Alright, if you didn't know it yet, my new book, The Antihiro Advantage with Portfolio Penguin is here and it is available on Amazon, Porchlight, Barnes & Noble, Booksellers, Everywhere. Now if you don't know what this book is about or you're confused about the title, right? The book and the title speak to people who feel like maybe they've had some flaws, doubts, demons, or they didn't fit this sterilized mold of what a leader or leadership is supposed to look like. So a big part of this book is about helping the listener or or as a sorry the reader, you, understanding that great or effective leadership isn't about pretending to be perfect or having it all figured out. It is learning how to leverage those same fears, doubts, scars, and so-called flaws, and how being able to do so is what makes you a better leader. The book is also about primarily how to navigate the darker side of leadership, especially the parts so many books do not cover. How do I deal with defensiveness, conflict, egos, power dynamics, difficult personalities, resistance to change? And because so much of leadership is a messy social process at its heart, the book gives strategies for being able to overcome a lot of those internal and external conflicts and hopes you become more socially agile and self-aware. The goal of a book was simple. I wanted to create something that I wish I would have had when things didn't go as planned. I wanted something that was like this black book of secrets that I could hand to anybody that felt like, man, I have this boss or I deal with this bureaucracy or my kids struggling with getting bullied at school. And I wish I had a resource to give him a rehearsal. They could understand people and how to get around this. We are so grateful to be able to have this support of folks like General Stanley McChrystal, the legendary Stephen Pressfield, and so many more. Because why in today's world more than ever, we need to know how to deal with the gray area and the messy realities of leadership in life. So please go to artofcoaching.com slash book now to get your copy or to get discounted copies for your team. And you can reach out to us for that info at artofcoaching.com.

So artofcoaching.com slash book and make sure you're on the newsletter because we are going to do a lot of cool pre-order bonuses. In the next few months, I can't wait to share this with you. Check it out!

Check it out! Welcome to the Art of Coaching Podcast. I'm Brett Burtolamue and at a young age, poor communication nearly caused me my life. Now, I help others navigate the great area of social interaction, power dynamics, and communication. So they can become more adaptable leaders, regardless of their profession, age, or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you're the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advise you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership, you're in the right place. I'm glad that you're joining us. Let's dive in. All right, let's get into the meat of it. Over the past few years, we've had a lot of talks about managing staff. Many of you have reached out in a variety of fields and you've read the leadership books, you've read the management books, but still you say, I'm looking for some tips to manage staff. And one of our listeners in the past had reached out and said, one of the fundamental issues I have is just getting the staff to care as much as I do, whether that be in how they approach team meeting, sales, marketing of the business. Many of them are really good at their craft, but there are so many other aspects that I need them to improve upon and I feel like I'm constantly failing them as a leader. What am I doing wrong? What tips do you have? Well, I think one thing we all have to recognize, whether you're in a certain leadership position or you own a business, is your staff generally are not going to care as much as you do. That's a rarity. Now, this is different if they have things like stock options sometimes or if they have, there's always a match of incentives. And of course, it's not one-size-fits-all. I've written a newsletter on how to properly incentivize staff, having led staff in both a brick and mortar context, and also remotely under normal circumstances, whatever that is in terms of entrepreneurship, and during a pandemic. And so there are nuances to incentives. And despite what most popular leadership books will tell you, yes, incentives still absolutely work. People buy in large or governed by their self-interest, whether we want to admit that or not. But we'll do another episode on that because some folks even ask if I would almost redo a previous episode where we talked about that. But this one is going to be just a simple heuristic that builds off of a recent newsletter where it talks about how to even just make sure you have the right people on board because we can go over motivational tactics incentives, pay scales, management strategies, all of that until we're blue in the face. But sometimes it really can be as simple as this woman that I met. If you're on our newsletter, you read the email last week. It was about a woman that I met in New Orleans. And I'm not going to rehash the whole thing here one because you should get your butts on the newsletter if you're not on it. But two, I just wanna dive into a different aspect of it because I think that this will give you some hard hitting value within five minutes. I essentially watched this incredible woman give a great team meeting, so to speak. And I went and talked to her because I was in town in New Orleans doing some staff development work with a really good company, really sharp people. And I just went up to her and I said, you know, if you don't mind me asking, what's your approach? You seem like you have some really loyal people, thoughtful people. Whatever I just saw there was a mix of quirky and professional and efficient and awesome. And she said verbatim, because I remember recording this, she goes, honey, there's no secret to this stuff. But if you had to press me for one, I'd say this, be weird enough that you attract the right people or repel the wrong ones. That's 90% of it. After that, when you talk to them, you have to make them think a little, laugh a little, and speak to things they actually care about. And I think that that's a big one that most people struggle with, but she leaned closer and she goes in it, by the way, if you have people on your staff who don't wanna laugh, don't wanna thank and't want to be accountable, do not waste time keeping them on your staff. I'll say that again. If you have people on your staff who don't want to laugh, they don't have a sense of humor. They don't want to think, especially think critically and be proactive in solving problems, and they don't want to be accountable. Do not waste time keeping them on your staff. And that was it.

That was what she said. And we often want to make this stuff so much more complicated than it is. We really do. But sometimes it can be that simple if you get out of your way and quit overthinking it. For her, she said her weirdness was her first filter. She's like, I don't try to be anything that I'm not. This is a quirky restaurant.

I understand that I'm a different kind of person.

And. weirdness was her first filter. She's like, I don't try to be anything that I'm not. This is a quirky restaurant. I understand that I'm a different kind of person and it's gonna attract a certain kind of person. And she's like, yeah, sometimes it attracts kind of drifters and people that are bohemian, but learn real quick that my outward appearances in no way reflective of the work ethic. And I think that was cool too, because oftentimes we can get so used to thinking that a leader has to be this buttoned up, really well groomed person that has to look a certain way. And of course, this is not me saying that you should dress like whatever and you shouldn't pay attention to your grooming or your hygiene. That's not what I'm saying at all. The bigger message here is leaders come come in all different shape sizes. They look different, like for her, like she looked like a gypsy. Man, she had a loyal dedicated staff and a restaurant that had been highly successful in New Orleans for going on 30 years. And leaders don't have to look a certain way. It is all dependent on the context, right? And the broader leadership space would be well served to take note on that. But another note that I wrote down, because this is another one from one of you as listeners. We had done an in-service virtually for somebody and they basically said, you know, my leadership team was split. There is a certain percentage of it that loved it. They loved the accountability. They loved everything that you guys talked about in terms of commitment to behavior change, really understanding what makes people tick. But I noticed a small percentage of my leadership team kept trying to hide behind, well, that would take too much work. And well, can we really ever know what somebody's truly thinking? And it concerned me, this was them talking,

because I felt like it was them making a lot of excuses.

And I said, well, you know, okay,

but maybe there was something I could have done better.

What do you think?

And he said, no, well, this is an issue

that I've had with them.

He said, these people in particular,

I had sent to about three or four leadership development

related conferences over the past few years. And what I noticed is after every conference of that kind, they'd come back and say, well, this couldn't be applied or this wasn't good. But then I'd also look, because he said he does it 50-50. They get to go to some leadership-oriented conference or output, and then they also get to do something related to the technical aspect of what they do. And this was some cash-based physical therapist. And they said, but they didn't always have complaints of these things that fed into the technical side. And he's like, for me, it's really hard to ignore that pattern. Because I start seeing that they always have criticisms of things that make them uncomfortable. These are folks that are not uncomfortable in the clinical aspect or the technical aspect of what they do. But they do struggle with the client facing interaction. They do struggle with even some of the leadership dynamic within the clinic. And that's something that I haven't been able to get pass is how do you deal with people where it's so clear that there's this pattern that they're almost refusing or fighting the call to improve in one domain, as if they're protecting their self-concept. And I said, well, you don't try to fight that. You're not gonna be able to logic people out of that. Because the mistake is to go up to somebody and say, hey, Sean, hey, Melanie, hey, whoever, you know, I've noticed anytime we talk about leadership development or communication or psychology or behavior change, there tends to be some kind of criticism or avoidance. That's not always present when we see that all they're going to do is get defensive. They're going to deny that and they're going to go back and forth. And this goes back to the woman in New Orleans That we wrote about in the newsletter. She wouldn't try to fight this You know she tends to see things of Hey, I have a team. I asked them to be accountable on certain areas if they don't want to be accountable beyond a point I'm not gonna fight that and some people might feel like that's short-sighted But you have to decide what battles do you want to fight. Right? I think at the end of the day and I have to be careful of how I say this, people are gonna show you who they are. And they're gonna show you what they're willing to fight for and resist. So there are certain people that they're okay believing a certain myth that they tell themselves. They're okay believing that you're going to believe that you're the bad guy or the bad woman or that you're off base. People will do whatever they can to fight for their self-concept. And sometimes people will rationalize themselves into a whole so deep that they don't even recognize it. And so I'd say this, like, do you want people on your team fundamentally, especially if they're in a leadership position that are gonna fight getting continuing education on leadership development? To me, that's anothetical. And what this gentleman ended up saying is, there's two people that I just don't think that they really realize that if they don't grow in this space, they're likely gonna be fired because I can hire people that can learn the technical side very easily, you know, and these are great clinicians, but that's replaceable. What is not replaceable is people that handle the psychology side of it, the communication side of it, the leadership side of it, I don't want people on my team as I open up

five, six, seven more clinics that don't wanna do the extra work necessary to figure out what drives the people that are coming through the door, that they don't wanna do the extra work necessary to figure out where they can grow as leaders and communicators. And I said, well, there's your heuristic then, right? So understand, are you trying to save somebody

or are you trying to develop them?

Because you should have people on your team that understand that it is mutual. They shouldn't get defensive in recognizing that we all have gaps. I teach this stuff for a living. I don't think I could ever look at it and say, wow, I'm good enough at it. There's no more room for improvement. and anytime you're willing to invest in people, they've got to see that as an opportunity. But this is just a really important reminder. You are not gonna convince people through logic. You're not, you're not. And I talked about this in another context in our mighty networks not that long ago. Somebody was talking about how they're trying to get their significant other,

they've kind of been out of the job market for a while. They're trying to figure out what they wanna do, and they're frustrated because they're not finding something that is gonna match the level of pay that they were used to. And no matter what they tried telling them, they just said, hey, listen, I understand it's frustrating to you, but you've been out of the job market for a while.

I don't think you have the leverage that you think.

Like, why don't you just get... and they just said, hey, listen, I understand it's frustrating to you, but you've been out of the job market for a while.

I don't think you have the leverage that you think. Like, why don't you just get into something that you enjoy? Get into something that you enjoy, make some money at it, you keep trying to get this $100,000, $200,000 job that just may not be coming right now. And I said, well, how did they take that? and they said, as you imagine,

...