Announcer: Welcome to Leadership Development News, profiles and practices of top performers. Leaders are the heartbeat of any organization. Let Cathy Greenberg and Relly Nadler share with you the pathway to becoming a top leader in your organization. Now here are your hosts, Dr. Greenberg and Dr. Nadler.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Welcome to Leadership Development News Profiles and Practices of Top Performers. I'm Dr. Relly Nadler. Dr. Cathy Greenberg, I have now been doing this for eighteen years. And we have been named number one in leadership development by Feedspot when they evaluate these blogs.
Dr. Relly Nadler: You know, and Cathy and I always are trying to bring tips and tools that'll help you or your team perform in the top 10%. You know that top 10% is a tipping point, meaning you want to get people in the top 10%. They are more productive. It helps with retention engagement. So hopefully today we're going to be talking about coaching strategies for turbulent times, and we also wanna share some of these tools for moment mastery.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And if you want some more information from Cathy, drcathygreenberg.com, cathy@drcathygreenberg.com. For me, relly@drrellynadler.com or rnadler@truenorthleadership.com So, Cathy, welcome.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Hi, Relly. You know, I have some good news for you if you haven't seen LinkedIn today. We actually are once again listed number one in the top 10 influencers for leadership podcasts. And I was very happy to see that first thing on a Monday morning. So congratulations to our audience.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yes. All our guests for being so amazing and wonderful. And, you know, despite these turbulent times, Relly, and I think we're going to talk a lot about some of the mindset elements that you've been playing with for some time now that you're going to emphasize in today's show. I'm really excited to hear about them. But let me just kind of give a little bit of data to the audience to put things in context.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: So first of all, we know that, and you say it so beautifully on every podcast episode, that we are in a tsunami of emotions. We are in information overload, uncertainty, overwhelm, everybody wants more and more and more. And we moved from this VUCA, this volatile and certain chaotic and ambiguous environment into a BANI environment, brittle, anxious, nonlinear and inconceivable. And as a result, stress in America, these studies actually tell us that forty seven percent of people are experiencing anxiety, forty four percent sadness, and thirty nine percent are downright angry, to be honest with you. And then Gallup found that forty percent experienced worry, thirty seven percent stress, thirty percent physical pain, twenty six percent sadness, and twenty two percent anger, not only in their daily routine, but in their previous day's routine and it builds, right?
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: So it's building over time. And about seventy five percent of us feel like we could use more emotional support. Obviously, all these things are impacting our ability to use our IQ points effectively. And we have impaired decision making. You know, our chronic or excessive fear and anxiety disrupts our rational thinking.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: We are dealing with people who are reacting impulsively or irrationally. I mean, I walk around saying all the time that civility is dead. I race off to Italy every fall in the hopes that I'll find it. But, you know, the brain is under sustained fear and relies more and more on the emotional center than on our rational processing. We're going to dive into some of these things in today's show and hopefully give our audience an opportunity to learn a little bit more about how they're likely to perceive situations more negatively and give them some tips and tools, especially from your toolkit, Relly, on how they can help themselves push away from this excessive fear and anger and irrational thinking.
Dr. Relly Nadler: It's so true. And I'm sure, Cathy, every day you're doing this, with folks and so am I. And... Excuse me. Often, I'd say we're operating with less IQ points, and I'm sure you've heard me say this before.
Dr. Relly Nadler: I've given IQ tests. And I think people, you know, many of the leaders we're working with are probably one fifteen to one twenty or above. CEOs supposedly have IQ of, you know, one twenty five or so. Well, I think because of everything that you're saying, all the stress, the tsunami of emotions, we're probably all hovering around average. And the other thing that I like to say, we're all on autopilot.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And if you stay on autopilot, you stay average. Nobody I work with or or Cathy you work with wants to be average. So that's why I think the things we're doing on this show, and I'm glad to hear that the podcasts will continue to have influence with others. So what are the few things they can do to not be average and hopefully to be excellent? I did share in LinkedIn just that the micro initiatives, what are the few things they can do to have a macro impact?
Dr. Relly Nadler: But I'm excited today to talk about, I think, what is a commonality I want to get your input on this, really with coaching and I would say therapy, or this may happen with a good friend. And so this whole idea, if these thoughts are in your head, they're not out, they're internal, it can feel like a fiend. And I'm going to use that as an acronym and kind of talk about that. And what's a fiend? Well, fiend is a source of agent, an agent of evil, harm, distress, or ruin.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So if our thoughts are only in our head, the default mode network is where our mind just wanders. It could wander into stress, anxiety, worry, or it could wander into imagination. So being aware of that is important when this default mode happens. If it's only in the head, I would say it's it goes into more worry and anxiety. And we want to get it out into the light.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And I'll give you this acronym from fiend to glitter. And I think coaching, a good conversation with a friend, therapy gets thoughts out on the table. And we know about an examination table when your body's there and the doctor's hitting your knee and see if you got the reflex. Well, we want to put thoughts on the examination table, and that happens in the light. So let me just kind of share this, and I'd love to get your comment because I do think it's a common factor of why therapy, coaching, a good friend, oh, thanks for listening. Oh, wow, we release oxytocin.
Dr. Relly Nadler: It's invisible. But these thoughts have been invisible and putting a light on. So what's a fiend? F I E N D. If the thoughts are only in the head, it can feel like distress, harm, ruin.
Dr. Relly Nadler: That's what a fiend is. Well, F is for fear. Kat, you already talked about that, enhances anxiety. The acronym I'm sure you used of fear, F E A R, false expectations appearing real, or F E A R, failure to examine assumed reality. So it's in the head, the F is fear.
Dr. Relly Nadler: The I is irrational. It's in our head and we think because I thought it, therefore it must be right. Wrong. It's distorted reality. There's no real evidence.
Dr. Relly Nadler: The E is exaggerated. Worst case scenario. We go there automatically. It's negative. You talked about that with Manny, all about what could go wrong.
Dr. Relly Nadler: That's where our brain goes. And when it just takes off on its own and it's dark, there's no light with that. And some of the key phrases, it's all around self talk. If you hear yourself, what if this happens? Oh, I can't handle this.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Oh, I won't be able to. You fill in the blank. So we'll get to the glitter. But so that's the fiend. I wanted to comment on that before we go.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yeah. No. I'm sitting here and, you know, I'm kind of waiting for the next word to come out of your mouth because one of the things that we know, Relly, and I've been really delving into this with some of folks that I have been working with on the subject of fear and elasticity of identity and elasticity of our emotions. And in teaching the emotional factors section of our MAP program, which is the new program we rolled out at the National Command and Staff College. And to your point, the fiend is eating up our energy. And so we think that when we have no energy that we are in a state of depression. And let's be real clear with our audience.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: We're professional coaches, even though you are a licensed psychologist. And we try not to dip our toes too far into the therapy pool. But let me give everybody a heads up. The fiend is eating the energy that you need for rational thinking, for reality checking, problem solving, for relationship development, for your interpersonal skills, for your empathy. So this fiend is destroying your conscious thought.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And the reason we're feeling exhausted or as most people refer to this feeling of depression, this withdrawal from social gatherings, this need to sleep more, this need to feel isolated. It's because remember, your brain doesn't like to do too much activity. It's already overwhelmed with just keeping your body functioning, right? One foot in front of the other, one arm working to support the other in balance, your eyes, your ears, you know, your nose smelling things. We are in constant motion these days, as you say lovingly more, more, more.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: But the reality is the fiend is taking up what little energy the brain is allowing us. And so you're so right when you say it's fear, it's irrational, it's exaggerated, it's negative, and it's dark. And that would cause anybody to want to sequester and stay away from others. But in fact, as you said so beautifully, it's those connections in conversations with those that we have compassionate conversation with that feed us and help us rebalance and provide us with an opportunity to rebalance that loss of energy.
Dr. Relly Nadler: That's so true. I love the term cognitive budget, is kind of what you were saying. We only got so much energy. We only have so much of this budget. And in a sense, you're saying this, it's getting wasted on what's spinning in our head.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And then we've all experienced it. So I'm going get to now that we put the light on these thoughts, the examination table, and we really look at it. And so some of the key phrases that sometimes coaches can use could be, So what would help here? What can I learn? What do I need to do differently?
Dr. Relly Nadler: And when we put these on the examination table and we look look at it, it activates the prefrontal cortex, as you know. And so we actually can have some rationale and go, I'm not sure why I thought that. Well, it was in their head, it was dark. We didn't have that light on it. And so not only does it activate when we get the thoughts on the table, the prefrontal cortex, this salience network, which is sometimes very important between the prefrontal cortex, thinking, thinking, doing, and then the default mode network, typically a little bit more worry, but it could be imagination.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And this also happens in coaching and probably in therapy. It looks at what's the value? What's most important here for you? And when we activate that salience network, it can help. So this idea of glitter.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And at the coaching college, College of Executive Coaching, I got some help when I presented this. First, it was, l I t e r, and I wanted the two t's, and I'll tell you what the two t's are. But I couldn't have two t's because it would be litter without the g. And so there was a person who was on the, getting trained. She's like, oh, I know.
Dr. Relly Nadler: She took a break. She came back. She was an entrepreneur. She says, you should add a g. I was like, oh, yeah.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So what's glitter? Well, first, it's on the table, so now we can see it's got light to glitter. And so the g is goal focused. We know from coaching that installation of hope. It's the positive emotional attractor.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Or. What are you leaning into? It's goal focus. That's the G.
Dr. Relly Nadler: The light is as we're saying, but if we use some Jungian terms, he talks about the shadow. Well, that was all the fiend. And now as we shed light on it, it's like, oh, maybe I can accept it more. It's not so gruesome. In the dark shadows, it seemed gruesome. And so that's the L.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And then you have the I, which is insightful. And so what we do in coaching, but also I'd say this happens in therapy, but a conversation with a good friend, your self awareness gets enhanced. We see these patterns. We see this impact. Oh, I didn't realize that was an impact on me or impact on them.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So that's the I. And then there's two T's, transactional. So what's the changes? What are you going to do next? How are we going to measure that?
Dr. Relly Nadler: And so in coaching, for sure, and I think it also happens in therapy, just the idea of having something moving forward. Some of these transactions can be transformational. Not all of them, obviously, but some of these insights, you change your mindset You change it once it can be changed. And so I think in coaching, also probably in therapy and with a good friend, someone says, Oh, wow, that is transformational. Not all the time.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And then the E in the glitter is empowering. Enhance autonomy. We know the sense of mastery. I have choices. It also helps with confidence.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And then the R is realistic or rational. Is there evidence to support what the the fiend was saying? And so I know the last part of this, you know, I think I... You probably heard me say this before. As a psychologist, I would be with people in private practice before I started doing executive coaching and just normalizing things.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And I think a good friend does that therapy. Oh, you know, you're not alone in that. Most people would most people would feel that and they would be a sigh of relief. Oh, wow. It's normal.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And I remember also thinking, did I really need to get a doctorate and pay all this money to have this normalizing statement, which is part of the glitter? We get that normalizing from our friends, and we get that connection, and that's that oxytocin that we get. So you got the fiend, put it on the examination table, shed light on it, and then the glitter.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Well, I love that, Relly. And I'll tell you, there's something else in there that I think makes a lot of sense for those of us who are in coaching. Because if we look at the core competencies, and the most important one, of course, is active listening, there's the blinking words. Right? So some of that glitter comes from the blinking words that we hear that give us insight as coaches to what's going on for this person that we can help them normalize and help them in their executive functioning to evaluate the accuracy of those thoughts and to put a little bit of a light, if you will, or that glitter, if you will, on that default mode network.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Wake them up to recognizing that there is more that is going on that can be thought of as a possibility for the transformation that might not happen every time, but at least creates an empowering, as you said, hope and confidence. And assuming that they are whole healthy people who can find their own answers with just a little bit of help and a little bit of assistance, looking at that beautiful glitter, and recognizing that they don't have to litter that negative stuff all over the place. Right?
Dr. Relly Nadler: That's right. Well, you know you know, you and I love our metaphors and and talking visual. So I think if it stays in the head and the fiend, one of the metaphors I like and they said that negativity, we all have a negativity for the right reason, that negativity bias. It's self protection. What is wrong?
Dr. Relly Nadler: What could be wrong? What will be wrong? Oh, I better prepare. I better prepare.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yeah.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So the metaphor, it's like these negative fiend thoughts. It's like a deep sea fishing, and I know you're out on the coast of Florida. It's like deep sea fishing, and you get a fish on the line, and it just takes off. Well, that's the fiend. Before we know it, it's way out there.
Dr. Relly Nadler: A good conversation with a coach, a therapist, a friend starts reeling in the fiend and starts making it, you know, kind of bringing it in and say, Was that really true? And even hearing yourself talk is going to bring some of that insight.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Absolutely. Well, we're going to take a quick break, really. And when we come back, let's talk a little bit about how leaders look when they're stressed and how we might be able to help them define some habits to become higher performers when they're not at their best. Don't go away. You're listening to Leadership Development News.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Four three two. Welcome back to Leadership Development News, profiles and practices of top performers. So we're... Cathy and I typically have great guests, but we thought this would be really fun and engaging for you, the audience, and actually certainly for Cathy and I, to talk about some of the things that we're doing and that we're excited about. And so one of the things we first want to talk about, just from our experiences, what are the challenges that leaders go through?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Well, a couple of them. I'll share some and then Cathy will share some. It is this idea we're talking a lot about thinking, getting your thinking on the table, the examination, shed the light on it. Well, guess what? We don't like to think.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Cathy alluded to that. And we think about fast and slow thinking. We know from Kahneman, his book Fast and Slow Thinking. What did he say about slow thinking? One, we don't like to do it.
Dr. Relly Nadler: We are cognitively lazy. We talked about the cognitive budget, and it takes a lot of cognitive budget. I think it's worse now. How often do we want to go to Google or to chat GPT?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Let them do the thinking. And so this idea is that we don't like to think long or hard. And Kahneman said slow thinking maybe 2% of the time. Well, that's going to happen when you're in front of a coach.
Dr. Relly Nadler: They're compelling you. It's the forced focus to think slow. And I love just about what you think about. William James, one of the father of psychology, said, Your focus is your experience. Because you're on autopilot, you see a coach, also a therapist, and maybe even a good friend. You're forced to focus on these things and therefore have some glitter.
Dr. Relly Nadler: What we think we become, the Buddha said way back when. So are you off autopilot? A lot of coaching is intentional instead of the default mode network that just takes off. And then around influence, more current, Robert Cialdini. What's more accessible in the mind is more probable in action. So when your coach says, So what's your goal and what's so important about that?
Dr. Relly Nadler: It's accessible. It's in your mind. So you've got a better chance of that happening. The other piece of this, said this, there's so much going on, we don't take the time to think.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And we're always on autopilot. And so whether it's the individual or the team truly having the time to think. And then the last part of this, and then Cathy will give you some of them. Tasha Eurich, who wrote the book on insight and an organizational psychologist, very, very research oriented, talked about self awareness or lack of self awareness. You ask someone, Are you aware? And about 95% of us say, Oh, yeah, yeah, of course I'm aware.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And she, in her research, has said it's only about 10 to 15% of us. Why coaching is so important? Because it's raising your awareness. And so it's an awareness. What does that mean about your values, passion, goals, personality, strengths, weaknesses, your impact on others?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Those are all the conversation that we have in coaching.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: You know, you are so spot on, Relly, as you always are, and it makes me reflect. You know, I'm thinking about some of the shows that we've had at this halfway mark in the year, And some of the data that pops up for me, and I don't know if if you'll recall, one of our guests said that less than 13% of leaders actually achieve their strategy.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Wow.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And that's such a small number. And many people are living in a constant state of wanting to get a result, but looking in the rearview mirror with a lot of regret. And as a result, that impostor syndrome will kind of creep in, you know? And that creates skepticism. That creates cynicism.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: That creates in some people a sense of self righteousness and an expert mindset because they can't accept that they might be wrong or that might not have compared themselves to the right data, right? Or maybe they're stuck in this measurement of perfectionism. And without a coach to help us really dig deep into some of those impacts that we're feeling but we're not able to describe, we're not able to identify. It really is difficult for any leader in a situation where they are stressed to recognize that. And I'll tell you something.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: I use, as you know, and you use this as well, emotional assessment tools in our work. And I've been doing a lot of these emotional intelligence assessments with leaders across the nation in public safety. And I would say on average, 90% of these people, a pretty good number too, don't even know they're stressed. They're living in such a constant state of this more, right? That they don't even know that they're stressed.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: But yet when I share their reports with them and I show them their stress numbers, the first thing I say to them is you need to be really mindful about your physiology, about ignoring pain, about ignoring the default mode network. You know, I had one individual very, very compelling just two weeks ago. I was describing this to him in his report and this is a senior person who was a commander of a SWAT team who recently moved to a new position because of health issues. And his eyes welled up with tears and he looked at me. Now he didn't cry, but you could see somebody's eyes, you know, welling up. And he said, I can't believe you just told me this.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: I said, No, no, no. I'm not telling you anything. You told me this in your answers. And what you're doing by sharing these insights with an external person, right? A person outside of your brain.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Is you're allowing me to share with you information that's creating emotional fitness for you. You're allowing me the psychological richness of your answers to provide for you a way for you to sustain your adaptability, to have some conscious exploration, to have intentional change. You decide through your own map and your own journey, how will you want to make those, if you will, plasticity changes in who you are. And you have plenty of runway. I don't care how old you are.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: We all have runway. So, you know, I learned a long time ago, Relly, and our friend Marshall Goldsmith was the person who taught me, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You know, there's a syndrome many of us go through, especially leaders who are afraid of giving away that expert mindset, of not being the smartest person in the room. And that syndrome costs us so much, right? I don't have to be the smartest person in the room.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And in fact, I give myself grace not to be. It's so enriching for other people to also be able to have the answers. And then sometimes power mutes our empathy. And we see this in emotional intelligence assessments as well. You know, research supports this and we see that when we're not empathetic towards ourselves, we also can't be empathetic towards others.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And we know that as leaders get into positions with more authority, with more accountability, with less mindfulness, with less time for thinking, right? That's that 13% who are barely achieving their strategy because they don't have the time. But that power mutes our empathy for ourselves and others. And that singular gyrus in our brain gets locked and it hardens. And so that capability to have compassion, self compassion is blocked.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And then another one is a lack of skills. We stop developing. And when we stop developing ourselves, we're not gonna facilitate development in others. And we don't even see it because we lost it and we don't miss it.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Well, all those are these challenges that folks have. We're on autopilot. We're not self aware. We're on overwhelm, and we don't like to think. If you think about it, here's someone as a profile of of a leader and how, you know, we can help and, Kat, It's almost like the idea of this neuroplasticity. We're trying to give them a new autopilot. I mean, so we're trying to, you know, break the old autopilot and put in some new tools that it doesn't have to be a lot so that can help them be excellent, not just average. And it doesn't take much.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yeah. And I just want to make sure before we dip into some of these ROI numbers, right, and findings, what are some of the key things that we depend on the role of a leader to do? Let me just refresh our memory here for our audience, right? I don't want to make any assumptions here that they know, right? So vision and strategy, communication and representation of the brand, risk management, growth and innovation, collaboration.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: They have to collaborate with the board. They have to collaborate with business partners, with communities, performance and accountability, and the measures that they're being assessed by. And then financial oversight, and with that financial oversight, leadership and decision making. And all of this sets the culture, it sets the climate, it sets the values and the profitability. And Relly, I think, you have some amazing data here that you've done some fabulous research with on the importance of emotional intelligence.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And I just wanna say this before we get into the data, I'm getting a lot of positive feedback in these programs on emotional fitness that we do as part of the MAP program and the 11 rings of Magnus Ovea, which is the 11 rings of peak performance. And the ring that I'm responsible for for is emotional factors. And we know that emotional factors, that emotional intelligence, that adaptability is greater than 78% responsible for leadership success. So something to pay attention to.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Say that one again.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: So emotional intelligence is responsible for greater than 78% of a leader's success in a leadership role.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah. Right. And that's why you and I early on, you know, really met around emotional intelligence, positive psychology. We both got certified in the emotional quotient inventory at the same time and have been using that.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And just in general, when we think about coaching, we won't spend a lot of time on this because it's pretty obvious from what we're saying because we want to make sure we give people a fewer of the tools that we like. Mhmm. But, you know, some of the return on investment. So you're in organizations, should know, should we really get coaching?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Should we really do that? Well, the ICF, International Coaching Federation, said there's about a seven times... 700% return. That's the median, but, this is kind of new information that I saw, Kat. 19% of the folks saw a 50 times return on investment and 28% saw between 10 to 49. So not only seven, but some saw 28% or 10 to 49. Those numbers are easier or 50 times their investment.
Dr. Relly Nadler: That is incredible.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: It is incredible. And let's just break this down. Let's just break down and make it really simple. Okay? So in 2008, you and I had a program that we called the Excel Institute.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And we talked about the fact that if you took one individual in your organization who had a leadership role and that individual cost you, let's say $700,000 a year, Basic income, benefits, right? Vacation days, anything you can associate with the value proposition of that individual. And now that individual walks off the job. They're stressed, they're overwhelmed. They're unfortunately making decisions that might be now unethical or in the gray space.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: For whatever reason, they either walk off or you fire them. Take that number, multiply it by seven. That's the loss
Dr. Relly Nadler: Wow.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: That you just took. Think of that number.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Seven times 700,000. And we used that number back in 2008 to show what it cost the company when somebody walked out of their front Now let's look at it in terms of the taxpayer, because not everybody's gonna hire a leader at $700,000. But let's be practical. You're just a person in the community, but your tax dollars goes to hiring police and public safety, EMTs and firefighters. Guess what?
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: It costs on average between 300 and $350,000 to make a police officer. That's from the poly, the panel, and the psych evaluation for them to come into the organization and be assessed. Now they go through the police academy for six months. Now they come out and everybody loves these TV shows, right? The Rookie and all CSI and NCIS.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: We love our TV shows. But now this person has to go in field training. Well, then now now... You're not only taking that person and putting them on the street, but you're taking the field trainer off the street to help coach them. And now you have to give them a salary and benefits and vacation time, 300 to $350,000 to make a police officer.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And now they get to the end of that training period and they're on your payroll, And now they won't even get out of their patrol car because they're afraid. Because their lives are at risk every time they go to answer a call. Because they're no longer seen as the good guy and gal. Right. They're now seen as the enemy.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: So we're hurting ourselves in our communities by not understanding these metrics. And it's so important because it doesn't matter what it costs us. We lose either way.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah. So true. So true. Well, we wanna... We're gonna take a quick break and then we're come back and I'm gonna highlight a a tool for folks.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So one of the things that leaders can do and then any tools that you wanna better share within our time frame. So you're listening to Leadership Development News. Continue to tune in, and we'll be right back. Four, three, two.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Welcome back to Leadership Development News. We've had an enjoyable conversation today. You know, Relly and I haven't done a show of our own in a long time. And today we talked about coaching strategies for turbulent times, kind of a play on words given that Matthew and I have a podcast called Strategy for Turbulent Times. And Relly, we so love, you know, having this time, just you and I together.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: That's me, myself and I having a good time with you, one of our favorite people. You know, there's so many wearables now out there and I'm part of a brand new app called Magnus One and I have my own channel at the National Command and Staff College. You can find out all about what we're up to with the 11 rings of Magnus Ovea and we'll be launching that channel very soon, so stay tuned. You know, these wearables have become so popular. We know Calm and certainly Six by our friend Paul Zak.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Tell us a little bit about some of the tools that you know have been tried and true over the years that you know really make a difference on these micro initiatives that can have a macro impact.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Thank you. Well, this is a tool that I often share with the College of Executive Coaching. You know, you and I both do courses there, and it it was the ninth school certified to train people. Now there's, I think, about 600 schools worldwide, and you and I have been the OG as you call it.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yeah. Including including my new school. My new school is coach certification for first responders. Yeah.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Say say the name again.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Oh, it's the Magnus Coach Certification for First responders.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And so also aside from the College of Executive coaching, our friends, Dr. El-Aswad and Dr. Gussab, we have Vital Signs Vital Skills, where we certify physicians or healthcare workers to be coaches. So we've been in this field for quite a while. So what's the vivid tool? If I had said to you, Kat, you're my you're my leader. I come to you and I say, Hey, Kat, you got a minute? And you're a leader. Where does your mind go? It probably goes to, Okay, you want you want help from me?
Dr. Relly Nadler: You want my direction? And it feels good to give direction. And it feels like that's your job is to give direction. And so that is what we would call the manager misstep when you immediately go to given direction. And so I'm going to share this vivid tool, V I V I D.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yes, direction is one of the things that someone wants. But often I would say to people in the coaching school, I'd say someone comes to you and you think they want direction. Why wouldn't you? It feels good. You release dopamine.
Dr. Relly Nadler: For many leaders, probably early in the day, you're solving problems and you're like, oh, great. Who's got something from me? All right. What about this? What about this?
Dr. Relly Nadler: That's where you lose your cognitive budget if you think you're solving everything. So what percent of time I would say does someone not want your direction, but instead they got their own idea? They thought about the problem more. They want to delve into it more. They don't want your direction.
Dr. Relly Nadler: They want their own idea. They want validation for their idea. Well, they haven't said it that way. So therefore, the manager misstep goes right to direction. And so when I asked people, I said, what percent of time do you think the person wants validation for their idea, not your idea if you're a leader?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Every time, 70, 80, 90% of the time, people say they want validation for their idea. They thought about it more, but they miscommunicated what they wanted to their leader. So this idea of vivid and and as a leader, you can use this with your team. What would someone want from you? And I would say from the leader, it's like, help me help you.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So the first V is vent. Do you need to vent? People vent all the time, and we think they're complaining. If you go, you can't figure this out? If you are the person going to your boss and you say, yeah, I just need to vent, it allows the boss to listen better.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So that's the first v, vent. The I is information. Probably doesn't happen that often, but where is this? When is this? But the second v is validation.
Dr. Relly Nadler: So what does that sound like if you're going to your leader? Hey. I got an idea. I'd like to just run it by you. Can you listen?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Would the leader listen differently? Would they get off autopilot of of giving direction? Yes. And then the second I is maybe it's not something they validate. It's they ideate.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Hey. You know this new project? Can we talk a little bit about this? Let's brainstorm a little bit. I'm not validating something or they go to the...
Dr. Relly Nadler: Hey. Can we do this? All five are important, but we don't have that language. And a couple examples that I'll give you, I had a a manager that I was dealing with, kind of a rough, gruff guy. He loved the villain.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Vivid. On his computer, he had there. Someone would come in. He's like, alright. Alright.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Well, what do you want from me? And they'd be a little freaked out. They go, validation, vent, and it calmed him. It got him off auto autopilot. So that's one example.
Dr. Relly Nadler: But the other example, I think happens all the time if you're a leader. This was an aerospace company I was working with, and every airline was in there. They made plane seats, and the general manager was there in his office. His assistant was out there. There'd be a line out his door that they wanted his time.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And what happens? They come in. They start talking for five or ten minutes. He still doesn't know where we're going with this. And then he's looking at the line out there, and his assistant said, you know, he's doing executive coaching now.
Dr. Relly Nadler: He's trying this new tool. When you go in there, he's been using the vivid vent information, validation, ideation, direction. If you could say that in the first minute or two, he will better listen to you. So that's the vivid. I think it's a paradigm shift for leaders because for all the right reasons, but the wrong outcomes, they go right to direction and they disempower people versus empower them.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And, you know, as you said something there, it triggered in me the difference between being vivid or the villain. Right? Usually, the villain, you know, is the wicked the wicked person with the wicked intentions who acts as an antagonist to the hero or the protagonist. And by using vivid, we avoid being the villain. So, you know, it's a double.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: It's a double there for the manager misstep or the autopilot. You're not only able to ideate and validate and and have people feel included and important and provide you with information that makes you aware of what's going on, but it also creates engagement in that relationship that you wanna keep with your people. Right? And it's allowing your direct reports to teach you. And in the in the same opportunity, you're now making sure that that little villain that likes to be the power monger is kept in check.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yeah. It it can it can let the leader bite their tongue and not feed their ego by going to direction. So, it's kind of like you're saying. I'll give you. Yeah.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Another example around the venting and so we know we use Myers Briggs and and extrovert, introvert, introvert. I had a a woman who reported... She was an extrovert and reported to a manager, engineering background male, who was an introvert. And so she would come in trying to let him know about what's going on and information if people ask that. She was venting.
Dr. Relly Nadler: You know, it's kind of here's what's going on.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Mhmm.
Dr. Relly Nadler: And he in his mind and this could be sometimes a gender issue, male, female. He's kinda thinking, okay, what's the problem here? What's this, you know, what do I need to solve? And she's venting and what does he do? He gives her the hand.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Oh. And and that was such a violation and so in coaching both of them, once he realized she's trying to help you, she's venting. And if you... We all have people who vent in our world, but once you name it to tame it, yeah, need to vent. And then all of a sudden, they're going on for five minutes, six minutes.
Dr. Relly Nadler: You could always say, do you still need more time to vent? And it may slow them down and put some boundaries around it. And so she needed to say to him first, her side, I just need a vent. I'll work it out. I need a vent.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Two sentences lets him sit back and not think he's gotta solve anything. And then for him, it allowed her to honor her own process and him not being a jerk putting the hand out.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yeah. And, you know, it... It's such a simple thing, but we've had one of our students, a very empathetic and compassionate person, she took the feeling wheel. And for those of you who know the feeling wheel, many of us forget that there's a whole language around feelings that we don't spend any time with. So we go right to exaggerated emotions.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: So a venting could be, I'm a little angst, I'm a little aggravated. I'm a little frustrated, as opposed to I'm depressed or I'm anxious. Right? So what she did to the point you're making about I just want to vent, she had the wheel on her door to her office. And as people came in, she would say, so tell me where you are on the wheel.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: And that would give her an idea, a little bit of an emotional audit, if you will, what they were coming in with that she could either prepare for or get them to shift to or from. And it's such a simple thing. Right? It's such an easy moment of mastery for all of us to just pause. And one of the most beautiful things I've learned in working with public safety and, you know, military professionals across all arms in the military is carry a bottle of water with you and offer it to people.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Not a used one, a fresh one. And by just offering a bottle of water and doing a kindness, taking the cap, you know, twisting it, putting it... Handing it to somebody. Yeah.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: You gain so many emotional, empathetic points. It doesn't matter if they're gonna vent. It doesn't matter if you're gonna hear something that somebody wants to teach you. It doesn't matter whether it's good, bad, or indifferent. It's that engagement and that openness of fostering feelings of being personally invested in someone that's gonna make that conversation whatever it needs to be with no judgment.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Right?
Dr. Relly Nadler: Yep. And I think as we're winding this down to kind of frame what you just said, you and I both have said this for any leader, You need to connect before you direct. And so whether you're finding out what they're feeling, how things were, we all have something in common with our people, sports, our pets, our spouses, our kids, connect before you direct.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Absolutely. Well, let's say goodbye to the Jafar from Aladdin, the Ursula from Little Mermaid, and the Joker from Batman. And, you know, well, even though mister Gru can be a good guy, let's let's say goodbye to the bad mister Gru. And for all of you out there who have those hidden leaders inside of you, remember, we're always here for you. We love you.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Tune in to tune up your performance with Leadership Development News every week. And until next time, we absolutely are here to share our moments of mastery with you. And don't forget to share yours with us.
Announcer: You've been listening to Leadership Development News profiles and practices of top performers with your hosts, Cathy Greenberg and Relly Nadler. We sincerely hope that you gained some great ideas and inspiration on how to elevate your leadership skills. Join us again next Monday at noon Eastern Time and 9AM Pacific Time right here on the Voice America business channel. Podcasts That Matter dot org.
