Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.
I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you
insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise,
but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.
So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the
milestones that mark the path to success.
Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership. And today, my special
guest is James Burnham. James is an MBA and a decade of experience developing leaders in oil and
gas, private equity, and small businesses. Welcome to the show, James.
Well, thank you for having me on, Sheila. I really appreciate the time.
So your background spans across various industries. Can you share that milestone moment
that led you to transition towards empowering leaders and helping business owners reclaim control?
Yeah, I really have done way more industries than I list with my coaching because those are just the
industries I've coached in. But I was a kid that had a job. I got my first daily newspaper route
when I was seven. And I had a paper route until I was 14. I was working in people's yards at 11 to
make money. I've always worked and I've done a lot of things from real basic manual labor to high end
jobs. And I think that it's really helped me to understand the deep importance of emotional
stability and capacity in leadership over the KPIs, the hard skills that we pursue,
which are absolutely essential. You have to have skills. But somebody that does not have
an emotional capability to engage and work with others, they're going to be a detriment to your
team. And that's something that I've noticed in every industry I've worked in. And yeah,
so I think the thing that changed for me the moment was I had my own company. I'd started
my own company and it was 2012 and I was living in Canada at the time. I am again, it was 2012
and I was living in Canada, Obama won the election and the whole economy went on hold in construction
and I was selling construction equipment, I was brokering it. And it got hard. I was making really
good money and just taking my family to Hawaii and we had a really great Christmas and all this stuff
and then all of a sudden, it got hard. And I realized I hate my job. I like the money,
I hate my job. And I began to delve into what I really, really loved. And what I loved was
developing teams and people around me. And I thought in order to do that, I have to be a
consultant or something, but everybody wanted an MBA. So, I went back to school and got an MBA.
You highlight that in today's economy, leaders need more than just analytical skills and direction to succeed. They need emotional intelligence.
So, let's talk about that. Can you explain how emotional intelligence contributes to success?
I've had the opportunity to work with C-suite executives to mid-level managers
and business owners. And what I see, the difference in impact between a leader who
understands what it is to lead and those that are still doing the same hustle that they did to get
to that point of leadership have a vastly different impact and a vastly different experience with their
teams. And typically, somebody that becomes, rises through the ranks in our corporate society
has produced great things. They've been noticed because you're getting stuff done, right? The
company likes that. And so, we're going to promote you. What unfortunately has done very little of in
our society is proper training of a leader. And what does that mean? And so, these leaders don't
make an imprint on their team like they should. They should be creating a culture of performance
success based on their preferences. Because now you're a team leader, it's about you and how you
do that. And you have to fit within the culture of a larger corporation if you're there. But
understanding how to fit and how to navigate that and how to get the best out of your talent.
Because if you look at your people around you as your talent, you're no longer the purveyor or the
rainmaker of everything that must happen. You are now a part of a cohesive performing group of people
within this company that can change things dramatically if you understand that. But it
requires the ability to let go of your ego, let go of your fears, let go of thinking that you must
know everything and relying on a group of people around you. And the way to do that is really
understanding where you're weak and where you're strong and having the capacity to rely on others.
And that takes an authentic self and an authentic self is not found without emotional intelligence,
just simply not. Now, there are exams to measure emotional intelligence, right? Just like,
yeah, what's a good number? You know, I actually have an app that measures emotional intelligence
and it measures it through your vocal cords. It's not my app, it's an app that I use because I
found it to be very successful. Well, this woman in Utah got really interested in emotional
intelligence and researching it and she created this app that through the vibrations of your vocal
cords, you count for 15 seconds and in 15 seconds, you get a whole breakdown of your emotional
intelligence. And it's fascinating and their average score, just based on, it's a score of
one out of a hundred for emotional intelligence on this app. An average score is somewhere between 40
and 69. So, that's considered average. And then if you go above 69 to 100, you're above average.
And if you're below, you're needing work, right? Well, you're always needing work.
This is the interesting thing though, is our emotional intelligence is not a stagnant score.
Today, you might be very emotional intelligent. You might be grounded in yourself. You might really
understand who you are. You might be feeling good and in the flow and your emotional intelligence is
high because you're very aware. It's easy to be aware when things are good. It's when things get
hard that our emotional intelligence gets challenged and you will see your score fluctuate daily.
And we don't like that. We're used to IQ, which is one tiny measurement of our intelligence. It is
not a comprehensive measurement of intelligence and it stays regardless of how hard you study,
what you do, it relatively stays unchanged. So, people don't like emotional intelligence
because they expect it to be like IQ, which is a stagnant score and really a very microscopic
measurement of the grand scheme of intelligence. Emotional intelligence is this trying to measure
the flow of water in a raging river is what it is. Or it's calm today or it changes. So,
that's the difficulty. The goal is to become aware and there's some components really. Awareness,
expression, the ability to believe you have control over your emotions and empathy and
those are the pillars of emotional intelligence. What's the name of this app? It's called Vibonics.
You can check it out at the Apple Store or Google Play. I have a link that I can give you for your
viewers and they can get a seven-day free trial to check it out. So, walking around and saying,
so, situation here, your emotional intelligence is a bit off for the podcast. When I saw emotional
intelligence, I was so excited because I truly believe this is one of the most important skills
that we need. It allows us to communicate better with each other, right? Yes. No matter,
you know, you can do it at your personal, professional life. It's just a necessity.
Yeah. So, your expertise lies in forging high-performing teams. Can you share a
strategy that you've implemented that has helped a team overcome specific challenges to unlock
their full potential? Yeah, that's a really good question because, yeah, everybody faces real
specific things but honestly, the very first strategy that I use when really trying to uncover
emotional intelligence within a company is I go to the leader. It's the leader that's going to set
the tone and if I can't work with you as a leader because we're not on the same page, I want to know
that front because part of my job as a consultant working in oil and gas was I was sent in to work
at these places. Often, I'd connect, you'd get hired by the C-suite and the C-suite sends you to
the mid-level to make them better and what I discovered in the process was, yes, those people
needed to be better and so did the people at the top and when you're coaching somebody below but
you're not coaching the person at the top, I begin to coach them to my concepts, not theirs. So, I
have to be tied to the person that is leading and that was what I thought was the most important
thing because what I love to do is a 360. Do you know what a 360 is? It's a assessment.
Yeah, it's an assessment of the team. So, then I get into all these questions with the team,
I ask them about their leader and amongst all the noise because everyone has complaints about a
leader, everyone, no matter how good they are but amongst all the noise as I finish my thing,
I will begin to see repetitive themes of areas that we can work on. I call them opportunities.
So, we look at these opportunities and we say, here's the chance for growth and it's painful
for a leader to confront that you're going to get your exposed, you're going to expose yourself
to the things, the deepest, darkest secrets that your staff are thinking about you and that can be
hard to view. It can be really hard to view but I have done it now so many times and it becomes so
powerful but you have to have the courage to face it and there's many people that don't. They don't
yet have the courage to face that. They just want to keep their head in the sand and keep going.
So, that's one of the techniques that I employ first is to really uncover what is the opportunity
that we have here. Where are the communication breakdowns? Because that's where those
communication, repetitive communication breakdowns that appear, those become really the nexus of where
emotional intelligence is most needed because we're not communicating. Why are we not communicating?
We both speak the same language. We both work on the same team. We're not understanding. It's about
emotions and then when we break, we get to that space, this is it, then we can get into it and
that really changes the dynamics of a team. So, what is your next milestone?
Ah, well, it's interesting, right? I moved to Canada in 2010 to 2013. I was self-employed and
had reasons to do it and moved back because I got a job as a consultant and I traveled all over the
place, lived with this consulting firm, got transferred all over and I actually, my father
is he had a massive stroke a year and a half ago and so, I came home to take care of him because
I don't want him in a, our whole family doesn't want him in a healthcare facility 24-7. We want
him to feel at home and at ease and my dad's a great guy and so, we want to take care of him and
I'm in a place where I can work anywhere so, I've moved up here but my goal is to be able to
work in a place where I can work anywhere. My goal is I want, I'm giving this a year so, I'm here for
a year and then when that's up, I want to go live in South America somewhere for the winters and I'll
live back here in Canada in the summer. So, that's my milestone.
Well, we'll see where you end up. We'll follow your journey. So, before we wrap this up, what one
actionable tip or advice can you share with my listeners based on your experience so that we
can help you?
Yeah, I would say if you're a leader and you're wondering, you know, there's two types of leaders.
There's leaders that are deeply worried about their team and they're always worried, am I
doing my best and am I getting the most out of them? Am I helping them the most? And those are
very easy leaders to work with but they use the same tool that I'm going to give you. There's the
other leader that says, no, everything's great. We're a great team. My team loves me. They're just,
they're working hard but they are oblivious or ignoring intentionally the pain and struggle that
they see around them because they think there's more important things to do. And so, what I found
is without question, there are emotional struggles on even the best teams. When you take a look at
the high performing teams in the world, right? In sports, in anything performance related, music,
whatever, where you see it on a stage at a high level, they have good nights and they have bad
nights, right? And that's the nature of it. But if they're really, really good, even their worst
night might be better than most of our best nights. And the way they get there is by galvanizing with
each other and really, really understanding how you work and you have each other's back.
And the key to doing that, the real key is having a common tool of communication, tools that you use
to say, hey, this is how we're going to, when I have a problem with you, this is how we're going
to engage because each of us comes from a different background. And what might trigger me might not
trigger you and vice versa. Me saying somebody's an idiot might be a trigger for you and maybe I
don't care. So, you get as a leader to establish those rules of communication. You get to make an
imprint on the culture of that team and you should. But in order to really make an imprint,
you've got to give people the tools that they will use regardless of their background, regardless of
their history so that they can vent in a productive manner what's going on within them and address it.
If they don't know how, they may be thinking that they're trying and they're saying, well, I've
tried and they don't hear me. And that's too bad. So, you have to have a set of tools, you have to
address the fact we need to debrief with problems and have a place for this to come out and have a
standard practice of how to communicate. And once everybody agrees on that, you've really, really
gone a long ways towards improving your team dynamics.
So, when you mentioned tools, what would be like a tool?
So, one of the first things that I would do is setting up a meeting where you once a week
have an opportunity to express frustrations with each other. And so, I use Brene Brown's concept
of the anatomy of trust, which is an acronym called Braving. And you go through and she has
identified because if I say to you at work, I don't trust you, right? Which is really the
foundation of how we got to work together. If I can't trust you, I can't work with you.
And so, building trust with each other is essential. And so, I give them the tools that
Brene Brown provides, which are how to build trust. So, I don't have to come to you now and
say I don't trust you. I can say, you know what? I'm struggling with your reliability.
You haven't been reliable in these areas and I ask you to do it and you just don't get it done.
And so, what's going on? Because maybe I need to help you because it keeps missing here. Maybe
there's something you're missing. I'd love to help you with that but we got to figure out a way to
get that done. That's a different conversation than I don't trust you. I can't give you this job.
Changes the dynamic and she has these things. And when you look at that, it gives you a tool
and then I also help them with words like I feel or whatever. We do that, we get great formats but
that's really kind of one of the tools, one of the essential tools that I use that I think is
profoundly impactful on a team. The power of communication.
Yeah. Thank you so much. How can my followers find you?
I have a podcast that I'm going to be putting out with this when you release it that they can come
and they can go through and I'm going to show people how to identify if there's drama in the
workplace in my podcast. So, you can listen to it and you can take some tools and be like, oh my
gosh, yeah, I do have drama. Or maybe you'll finish it and think you're scot-free which
if that's the case, I would suggest that you work on your emotional intelligence.
But you may not need me. You may be in a good enough place that you're like, you know what,
we're doing really well and that's great. But I'll have a podcast and then I'll give you a link
for the Vibonix app so that your viewers are, it's not for my app, it's an app that I use as
one of the tools for developing emotional intelligence. And so, I would say if you want to
check that out, it gives you seven days to play with it. If you want it for your company, I can
give you a link as well that's a business link. That's all Vibonix but it's a fascinating,
fascinating app that I think is very valuable. So, I'll leave all of these URLs including your
website at the bottom in the summary. Thank you so much for your insights and joining me today.
Now, thank you for your time. That was really great. I enjoyed your questions. You were very
thought provoking. Thank you. And thank you all for joining us on another episode. If you liked it,
follow us for future episodes. Cheers.