I think a lot of us have encountered that, like the, the push pull kind of dynamic, the pace at which we want to move the, the risk appetite that we have. And so what I had to kind of come and reckon with was if I'm ever going to effectively move this thing forward, you know, and in my way, you know, like, even even if I'm being selfish, like, to do what I want to do, the only way that will ever happen is if I can get buy in by not catering to is kind of the wrong 00;08;22;02 - 00;08;50;13 Jason P. Carroll word, because it sounds like a negative, but, adapting to the styles of the people on my team. So

with my CFO, I'd realized, like, he's risk averse. And actually, that's a good thing. So. So let me let me use him to tap the brakes on my, you know, jumping out of the plane type of, impulsivity and actually, like, show him that I value that. 00;08;50;15 - 00;09;04;17 Jason P. Carroll Like, let me empower him and say, hey, I actually really appreciate and need your different perspective, your risk aversion. And as we started moving that direction, things really started to shift and change in really positive ways. 00;09;04;20 - 00;09;28;01 Jen Knox Shanahan Thank you so much for that example. Going back a little bit, really thinking about a lot of the folks that are listening who are emerging leaders, or in new leadership roles. What mindset shifts are essential when moving from that individual contributor to leadership role? I think you've already touched on this, but I'm just wondering if there is anything that you would add here. 00;09;28;04 - 00;09;54;12 Jason P. Carroll I mean, you know, I don't know that I'd add too much without overwhelming and like, know yourself and try your best to know others. I guess the piece that I would layer into Know Yourself is that it's really hard work. Yeah, most of us believe we're self-aware. Most of us are not self-aware. That's just statistical fact right. 00;09;54;13 - 00;10;16;14 Jason P. Carroll Yeah. I think Doctor Tosha Urich is did an actual study on this. And it's something like 90% of people think they're self-aware and like maybe 10 to 15% actually are because all we all we do is think about self-awareness as like, oh, well, I recognize my behaviors, but like, that's just data on a spreadsheet. It doesn't do anybody any good. 00;10;16;17 - 00;10;36;11 Jason P. Carroll We have to figure out what the impact of those behaviors are on others, and figure out what's driving those behaviors. If we actually want to change, which means we have to confront the hard stuff, we have to realize, like, I'm nowhere near perfect, and some of the stuff that I'm doing is actually hurting others and hurting the organization. 00;10;36;14 - 00;10;52;29 Jason P. Carroll And it's really easy to get by as an individual contributor. When those things are happening. We step in leadership. That's when you're kind of cut wide open and those those things start to really have a bigger effect. 00;10;53;01 - 00;11;20;00 Jen Knox Shanahan Absolutely. Yeah. The spotlight is on. I'm curious, what separates leaders who are able to cultivate this high trust environment? Amongst those they lead versus, the leaders, that are leading and they're seeing disengagement or, you know, fear of of actually showing up authentically, authentically from the people that they're leading, things like that. 00;11;20;02 - 00;11;38;14 Jason P. Carroll Yeah. I mean, I'll say this a little bit tongue in cheek just for humor, but there's there's some reality behind it. I think the leaders that step up and end up being more successful than the others are the ones who I, you know, read Brené Brown or or Patrick Clancy on, you know, some of the people that aren't it's not like Simon Sinek. 00;11;38;14 - 00;12;00;20 Jason P. Carroll Great. You know, like, Jim Collins awesome stuff. You know, they're talking about strategy and business. That's excellent. But you've got to dig deeper. You've got to figure out what's going on in the emotional undercurrents of your organization and your people, your teams, your cultures. And that's where the stuff that Bernie really hits on, you know, Dare to Lead is probably her best book. 00;12;00;20 - 00;12;23;01 Jason P. Carroll That's more like business focused. And it just exposes that there's there's so much perspective taking needed for us to effectively lead others. And there's so much going on that's just hidden from reports and, even engagement surveys. There's so much more that we have to dig into. 00;12;23;03 - 00;12;23;23 Jen Knox Shanahan Absolutely. 00;12;23;23 - 00;12;29;10 Jason P. Carroll So if you're listening, go read Rene Brown. 00;12;29;12 - 00;12;52;28 Jen Knox Shanahan I love it, I love it, yes. And and I think that that's, particularly important now as we see so much development with AI and, I'm curious about your perspective on AI and how to work with the AI. It's becoming a larger part of decision making in organizations. So how can leaders balance data driven insights with human judgment and empathy? 00;12;52;28 - 00;12;56;27 Jen Knox Shanahan The things that Rene Brown speaks about. 00;12;56;29 - 00;13;35;04 Jason P. Carroll Yeah, there's I mean, there's AI conversation. So it's a broad I mean, we're not we're not talking about productivity, writing faster emails like my my overall approach to AI is to ask myself whether or not what I'm doing with AI is making me smarter, dumber. Yeah, but but like, I think you're you're more touching on the especially kind of in the leadership and the people realm of are we amplifying human judgment, or are we trying to replace it and then starting to make decisions based on a robot's interpretation? 00;13;35;09 - 00;14;07;20 Jason P. Carroll And I think that's a huge issue that people are facing. I mean, you submit a resume, most likely 90% of it was written by AI, and almost assuredly it's being scanned by AI before it ever has a human. Well, that's a big problem for both the candidate and the company. And then you start going to the rest of the chain, and, you know, I can play a really heavy role that can be really damaging. 00;14;07;22 - 00;14;34;26 Jason P. Carroll So overall, a big question is, is the way we're embracing AI empowering people? Is it really like like you said, like I kind of reiterated, is it amplifying human judgment? And so, you know, the my whole existence now is actually that, like having built an AI that that's what it's for. And it's not to demonize other users. 00;14;34;29 - 00;14;48;20 Jason P. Carroll I just think it's we see a lot of businesses making the wrong call with AI,

just replacing people thinking, oh, with that, profit will come and we'll create new jobs. And that is putting the cart before the horse. I think, 00;14;48;22 - 00;15;23;06 Jen Knox Shanahan There's a lot of urgency around wanting to adopt it. And, yeah, we're we're learning a lot. But I love what you say about, you know, actually leveraging it to build these things. And I'm, I'm curious, building off of that, conflicts are inevitably going to happen in teams. And, I'm wondering how you approach, team conflict and, the work you do, how how you, how you think about team conflict and, dealing with that. 00;15;23;08 - 00;15;51;27 Jason P. Carroll Yeah. I mean, it's hard for me to escape the world I live in now, which is in behavioral data. And because my own human intuition is much, much lower than I used to think that it was. So, and I, I just feel like I'm clueless, oftentimes without objective data. And, and so I kind of approach conflict in that, in the idea of behavioral tendencies and behavioral drives. 00;15;52;00 - 00;16;20;03 Jason P. Carroll So often, if not most of the time, I see conflict as just a misfiring of our own motivational needs. Like, you know, making it personal, like my, my wife has a high, high emotional resonance. Her capacity for that is high. And that's not because she's a she. The data shows that there's no correlation with emotional resonance and gender or anything like that just so happens. 00;16;20;06 - 00;16;45;15 Jason P. Carroll Right? She like her emotional cup is is huge. And and then when it gets occupied in that space like she's feeling it and it's swirling around and I'm I compartmentalize her I and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's just when we have conflict that one kind of motivating drive. Can really have us firing on different planes. 00;16;45;17 - 00;17;17;10 Jason P. Carroll And so recognizing that in each other, taking perspective is pretty much always the first step in resolving conflict. And even if you don't have the data, what I'm really saying is it kind of goes back to Brené stuff. It's empathy is what is this? What is this person experiencing that I don't understand? And I'm willing to hear that perspective and have it move me, at least in the sense that, like, I can understand where they're coming from. 00;17;17;12 - 00;17;28;07 Jason P. Carroll Doesn't mean I'm going to change my mind. But I if I cannot for perspective, take and have empathy as there's just there's no chance I sort of walk away. 00;17;28;10 - 00;17;50;20 Jen Knox Shanahan I'm building off of that a little bit. I'm wondering if you have any practical advice. Because I feel like a lot of people have very good intentions to do these things. Maybe even, a certain amount of awareness that we discuss in the classroom, for instance. But then in a situation, it can be a lot more difficult to deploy. 00;17;50;22 - 00;18;09;04 Jen Knox Shanahan This kind of, perspective. So I'm just curious, do you have any thoughts on that or any advice for people who are kind of newer to this journey of self-awareness, like true self-awareness and connecting with others and building empathy at the workplace? 00;18;09;06 - 00;18;39;08 Jason P. Carroll Yeah. Learn to recognize your inflection point. And here's what I mean by that. Like whenever you're anytime conflict happens or something that's like adversity, the first part of our brain that that hits is our like not evolved millions year old lizard brain amygdala. Right. And like we are now in toddler mode. Yeah. And if you're if you're in toddler mode and you stay in then you're screwed up. 00;18;39;10 - 00;19;00;12 Jason P. Carroll There's no there's no. So if you recognize what happens in your body, maybe you're, you know, your chest tightens, or maybe your breath increases. Like whatever it is, learn to recognize that and realize that this is your inflection point and you get to make a choice, a choice to take a step back, and come up with what that looks like. 00;19;00;12 - 00;19;34;28 Jason P. Carroll Maybe you use like there's some like, really cool breathing techniques or like, I forget who taught me this, but like, if you rub two fingers together and just focus on the ridges of your fingerprints, it takes your brain away from whatever the heightened emotion is, and it kind of brings you back into your body. You know, if you're at work and you're you're you just got pissed off at some coworker boss, just close the laptop, like, do some, like, make some action that disrupts that lizard brain task. 00;19;35;01 - 00;19;45;05 Jason P. Carroll So that you can take that step back and go, okay, what's actually going on here? How do I engage my my thinking brain? How do I take perspective. 00;19;45;10 - 00;19;46;01 Jen Knox Shanahan 00;19;46;04 - 00;19;54;00 Jason P. Carroll And approach this differently because we're, we're, we're going to go to in our automatic state every time and our automatic state is going to fail us. 00;19;54;02 - 00;20;05;10 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. Thank you for that. That that offers so much. Yes. I one that I really like is, you know, schedule the email for later. Yeah. Now you can go back and read it or send it to yourself and see if you. 00;20;05;10 - 00;20;11;15 Jason P. Carroll Really want to say, oh, I read it an hour later. Do like, oh yeah, how would I I'm not going to send that. 00;20;11;17 - 00;20;26;25 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. So if you could give one piece of leadership advice to college students and emerging professionals preparing for their first leadership role, what would it be? 00;20;26;28 - 00;21;00;12 Jason P. Carroll Gosh, I, I just feel like it's it's going to come back to the self awareness. College years are when you really start figuring out your your true north. And I can't tell you how many people I encounter every single week that when we kind of look at their like personality data, their, their like wiring and motivators and their career up to this point, that they just sit there

and go, why did I do this? 00;21;00;14 - 00;21;20;02 Jason P. Carroll I think why did I go into business finance when like, I, I hate every second of it. Like, you know, I can be successful for six months, but then I just I'm miserable, drained. It's not giving me life. Or why don't I go into sales like I was told to follow the money that sales is great for, you know, get your commission check. 00;21;20;04 - 00;21;44;21 Jason P. Carroll But I hate it. And so it it is hard though because our parents tell us what to go. Our professors obviously are they're there for their purpose and agenda and there's, area of expertise. So you gotta figure out a way to, to just understand yourself better and what's going to motivate you long term. Know your purpose and know your, you know, your drives. 00;21;44;24 - 00;21;50;26 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. Yeah. Great advice. And it can be scary. And it's okay, you know? 00;21;50;29 - 00;21;52;22 Jason P. Carroll Incredibly. Yeah. 00;21;52;24 - 00;22;05;29 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. Looking ahead, 5 to 10 years, what leadership capability do you believe will be most critical for success in general? For leaders across the board. 00;22;06;02 - 00;22;32;22 Jason P. Carroll I understanding people. Where we're getting the AI is going to take over a lot. And it's going to do a lot of replacing of humans. It's going to attempt to replace human judgment, over the next couple of years with the way things are accelerating, the influx, they're going to be companies are going to be just stupid, and they're going to be stripping out a lot of the human element. 00;22;32;24 - 00;22;55;12 Jason P. Carroll And, and we're going to wake up, either gradually or like one of those big light bulb moments and just go, wow, we have just absolutely tanked our cultures and our our leadership, and we have no idea who our people are and what motivates them. So I think that folks, that, I mean, learn how to use AI, right? 00;22;55;12 - 00;23;03;20 Jason P. Carroll If you don't know how to do good prompting, you're going to get left behind. But aside from that, stay honed in on understanding people. 00;23;03;23 - 00;23;09;05 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It seems as though it's going to be a huge differentiator. Yeah. 00;23;09;08 - 00;23;11;19 Jason P. Carroll Yeah, I think so. 00;23;11;22 - 00;23;38;01 Jen Knox Shanahan Okay. So thank you for for all of this, this insight. And, I feel like there's so many, practical ideas that you've shared with us as well. I'm curious if there's anything that I didn't ask that you would like to share, about your journey, about your business or, anything that you just like to share in terms of advice. 00;23;38;03 - 00;24;00;29 Jason P. Carroll Nothing. Nothing big comes to mind. You know, we're talking about a tough subject matter. Yeah. Understanding yourself. Self-awareness is not easy. A lot of it comes through adversity. And, of course, adversity is not easy. It's. That's the whole bird. But I think most of us would if we looked back at the adversity that we faced. 00;24;01;01 - 00;24;21;00 Jason P. Carroll And I don't mean trauma. I mean, run the mill adversity. I don't think most people would take it back. I think most people are like, okay, I learned what I needed to learn. And so I just kind of parallel that together. We we're going to constantly hit the wall, and we have to look at those things as learning moments. 00;24;21;02 - 00;24;40;17 Jason P. Carroll We have to first look in the mirror. It's really tempting to blame circumstance, environment, politics and professors, whatever, or our adversity, but I think looking in the mirror is going to be the most difficult but most powerful first move, as we're working through stuff like that. 00;24;40;20 - 00;24;52;13 Jen Knox Shanahan Yeah. Beautifully said. Do you do you recommend a particular practice for that? The journal is there is there a particular way that you would approach that from a, individual perspective? I'm just curious. 00;24;52;16 - 00;24;55;13 Jason P. Carroll I'm the wrong guy to ask. I'm allergic to allergic. 00;24;55;13 - 00;24;55;23 Jen Knox Shanahan To. 00;24;55;25 - 00;25;10;16 Jason P. Carroll Process oriented? Yeah, I just don't. Yeah. I don't have self-discipline. If I don't know if I'm interested in something, I'd be completely checked out. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we have therapists. Good. Go to therapy. All right. 00;25;10;19 - 00;25;26;21 Jen Knox Shanahan Well, good luck a lot of ways. You're right. Yeah. I'll just like looking at that journey squarely. And, you know, you can. You can do that in a moment. You can reflect, you can talk. Yeah. There's so many different paths. Like you were saying in the beginning, so many different motivators. 00;25;26;23 - 00;25;28;02 Jason P. Carroll For sure. 00;25;28;05 - 00;25;40;04 Jen Knox Shanahan Well, thank you so much, Jason P Carroll, for your time today. And, we really appreciate all the wisdom and, thank you for being on the Fisher Leadership Initiative podcast. 00;25;40;06 - 00;25;42;01 Jason P. Carroll Thanks for having me. 00;25;42;04 - 00;26;00;13 Narrator Thanks again for listening. This podcast is presented by the Max M Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. For more episodes, find us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or podcast. OSU Edu forward slash leadership initiative. See you next time.