WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.020 Tell me about your vision. First of all, thank 00:00:03.020 --> 00:00:08.339 you for having me. So I've spent a lot of my 00:00:08.339 --> 00:00:11.460 career as a leader. I got thrust into leadership 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:13.619 when I was young and I made a lot of mistakes 00:00:13.619 --> 00:00:18.539 and grew a lot. So my vision is based on growth 00:00:18.539 --> 00:00:21.280 and trial and experiment. I think we're entering 00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:25.719 a time where visions, where leaders need to be. 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:30.519 deeply creative and tapping much more into their 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:35.299 intuition than looking for set playbooks. I think 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:39.159 everything about the way, and depending on when 00:00:39.159 --> 00:00:41.759 you maybe went to school, we were taught to lead 00:00:41.759 --> 00:00:46.259 is being adjusted and it's challenging. No one, 00:00:46.259 --> 00:00:49.799 no one likes that change. So I think it's a time 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:54.119 for leaders to be deeply creative and flexible 00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:59.859 and quite open in how they are guiding. Tell 00:00:59.859 --> 00:01:04.180 me more about that. Sure. I think there's been 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:09.340 a significant erosion in trust based on the events 00:01:09.340 --> 00:01:12.500 of the last years, whether it was pandemic or 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:15.540 just political divisiveness. And when leaders 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:18.340 aren't, first of all, transparent about their 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:22.920 true north and their own values, I don't think... 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:25.500 teams, employees, anyone's willing to follow 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:29.000 anymore. I think the level of suspicion and the 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:32.400 thought by individual contributors that they 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:35.439 need to do what's best for them versus best for 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:38.420 the vision, if you will, it's what I love about 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:43.439 the name of the podcast, goes. So if a leader 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:49.519 can't explain where they are going, And why, 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:55.700 why that aligns with their values, who they are, 00:01:55.980 --> 00:01:58.859 because it's not enough to say integrity, right? 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:01.079 You need to actually be able to say, this is 00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:04.400 what integrity looks like for me. I've worked 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:07.980 with a lot of clients and you know what? Integrity 00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:10.580 shows up differently. It doesn't mean that it's 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:16.539 not integrity, but integrity may be for one person. 00:02:16.969 --> 00:02:21.050 in the moment, always giving direct feedback. 00:02:21.349 --> 00:02:25.610 For another, it may mean never not doing what 00:02:25.610 --> 00:02:27.830 they're going to do. Now, they sound the same, 00:02:27.930 --> 00:02:30.830 but they're actually different and they show 00:02:30.830 --> 00:02:34.509 up differently for organizations and for teams. 00:02:34.689 --> 00:02:38.110 And I think the better a leader can articulate 00:02:38.110 --> 00:02:41.569 where they are going and why, and then what their, 00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:45.879 either the company's values are or... more moving 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:49.759 their personal values are and what it looks like 00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:55.379 the more you lead with um i would call all oars 00:02:55.379 --> 00:02:59.919 in the water going the same same direction um 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:02.460 and you don't have dragging oars and flipped 00:03:02.460 --> 00:03:06.580 over oars because people are confused thank you 00:03:06.580 --> 00:03:09.860 for sharing that um to a degree i agree with 00:03:09.860 --> 00:03:13.020 what you say so tell me more about that like 00:03:13.020 --> 00:03:17.000 how this research and this conclusion you come 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:21.740 on to and that you discovered, what was the journey 00:03:21.740 --> 00:03:24.439 for that? How did you get started on that path? 00:03:26.099 --> 00:03:30.159 I learned a hard, hard lesson early on in my 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:34.020 career when I was 22. And I had a first career 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:36.580 in television journalism. It's what my education 00:03:36.580 --> 00:03:39.719 was in. And I got a, at the time that I thought 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:42.659 was like my dream job, a big break. I got a main 00:03:42.659 --> 00:03:46.300 anchor job. Got been a news reporter for about 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:48.580 six months, got moved to another station as the 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:52.860 main anchor. I'm 22. I go in. I'm also producing 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:56.560 the evening newscast. And, you know, I meet my 00:03:56.560 --> 00:03:59.740 new colleagues and I don't spend enough time 00:03:59.740 --> 00:04:04.599 understanding what the dynamic was in that newsroom. 00:04:04.860 --> 00:04:07.620 I went in thinking people would be happy to have 00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:10.800 me there. I was going to learn on the job about 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:15.219 the community. I started. I was new, young. So 00:04:15.219 --> 00:04:17.920 I was making some mistakes on air, not pronouncing 00:04:17.920 --> 00:04:19.660 things. But I started to get anonymous notes, 00:04:19.860 --> 00:04:22.180 right? When you produce an evening newscast and 00:04:22.180 --> 00:04:23.980 you anchor an evening newscast, you go in in 00:04:23.980 --> 00:04:25.600 the afternoon, right? Because you're working 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:29.079 till 1130 and midnight. And I would get to work 00:04:29.079 --> 00:04:31.160 and there'd be anonymous notes outlining the 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:34.720 mistakes I had made and outlining that I should 00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:39.399 leave. At first, I buckled inside. I went to 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:43.100 the news director and He sort of said, you know, 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.160 oh, don't worry about it. It's jealous, you know, 00:04:45.160 --> 00:04:50.100 blow it off. And I had to really think very hard. 00:04:50.139 --> 00:04:54.560 And this created my leadership philosophy because 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.800 I could either quit and say, you know, it's them 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:00.759 and look for another job. I could either give 00:05:00.759 --> 00:05:02.759 in to the stress I was feeling. I was getting 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:05.660 sick. I was having ringing ears. I was having 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:08.220 panic attacks. Right. I'm telling you a very 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:11.889 condensed story. What I ended up doing was I 00:05:11.889 --> 00:05:14.709 started by getting better, right? I was young. 00:05:14.750 --> 00:05:16.810 I didn't know the town. I worked with a speech 00:05:16.810 --> 00:05:19.529 coach to make sure I pronounced all the things 00:05:19.529 --> 00:05:22.009 right. These were hard to pronounce names with 00:05:22.009 --> 00:05:24.269 more vowels than I had ever seen strung together. 00:05:26.129 --> 00:05:29.009 So I needed to get better. I learned the history. 00:05:29.269 --> 00:05:33.170 I learned the culture. I then, as I was getting 00:05:33.170 --> 00:05:38.980 better on air, I... had a series of one -on -one 00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:41.519 meetings with the newsroom. And I just showed 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:43.639 them the notes. By then I had a stack of notes. 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:45.579 I mean, I wasn't getting like one note and then 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:47.759 a week later, another. I mean, it was every day 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.480 someone was going through the air checks and 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:55.959 finding mistakes. One by one, I had people come 00:05:55.959 --> 00:05:59.100 in and I didn't ask who did it. I didn't ask 00:05:59.100 --> 00:06:02.959 if they did it. I was very calm, but I did say 00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:08.319 this wasn't okay. I'm new. I'm willing to learn. 00:06:08.420 --> 00:06:11.500 But any feedback needs to come to my face that 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:15.620 that's how I'm going to operate. Right. I shared 00:06:15.620 --> 00:06:21.379 that I was scared, but I'm not leaving. Right. 00:06:21.459 --> 00:06:24.240 So I sort of put my stake in the ground in a 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:28.620 calm way and started to establish who I was and 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:32.439 how I was going to work with this. You know, 00:06:32.439 --> 00:06:36.019 the note stopped. um which was was great i still 00:06:36.019 --> 00:06:38.480 to this day right this is honestly it's 30 years 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:41.939 ago um no idea who sent them right you could 00:06:41.939 --> 00:06:45.360 come up with suspects it didn't matter um after 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:47.339 about a year i took a hard look around at the 00:06:47.339 --> 00:06:52.100 culture and thought and i have advised clients 00:06:52.100 --> 00:06:54.560 and ever since then is this a place that's nurturing 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:58.660 growth or stifling growth and what i found it 00:06:58.660 --> 00:07:02.740 was largely in a newsroom based on a whole series 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:07.779 of reasons that was insecure and very fear -based. 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:11.459 Station ownership had created that environment, 00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:14.519 right? I sort of got dropped into this environment, 00:07:14.639 --> 00:07:17.000 but it hadn't changed and I couldn't influence 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:21.319 that. And I recognize that even though I had 00:07:21.319 --> 00:07:25.120 managed to get my situation in better shape, 00:07:25.180 --> 00:07:27.560 it wasn't going to be an environment I wanted 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:30.930 to be in. What happened to that story, it was 00:07:30.930 --> 00:07:32.990 several years before I could tell anyone about 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:36.290 that story. When I left that station, I had nightmares 00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:39.129 for years. It took a while to fully process it. 00:07:39.149 --> 00:07:42.110 I took the right actions at the time, which formed 00:07:42.110 --> 00:07:45.870 me. But then as a leader, first when I ran other 00:07:45.870 --> 00:07:47.769 newsrooms, and then when I got into corporate 00:07:47.769 --> 00:07:51.509 America, I recognized how important it was to, 00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:54.569 if you're coming into a team you don't know, 00:07:55.149 --> 00:07:57.790 to really listen and understand the culture you're 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:03.949 in, and then share as explicitly as you can what 00:08:03.949 --> 00:08:06.649 works for you and what doesn't. Like, where do 00:08:06.649 --> 00:08:09.529 you get flagged? Obviously, I have, because of 00:08:09.529 --> 00:08:15.589 that early experience, a real need for clear, 00:08:15.629 --> 00:08:19.310 direct communication. I provide that, but I also 00:08:19.310 --> 00:08:24.529 expect it. And the story is painful. as it is 00:08:24.529 --> 00:08:27.949 to tell all these years later, has been helpful 00:08:27.949 --> 00:08:33.070 for teams and people to understand how I will 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:39.590 respond and how I expect to be treated. And so 00:08:39.590 --> 00:08:43.629 my advice for leaders is the more you can sort 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:46.529 of create the who you are and why you are without, 00:08:46.769 --> 00:08:49.710 you know, I've spent seven minutes, maybe, I 00:08:49.710 --> 00:08:51.190 don't know, I'm not looking at a clock, giving 00:08:51.190 --> 00:08:55.039 you an idea. Leaders can do that very quickly. 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:57.899 This is not a multi -year activity. There's usually 00:08:57.899 --> 00:09:01.259 one or two stories that really have formed how 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:04.539 we behave, and it's a repeatable pattern. And 00:09:04.539 --> 00:09:07.169 I think if you can share that. And then your 00:09:07.169 --> 00:09:09.909 teams or large organizations can share it back. 00:09:10.029 --> 00:09:12.730 It's very, very helpful. Thank you for being 00:09:12.730 --> 00:09:14.649 here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in 00:09:14.649 --> 00:09:17.309 to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing 00:09:17.309 --> 00:09:20.350 your reactions as these episodes continue to 00:09:20.350 --> 00:09:22.049 move forward. This is going to get more and more 00:09:22.049 --> 00:09:24.370 fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. 00:09:24.389 --> 00:09:26.309 We'll invite people to participate in the show. 00:09:26.450 --> 00:09:28.490 And thank you for giving us your time and attention. 00:09:28.789 --> 00:09:31.409 Have an excellent time building out your vision 00:09:31.409 --> 00:09:32.809 and becoming a vision pro yourself.