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This Episode’s Focus on Strengths Today's episode includes an interview with Kim Ades, president and founder of Frame of Mind Coaching. You'll get some insights about how your strengths come out (or get hidden) based on your mindset.  She also helps you see how your ability to thrive in your strengths is shaped by the way you're interpreting the world. What You’ll Learn In This Episode  You'll learn several different tools to help you move beyond your current way of looking at the world around you. These ideas move you toward a life that's not as limited by your internal biases and traditional thought patterns. - Notice What Works To Get More Of What Works. Kim says that to find what you are really good at, you need to look at all the clues around you. Look at when you are actually in the zone. This is when you are at your highest peak, focused, putting forth your best effort, and highly productive. In other words, look at where you're enjoying yourself! - Write It Down. She highly recommends journaling for several reasons: 1) it shows you how how your thinking impacts your results over time 2) it gives you a sense of how you react over a series of circumstances so you can spot your patterns of behavior that aren't obvious to you, 3) journaling helps you to separate you from your thoughts. Kim stresses that we are not our thoughts; thoughts are things that momentarily pass us by. Looking at things from a distance gives you a better perspective. - Get Clear On Your Triggers. Understanding your patterns of behavior in certain circumstances will enable you to see things that trigger your default responses. - Decide How To Respond. The behaviors of others that trigger strong responses in you can lead to judgments about things that may or may not be true. If you know your triggers in advance you can decide what you're letting them mean to you. - Do Something With The Trends. It's important to look back at your journal entries to find your patterns and triggers so that you can limit your judgments that interfere with team success. Kim has a surprise for those who listen to the show. She poses three questions during the interview. If you submit the answers to Kim, she'll assign one of her coaches to review insights about your answers by phone. How cool is that? Answering these questions will help you explore what's getting in the way of you reaching your goals. The last thing Lisa and Kim address in this interview is values, both the values you live and the values you'd like to incorporate. They are two different categories. Kim believes that your highest values always come with contradictory consequences. For example, take an employee who sees a teammate not finishing his part of a project. She jumps in to finish it because she makes the assumption that no one else will. She also assumes her customers would otherwise suffer because the product wouldn't go to market. Her value of taking care of customers is important, yet adding these tasks to her already packed workload will hinder her overall performance (and therefore customer satisfaction). Can you see an example like this in your life? Do you have a belief that no one else will jump in when a ball is dropped? If yes, are you showing a lack of faith in your team? This is an example we see in our StrengthsFinder training as well. Often someone who leads with the Responsibility talent theme will take on extra work to save a project, only to find himself drowning and struggling to meet deadlines because of the extra workload. This vicious cycle leads to burnout, or it makes you feel like your values are getting nurtured and insulted at the same time. To understand what your values and beliefs really are, ask yourself two questions: 1) What do I believe to be true about myself? 2) Is it the absolute truth? The answer to the second question will help you create a little wiggle room. That way you can question some of the assumptions you're making and spot patterns in your thinking that you want to change.  Go Live Your Talents Remember, using your strengths every day at work makes you a stronger performer. If you’re always focused on fixing your team’s weaknesses, you’re choosing the path of most resistance. Go claim your talents and share them with the world! Read The Full Conversation: Lisa Cummings: Today you're going to get some insights about how your strengths come out or even get hidden based on your mindset and how you're interpreting the world. Your guest owns a business called frame of mind coaching. She works with leaders internationally to help them improve performance by managing and even reacting better to their thoughts, reacting differently, and hey, for those of you who think that it's a time-luxury to get to your strengths by working on your thinking, Hey, she lives a busy life as a company president and a mother of five kids at the same time. So busy is not an excuse this time to skip this stuff and maybe we'll get to chat about some of the fun of working with leaders internationally because that global element is one of my very favorite things about business. So Kim Ades, welcome to the show. Kim Ades: Thank you very much. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. Lisa Cummings: I've heard you talking about “seeing what you can't see” and I often find that people have trouble seeing their own strengths and I kind of find it that usually they know they're good at that thing, but they don't think that it's anything special. They assume everyone can do it, so it must not be valuable and actually everyone can't do that thing easily. So how do you suggest people find what they're great at? Kim Ades: I think that people leave clues, right? And, if we look back at where they succeeded or what people tell them, or more importantly than that, were they enjoying themselves and just in a flow and a state of flow and you've ever heard of the term just kind of “I'm in the zone.” There are clues to be found when you're in the zone, when you're in the zone, you're working at your highest peak, you are focused or concentrated. You're enjoying yourself and you're probably putting out your best productivity or effort. And so if you look at moments when you're in the zone or strengths will most probably lie there. Lisa Cummings: I love that. Okay. So this makes me think of journaling because I know you're big on that. Give us a little bit on your perspective on journaling. Why do it and how could you use that to spot your strengths? Kim Ades: Well, I use journaling heavily with my clients, so I coach high end executives and what I do is I look at how their thinking impacts the results and so we have phone calls and we record our phone calls and we asked people to listen to them, to their themselves, to hear how they show up the language they use, the stories they tell, etc. But then in between every call we ask them to (journal) every single day. And so what we do is we give them a question and they answer the question. The question goes back to their coach. I have a team of coaches and the coach reads and responds. So there's this back and forth dialogue going on every single day. And so the purpose of journaling in this case is to really get a sense of how a person thinks across a different series of circumstances. And our job as coaches is to start to pick up the patterns, the patterns of thought, the patterns of belief, the patterns of perspective values, the triggers that people have. Kim Ades: And so what is journaling for? The journaling is to capture the stories that allow you to go back and pick up the patterns. It's a process where you can unload and so a lot of times people can't sleep at night because they have all these thoughts turning around in their brain. And journaling allows you to put it down and then pick it up later and review it. The other thing that journaling does is it allows you to separate yourself from your thoughts. We often believe that we are our thoughts, but we're not. Thoughts are kind of like things-are clouds floating by and we are actually separate from us. they don't have to inhabit us. And if we can put them down and look at them from a little bit of a distance, we gain massive perspective. And so for executives who are interested in strategic advantage, there's no greater strategic advantage then to understand how your thinking is affecting your results or your outcomes. And journaling is a venue for making that happen. Lisa Cummings: There are so many good pieces to plug into.One, I love the consistency of it because if people want to grow the fact that you're interacting with them consistently over time, that's beautiful. And then your concept of triggers and the story you're telling yourself, you made me think of this situation. Alright, I'm looking back and I'm totally going to fib on myself. But about 10 years ago, I remember having a direct report on my team. She was a manager and I had concluded that she didn't like salespeople based on her behaviors. That's the interpretation I made. And what would happen was when they didn't get her the data she needed to serve customers fully, she would use this phrase and she would say, garbage in, garbage out, garbage in, garbage out, and that's all she would say. So over and over again, this thing drove me nuts. Lisa Cummings: It became a real trigger for me. Super hot button and it's funny, even this day today saying the story, I can feel it in my body of frustration by telling the story and I felt like she was telling the salespeople that they weren't being accountable to gathering the right data, but she was doing it effectively, but ironically she wasn't being accountable to the client because she wasn't solving the problem. She just kept repeating the same phrase to kind of throw it in their face. It drove me nuts, but looking back, I realize it was a trigger for me and my mindset about her approach was getting in the way of me being a good manager and a good supporter for her. So talk about situations like that where think you're dealing with a difficult person. I thought I was dealing with her as a difficult person. Yet really your mindset and your interpretation needs its own spring cleaning of those triggers. Kim Ades: Well, what happens is we do interpret other people's behavior and their words and their language all the time and that affects how we respond and how we react. And part of the issue is that we forget what we want, and so if we think about a game of basketball, for example, and your defending your or you're trying to block the opposition and you grabbed the ball, usually you're facing the wrong direction in what you need to do is you got to turn around and make sure you're facing the right net but we forget about that. We forget about the game and we forget about the goal when we're interacting with someone like a direct report or someone like that, or even a colleague in an organization. When we interpret what they say, we decide that they're wrong. We get defensive, we use it as a trigger. We grabbed the ball and we forget to turn around. And so and so. What does that mean? That means that in your case, what is it that you really wanted from her? Lisa Cummings: Yeah, I wanted her to find a way to show the sales team what it would look like when, you know, maybe provide a model, hey, this person always brings really great data. And, to go to that person and say, how did you decide it was important to go get it? I wanted her to solve the problem and find some people who were doing it right and use them as a model. I wanted her to dig in and understand why those who weren't doing it, why they didn't think it was important and I felt like instead of trying to solve the problem, she just came up with this catchphrase and used it as a block. Kim Ades: And so what you wanted to do was help her achieve her goal. And what interfered was that one phrase that had you not even wanting to help her achieve her goal. Right? Because your opinion of her, your experience of her was taped it, you know, you said you had a physical reaction even just now. And so that's what happens: is that we get in our own way. You got in your way of helping her. She got in her way of helping the salespeople get what she needed them to get. And so there's this big, huge, massive trickle-down effect. Now, in the case of a lot of senior professionals, executives, managers, if they can apply this concept, assume positive intent, what does she want? She wants to succeed, and she wants her team to succeed so you know, here's how you help them succeed. Let me show you. Lisa Cummings: I love the concept of assume positive intent as well because I admit that over time, I started to let that color the assumptions about where she was coming from on things and I've seen it a lot in work places too. You just get down to the most basic watercooler talk situations. I remember having a team member who was concerned that people were talking about her in the office and when I asked her more about what made her think that it all came back to a situation where she was at her desk and she looked up and people were looking at her direction and giggling and in her mind it was that they were looking at her, making fun of her and she looked up and then she started avoiding them because she thought, oh, they were making fun of me behind my back. And in reality, once we unraveled all of what was going on, the people who were looking in her direction and making the face that she was interpreting, they weren't looking at her at all, they were looking past her at another situation and it's all about the meaning she made of it and then it colored her interactions with them after and then it affected their relationships. And over the course of a couple of weeks productivity's going downhill or not getting along. They're not collaborating and it's all over this one bad assumption. Kim Ades: And so what you're really saying is we tell stories, we invent stories about what's going on around us and what it means. And we're doing that all the time. That's how we make sense of the world. You know, we need to have judgment. You know, if something bad is happening, if something dangerous is happening, we need to use our judgment. Unfortunately, often times we use our judgment, maybe at all times, we use our judgment as a protective mechanism. And that protective mechanisms sometimes has us interpreting things in a way that isn't true, isn't real. We make up stories. Lisa Cummings: I'd like to talk about the stories that people make up about their careers, even in a bigger picture, like the frame of mind that they take on. I get story after story from people who they are looking up and they're far enough along in their career and it happens to people at all different times. I hear them in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. They look up and they feel a little bit trapped and they say, this is not what I expected of me. I thought I would be somewhere else and now I have big kid bills or have responsibilities or I can't make a rash decision because kids are relying on me or whatever thing they're putting in the way and once you get there, obviously they know there's a block, but often they don't know that their mind is getting in the way, but how do you help people get that realization? How do you know that your mindset is holding you back in your career? What are some of the signs? Kim Ades: Well, the only thing ever holding you back from anything is your mindset. How do you know your mindset is holding you back? It's always holding you back, is the only thing that holds you back. So now the question is what is my mindset doing? And so, you know, sometimes it's, I don't feel strong enough, I don't feel capable enough, I don't feel like I have the education or the experience and so, you know, we're talking about all the self-doubt that's there and really that fuels a lot of the feeling of being unable to make a decision about whether to move on or how to move on or how to move up. And sometimes a lot of people feel like they're victims. I was overlooked for a position, you know, they keep hiring someone else for these major higher-level positions, etc. And so what we want to do is help people understand what they believe to be true about themselves and how the world operates. Because the way you see the world is the way you live the world, is the way you experience the world. Lisa Cummings: I think there's a lot to that and we've all had examples of so many times when you're living in what feels like a parallel universe with someone else, they're in the same room hearing the same conversation and they took away something totally different about it. So if we apply that concept to personal leadership, I know you focus a lot on self-awareness because it's all. Getting back to the mindset thing, what is one thing people can do to get a little bit more self-aware about how they show up at work? Finding the good, finding the bad, finding where their minds are on target and where it is not. Kim Ades: Again, I'm a big believer in journaling, so if you're okay, I'm going to give your listeners an assignment. Is that cool? Lisa Cummings: I think they love assignments. Kim Ades: Okay, so here's the assignment. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and write these three questions down, their journaling questions and what I'm going to do is say to you that you fill this out and send it to me, I will assign a coach To you will read and review your questions with you over the phone in a coaching role. So why am I offering this? Because I know that your listeners will say that's cool and then they won't execute it, so those that do, it's a very small portion of the population, walk away with huge value. So here are your three questions: Question number one, what do I really, really want and why are there two reallys? Because it's not what somebody else really wants for you. It's not what you think you should have, but what did you authentically, genuinely want for yourself? What do you want? And it could be related to your career or not and why not? Because sometimes what you want is a little more time in your day and then you look at your career and say, hey, does this accommodate that? What do you really want? And it could be anything. It could be something tangible, it could be something intangible, it could be an emotion, it could be a state, it could be a relationship, it could be anything. So what do you really, really want? Kim Ades: Question number two is: why do I want that thing? In other words, what would it mean to me if I had that and would I be okay if I never had that? Would I be happy with my life if I never had what I really, really want? And then question number three is so: why don't I have what I really, really want right now? What are all the reasons? What I will suggest to you is that number three question starts the journey of exploring your thinking and your beliefs about what's really getting in the way of you living, the kind of life you want to live, achieving the goals you want to achieve, getting the job you want to get, moving up in your career, having the relationships you want, being the type of parent you want. That one question is the beginning of your journey to really exploring what's getting in your way. Lisa Cummings: That's deep. I like it. I can tell just from the things that were going through my mind while you were saying the questions that even if they did nothing with the homework, if they just consider those questions, they're going to get some real insight into what's driving them and what they should focus on and really just making that pivot like you were talking about, to actually face the basket and figure out what they're aiming toward. Kim Ades: Let me give you my email address so if you can send it's: kim@frameofmindcoaching.com. Lisa Cummings: Perfect. I have to admit also, the other thing that kept going through my mind while I was listening to them was the Spice Girls song from way back when, “so tell me what you want, what you really, really want.” Lisa Cummings: so there'll be sending you these emails, Spice Girl questions. Yeah. I think that's a cool lead and actually not the Spice Girls, but hey, Sporty Spice might be proud with these basketball references. You have a book, what you focus on grows and that is what I was thinking of while you were talking about facing the outcomes you're actually trying to get. I love the concept so much and one thing I do with people is try to help them focus just in the day to day work responsibilities, the smaller stuff, the situations that they want more of the tasks and responsibilities they want more of because if they can spend even three more minutes a day getting more in their strength zone and getting in the things that bring them energy, what you focus on grows, they're going to get known for that. They're going to get more of those opportunities. They're going to be able to attract more of that kind of work in their life. So when you're working with someone to help them focus on their talents like that and help those grow in their career, what are one or two actions you like to help them take to do that? Kim Ades: So I'm a little bit backwards. Most coaching is around helping people take actions. for me, I want them not to take action for a bit. I want them to save their action for later because what I find is that when you take action that is not really aligned with your thinking, it doesn't really turn out well for you. That's what I find, so what I want to do with people before, or let's call this the action, I want them to really, really start to pay attention to the moments that create peaceful peace for them or ease versus the moments that created stress or tension. I want them to start to just track it so that would be the action for me, is paying attention to where you're feeling great and where you're not feeling right and then start to pay attention to the dialogue that runs through your mind in both scenarios. For some people that's extended meetings. For some people at certain meetings really with certain people really lift them up and once you start to collect that data, you start to learn what you want more of and what you want less of. I feel that a lot of people just don't know because they're not paying attention. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, I think that's a really great idea. Just the idea that you're paying attention, it could be at a task or responsibility level, it could be at the people you're around level. I kind of like to go with the who, what, when, why. It's all that you know, who are you around, what kind of work are you doing? Where are you? I mean, for some it's even fueled or drained by being outdoors or indoors. Being around a lot of people are being alone. It's all of those kinds of scenarios where you just start paying attention and asking yourself what's the situation and then why does that make me feel excited or drained? The more they're willing to dig into it and watch the patterns, the more they're going to, the more insight they're going to pull. Kim Ades: and if for some people it's something as simple as, I love my job, I hate the commute it’s killing me. Lisa Cummings: Yes, and then figuring out is there a solution in that environment? So one last thing I'd like to talk about a little bit, his values, because as you were talking about some of the drains and life being in or out of alignment way early on in the conversation today, you mentioned something about values and my hypothesis is that some people are out of values alignment with something going on at work, whether it's overall a company culture or whether it's a manager and they just feel like it's not keeping them true to themselves, but I don't think it's always obvious and in your face. It's not necessarily some requests for them to have unethical behavior. That's really obvious. It's just something that grabs at them here and there and something's off, but they can't place it. So, what do you do to help people get in touch with the value side? Kim Ades: It's an interesting thing right there. I think that there are two buckets of values, the values you live and the values you'd like to incorporate, the values you'd like to raise in a matter of importance. And so what I always want to do is look at the values people live. So for example, I was talking to a woman today and she was describing her marriage and she described how her husband is a very successful, business owner and that essentially, and she said, you know, I wake up early in the morning with him at five in the morning. I said, why? And she got quiet and said “be with him, to help him in whatever you know, she does it so that she can help him make breakfast or whatever that she does. But so her key value is to be of service to the people in her world. Kim Ades: And that's the life she lives. However, in almost every case, our highest values, while we feel great when we're living them, they also have a counter effect. And in her case, it's self-sacrifice which ends up hurting her. So what we want to do always as look at how people are currently living their values, we always live our values and it could be that someone confronts you and what you do is you just stay quiet. Why? Because your value is not to be in conflict. You'd rather have a polite, nice exchange. And so when someone's attacking you, your decision is to withdraw and that's a reflection of your values, but that doesn't always serve you. And so what I find is that our highest value always comes with a contradictory effect. Always. So, I like to first just look at how do people actually express their values. You always do, and you always are. Lisa Cummings: I've had at least several events lately where people on the team had this deep sense of responsibility for the team, for each other, and they'll pick up a ball that they think is dropping because it looks like no one else is going to and they feel really responsible to the outcome that has been promised and keeping commitments is, you know, my honor is my word is one of those core values for them. But then the dark side is they're over committed. They start giving up their own life or taking care of themselves in order to meet these commitments. And then they're not meeting their commitments to themselves and then they, they're in the doom spiral on that. So then let's say you've noticed that. So, okay, they spotted that about themselves and they've done the reflection and they see that pattern in them and then what do you do to spot the queue and when it's happening. What do you do to break the pattern and get out of the habit? Because your values are going to drive your habits too. Kim Ades: What I look at is the beliefs attached to that. So in your situation, the belief was someone's dropping the ball, it's my job to pick it up or you know, there's another belief that goes with it. I don't believe the others have the capacity or the capability to pick up the ball even though they've dropped it. I don't have faith in lighting. And so we try to address and identify the beliefs that are really getting them in trouble and trapping them and we try to challenge those beliefs so that they can say it's true. I am seeing the world through that lens and that lens isn't serving me or them. I'm not building leaders. I'm actually keeping us set this low level because I keep jumping in. Lisa Cummings: That's great. And then do you find that people are able to go through their own belief systems to kind of figure out that thing alone? I mean, obviously I could say yes, fine, find a coach like Kim and she's going to be able to get to it really quickly. So that's the obvious one, but say they're, you know, maybe it's a peer accountability partner or they're trying to do it for themselves. How do you get to it when you're trying to get through your own belief system and know that you're going to muck up your own thinking, Kim Ades: ask yourself the question, what do I believe to be true about this situation? And once you write all your beliefs, there they are. Is this true? I'll give you another example. I'm coaching a lawyer and so one of the things she wrote about her beliefs is that things work out better for other people, whether they do for me. And so the. So the question is, is that always true? Is that true? Is that an absolute truth? And that's the question you want ask, is that an absolute truth? No, it’s not the absolute truth, right? And so when we can start to just even create a little wiggle room in a belief, then what we're doing is we're creating another possibility of stepping in, right? We're creating another possibility. So in your case, the example of the gentleman who stepped in because someone was dropping the ball, well, if I don't step in and pick up the ball, nobody else will. What was that at an absolute truth? Is that true? Lisa Cummings: And then he says, no, somebody else would. Or maybe they want to, but they don't know how. Or maybe they don't think it's their role… Kim Ades: yep. Right. So what can you do to enable other people to set that? Right? So now the conversation changes Lisa Cummings: and it changes from that one trapping to a lot of possibilities. Kim Ades: Right? And so the question that you want to ask is, so list your beliefs, what do I believe to be true? And then is it the absolute truth Lisa Cummings: I have a hunch that the answer is normally no. Kim Ades: Often times it is no. And often times it is, they believe it's absolutely true. They still hold onto it for dear life. Right? Well, it is true. You know, sometimes they need to like when somebody holds onto something tightly, we need to kind of wedge their hands away from that idea. Lisa Cummings: Good visual Kim. This is so deep and insightful. I love it. I know listeners will want to dig in a little bit more to your work. So what would be the best way to do that? Kim Ades: Best way to do that is frameofmindcoaching.com on that website. I mean there's a lot of information, blogs, videos, all kinds of stuff, there, audios, but one of the most important things on that site is an assessment. And what that assessment does is it allows you to take a snapshot of what direction you're heading in. And I think before you think about making any change, you've got to understand where you're pointed is the single most important starting point for any personal development or leadership concept. Any change to take place, you got to know where you're starting. And so take the assessment and again, you'll be introduced to one of our coaches who will review the assessment with you. Very, very important and powerful first step. Lisa Cummings: Thanks so much, Kim. I love the offer of that. So we'll link up to the site and the resources you mentioned and your book and I think everyone's going to appreciate that so much. And speaking of you guys, appreciating it, I also want to say I appreciate you the reader. Thanks for reading “Lead Through Strengths” and remember that using your strengths at work makes you a stronger performer at work. If you're always focused on fixing your weaknesses, you're probably choosing the path of most resistance. So claim your talents and share them with the world.

This Episode’s Focus on Strengths This month’s episode features Gary Ware, whose mission is to help people “energize their work.” If you find that your job is sometimes humdrum, and that your team’s ability to create new, innovative ideas is stifled, then this is the episode for you. Gary provides practical tools (and cool examples) you can use to get creative juices flowing. And, there’s even a bonus – tips to improve your interviewing skills. You can use those tips on both sides of the proverbial interviewing table. To give you a hint about Gary's essence, here’s his favorite quote by Plato. He lives his life by it: “You learn more about a person in an hour of play, than a lifetime of conversation.”   What You’ll Learn Practical tools to improve creativity and problem solving at work: Use this lesson from Improv: be in the moment and be fully present. If you're not fully engaged, your ability to contribute to a proposed idea will be limited. Gary and Lisa both practice the concept of "soft focus" that comes from improvisation. In practicing soft focus, you're fully tuned into what's going on in the room. Rather than thinking about what you're going to say next, you're fully there with the intention to listen and soak in what's going on around you. Use the words “Yes, and…” instead of cutting off someone’s idea with a "Yes, but." Make an effort to see where the idea takes you as a group, and don't deviate from a concept until it’s fully played out. Ideas are different from execution, yet often people squash ideas by thinking about impractical execution details as ideas get launched. This is why you hear "Yes, but" so often in meetings. The challenge is that ideas need space. When a team member thinks his idea will get slammed, he won't bother throwing it out. And his idea might just be the one that inspires his teammate's genius breakthrough that would have come 7 ideas down the line. Notice what works. When you keep going, and when you get stuck, that’s where you get the amazing stuff! Spend time debriefing as a team. Talk about what brings out your biggest ideas. Talk about what makes you feel your best. Share moments of success because noticing what works will help you get more of what works. Accepting and considering ideas, no matter how crazy, will lead you to innovation and creative breakthrough moments. Allow yourselves to get stuck so that you can get to the breakthrough. Don't disregard them.  Take the word “but…” out of your vocabulary entirely. That’s just another way of saying no. It's a way of disregarding a person’s contribution, which may inhibit them from speaking up when they have their next incredible idea. Many leaders and team members think they're being practical when they pick ideas apart. On the surface it feels like a way to quickly cull and make decisions. Yet actually, it creates a situation where people don't want to speak until they have a great idea. Find your openness. Enter creative sessions with a sense of curiosity and possibility. If needed, tell everyone that this meeting isn't about making a decision. Tell them it's about coming up with ideas. If needed, create a silly mantra like "thank you for that idea" that everyone says in unison after every idea. Rather than commenting on an idea, you simply thank them, accept the submission and keep moving to the next idea. That way, you're not categorizing ideas as good and bad, you're simply generating the list of ideas. Step into their shoes. Remember that we all see things through different lenses. Try to see ideas and concepts as others do. Consider that their perspectives, assumptions, and experiences are leading them to show up with a unique perspective. Using this mental practice is great for team building because it asks you to consider how someone else might view a project or problem.   Bonus tools to help you during an interview: If you are thrown off during an interview, compose yourself and be real. If you don’t know an answer, be honest. They’ll know when you're flustered, and making up an answer is not a good option. Hiring managers want to know who you are. They want to know how you work. With all things being equal, people are going to hire those they like, so be your true self. Your resume tells them what you've done. That's easy enough to read, so use the interview to show the who and how. Have some stories about yourself ready. Use these stories to highlight your strengths. Lisa recommends coming up with one example for each of your Top 5 StrengthsFinder talent themes. Since your natural talents are more about how you work than what you do, they make for great behavioral interview answers. For example, if you have a story about how you used your Includer talent to bring success to a high-stress project, you can use that example for many common behavioral interview questions, such as "tell me about a time when you overcame a challenging situation" or "tell me about a time when you dealt with a difficult person." If you're a hiring manager, try the Monkey Wrench Game that Gary and Lisa demonstrate during the episode. This is a tool you can use in an interview to see how someone thinks on the fly. And like the Plato quote above, you can tell a lot about a candidate through their play.   If you manage a team, try the activities that Gary and Lisa demonstrated in a team meeting. These Improv exercises are a fun way to do a five minute team building exercise at the beginning of your next team meeting. They're a great way to set the tone for a creative, collaborative conversation.   Yes, And Interview (San Antonio Zoo Interview was the example in the episode) Objective: Hold a 1x1 conversation between two people at a time with no pre-planned expertise or interview questions. Time: 10 min. This could take 30 min or an hour if you have a large team. Be sure to set the stage so people know they should try to keep their answers to 1 minute or less. An average-size team will be finished in 10 minutes + instruction time. Purpose: Get your team in the moment and fully present so that they "Yes, And" their way to a full conversation. The purpose is to generate collaboration, ideation, support, creativity, and of course...fun. Preparation: Bring a pad of sticky notes. Get two volunteers. One person will be the interviewer, and one will be the first interviewee. The interviewer will be the same person during the entire game. This person should be a good communicator who will enjoy being part of the exercise the entire time. The interviewee will change after each question, so each team member will take a turn. Tell the team that you'll be building on a conversation (a mock expert interview) as you go person by person. Encourage them to call back to each other's references. Ask them to try to transition into their response seamlessly, as if it is one conversation. Do a quick demo so they get the idea before you get started. How to do it with your team: Ask each person to write one noun on one sticky note and one verb on a second sticky note. When people are finished, have them put those on a wall or in the middle of the table where everyone can see. This is your pile of inspiration words. Get your interviewer to pick one of the words. That person starts the interview with, "thanks for coming in to share your expertise on [word]" - then the interviewer continues by asking a relevant question about that word. The interviewee answers and then says, "I think you should also talk to my friend [teammate's name] he/she is an expert when it comes to [word]." Then the interviewer asks the new person a question about that word. The interview continues until all teammates have answered a question. Key: this needs to feel like one conversation. That's where the Yes, And comes into play. Try to transition into their response seamlessly, as if it is one conversation. On a flip chart or whiteboard, write, "I think you should also talk to my friend [teammate's name] he/she is an expert when it comes to [word]" - this will help them remember how to generate the handoff from one interviewee to the next. Debrief the experience: Ask how that exercise mimicked things that happen at work on a regular day. Ask what it felt like when the transitions were natural and tied together. Ask what it felt like when someone abruptly moved to the next topic in the interview. Note: the lesson you're drawing out is what it feels like when you use "Yes, And" to collaborate and build on each other's ideas. It's to talk about what it feels like when you show up as a fully present participant who accepts what "is" and moves forward from there. If you have a team with a lot of emotional baggage or a habit of squashing infant ideas, this would be a great exercise.   Monkey Wrench Story (this was the ranch story from the episode) Objective: Hold a conversation in pairs where the storyteller flexes the story based on random words inserted by the randomizer. Time: 3 min + instruction time. Purpose: Get your team out of an over-analyzing mode; practice full presence; have fun; practice adaptability and innovation; experience change with no luxury of planning. Preparation: Get a timer. You can likely use the stopwatch feature on your phone. Have everyone pair up. One person will be the storyteller (this is the role Lisa played in the example in the episode). One person will be the randomizer (this is the role Gary played).  Ask them to decide who will play which role for their 3 minute story. Do a quick demo so they get the idea before you get started. How to do it with your team: Tell the storytellers that their job is to tell a story that begins with "once upon a time...", to try to create some excitement in the middle, and to bring it to a close in a relatively short period of time. Tell the randomizers, in advance, to think of 5 unrelated words. Have them write them on a piece of paper that only they can see. Tell them that their job is to insert those words randomly in the middle of a sentence (not the end) while the storyteller is talking. The storyteller's job is to accept the word and smoothly weave it into the story. Tell them how you will call them back together. All pairs will be talking at once, so the room might get loud. Tell them how to know it's time to cut off their story if it hasn't finished when you call time. Key: this needs to feel like one story. That's where the Yes, And comes into play. They're practicing the idea of changing direction quickly, and not being able to plan their responses. Debrief the experience: Start off by hearing a couple of the interesting story topics they covered. Ask who wants to do a 15 second story synopsis. It's fun hearing that one group talked about aliens inventing a revolutionary code that will forever change software development, whereas another group talked about hardcover books being distributed by orphaned dolphins who swam with the books on their fins. Ask how that exercise mimicked things that happen at work. Ask what it felt like to the storytellers when they had to shift the story into an unexpected direction. Ask what it felt like to the randomizer to hear where the story goes versus where they expected. Ask what was difficult; ask what was easy. Note: the lesson you're drawing out is what it feels like when you're fully present--when you come without assumptions or expectations about what's next. And you get to experience what it's like being fully in the moment. It's not to show that future thinking or learning from past failures is bad. Of course, if you know us at Lead Through Strengths, you'll know we love the talents of Futuristic, Context, and Strategic. Instead, this is to get people to also experience what it feels like to be fully present in the moment and to support ideas in a different way. If you have a team with a lot of competing priorities and distractions, this would be a great one. Using these tools and techniques helps teams create and innovate, while allowing all people to feel valued and appreciated.   Resources of the Episode To connect with Gary, check out his website, and follow him on twitter.   Subscribe To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from the website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.   StrengthsFinder Mini-Course For Managers If you’re a people-manager and you want to sharpen your strengths based support, come join our mini-course. We don’t charge for this because we want to help you keep the StrengthsFinder momentum going. Teams who receive strengths feedback have 8.9% greater profitability. Yowza! Sounds like a great reason to join. Source:  Asplund, J., & Blacksmith, N. “Strengthening Your Company’s Performance.” Gallup Business Journal. Read the full conversation: Lisa Cummings: Today you'll get some serious depth on the concept of energizing your work. Your guest host a show called Breakthrough Cocktail. He helps teams get out of their funk, through improvisation and through play. Now, if that sounds just a little bit too much like a boondoggle of a work day for you, hey, listen through anyway, All right, because improv has helped me become such a better player at work and beyond the distressing and beyond the fun that it brings you, there are real productivity benefits to this stuff. It helps you think on your feet. Lisa Cummings: It helps you innovate and you learn a ton about your teammates. By being in Improv games, you get to simulate your decision making responses. You simulate the default ways that you act in different situations. Yet you do it in a way that is accepting of each other's ideas and building instead of stripping down, basically you give huge support to each other. Yes, even to the people who annoy you and it shows you a whole new way to value them and what they bring to the team. So, Gary Ware, thank you for bringing us some productivity boosting fun and games today. So why don't you get us started by telling us your perspective on play at work. Gary Ware: Yeah. I actually have a quote that summarizes that and it's from Plato and it says you learn more about a person in an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation. Like Lisa, I totally agreed. I got hooked on during Improv because it was something, there was something about it. Yeah, you can do these icebreaker games, but it was just something about Improv and just letting yourself go back and play and discovery that it was like I was transformed back to when I was five in kindergarten on the, on the playground, just doing silly things and there was no care in the world. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, I know that you've said you love being goofy and I love being goofy too, so it certainly feeds that part. Yeah, just the play and not planning what to say. I'm very much like that. I plan a few steps ahead. I want to be careful about what I say and it, it's the opposite of that and not being seven steps ahead. So really just being in the moment, being fully present. It's just so cool. I could go on, I could gush. Gary Ware: Yeah, I know. Exactly. And it's just a new way of thinking. So Lisa, question for you. So you got into Improv and it sort of transformed your life. Can you talk about a few other areas of, of how just Improv this impacted you? Lisa Cummings: The “yes, and” part has been huge for me. So anybody who's listening who's not familiar with “yes, and” it's, it's kind of a basic tenants that you're going to support what's going on in a scene or in a moment and build on it rather than cutting it off or saying no to what's happening. And so putting yourself in that mindset of you're in the scene or at work, you're at work and then going with what is happening and then making the best of it, building on it and making it better as a completely new way. It shifted me in many ways like down to the basics of trying to get “but” out of my vernacular, unless you're talking about a literal butt on a body, it's “the yes, and” or I'll say yet I won't say, but if I'm being conscious of it because it does, it changes the way you actually think and put things together and it, it just changes your frame of mind. So that's been a huge one for me in life. How about for you? Gary Ware: It causes me to think of other possibilities. You're right when you are saying “yes, and" you are agreeing 120 percent with someone and you're building on that and everything's a possibility because I know we're so quick to say “no” for whatever reason. It could be that you're just scared or you really think that you have an idea that is stellar and you're not listened to and sometimes it's just all about; let’s support what's already out there Lisa Cummings: And it teaches you about yourself in a way that you. I understand more about your assumptions. So, I'm remembering back to a recent class and so I'm an Improv and you're in this scene. Work with a person and they're doing something and so as the recipient or you're, you're up there with them listening and trying to understand what they're doing through their actions. The guy who was up there with me he was being a cook in his mind and so he was chopping something with a knife and what I saw was a guy working in his wood shop and as a perfect example of “yes, and” because I started commenting on what he was making in his wood shop and it was after the scene we were debriefing when he said, I was actually starting as a chef. It turned in a completely different direction and just imagine if we weren't in front of an audience, it was in the class, but if we're in front of an audience and he's like, hey dummy, I'm not in a wood shop. Lisa Cummings: I'm in a chef. Hello. Can you not see my knife? Would have ruined the whole thing. He just went with it and then there's something human and real that happens too because you see his face, he's shifting gears. He's recalibrating, okay, now I'm going to shop and what am I holding and what I was seeing him like with a rasp or something and it's just for me, that's very insightful when you think about it. Applied to work because you see the world through your eyes and you have no idea where they're coming from and you can assume yet getting in and saying yes and going with what's happening really helps you understand. You come from a place of curiosity, come from a place of openness and then you start to see, oh yeah, there are different people who see things differently. And my way is not the only way to go about the world. Gary Ware: I totally agree. And myself coming from a very creative background and working in the agency world by saying, yes, it opens up in endless possibilities for innovation because I know far too often, if you're in a brainstorming session and again, everyone wants to get their ideas heard and like every time we deny someone's idea. And we throw someone else’s idea out. If you start over again and, but just by throwing all egos aside and just supporting what is out there and just agreeing 110 percent and just not, you know, exploring that until it's completely done. And then, before we move onto any new concepts, you will get awesome ideas. And another example of- this was something how we brought one of the tenants of Improv “yes, and” into the brainstorming scenario so when we would brainstorm, it would be uber focused, brainstorm, so it would be on one concept, but we could not explore outside of that concept until we explored everything about that concept. And so no one can throw any new ideas into the mix until everything from the very first idea has been explored and it makes you think… in the beginning, you get all the obvious things out. But then that's where the magic happens is we can't move on because that's typically what happens. You get all the obvious stuff and then you get stuck and then you move onto something else and then you have to start over. But You keep going and then that's where you get those breakthrough moments. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, those are great. It's kind of like, oh, for anybody reading, if you're really into this stuff, it's convergent and divergent thinking. And the typical brainstorm, people are always talking about, oh, blue sky, you know, think about anything wacky out there and you do come up with good ideas there and that's more of the divergent. But if you create the constraint and you say, all right, we're living inside of this limitation. What can we come with? Insight of the limitation, the ideas I see come up are better when you're limiting yourself, constraining yourself, because then you can get real wacky with how to make it unique and those are the most fun to me. But versus the wide-open universe of ideas you could come up with. Gary Ware: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes we need limitations and constraints to come up with amazing ideas. And I know for my own improv experiences, sometimes those limitations are the format of the game. You know, this specific game has, has specific rules and specific limitations. But aside from that, you're free to completely explore and do whatever you want. And like what you mentioned earlier, you are not by yourself. You're with someone that is supporting you and we see things through different lenses and by just supporting whatever's out there and building on it, it's magic. It is magic. Yeah. And so I thought maybe we can kick things off by playing a little game. One of the simplest games is, ““yes, and””, and maybe we can just start with, since this is a career focused and, and whatnot, maybe we can do a yes and gain where maybe it's an interview focus game, but we're going to just keep saying “yes and” we're going to build on something and see where we go. Okay, cool. Lisa, would you like to be the interviewer and I will be the interviewee. Lisa Cummings: Yes. I would love to. And I would love to know what job you would like to interview for. Gary Ware: I would like to interview for a trainer at the zoo. Okay. Lisa Cummings: Gary, it's great to have you in here. Tell me about the wackiest animal experience you've had at the zoo so far or in your animal life. Gary Ware: I have to say the most wacky experience that I ever had was when I worked in Africa and I was tracking rhinos through the safari. Lisa Cummings: You know, I've always wanted to do a safari in Africa, and I know it's a little off what you might expect an interview topic to be about, but can you tell me what you learned while you were tracking rhino and what, what the purpose was? What were you out there after? Gary Ware: Yeah. What I learned is that rhinos, they travel in packs and that reminds me of family and the importance of having a good support system and I can bring those, you know, that experience here to this zoo, the San Antonio Zoo, and I can apply that to any aspect of our training facility. Lisa Cummings: That's great. I love the lessons you can apply. I'm wondering, so rhinos, they seem kind of scary. Were there ever moments when you were just… Yeah, they scared the bejesus out of you or were you pretty confident the whole time? How did you handle fears being out like that in some risky environment? Gary Ware: Yes, they did. Right? Those are scary beast and I'm not going to lie. I was quite scared; there was one time when we were trying to identify if this was a specific heard that we have tagged, and I had to go into the pack where a mother was nursing with some of her young and just like any mother, if you're going to approach her children, she's going to get defensive. I personally thought she was going to charge me, but I noticed the warning signs and I stayed very clear. And one thing that you have to know about rhinos is that if you, if you don't show fear and you show dominance, they will immediately back down. Lisa Cummings: Wow. And how did you show dominance to a rhino? Gary Ware: Well, I think the best way to show dominance to a rhino is to appear like you are a male rhino. So that requires you to get into this position and, start stomping your feet. It is quite the site. And I did that very successfully. Lisa Cummings: Have you ever stomped your feet like that in a work environment? Gary Ware: Actually, sometimes you have to show dominance in a work environment, and so yes, that I can relate to multiple times when, if I'm in a situation where I'm being bullied, sometimes you just have to stomp your feet and you know, show that you mean business, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to always do that. Lisa Cummings: Well, tell me about a time when you had to show you meant business. Gary Ware: Well, I'm a little ashamed about this, but there was a time when I worked for the San Diego Zoo and I thought I was up for a raise. I had to say, Hey, I, am and doing a super job and I felt like I am due for a raise. Would you please reevaluate me? And I was very firm yet not overbearing. And that was the last time I had to really show that I meant business. Lisa Cummings: Now, if you had to show you meant business to end this interview and show me that you wanted the job, what would you do right here? Gary Ware: Well, I would make sure that I have, a power stance and a power stance means that my feet are shoulder width apart. I am leaning in which is more of a position of power and I will make direct eye contact and I would have more of a deeper voice and I would say I am the best candidate for this position. You should hire me because no one else is going to bring their experience like myself Lisa Cummings: "And, scene" Lisa Cummings: So now if we go out of character and debriefed that some things that were really cool to me is for the listeners out there, it's kind of cool to show “yes, and” and Improv stuff doesn't have to be about being funny. It's about going with what's going on and having been a recruiter and hiring manager as I watched and listened to your answers and thinking about how you just rolled with it, it didn't matter what I threw out you, they were not typical interview questions. I don't know if there are typical zoo interview questions is a different environment, but it was interesting. You probably think you're going to get it. It told me about your strengths and weaknesses. Tell me about your background. We ended up talking about rhinos and power stances and I think that's a really cool thing. Sometimes when I interview people I see, oh, they're off script. Lisa Cummings: What am I going to do? I used to ask a question of people about what, is the last thing you did that you found really fun? And people were like a fun. It surprised people so much and know people have fun. They just was not a work question. So it really threw people and that's something I looked for in interviews is, will they be able to roll with the punches and sometimes the punches are weird questions and sometimes it's, giving you the insight, especially the “Tell me about a time when”, I mean, that's a very technical, it's called behavioral interviewing and it's beautiful as a candidate because you get to tell stories and stories, bring emotion into the picture and make things memorable until they're so great for you as a candidate. But a lot of people resist them. So I thought that showed all sorts of cool things. How about you Gary Ware: Agreed. And another thing to note, especially being on both sides of the table, being someone that is interviewing and being interviewed yourself, you're right, you do not know what's going to be out there. However, if someone throws you for a loop, all you have to do is just take a deep breath, pause, because you don't have to answer right away, compose yourself and just be yourself. Be Real at the end of the day, they're hiring a human. And if you don't know the answer, you know, feel free to, you know, just be honest and just be real. And, you're right stories are, that is the, in my opinion, the Trojan horse of an interview because if you can talk about story, you sometimes get off tangent and they stopped interviewing you and you're having a conversation and when you're having a conversation, now you're getting real and now you're getting to the heart of why we want to interview. So when we want to find out what they're about. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, and you're getting to the “what makes people pick people”. I mean if you think about, if you talked to people the way you talk to your friends, you're not formal and stiff. You think about what you do when you sit around and relax, you know, cocktails, right? Breakthrough cocktail. So when I sit around on the patio with my friends, what do we do? We sit around and tell each other stories. When you talk to people like you talk to people you like, you tell stories, so do that with your employer. Give them the chance to see the you behind the kind of robotic curtain that people put up in interviews and let them like you and people hire people. They like all things being equal. If your resume looks about the same, that's what got you in the door. The thing that gets you hired over the final couple of candidates, it's the interpersonal stuff and that the stories are such a great way to go with that. So embrace behavioral interviews; they are awesome. Gary Ware: I totally agree. And as a way to prepare within Improv, you can't really prepare. We run through games, but as a way to prepare, I tell all of my people that I mentor have some stories like about yourself, whether it's, you know, what was the last time you felt yourself in a scary situation? You know, how do you have fun, you know, and anytime I come across a really good story that I could use in any situation I sort of just jot down and actually that reminds me of one other game that I would like to play the team, Lisa, if you would like to be so brave and it's called the Monkey Wrench game. I don't know if there's a technical term. So a Lisa, if you would be brave to be the person on this one. I asked them to tell me a story about anything. It's just telling your story, but I'm going to throw out random words and then you have to just take that word and immediately add it to your story. Lisa Cummings: Okay. Love it. Gary Ware: Cool. So to get you started, maybe just tell me a story about a time when someone had fun since we were talking about. Lisa Cummings: Once upon a time there was a man who had no fun in his life and he went on a quest to have fun training.(Gary Ware suggests the word ‘tractor’) So he showed up at his friend's farm and said, you know, I've lived in the city my whole life and I want to learn to drive a tractor. In fact I want to operate the backhoe because I think it will be so much fun. So his friend got him out and he started tooling around with all of those knobs and sticks and he started thinking, wow, this is not as fun as I thought. Gary Ware suggests the word ‘plank’) I want to do something else on the farm I want to... So his friend said, I think you'd have more fun if you walk the plank. And the guy said, oh, what do you mean walk the plank? I thought you walk the plank when you were like getting off to buy haters or something. Lisa Cummings: And so Joe said, no, no, no, no, no. Walking the plank here is great. So we take them out to the pool and stands them out on the diving board, puts a blindfold on him and asks him to jump. So he jumps in the pool and (Gary Ware suggests the word ‘sunset’) so we jumped in the pool and started treading water and Joe said, you know, here's the thing, you've walked the plank, you've done the best cannon ball we've seen in like four years. The next part of fun is whether you can tread water until sunset and do some of that synchronized dancing to the beat of the music on the radio. So we started listening to the songs and moving his body to the sounds of the songs and he felt like a synchronized swimmer in the Olympics. (Gary Ware suggests the word ‘glasses’) So his friend said, you're brilliant. I mean if, if only you had that swimming cap that was pink, you would look great. So let's get out of the pool and finish up the night by having an old fashion and clinking our glasses because today was a breakthrough for fun. Gary Ware: Yay. "And, scene". How it was that? Thank you for being a Guinea pig. Lisa Cummings: That was a cool game. Yeah, I really liked it. I've done the game where you do story building where you do like once upon a time and you started off and then you just cut yourself, you edit yourself and the next person has to build on the story and let it roll. So I really, I really liked it, I'm pivoting because your mind's going in one direction and then you have to jump over to the side and make it something totally different. So I thought it was pretty fun. Gary Ware: Great. Yeah. And I have to say the story became even more creative because with this and I do a lot of people that I mentor with is to get them out of their head and be ready for anything. And now you created a story that you never would've thought you would've went there and I had no idea. And yeah, sometimes again, in interviews and on the workplace, you think you know where things are going and then you get thrown a monkey wrench, you know, pivot and adjust. Lisa Cummings: And sadly for this episode, things have to pivot to the close so we have to do more of this though, is so good. Thanks for the monkey wrench game and the interview game, Gary. I mean this has been quite the strengths jam, so I know a lot of readers can learn from this advice you gave on telling stories during interviews, whether the interviewer or the interview, my favorite action to out of this whole conversation is to practice at least one “yes, and” every day and then you'll notice how much you say but as well and just watch what it does for your influence, for your listening and for your trust on the team. That one tiny word, yes instead of but, can change the whole dynamic on your team. And then for that monkey wrench game, try that with your group at work. Lisa Cummings: It's such a fun team builder and it's really good for getting in that creative mindset when you need to or for exercising your adaptability muscle if you have to deal with a lot of change and it's even a way to practice that. “yes, and” concept because it builds on other people's ideas, even if that's not where you were planning to take the conversation. Now I know all of you listeners want to check out more from Gary. You can find him at breakthroughplay.com.

This Episode's Focus On Strengths Andy Sokolovich joins us to help you lead through your strengths at work. You'll find this episode especially useful if you need to influence others at work. He does it with his talent called WOO (Winning Others Over). He also shows the world how your natural talents are cooler than purple rain.   Listen Links Give the full episode a listen on iTunes or Stream The Audio Right Here.   SubscribeTo subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher radio. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode - let the app notify you each week when the latest question gets published. You can also stream any episode live on the website. Just click through the title you like and there will be a player waiting for you on each page. See you there!   Here's The Full Interview   Lisa Cummings: You mentioned Woo as one of your top talents, and it is one that interestingly, when I'm doing training events or speaking events, people probably more than any other, mention that one, and have a negative reaction to seeing it on their list, and they say, "I've been told that I talk too much in my career," or, "I've been told that I'm shaking hands and kissing babies, and that it doesn't look genuine," I've had a lot of people show a lot of concerns about that talent, and several others give a similar response. So Andy, talk to people about anything that you see in people where they've been trying to squash their talent and their career, because it's not really a virtue. Andy Sokolovich: Yeah Woo is definitely one that often gets highlighted a lot. Either you hear people talk about Woo and say, "The first thing I think of is the smarmy salesman that gives you a nice firm handshake and brings you in for that half hug with the sole desire of getting to buy something from them." That's not the case. I do see a lot of people suppress their Woo, because they do not want to come across as that. Granted, I embrace my Woo. I give it the double hug, bear hug. Bring it in. I love having Woo. Why? It has really allowed me to build my social capital to a level that I would never be able to do if I don't think I had that. Here's the thing. I'm not very good at noticing emotions in people, so some of those emotionally driven strengths, or people will notice that, "Hey, you're coming across to strong," or, "Hey, this person is kind of freaked out by the fact that you're super positive and excited, and way outgoing." Lisa Cummings: So when they stick out their hand out to shake your hand…and you give them a big bear hug instead they think, "Whoa buddy." Andy Sokolovich: Yeah. What is that? That is just the type of person that I am. But what I'm finding now, more and more, is that people are receptive to that as opposed to get offended or feel like they need to go on the defense. I tell people, "If you have the strong desire to go out and meet others to shake hands, to foster relationships, to grow your social capital, use it," because that's an untapped talent that a lot of people are not willing, especially managers, are not willing to foster that growth within their organization. This is my pet peeve on job descriptions. I feel we've created this way that we employ people: we give them a paragraph of what they're going to be paid to do. You have to have this degree, you have to have this amount of years experience, you have to have this, this, and this. Once all of those items are checked off here's a block of text that says what you're paid to do, yet we don't take enough initiative to unearth those untapped talents from those individuals and see what they're naturally good at. Now just imagine if you had somebody who was just overflowing with Woo. Someone who wanted to go out and meet people, who wanted to grow new relationships, wanted to bring new people into the business. And instead they were stuck in a cubicle crunching numbers. Is that the best use of their talents from a business perspective? My answer is probably not. Don't let them just sit there and wallow and own their own self defeat because they need to get out there and meet people, they need to go out there and shake hands. You've seen people like this if you work in the corporate world. They are the people that walk around and start up little conversations with everybody, and never really seem to be focused on their work. Why? They need to go out and communicate in order to feel like they are contributing something to the overall goal of the organization. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, and it's likely that that actually helps them relate better, influence better, and get their work done. It just looks different. Andy Sokolovich: Absolutely. Lisa Cummings: I always talk about it like a Jack-in-the-box where you have this talent (pick Woo or any others that you've been trying to squash down), and on the inside what's going on is that thing is getting cranked up, and do do do do dooodledo, do do do do dee do [singing] ... It's just getting tighter and tighter, and sometime when you're not expecting it, or when you don't want it, Bam, it's going to pop out and scare people. If you actually invest in it instead, and watch the effect that it has on people and use it to your advantage--double down on it, while you're maturing it and investing in it--it has a great effect for you. But if you're just trying to squash it, it comes out eventually. It's a part of you, so if it's your natural way of thinking or feeling, it's going to pop out at you. Trying to squash it isn't going to do you a lot of good in your career. Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, no, I reflect back onto the small part-time jobs I had before I joined the military, and I always think of reasons why I was either 1) fired, or 2) counseled for my bad behavior, and they all relate to me over communicating. I was always talking (first job when I worked at the grocery store) instead of stocking the shelves. I was always talking to somebody—to the customers that were walking up and down--sparking up conversations because of the jersey they were wearing for my favorite football team. Or if I was working at a grocery store up at the cashier station, I would get chastised for the fact that I'm spending more time talking to the customer than actually ringing them out and getting them out the door so the person behind them can come check out. All of the things that I ever got in trouble for were because I like to talk, and it wasn't just I like to talk because I wanted to kill time. It's because I needed to communicate with others in order to feel good about myself. Lisa Cummings: I can see with communication being such a strong talent for you also that you talk to think, and talk to figure stuff out, whereas other people might just go back to their cube and be able to do that stuff alone. There's such a different need from each unique person. How did you find the roles that would shine the light on those in a good way, instead of, early in your career thinking, "Oh my gosh, those are getting me in trouble all the time, getting me fired." Obviously you did the right thing. You didn't say, "Well, I guess I suck as a human." Instead you found how to make those work for you. How did you figure all that out? Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, it was a long maturing process. When I left the military, I had this overwhelming desire to be an entrepreneur. I can't really say where it came from. I knew nothing about business. I knew nothing about marketing. I knew nothing about any of that stuff. But when I moved to Clinton Iowa, I was looking for a void in the marketplace that I could fill. It's a small blue-collar town with a population around 26,000. There's a lot of small business growth, but there is the larger businesses in industry. We have large corporations in this community that really support most of our qualified workforce. So when I got here I was looking around at the small businesses—at what they were doing to market themselves. Really nobody at that point was leveraging the power of the Internet, and I started doing some research on marketing. Really what I found out was that marketing is being able to tell a story in order to draw in new business. Whether that story would be told via platforms like social media, websites, press releases, whatever it was, I needed to get out there and tell the story of these local businesses in order to draw in more business. I thought, "Man, would I be good at that?" I remember sitting there one day and I was talking to a friend on the phone and he said, "Well you like to talk, and you tell a pretty good story, actually half the time we don't know if you're telling the truth, or if you're stretching the truth," because I'm a storyteller, and actually, professionally, that's what I call myself: a professional storyteller. I tried it, and I got my first client. I realized that the client-relationship part of it--the sitting down, trying to create a narrative and tell a story--was a little difficult because they already had a story in their mind. My expertise was really to highlight those areas of their business that nobody knew about. Those little hidden gems that nobody really knew existed, but man if only they did, it would bring up a whole new level to that business, and there would be a huge attraction factor, and we just need to get it out there. It was slow growth at the time, because I had a lot of maturing to do. Believe it or not, I was that type of person who thought they were never wrong for a long time. I was so confident in my own abilities that I thought, "I'm never wrong," so once I got involved in client work, I really had to understand that, "Listen, we have to work as a team in order to make this effective." I started to grow the marketing business, and there was a time about 11 months after I actually started that where my business started to plateau. I wasn't losing clients, but I was having a hard time getting new ones. I went to a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, here in the Clinton area Chamber of Commerce, and he handed me a book called Strengths Finder 2.0. "Take this assessment." I thought, "An assessment? Dude I don't need something to tell me what I'm good at. I know what I'm good at." Lisa Cummings: I'm good at everything, huh? Andy Sokolovich: Yeah. He said, "Do me a favor and just take it. See what happens." Once my Top 5 were revealed, I did the Andy way of doing things at that time. I basically stuffed the report in my desk drawer for about another year. Now we're two years into my business development, and things are continuing to plateau. Again, not losing clients, but just not getting any new ones. What was even worse was that I was no longer in love with the fact that I was an entrepreneur. I was no longer in love with the fact that I was building my own business. I hated it. I went back to the same guy and I said, "What am I doing wrong?" He said, "What are your Top 5?" I said, "Dude I respect you, but I could not tell you because they're in my desk drawer collecting dust." Needless to say he was not surprised by that, because he just assumed that was going to be my course of action moving forward, but he said, "Go get them, bring them back in, and let's review them." Strategic, Futuristic, Woo, Ideation, Communication. What we quickly realized as we reflected back on my business growth and what I was actively doing, is I was spending an awful amount of time on the logistics of running a business. Tweaking the business plan, applying for financing, sending out invoices. All the little nitpicky numbers things that I hated, hated, but it had to be done, and I was the only one doing it at the time. He said, "What are you good at?" I said, "Man all I want to do is go out and talk to people about my business. I want to talk about their business. I want to go out and I want to share their passion for why they do what they do." He said, "Why aren't you doing it?" I said, "Who's going to do all the rest of this stuff?" He said, "Outsource it, find somebody else." And that was probably the single most important turning point of my career, when I started to realize, "I don't have to be good at everything, and there are people out there who like crunching numbers, and just because I'm not one of them doesn't mean I have to take that action on. I don't have to take on that responsibility." I started outsourcing whatever I could, whenever I could, and focus 80% of my time on just getting out there and speaking, doing what I naturally loved. From that moment on, things began to skyrocket. Not necessarily in result to my bank account, but in the way that I feel towards my business, and the social gains that I've been able to make over the last almost a year now. Lisa Cummings: There's so much good stuff in there…with identifying your talents and doing something with it. The career slump that was sneaking up on you, I mean you were at a point saying, "What's going on here? What am I doing wrong?" That stuff just happens over time, and people feel that in their careers all the time. For a lot of people listening that are in the corporate world--they may manage people, or they may not--a lot of them have had this experience of the career slump sneaking up. Let’s say they're digging the Clifton StrengthsFinder report out of the drawer…and if you are Andy talking to them now…and you want to give them a couple of ideas for what to do with this. Okay, they know their Top 5 talents now. How can they handle this at work in a corporate setting? What could they do next, just action taking? Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, the first step is always to be able to identify where your talents lie, and I think you and I probably have had similar success in the fact that when we get people in the room, and we show them their Top 5. When you have managers, supervisors, even C suite employees reviewing their Top 5, it sparks a conversation where people start to talk about, "Hey, what other skills do you have? Why are you so good at this? How have we been ignoring this the whole time?" My first little bit of advice is make it known. Okay? Don't keep your talents to yourself. Now it doesn't mean that you come in with your favorite kazoo and play your kazoo down the hallway, and say, "I'm musically talented." That means have that conversation with your supervisor and let them know what you are naturally good at, because if you keep it a secret, nothing is ever going to happen. The other thing I tell people is often when I give this conversation, or I give this speech in a large setting, people want to talk to me about the entrepreneurial side of things. "Well Andy I'm really good at this, and I've always wanted to do this as a business, but I'm scared to." Listen, the power of the World Wide Web has never, ever been stronger. I mean if you have it a desire to crochet for a living, and you think you can do it, and you're naturally gifted at crocheting, pursue doing that and try to draw in some extra residual passive income. Whether it be through online courses, or maybe crocheting stuff and selling it on Etsy, just try it and see if you actually like it first, because sometimes when people think they actually really would do well at something, whether it be starting up a business, or selling a specific product, they quickly realize that they don't like it as much as they thought they would. So test out the waters, grab a hold of your talents, figure out a way to apply them. If you want to try something outside of your normal 9-to-5 grind, use the power of the Internet to maybe start a little online business for yourself. Lisa Cummings: I've been wanting to start a kazoo band on the side [laughs]. Andy Sokolovich: It's really the only instrument that I play. I'm actually talented all across the board, but the kazoo… [laughs] Lisa Cummings: I couldn't let that one drop, you know you mentioned the kazoo… Andy Sokolovich: I have zero musical talent, I can't carry a note even on a kazoo [laughs]. Lisa Cummings: Oh Andy you were singing with me earlier, so that's pretty good. Andy Sokolovich: Yeah we were, Purple Rain I think is what we were jamming out to. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, now that's going to be in everyone's head the rest of the day. Purple rain [singing]. Oh, so let's talk about managers. Those are really good tips for employees, and then the next layer that happens is managers will say, "Okay I get it, I need to pay more attention to what's going on with the team, and I want to do this to lead my team through their talents instead of trying to scale humans." Let's say one of the listeners leads a team and they want to get better at just spotting Strengths on the job, even without StrengthsFinder, what do they look for, or how do they start this? What do they say? What are they watching for? Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, I mean as you and I know, every manager is different. Not everybody manages the same. What I found to be most effective is I always ask the managers that I work with to start communicating with their employees. To just start talking about things, and once you become aware, once you mentally decide, "I'm going to start searching for talents, I'm going to start mining for abilities that maybe are untapped in the organization." You will find that you are more in tune in the conversation to pluck those things out. It could be something as simple as, "Hey, what did you do this weekend?" Listen to what people are saying. Listen to their hobbies, look for when their eyes light up, when maybe they've spent the weekend with their son, and their granddaughter. Start to mine for those abilities that maybe you didn't realize existed, and ask them … You and I have talked about this in the past. There's an exercise that we do with some of our clients, and it's called “The Best Of Us.” Really what the conversation is about is asking people, "What do you need from me in order to be successful?" It's not a bigger budget. It's not a front row parking space. It's not a bigger office. You've got to think of this emotionally. What do you need from me as your manager, in order for you to be successful? That conversation goes both ways. Managers can say, "This is what I need from you in order for me to be successful." Again, it's not budget minded type of stuff, it's, "Hey, what I need from you in order to be more successful is five minutes of your time," or, "What I need from you to be more successful is maybe a little bit of information before moving forward." "What I need from you to be more successful is maybe that you understand that I'm a Deliberative person, and I'm not going to ever be late in getting you this report, but you've got to understand that I'm going to read over it 10, 15, 20 times and make sure that every I is dotted, and every T is crossed before it comes across your desk." That conversation usually yields massive results, but you have to be open and willing to have it. I guess my advice would be as a manager, is start asking people what they need from you in order to be successful. Ask them deeply. What do you…you…not your department, not whatever office you serve…what do you, first name, last name, need from me in order to be at your very best? Lisa Cummings: That's so good. To bring some examples like you did. And be ready. Give them context about why you’re asking this because if that question comes out of nowhere, and you haven't asked that kind of thing before, they might be looking at you with really blank eyes, like “what is up here? What's going on?” You mentioned something way earlier in that answer that is so cool to tap into. You mentioned somebody's eyes lighting up when a person was talking about a hobby. It's just taking those moments and saying, "Oh, you really lit up on that one. Tell me more about that." It can be the simplest sentence, but just noticing that that thing got them really fired up, and asking one more follow-up question, that's where the deep part comes from. Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, I'll use one example that I keep remembering, and it was early on when I started coaching, but we were sitting there and it was a group about 25 of us. I issued that same response, you know what I would do if I was manager, and I could see that there was this person to my left crying, I mean noticeably sobbing. I looked over and I said, "Are you okay?" She said, "Yeah, I'm okay." She said, "So and so is my manager," and he's sitting right there, and she's like, all I want to say to him is, "I need five minutes," and I think that's why I use that example all the time, "I need five minutes of your time in the morning." He says, "What?" She's like, "When I come by your door first thing in the morning, you're doing the standard zipping through 250 emails, do I need to reply? Junk, trash, the standard thing that most of us do every single morning when we sit down at our computer." She said, "In order for me to be effective, and to serve the position that you hired me to do, it's important to me that I have five minutes of your time every morning so I can go over my action steps for that day." She was like, "I don't need you to approve them, I don't need you to agree with them, it's important for me to verbally speak with you and tell you that." He was like, "Oh." She's crying, and he's like, "Well, I didn't realize it was that big of a deal," and she was like, "Yeah, because there's several times where I had my letter of resignation typed up and ready to send." Lisa Cummings: Wow. Andy Sokolovich: All because all she wanted was five minutes of his time, but she didn't know how to start that conversation, she never had permission to in her own mind. Now he would not have cared if she came up and said that. In her mind, she didn't give herself permission to share that, why? She thought that in doing so, she would be perceived as weak, or needy, or different from the others. The fact she was different, because she needed that five minutes, and then he started welling up a little bit and said, "Oh my gosh, I never knew it was that bad," and she said, "Well it is, and now we're talking about this, and I just want you to know that if you give me that five minutes every single morning," he said, "You got it. You have five minutes of my time between 8:00 and 8:05 is dedicated to you. I won't be at the coffee pot. I won't be putting my food in the refrigerator. I won't be checking emails. I'll be in my office waiting for you so we can have this five-minute sharing session of what you’re going to do that day," and as long as he was there ready to listen it changed everything for her. Lisa Cummings: It's so big. Five minutes, and just that moment to have this conversation and what you were doing opened that up. Andy Sokolovich: Yeah, and to think she was willing to pack up her office and leave in search of somewhere else that may have yielded less results financially who knows? Lisa Cummings: Who knows? Andy Sokolovich: The willingness to test the waters because of five minutes. Lisa Cummings: This also makes me think of one more question, which is how sometimes people have trouble seeing the other person's virtues, or preferences, or talents. You know, to pick that thing, and get into a mental habit about how you think about your boss, or how you think about that employee. It can go either way, whether you're the manager, or you are the employee with the relationship. Instead of viewing it like a lost cause going, "This person…we're just never going to click." How do you instead approach that when you're in a situation like this: you have an employee who you know has some goodness, because everybody has genius and talents, but they don't know how to uncover it. How do they even get started with the process of opening up to understand each other? Andy Sokolovich: Well, we always say as strength coaches, and strength enthusiasts, be able to look through a lens of strength. I think that comes with maturity, and it actually comes with an increased feeling of responsibility and discipline, because for the longest time I never was seeking out talents in other people. I mean it wasn't something that I totally ignored, but it was not on my priority list. I was focused on my own personal growth, but once I started to become really in tune to what other people brought to the table, no matter what level they are ... We've all seen the movies, you look at Goodwill hunting where the janitor solves the algorithm, but those people out there exist, but you've got to find them. I think the starting point is start with yourself, being able to identify the talents within yourself. First become aware of what talents look like. It’s one of the beauties of StrengthsFinder. I say this time and time again, I'm in love with the concept of strengths-based development. The 34 Talent Themes are great verbiage to add to your arsenal of tools to help you identify talents with others. I love the fact that Gallup has taught us (and Dr. Donald Clifton has taught us) that there is this whole strengths movement where we're actually starting to identify what's right with people rather than what's wrong with people. Once you start to realize the terminology of strengths, the 34 Natural Talent Theme names, you can start to look at people and be able to not judge. Instead, pluck around, or pick different talents until you can zone in on what you think they definitely have, and you don't want to say, "Oh, you're a Woo," or, "Oh you're a Deliberative, that's why you're taking so long to get me this report," or, "You're this." Be aware of it, and start asking questions to try to mine for that talent, and see if it actually exists, and then think of ways to apply it. Here's what I hear all the time. "That's great Andy, but that's not within..." and this is going back to my job description rant, but they say, "That's great Andy, I'm good at this, and yes I probably make a better salesperson then an accountant, but that's not within my job description, that's not what I've been hired to do." To me, that retards business generation, and forward momentum because you're not allowing people to grow within the company, and fill those cracks or voids using their natural talents. For the life of me, I can't understand why businesses still expect that. They just expect you to be happy in the position that you're hired in and never seek out more. If I went to my boss and said, "Hey, you know what? I know I'm an account, that's what you hired me to do right out of college. I'm an accountant today. I don't mind doing that, but I'm telling you what, I just have this deep itch to be in the sales floor and to go out there and talk people. Is there any way that I can maybe transition out of this office into that position?" When managers, or supervisors, or CEOs or whoever say, "No." I think, "Man, why would you ever say no? Why would you ever deny somebody the chance to express themselves and go out there and try to do something amazing for your company?" I probably just derailed your whole question there. Lisa Cummings: No I love that, because there are so many good conversations that come out of this. When I work with teams and people have that same feeling you just described--then I say, “all right, well, if you're doing something that's within your control, and you're the accountant…and you want to go be a salesperson…it's a serious change. So think about projects you can take on, teams you could be a part of, some extra stuff you could go build your network in that area. Test it out, and maybe build some chops as well. Be able to have that conversation with your manager so that you say, "Hey, this is what I'm interested in trying on."” Take on something that's low stake. Try a project where you can get involved. Then people start seeing you in that light. Managers aren't mind readers. I mean they don't know this stuff about you unless you have the conversation. Now I hope they're having the conversation, and I think listeners are the types who try to pull this out, but if you're in the employee perspective here, you've got to go think about what you want in your life. What do you want more of? What talents, what yearnings do you have? Then go ask for it, and say, "Hey, I'd really like to try out X," because if you haven't asked for it, it's not going to be on their mind. They have 4000 other things competing for that priority, but if you spark that thing that says, "Hey be on the lookout for projects that would let me test this out, I would love to do it," a lot of times, they come back and bring you the opportunity, and then those turn into roles, and they turn into relationships that 10 years later you're getting a job from somebody you worked with on a project because you expressed interest. Andy Sokolovich: Right, absolutely, and every corporate boardroom has that buzzword called retention. People constantly try to think of how to solve for it: how do we keep people here for the long haul? How do we bring them into our family, our culture and make sure that they continue to grow and they become enthusiasts about what we're trying to do? How do we make them want to stick with us forever? How do we do that? Well, the secret sauce is what we just said. You ask them what they want and what they need. You ask how you can foster their growth internally. Don't just expect them to live within your guidelines, i.e. that job description that they got hired under 11 or 12 years ago. I mean really start to invest in people, and you'll see things just mature to a level that's mind blowing. I've done it personally, even with folks that I worked with online. I do stuff with virtual assistants, and I do stuff with graphic artists, graphic designers. I try to constantly tell them, "You are naturally gifted at design, keep doing what you're doing. I really really enjoy this," and even when I'm not working with them, I'll go back every once in a while and say, "Hey, I just want to check in with you and see how you're doing. Is there anything I can do to help your business grow? Can I direct you to anybody? Is there a certain niche, or is there a certain group that you're trying to target? How can I help you grow, because I really believe you have the talent and to do what it takes." We've talked sometimes about low points. Just imagine being at a low point in your life, where maybe your career is not firing on all cylinders. Your family life is falling apart. Your health is going away--who knows--but when somebody comes and actually acknowledges or recognizes a talent that you have, something that you're able to do better than anybody else, how much of an uplift is that? How much of a boost in confidence is that? I think that little gesture makes all the difference. Lisa Cummings: I so agree. You never know what's going on in people's lives, and taking that moment to appreciate a talent that you see, and like I had an experience so similar to what you're talking about recently. I was working with a client, they were going through a merger and acquisition process. I was working with somebody who was a really heavy part of the due diligence process, and I know she was working insane hours. She was sleeping four hours a night. Otherwise working the other 20. I asked for something that just seemed trivial, and I knew it was going to be a pain. I didn't even want to send a request to the person, but it was something that I needed. So I made mention, "I appreciate you so much for taking the time to get this. It was so accurate and fast, and I know you must be so slammed right now." Then she wrote back this very heartfelt note. It was just about noticing what she was going through, and acknowledging that she took that extra time, and it was really cutting into her few hours of sleep that night, and she appreciated so much the notice. I think that's such a big deal--taking 30 seconds to tell someone what you see in them--just like you do with the designer you work with, or whomever, and say, "I really see this spark in you," and it gives them the juice to go, "There really is something to that," and maybe the difference in pursuing a whole different career. Andy Sokolovich: Absolutely, well said. Lisa Cummings: Andy this has been such a blast. Now I know the listeners want all sorts of Andy now, so how can they find you? Andy Sokolovich: My website is over at unleashstrengths.com Lisa Cummings: Thanks Andy, for joining. And thanks to all of the followers of Lead Through Strengths. Remember, using your strengths at work makes you a stronger performer. If you’re focused on fixing your weaknesses, you’re choosing the path of most resistance. So claim your talents. Then share them with the world. And help your team do the same!     Andy also has an excellent podcast focused on Strengths. It’s called Theme Addicts

This Episode's Focus On Strengths Michael Port joins us to help you lead through your strengths in all of the performances in your corporate life. You'll find this especially useful if you give presentations, if you're interviewing for a job, or if you're delivering a speech in front of others.   What You'll LearnYou'll see how working with a performer's mindset will boost your career. Michael shares wisdom on: How doing everything yourself will keep you from progressing in your career. Why you should never say "I'm happy to be here" or "let's get started" before you begin a talk. Connecting with the audience before the presentation to change the dynamic in a way that makes them want to have your back. Why natural talents without your investment and training...well, they're not doing you any good. How to be self-expressed, yet also able to flow from situation to situation with fluency. And why being a chameleon is actually being authentic. Learn why winging it in your next corporate presentation is a terrible idea, even if you're naturally gifted at thinking on your feet. How Stealing The Show is different from upstaging a teammate. Instead, Stealing The Show is making the whole show better for all of the performers involved. If you have jitters before speaking in front of people, he gives you some tips for focusing more on your audience rather than focusing on yourself and your anxiety. It actually takes the pressure off of you and allows you to get out of your own way. For job interviews, he offers you strategies for knowing what role the interviewer is trying to cast. And you'll even learn how to position yourself for a role you're less qualified in because you can contrast the "old way" of doing that role with the "new way" that puts you in a favorable light. Start your presentation-preparation with the audience in mind--to show them you know the world they're living in. How not asking for help will make you a mediocre performer. Secrets that usually only actors know--that they're not pretending to feel what you see on screen. They're actually feeling it. And that's what you need to do when you're presenting. Why "yes, and" lessons from improv will boost your career. And why you don't want to be the devil's advocate at work.   Resource of the Episode Check out the book Steal The Show: From Speeches To Job Interviews To Deal-Closing Pitches, How To Guarantee A Standing Ovation For All Of The Performances In Your Life. Also, if you visit the Steal The Show website, there are great resources to download. You'll read Steal The Show and you'll want more of Michael. It's a bit addicting. So here are his other books: Book Yourself Solid Book Yourself Solid Illustrated (this is my favorite!) Beyond Booked Solid The Think Big Manifesto The Contrarian Effect: Why It Pays (Big) To Take Typical Sales Advice and Do The Opposite Remember, using your strengths at work makes you a stronger performer. If you’re focused on fixing your weaknesses, you’re choosing the path of most resistance. So claim your talents. And share them with the world.   Read the full conversation:   Lisa Cummings: Today you will experience a guest who is using his strengths in spades. Michael Port is joining me today to talk about stealing the show at your next job interview or corporate presentation and you might notice that the phrase ‘steal the show’ sounds a little bit like something an entertainer would do and it is, so Michael beautifully blends this experience he has as an actor with the business world in a way I don't think the business world has seen before. You guys might have seen him on Sex in the City or Law and Order or movies like the Pelican Brief and then in the business world you might be familiar with his marketing system “Book Yourself Solid” or speaker training called Heroic Public Speaking. And let me tell you guys, he is living the idea of using your strengths at work. So, speaking of that, Michael, can you talk a little bit about discovering work that just looks so natural on you when someone else sees it? I dare I say it kind of looks like you're living out your calling. Michael Port: I think that I've always worked in the areas that I'm strong because the areas that I'm weak in are really weak. I'm not kidding. One of the reasons that this idea of working within your strengths were so powerful to me early in my career is because I’m very dyslexic. Growing up I had a hard time with the systems that were presented in school. So the way things were taught didn't always make sense to me. I still can't spell to save my life. I have to ask my girlfriend how something is spelled, you know, the most basic things that I've written. But as of this show, I have written sixth books, which just goes to show you that you don't actually need to know how to spell it to write. And I got very, very good at identifying things I needed help with and developing relationships with people that could help me with those things. Michael Port: And this is important because what I have experienced is those who think that they need to do everything themselves have a hard time progressing in their career because they don't rely on other people or call for help from other people when they need it. So they end up mediocre in a number of different areas and the areas in which they could be exceptional, you know, they end up mediocre as well because they're not spending as much time in those areas. So for me as a performer, I had a natural talent for performing. And so I went to graduate school and got a master's at enacting at the Grad acting program at NYU and I did have to craft a set of skills that would allow me to exploit those talents because I think without training, talents are just talents; with training talents become a craft. Michael Cain, the wonderful actor says something to the effect of “Whether I have talent or not is not an issue, I’m a professional actor with a craft.” And that I think is something that we should all consider that it should have. Mastery with respect to skills is so important and it’s really helpful to focus on the areas where we're strong. The thing that's tricky for some people is that they need to present. They need to present themselves in job interviews, in promotional situations, interviews and trying to go in and get the job or get the job promotion, sales pitches, and leading meeting, etc. Lisa Cummings: So, let’s focus on meeting and corporate presentations on Michael Port: Sure. So the issue is, you know, some people feel that they are naturally gifted, that “I can wing it.” I go in and, or go give her a speech or presentation. I'll just quick on my feet. No problem. Others go nerve and said, “I don't know what to say. Uh, I'm, I'm kind of stiff.” Michael Port: And both of those groups face their own challenges. Let's start with the group that thinks that they have something special first; that group can get by and more often than not they end up average when they could be exceptional because they think that they are naturally talented, so they don't prepare. They don't spend much time rehearsing. They wing it. And when I meet somebody who's like that and I call them on it. I said, listen, you're not preparing, are you? You're just going and winging it. (and they say) “Yeah”. and I think you could be usually you can be better, don't you? I think, oh my god, you know, I figured, you know, I'm thinking on my feet. I can; I can charm the audience. And I was okay. I was fine, maybe even good, but until I really focused on rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing until I focused on rehearsing, I wasn't great and then that's when I became great when I put in the time because the work that you put into preparing for your meetings or for your interviews, that's what's most important and then of course staying in the moment during those meetings and interviews, it's not, you know, if we think we're going to rise to the occasion, we may actually fall flat. Michael Port: We generally don't rise to the occasion. Rather we fall back on our training Lisa Cummings: and it's a perfect example of your, what you said about investing in your talents and then you turn it into a craft by rehearsing, by putting the practice in. Michael Port: Absolutely. So anytime we have a meeting that we need to lead or an interview that we want to net. We want to make sure that we can demonstrate to the people in the room is that we know what the world looks like to them. That's very important that we start there because if we don't start there, they may not think we understand that, so they need to know that we understand that, so we always start with the way the world looks to them right now. Then we make sure that they know the promise that we're making, the promise that is inherit, is built into the meeting or the interview so that if they follow your lead, this is what will occur and they need to know the consequences of what will happen if they don't, if they don't achieve this promise, if they don't realize this promise, what are the consequences? How bad are they? And what do the rewards look like if they do? Lisa Cummings: And gave you some urgency when you combine those together? Michael Port: Absolutely. Act and urgency is such an important part of getting anything done, you know, moving forward in any way. Do we have urgency? So what does the world look like? What's the promise that you're making to them? What are the consequences of not following through on this and what are the rewards of following through on this? Lisa Cummings: It also sounds like that could be a strategy for that person who doesn't feel like they were born with jazz hands to dazzle and have charisma and they're a little more shy or they're nervous in front of audiences and they're saying, hey, come on Michael, you do this for a living. I'm totally uncomfortable in the spotlight. What do I do? It sounds like you go to apply what you just said to relate one to one and then build from there. What else do you offer that person? Michael Port: First of all, I’m nervous all the time, anyone who cares about what they're doing, maybe a little bit nervous, and often I hear advice to people that get nervous and don't think that they're naturally talented. They suggest that they focus on their breathing or that you a physical warm-up, relax a little bit. Those are great. Those are really important things to do. Get your instrument ready to perform, but here's the thing, the more that you focus on yourself, more internal you get before you present, often the more anxious you will be because you're thinking about you and how you look and how you're going to do when in fact, if you focus on the audience and what you're going to help them with, what you're going to do for them; if you focus on their needs, their desires, their goals, then you take the pressure off of yourself and it no longer is about you. It's about them and if it's about them, you get out of your own way and you are less likely to be as anxious. Lisa Cummings: That's one of those tips that sounds so obvious when you hear it, yet people don't do it and I see you do one thing masterfully that they could use, which is before you give a speech, you're out there relating one to one, to people in the audience so that they're not the big scary monster when they're. When you're up on stage, how do you go about that and how would you recommend doing that for someone who is trying to shake the stage fright and have a personal connection with the audience? Michael Port: If I give a speak at a convention center to 6,000 people, most people who are listening to probably not giving those kinds of speeches, so if you're giving a presentation to a room full of five people or 50 people want to try to shake the hand of every person in the room, look them in the eye, smile, make a connection before you present to them for a couple of reasons. One, it may relax you because you feel like you've gotten to know them. Two, they feel that they know you and they are going to give you more of themselves right from the beginning because if you are someone who they don't have a relationship, then they are more likely to sit back, cross their arms and say, all right, let me see what you got. But if they've shaken your hand, talk to you for just a few seconds. Even look me in the eye, smiled. They already feel an obligation towards you. Feel an obligation to you to listen to you right off the bat. Now if you don't serve them throughout the presentation, then they may sit back and cross their arms and go, hi, come on. But if you're focusing on them throughout and the promise that we're going to deliver to them, then it's likely that they will. Lisa Cummings: I could see that they want to have your back. If you've had a conversation, you have a different relationship with them just straight away. Michael Port: Of course they do. If they are going to sit there and listen to you, they'd much rather enjoy themselves than be bored. I mean, isn't that the case? Of course there's always somebody who just wants to be oppositional, but most people want to have a good time. So they want you to do a great job. I want you to serve that and they want you to have fun doing it. So here's the thing. Often people will start a presentation by saying, I'm really happy to be here. Really excited to be here, but I don't think you need to say that. I think you can just actually show them that you're happy to be there because, what's the alternative to being happy to be there? That you're really pissed that you're there. So just show that there's a lot of things that we often say at the beginning of the speech that is just filler and it actually makes the presenter to look weak. For example, they may you here present presenter say, all right, let's get started. Well, it started as soon as they saw you. It started even before if somebody introduced you with a Bio. So as soon as you're introduced, it's already started. So any filler that you might do, you can cut and get right to the heart of the matter. Lisa Cummings: Everything's an interview. You're always on stage at work. People are watching you a year before you decide to apply for the job and then you walk into a room where you're giving a presentation and eyes are on you very keenly because you’re the one who was about to deliver a message. It's a really great thing to think about that; people are always assessing. That's just what we do to discern as humans. Michael Port: Chapter three - in Steal the Show is about playing the right role, every situation. So this is specifically geared for people that need to perform in lots of different situations, not on a stage necessarily, but inside your organization you may need to play different roles with different people. Some people are superior in terms of their position, a supervisor, some people are subordinate, and you are a sort of, as a leader for some people are on the same pay scale, so to speak. Sometimes you have to deal with folks in the mailroom. Sometimes you have to deal with folks in the marketing department. Sometimes you have to deal with folks in the accounting department. Sometimes you have to deal with folks in the sales department and each department may have different culture, different sensibility, different types of personalities. And we've got to be able to move through all of these environments very comfortably. Michael Port: And if we learn how to play the role that is the right role for that situation, well, then we can excel because the people in those other environments, they feel more comfortable with you. They feel you get that. You understand that. And folks who are comfortable adopting different styles of behavior, playing different roles in different situations, often excel more quickly than those who only have one style of behavior, who are overly true to self. Now listen closely because this may seem like a confrontational idea, people like that because it seems like it's an authentic thing to do. However, if you are so true to yourself, you cannot easily flow from one situation to the next with different types of people where you need to play different roles. Then you generally get left out of those situations, but if you are chameleon like, then you are generally invited to more environments, more situations with different types of people. Now, here's the thing. The reason this is often confronting us, people say, yeah, that seems inauthentic, Michael. It seems like you know, a chameleon changes their colors depending on the environment that they're in. That's not authentic, but if you think about it, a chameleon is a hundred percent authentic. When an actual chameleon is at a green leaf? it actually turns green. It's not pretending to turn green. It has actually turned agree. If it is on a red leaf? It's actually turning red. It's not pretending to turn red, so It is absolutely authentic. Lisa Cummings: It's just a part. It's revealing. Michael Port: So you're amplifying. What you're doing is amplifying different parts of your personality so that you fit comfortably into these different situations. Lisa Cummings: It's perfectly aligned with what I talk about in strengths is there's a raw version and a mature version of your strengths and if you're mature enough in that strength and you've really invested in that talent, then when you show up, you can decide which strength to lead with based on the environment you're in so that you can show up your best and show your red when you need red and show your green when you need green. Michael Port: Exactly. Green is not called for in that situation or might make trouble for you, leave the green at home. Right? You know, sometimes you know, we walk around with a chip on our shoulders and want to make sure that everybody knows how we feel about every little thing and in fact that can be very counterproductive inside the corporate world because you may create conflict inadvertently, but you may create conflict based on some of the ideas you have or worldview or ways you feel about different situations that aren't really necessary to bring it up all the time. Now, I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that you should not be true to your values. Michael Port: This is important to me. Integrity is an essential fabric of my way of being that we should be true to our values, but this idea of being true to yourself in such a way that it creates rigidity? Well, that's a problem and that's very different than saying, you know what? I'm not going to jump over that fence into a place that says no trespassing because it's a nuclear waste site. Even if that's supposed to help my career, I'm not going to do. That's being true to your values. Here's the thing, just because you have a different value system doesn't mean you have to share it all the time. Lisa Cummings: It's such an important distinction because if it's really hot right now to talk about authenticity and authenticity is important, yet the definition of it is very loose. It depends on who you are and what you believe about it and I do hear a lot of people equate authenticity with sharing everything that comes to the tip of their tongue at every moment and that might be a really bad career move. Michael Port: I'm with you 100 percent. This buzzword as I just hear, authenticity, authenticity, authenticity and authenticity and yes, I think has become a problem because it means to some people like, hey, let me tell you about my date last night, man, she was hot. That is not something that needs to be discussed in the break room at the table. So that kind of authenticity is not called for, and this is performance. this one I'm talking about, like Shakespeare said, all the world's a stage and I think he hit the nail right on the head because what you share with people tells them something about you, and this is not just performance, is not just about speaking in front of people. Performance is about the way you walked into the break. Do you walk in with your head down looking at the floor or do you walk in with your shoulders back and your chest open and a big smile on your face that is performance and you're playing a role, but this is, you know, it's performance and the question is, are you the kind of performer that says yes to people and plays well with others and is part of an ensemble or are you the kind of performer that upstages people and stealing the show and upstaging people is very different. Michael Port: Stealing the show, it means that you have brought something to others that is extraordinary. That's special and what it does is it makes the whole show better, but it's not upstaging anybody else. Upstaging is trying to purposely hinder somebody else's performance. You've never going to do that. Lisa Cummings: I appreciate having the difference there because someone not familiar with the term may have thought, oh, that's, I don't know that I want to steal the show from someone. So you're very good to have the distinction. Now, here's a situation where maybe somebody thinks they should and I don't think so, but what about job interviews that gets people in a very competitive mindset. So I've loved hearing your perspective on competition and how that works. So what do's and don'ts would you suggest for stealing the show with a potential employer and they're just learning as much as they can about them, but they don't know as much as they would in a regular work environment where they've been an employee. Michael Port: Competition is fantastic, but not when you compete with others, you know, competition is something that drives us. And the question is, are you competitive in such a way that you are knocking other people down or are you competitive in such a way that you want to produce more because you're urgent, you have urgency and hopefully so when you're in a job interview situation, you want to look at what role are they trying to cast, this is important, what role are they trying to cast and how would you play that role? For example, when I left acting, the first interview I had was for a middle management position at a fitness club and I wanted to be the group exercise manager. I was teaching a spinning class because I raced bikes and that was a fun thing to do and I taught the class once a week, but I absolutely no experience in group exercise management whatsoever. Michael Port: I didn't tell any of the certifications that were required for that job. So I said, well, it doesn't seem like I have what they're asking for to play this role but let me see what I have done in my past that I could use to demonstrate that I could play this role. And I identified the way the role is currently played and then I crafted the way that I thought the role could be played better. So, for example, the way that they played this role currently is they would hire the top instructors in fitness to be the managers, which I didn't think turned out that well because they weren't necessarily managers. It was a different skill-set. So I presented the idea that the role should be cast with somebody that has management skill and understands performance and creating theatrical experiences. And they said, hmm, I hadn't thought about it that way. Michael Port: And I said, look, if you look at the managers that you have now in this particular department, you'll notice that there are payroll issues. People don't always get paid what they should when they should. There are often scheduling issues, dropped classes and they're often human resource issues. And I knew this because I had been teaching a class and I said, I think this is because the folks who are running these departments don't have experience in management. And I said that I have experienced because I was producing plays and tv commercials when I was acting and so I said, look, I understand budgeting, I understand production. I understand casting, which of course is important part of which is hiring and let me demonstrate why this will translate to what you have to do here. I also understand about creating theatrical experiences and all of these different classes should be theatrical experiences. That's what makes them so compelling to the members. I know I don't have this certification or that certification, but if you need them, I can get them in short order and guess what? They took a chance on me and within a short period of time, six months, in fact, I was running the division for the entire company throughout the country Lisa Cummings: It ties so beautifully with what you were talking about where you thought all about them. It's all about the audience. What do they care about? What are they trying to achieve? And you tied that into productivity for the company and then you linked into your strengths and leaned in on what you're great at and what you could offer. So the two things came together perfectly. Michael Port: Exactly right. One of those developing this character to play this role. I didn't pretend those anything other than I was. That's the key. When you go in for job interview, if you pretend you are anything other than you are, that's when you're inauthentic. That's when you're faking this role and a great performer never fakes their role. The most authentic performance in the world, the best performers in the world are the most authentic performers in the world. And often the most authentic performers in the world are the most authentic people. So if you look at actors like Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, these are honest performers. One of the reasons you love watching them is because they seem so real and they are real. They don't pretend to be feeling what they're feeling when they are having an emotional experience. They are actually feeling that, which is why you feel it. Michael Port: And so you don't want to pretend that you're, that you are somebody that you're not. You want to go in there and leverage what you have to turn it into what you want so you can play lots of different roles as long as you can see, take your strengths and the things that you've done and figure out a way to apply them to this new situation. And that is role play. That in part is also improvisation because you are responding to what is coming at you in the moment. So people often ask about preparation and say, well, you know, if I prepare too much, then I feel like, you know, I'm on, I'm going to be stiff. You know, how much should I prepare? And I say, you should prepare more than you think you should prepare. You know, if I asked somebody if they've rehearsed, you know, before they give a presentation and say, oh yeah, I went over to the hotel room a few times before I get it. Michael Port: That's not rehearsal. But one of the reasons that we are afraid of the rehearsals because we think we're going to get stuck in the patterns or in the exact process or protocol that we rehearsed in our presentation and that is only because we are not in the moment during that presentation or during that interview, but if you're so well prepared that you can throw out what you've prepared before you walk into the room and stay in the moment, then everything that you worked on, other thing that you prepared will come to you naturally and organically in that moment and if what we prepared doesn't apply to what's actually happening in the moment, because sometimes interviewers will throw things at you that you did not expect, you won't get stuck. You won't feel like you're trying to draw on something that you prepared even though it doesn't fit to the situation at hand. But rather you're in the moment and you're answering by saying “yes and” which is an important improper technique. We don't say no. We always say yes, and you try to come up with a response that is honest and organic to that situation. Lisa Cummings: What a way to whet the appetite. I'm big on improv. I take improv classes and love them. Michael Port: The second part of Steal the Show, introduce the performance principals, specifically principals that performers use to steal the show and how each of those principles can be used in everyday life for the nonactive, for real regular person and one of them is the principle of saying “yes and” which is what's something you learned on shore and improv class because if I'm doing, if you and I are doing an improv scene and you walk in the in the room were on the stage and say, oh my god, I broke my leg. I'm in so much pain. And I say, no, no, no, you're fine. You're fine. It just it's over. this scene is done. But obviously, oh my god, that's terrible. But you know what they said your hair looks fantastic and you say, I know it's because I was at the hair salon was getting a haircut. Then I colored my hair that you show the chemicals. I fell out of the chair, fell down, broke my leg. Well, now we've got somewhere to go. So saying yes, it says an important part of improvisation and so when you're in a meeting and somebody comes up with an idea that you're not crazy about, the default response is, yeah, but we got to worry about this as opposed to yes, and we can also think about this, and it changed the dynamic of the relationship the entire. Because you're not saying no to people. You're saying yes ad and you will then talk about some of the issues that may come up, but it's not a no, it's a yes. And if everybody in the room says “yes and” rather than no, you will change the feeling in the room, which of course changes the collaborative spirit, which then changes the results. What you produce in that room. Because I'm not just a former actor who writes books about business and give speeches. I run two very, very competitive companies. Two of the top companies in the industry and you know, we employ lots of people. We have tens of thousands of clients and customers around the world and we run our businesses the same way that we would work in an ensemble if we were performers and I have detailed all of that in Steal the Show. Lisa Cummings: It's such a beautiful tip and we can turn it into a challenge for the listener. So if you're a listener and you find yourself playing the devil's advocate all the time and meetings, challenge yourself for a week to get out there and instead say those two simple words, “yes and” make yourself follow on the sentence and build. Instead of breaking it down. Michael Port: It's one of my rules. Listen, if anybody in an interview for our company says they like to be the devil's advocate, they're out. They're gone. It doesn't mean we want, “yes people”. The devil's advocate just likes being oppositional and I don't want people who like being oppositional. I love when people find holes in our theories and the things that we're working on. They say “yes and” I have an idea of how we can plug that hole, but the devil's advocate doesn't devil's advocate. Now there's a hole there. That's where the devil's advocate, that we call them the DA. We don't want any idea is in the room. Lisa Cummings: Definitely using that one. That's great. Michael Port: That's actually in the book. This whole concept of the devil's advocate and the DA. Lisa Cummings: Who knew I was getting into that part. That's great. Well, dear readers, you might've guessed that the resource of the episode is Michael's book. The title is Steal the Show: from speeches to job interviews to deal closing pitches, how to guarantee a standing ovation for all the performances in your life. Michael, any other goodies you want to tell them about if they're interested in finding more about you because you know you write those books and they're like potato chips. Once you eat one, you're going to want another. So I'll link to all those in the show notes as well. Your other five bestselling titles. Michael Port: That's fantastic. So stealtheshow.com. I've got lots of bonuses, free videos to watch on performance, lots of downloads, tips, cheat sheets, etc. So to stealtheshow.com, you can pick those up and of course buy the book, you'll love it. I promise.

This Episode's Focus On StrengthsIan Altman joined me to bust the myth that you're always selling ideas at work. In this episode, you'll see instead how you should stop trying to persuade and convince. Stop trying to push your solution. Stop focusing on your value. And start focusing on their problems. Start serving them from their perspective. What You'll LearnIt's only after standing in their shoes that you can understand if you're a good fit anyway. You'll see how flipping your perspective can avert disaster and ensure results. Ian shares wisdom that will help you: Present to senior executive in a way that feels relevant to them. Understand the ancient, mythical creature called empathy. Stop selling your ideas. Stop persuading. Stop trying to convince. He offers you a better way. Get your customer to convince you that their issues are painful enough that they're worth solving. Hear the song "Dancin' In The Streets" in your head for the rest of your day today. Focus on fit--and whether you have solutions for problems your audience cares about. Changing your finish line with clients to the results the other party is looking for rather than the moment you get your "yes". Get more high-five-worthy moments with clients. Find out why you should stop asking, "who else needs to be involved in this decision?" Get a Quadrant more magic that the ones from Gartner: 1) Issue  2) Impact & Importance  3) Results 4) Others Impacted Avoid feeling like you're making ATM transactions with your customer. See how Ian grew and sold businesses that impressed even Dr. Evil. Resource of the Episode Check out the book Same Side Selling when you're ready to go deeper.   Read the Full Conversation:   Lisa Cummings: Today you're going to get tips for selling your ideas at work - and how to do that while using your strengths. Lisa Cummings: If you've ever felt frustrated when the person you're trying to influence just doesn't get it and you feel totally stuck and things like arm wrestling and Roshambo are the only things you've come to as a way to end the stalemate. Well, if you've ever wished for it to be easier than that, you're going to love our guest today. Ian Altman is joining to help you sell your ideas at work. So I first met Ian at an event for public speakers and he reeled me right in. He has this really easy communication style. He fills up the room with his big old smile and intelligence and wit, and you can get a piece of this personality every week on Forbes. If you read his articles there and then there's a book, Same Side Selling his book is just excellent and although I'm not going to give it away for you here in the intro and spoil your read, I'll tell you that it will flip your views on a lot of things you've been taught your whole career. So after today's chat you'll see why people like Seth Godin and Dan Pink recommend Ian. So Ian, thanks for joining. Ian Altman: Thanks, Lisa. Lisa Cummings: Alrighty. And as you know, the show is all about exploring your natural talents, how to find them, how to leverage them, what it's like when you actually do that. So if you think back over your personal career, can you kick us off with just sharing one of your favorite peak experiences where you were personally selling your ideas at work? And you totally nailed it. Ian Altman: I can probably think of more examples where I didn't nail it. And that's the thing that I think for most people to understand is that it's natural for us to stumble when we're trying to sell stuff. And I think that were way more successful when we're trying to solve things for other people and most people have a natural ability or natural strength to try and help solve challenges for other people. And this notion of selling becomes really uncomfortable. And so most of the experiences I look back on when we were really successful either selling things to clients or selling things internally, all we really trying to do with solving the underlying problem for somebody and sometimes they got paid for that. Sometimes we were just gaining adoption by other people and getting their buy-in to our ideas. But it mostly came down to helping the other person to understand how what we were really trying to do was help them. Lisa Cummings: I really like that because people get so scared when I say, here's something like selling your ideas. Even if they're not thinking about themselves in a sales role, they get a little bit nervous with you flipping that around and just saying, hey look, you can get in the shoes of your customer and do something for the other person. Solve something for the other. You can actually totally nail it even when your whole approach is all about them. Ian Altman: That's absolutely it. I mean, I think about, let's say you're an HR professional and HR professionals trying to convince the senior executive they should do something that's in the best interest of their business and usually the HR person feels like they're on this on unattainable mission to convince this person they should do something that the HR person knows is actually in the best interest of the business and what if instead they said, look, you know, I know we've been struggling with retention. I know I've been struggling to attract the right people and I've come up with some strategies that will help us do that better. Now all of a sudden, the senior executive says, Oh, well what? You should totally do that. Why didn't you start yesterday? But if you said, oh, here's this training program that I want to do, the senior executive business sitting around saying, man, I wonder if we can do more training, training and be good. If we just took all of the people were paying and had them spend dedicated time in a training session, that would be awesome. That's not what's going on, but if you can present your ideas in ways that get you and the other person on the same side trying to solve the same puzzle metaphorically, and obviously it leads to less adversarial tension because you're both trying to achieve the same thing. Lisa Cummings: You have that concept in your book, right - the adversarial trap. If you applied it in your workplace, the same side thing would absolutely apply. How do they do more of that? How do they understand the other side so that they can be more influential with their ideas? Ian Altman: Well, there's a concept that isn't new and I certainly didn't invent it called empathy and so and it sounds funny to mention that way, but usually what happens is we as professionals are so focused on what we're trying to accomplish, then it's easy for us to forget the other person's perspective. So for example, when I'm teaching people about sales and selling, what I always ask them is, “okay, so what do you think is going through your customer's mind right now? What do you think your customers thinking and feeling right now?” And the answer I usually get from salespeople is one of two answers. Either I have no idea or the compound I have no idea, and why would I care. The most in the most advanced people that people are the most successful? I say, what do you think your customers thinking at that moment? And they'll talk for 10 minutes about exactly what's going through their client's mind and you start to realize that the people who were most successful have that empathy. They can see themselves in their customers' shoes, in the other party's shoes. They know exactly how they're feeling and then their co building a plan to achieve success instead of, I'm here, let me force this on you. Oh, you don't like it? Maybe I'll say it louder and then that'll work and it just doesn't play out very well. Lisa Cummings: Let's take the concept of empathy. Now that we're remembering that exists, right? And say, okay, they are beginning to plan for this conversation. They're going to focus on the fit and understand how to persuade the customer or future customer to do business with them. One thing I hear people feel tough in the reconciliation is they think, okay, how am I going to incorporate my unique talents and strenghs into this relationship and make it all about them at the same time? How do you pull that together when it feels like a paradox? Ian Altman: Well, there's a few different things. One is that we have to be careful that we're not trying to persuade. In fact, what I would say is any time you're trying to exercise influence, what we're really trying to get to is the truth as quickly as possible because let's say for example, that using that, that silly HR example I gave, let's say the other person really isn't that interested in retention recruitment. They're not really concerned about their individuals on their team. Then they're probably not what you tell them. They're not going to be sold on this idea because they really don't care. So the first thing we have to do is get the other people to convince us that they have something that's worth solving and that they have whatever their issue is that you're talking about, they feel has enough impact. Is this important to solve, to make it worth your time to help them find a solution? Once you get to that point where now you're both in agreement that this is worth solving, now all you're doing is saying, okay, the first thing you're doing in terms of fit is saying, am I well suited to help them solve this? And if so, now I just have to illustrate how and why I am, so part of it comes down to you may have a disconnect where someone is asking you to do something you're not really good at, and that's when you need to be honest and say, you know what? We may need some other help for this because otherwise you end up putting yourself in a position where you're probably going to fail and we don't like to fail, and the people working with us don't like to see us fail. Lisa Cummings: It's big. Your concept that, really, your goal is not to persuade. You need to understand. And if you can't be convinced and they're not convinced that this is a fit, then you'd be a fool to move forward. That's a really powerful shift in thinking right there. Ian Altman: You're absolutely right. Here's the interesting part of it is that when I'm coaching people on the selling side, the hardest thing to an understanding as they say, so what if I talked to the client and it doesn't seem like their issue is that impactful for them and is that important to solve. Then what do I do? And I say, well then first you can share third party stories to say, well, here's why this thing is important to other people. And they still might say, yeah, you know, I can see why that's important other people, but it's really not to me, and if they don't get it, then don't try and be a missionary trying to convert these people to your way of thinking. Just realize that, okay, this probably isn't going to work out so well, right? It's just not a good fit because even on the selling side, people will say, well, so I talked to this client, men, I know we could help them, but they don't seem to care and they're not really interested in this. What should I do? Like what do I do next? I said, you move on. You could have someone who actually cares. Lisa Cummings: Let's say you’ve focused on the fit and the fit is there, and then you're in the deeper relationship with the client and the initial ideas there. How do you avoid making it feel like a one-time transaction with them? Ian Altman: In what I teach, we spend a lot of time talking about the idea of results. What I mean by that is that, so let's say, you know, pick any scenario. You're trying to get someone to agree to do something just because they've agreed to do something and exchange whatever the currency is. So if you're selling something, they exchange money. If they're investing in a program internally, it might be investing their time. Just because they actually complete the transaction doesn't mean they've achieved success. So usually what happens is the person who's trying to do the persuading, the person who's doing the “selling” of their ideas often sees the commitment, the contract, the sale, the decision as the finish line. But the other party doesn't see it that way. The other party sees the decision as an incidental step toward achieving the results they're looking for. And so the way that you focus on making sure that people see the bigger picture is now what you do is you ask them, okay, let's say that we started this program. How would we know six months out, 18 months out whether or not we were successful, what would we notice? What would we measure to let us know that we were successful? And now the other person you're talking to feels like you have the same goal as them, which is to achieve the results, not just get the decision or the sale. Lisa Cummings: I love the questions. What would we notice? How do you go about getting inside so that you can notice together? And so what I mean by that is a lot of times they'll ask about the measure of success and then in six months they check in and say, you know, how did that metric turn out? And let's see if the trend line is up into the right. So how do you get the relationship rolling in a way that you can be noticing those things together as a relationship rather than a check-in? Ian Altman: I love that question because it demonstrates that you're focused on actually them achieving those results because it's not just how do we know now you're saying how are we actually going to measure it together? And so that dialogue says, not only. So how would we know if we were successful? And someone says, oh, this would be it. Then you'll ask a question like, so what might happen that would lead to us not achieving those results? And now the person says, for example, let's say it was a training program you were selling to them and the person says, well, I mean, I guess if people didn't come to the program and then if they didn't commit the time for follow through and reinforcement. Okay, what are some of the things that we can do together to make sure that those things don't happen? Because obviously we want to achieve success and they usually scratch their head a little bit, especially if their scalp is dry. Ian Altman: And then, all of a sudden now you're building a strategy and a plan together that keeps you involved going forward and it's easy for you to say, look, so it sounds like somebody that's on a regular basis how about I check in with you in three or four weeks and just make sure we're accomplishing those things because my sense is if we're accomplishing those every three to four weeks, then we're probably going to see those results six months out. Now, if you're constantly involved in ensuring that your partner in essence is successful, then you have an ongoing dialogue and anytime something comes up, you're the first person that's right there. And when your clients see you deliver amazing results, that can be an internal, external client. Now all of a sudden they're way more inclined to work with you because not only did they buy your idea or whatever it is your selling, but you actually helped them ensure that they got results. And thankfully so many people miss that, that when you do it, it seems extraordinary. Even though all you're doing is just delivering what you said you would. Lisa Cummings: Now, how does this dynamic shift when you're doing the same thing we just talked about and it's the internal senior executive you've been having this conversation with? Ian Altman: It doesn't change; honestly it doesn't change at all. I mean that's. That's the whole beauty of this is that it's not so much a sale because keep in mind I'm trying to do is get them to do, be on the same page with us on the same side in terms of what we're trying to accomplish and sometimes that means that we need to move them closer to us and sometimes we need to move ourselves closer to them, but it's a collaborative process and whether that's an internal senior executive who you're partnering with to accomplish something or someone externally; think about it. The COO of the company or the CEO, do they want to spend time with the people who get their buy in on an idea and then don't deliver? Or do they want to constantly go back to the person who not only executed but ensure that the business got the results that we're looking for, so those are the people who advance the most through their career. Those are the people who excel. Those are the people who get those promotions. Those are the salespeople who are at the top of their game because it's so easy for their customer internally or externally to trust that they're going to see results with them. Lisa Cummings: You brought all kinds of layers to my mind here about the idea of people wanting to get promoted and advance their career and the idea of getting closer to that person that they've been doing this work with. I tell my audience all the time to listen hard, to understand the other person's situation better, know what makes them tick, know what other options they have other than the choice that you've been talking about as you've gone through the process together and it's really difficult for people. It's like people go through their careers getting better and better at pontificating and kind of worse at really hearing what's going on with the other party. So if you apply all this stuff to just some sort of simple negotiation, let's say with an internal colleague at work, how do you craft some of those same side questions or the thought processes to be able to listen and hear them better? Ian Altman: A lot of it is having a structure around it. So on the selling side of the world, we break it down in these four quadrants. So what we say is that anytime we're speaking with somebody, we want to focus on the issue that they're facing, which would be, if you think about four quadrants, like a sheet of paper, you draw a vertical line down the center and horizontal line across. So now you have two squares in the top, two squares on the bottom, and the idea is that in the upper left you would write the word issue. In the upper right, you would write the words impact and importance. In the lower left, you'll write results in the lower right, you'll write others impacted and let me explain what's in each of those quadrants. So the issue is the surface level goal of the person you talked to. Ian Altman: So someone says, oh, we're looking to put in x, Y, z program into the business. Great. Now on the impact side, which the upper right, we're going to ask questions like, so what happens if we don't achieve that? What if we don't hit the deadline? What if this thing got deferred and we didn't accomplish it? Because what we're trying to figure out is what's the consequence to the organization of not solving that issue? Then in the lower left where we have results, we take notes that centered around how we're going to measure success together. So let's say we do this project six months after we're done, how are we going to know if we were successful? What are we going to see that we can measure that tells us both that we've achieved a high five worthy moment is I like to call it. So how do we know that we're both singing Kumbaya and dance in the streets? Because we did something amazing Lisa Cummings: That ear worm is going to be in my head all day long now. And everyone listening. “Dancing in the streets” Ian Altman: Then in the lower right, we put others impacted and the reason we put others is that, especially in sales and really in every type of business transaction, oftentimes what happens is we're dealing with one individual and we assume that they're the only person impacted. And then the 11th hour somebody gets inserted into the process we didn't even hear about and they derail the whole process. And we're like, man, what happened? Where this person come from? And if we said, well, who else is involved in the decision? You never get an honest answer because the person you're dealing with doesn't want you to think that they don't have full authority. But instead after you talk about impact and after you talk about results, if you say, well, so, so who else stands to lose the most? Would that impact you get those people? Okay, well who else is probably going to be most excited about these results? Ian Altman: And guess what? The people who are going to be impacted the most on the negative and the positive side, they're going to be involved with you like it or not, so you may as well figure that out early on in the process. Now in that upper right quadrant, that idea of impact and importance, the difference in impact and important is impact is kind of quantifiable measure of what happens if you don't solve it. Importance is a outcome of a simple question which is compared to other things on your plate. How important is it to solve this issue? And if someone tells you that it's not that important, don't waste your time on it because it's not important to them, then it doesn't need to be important to you. Lisa Cummings: I love this quadrant and there are so many pieces of depth in here. If you really dissect it and I hope everyone listening will go grab the book and see and be dissecting things as simple as that comment you just made about others and the typical question, who else needs to be involved in this decision that gets you nowhere and the way that you reframed that and gave alternative ways to get to the same thing that could completely kill your deal or make it great? You have so many nuances in the stuff that you just said that we could talk about for another hour. Ian Altman: Let me give you just one little, one little piece of perspective. When I asked him who else needs to be involved in this decision? My finish line is the decision. When I say who else stands the most to gain from these results, who else is going to want to put in their two cents into how we measure the results? Now I'm focused on the real end goal, which is the results and it's a much more comfortable question for the other person to answer because we're in alignment with what should be important to them Lisa Cummings: And once again it's because you framed the question in a way that it's something they care about instead of something that you care about. Ian Altman: When you say it that way, it's like, well, it sounds really obvious and it's amazing how few people do it this way. Lisa Cummings: I don't know that in all of the sales calls I've attended in my life, I've ever heard anyone frame it like that. There are so many nuggets of Ian Altman genius, that you'll get when you follow his work, so no one here would be surprised to hear that Ian, he started, he sold and grew companies worldwide to values have more than a billion dollars. That's like 1 billion with a b. So yes, I'm doing Austin powers thing with my fingers right now. Your contribution to this conversation is this great visual of the quadrant and mine is Austin Powers movie. He hit those numbers and did these genius brilliant billion dollar things by using the ideas that you started to learn about in this show. What’s the best way to connect with you and dive into your work? Ian Altman: The easiest way is if you just remember it grow my revenue. So on twitter it's growmyrevenue, the website is growmyrevenue.com, the podcast that launches starting the end of September is growmyrevenue business cast. And so, if you think “grow my revenue”, if that's important to you then I'm easy to find. My website is https://www.ianaltman.com/ Lisa Cummings: Easy. “Like Sunday morning guys”. Ian Altman: Oh no, we got all these musical things are going to be singing all day now. Lisa Cummings: I mean we're helping people dance in the streets. And it's a beautiful thing when you can have that magical moment. Yes. So thanks everyone for reading Lead Through Strengths. Remember that using your strengths at work makes you a stronger performer and now Ian has given you a way to also incorporate interests and strengths of your audience. So if you're always focused on fixing weaknesses at work or filling in these gaps are on the path of most resistance. So claim your talents and your clients and share them with the world.