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The Heart & Science of Leadership
The Heart & Science of Leadership" podcast, co-hosted by Dr. Paulie and A.J. Rinaldi, combines their diverse backgrounds in leadership to offer a comprehensive view on what it takes to lead effectively, no matter your position—be it executive, teacher, manager, principal, supervisor, or coach. Together, they explore the balance between the human side of leadership and evidence-based practices, providing listeners with practical tools, real-life stories, and actionable strategies. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey, this podcast delivers valuable insights that blend heart and science for impactful leadership in any setting.
The Heart & Science of Leadership
Inside the Mind of a Fortune 10 Leader: Kyle McDowell on Leading with WE
In this compelling episode, Dr. Paulie and co-host AJ Rinaldi engage with Kyle McDowell, a former Fortune 10 executive turned leadership coach and bestselling author of Begin With WE. Kyle shares his journey from leading tens of thousands in corporate America to pioneering a leadership philosophy centered on collective empowerment.
They delve into the pitfalls of "me-oriented" leadership and explore Kyle's "10 WEs" framework—principles designed to dismantle dysfunction and foster a culture of excellence. Through candid discussions, Kyle emphasizes the importance of authenticity, accountability, and leading by example to inspire teams and drive meaningful change.
Whether you're navigating the complexities of organizational leadership or seeking to cultivate a more inclusive and effective team environment, this episode offers actionable insights grounded in real-world experience.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Transitioning from individualistic to collective leadership mindsets
- Implementing the "10 WEs" to build cohesive and high-performing teams
- Embracing vulnerability and authenticity as leadership strengths
- Strategies for transforming toxic work cultures into thriving communities
For more on Kyle's leadership philosophy and resources, visit kylemcdowellinc.com.
Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science
The Behavioral Toolbox equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!
Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others.
Welcome to the Heart and Science of Leadership, where evidence meets empathy. Co-hosted by Dr Paul Gavone, a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, and AJ Rinaldi, a John Maxwell Team certified leadership coach, this podcast blends the human side of leadership with evidence-based practices, demonstrating that leadership isn't about title or intent. It's about impact. And now here are your hosts, pauly and AJ.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome back to the Heart and Science of Leadership podcast. I'm your host, dr Pauly, and I'm here with AJ. How you doing, brother? Yeah, how are you Pauly? Oh, I'm good man, I'm good, okay. Well, so, per our last podcast, I talked about changing the format to see what it's going to be like to interview some very, very successful leaders out here. And we actually have a very successful leader today, and that is Kyle McDowell. And Kyle is a former corporate leader, former Fortune 10 executive, very cool man, keynote speaker, media personality and USA Today bestselling author of the book Begin With the we. So, kyle, I want to welcome you to our podcast.
Speaker 3:Hey man Paul, it's great to be here, good to spend some time with both you and AJ. I'm really grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, man, and congratulations on getting your book to be so successful.
Speaker 2:I checked it out on Amazon, man. It's still doing very well. You've had it out for a few years, so that's pretty cool, man. I love seeing people out there spreading the good word on good leadership Because, as we all know, good leadership can make a huge difference and bad leadership man can put people in the dirt. I've seen it do a lot of bad things to people, but I don't think it's bad people. It's often bad behavior, right, well said bad people. It's often bad behavior, right, well said. Yeah, Thanks, man. So, um, so, kyle, I'd like to you know, we, we spoke a little bit off, uh, you know off, uh, this recording here to talk about what you want to focus on and I, it seems like we we share some very common thoughts, and that is, uh, we believe that leadership should really revolve around principles, right, um, but before we get into that, before we get into that, what it should do, tell me some of the struggles that you see out there with leadership, right, and why we need to really focus on principles more.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, so just for some context for your audience, I spent nearly 30 years in corporate America and it's like so many essentially, I would guess, most of your audience, if not all. I started from really really humble beginnings in a tiny cubicle for a regional bank here in Florida and kind of worked my way up the corporate ladder, ultimately to leading tens of thousands of employees my last two roles I had about 30,000 employees and I will tell you, the first 20 years of that journey were wildly different than the last 10. I managed to deliver really good results, if not great results, throughout the bulk of my career, but the first 20 years left me with more apathy than anything else. And then I realized at I had this epiphany moment that I refer to as now, which kind of compelled me to write the book and set out on this journey that I'm on now, which is to rid the corporate world of its toxic ways and shitty leaders, because I was that guy for the first 20 years, so I can relate to why so many of us find ourselves in that trap where we end up behaving in ways that we essentially loathed prior to being in this new position of authority or becoming a boss air quotes. So for me, the biggest transition in this epiphany was grounded in these 10 principles that I have.
Speaker 3:I didn't create them, I discovered them. They were already out there. I just happened to put them in a little package. 10 sentences each begin with the word we. I'm not super creative, so we have the 10 we's and these principles are essentially a cultural currency that allows every single member of the team, from the newest intern to the most senior C-level fella or gal in the organization. It gives them the same ability, empowerment, the right to bring their best selves to work every single day.
Speaker 3:We're not trying to sound like the smartest people in the world. We're not trying to have the most stark shirt and shiny shoes. We want to make a difference. And the only way to make a difference, at least in a team environment, in my mind, is to align around principles and hold yourselves accountable, each other accountable, not just top down. We all have to be in the same position to hold each other accountable, challenge each other, pick each other up when it doesn't go well, and that's what these principles aim to do. Is they create kind of a guardrail or a fence, if you will, that kind of modulates how we behave. But I've found most organizations do a great job teaching people how to do their job like the X's and O's, the SOPs, the procedures but very few really, really spend a lot of effort, time and money on how we behave inside of the team, not just get our work done. I think it's equally important.
Speaker 2:Oh well, it's the most important thing. I'm a behavior scientist, so it's all about behavior. All results require behavior and there's different ways to get behavior going. A couple of things that you said, and I'm going to AJ. Let me get this first question out, man, because I'm going to bounce it back to you. Next man, just the title we I love that, right, right, because we got to make it about us. Uh, I love this quote by richard branson, and that is it says clients do not come first, employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients. I don't, I don't understand that. It's the simplest premise, but it is so true. But I find that to your point.
Speaker 2:I've seen so much bad leadership out there, not bad people. I call ask clownery. By the way, in my book it's actually it's an acronym for something. Yeah, my book was originally going to be called shitty leadership, but I called it positional authority, ain't leadership.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I see a lot of toxicity out there, bad behavior and people engage in this behavior because they produce results. They think it's working for them, and it is, if you're just measuring it on results. But as we all know here, there's better ways to get much better results right when we can increase morale, increase performance, increase retention, decrease medical issues. Just live ethically right and I'm sure you're going to talk about that with the weed. But can you talk a little bit about what does it mean to be toxic? What do these environments look like? Because I want to see the juxtaposition between. Maybe some people can relate to what they're feeling in their own organization, because some people might think like am I crazy? Is it supposed to be this way? I used to think that and I'm like no, this is not the way shit should be. So what do those environments look like?
Speaker 3:Well, it doesn't have to be. I couldn't agree more. But the way out of that kind of shitty environment that so many of us have found ourselves in at least at one point in our career, it starts with a choice. We've got to make a choice to lead differently, to participate in a team environment differently, because this whole command and control style the one that I embraced for 20 years it doesn't work any longer, at least over a sustained period of time.
Speaker 2:And what's that look like though? The command and control. That's what I want to hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'll cop out and give a more academic definition, which I'm sure you would appreciate, but then also I think we can align on maybe more practical terms. So Glassdoor and MIT partnered to form this thing called the Culture 500. And their goal was to uncover, using 30 million profiles from Glassdoor, they wanted to uncover why it is that employee, why do folks leave their role, why do they quit their company by the way, as you know, they rarely quit a company, usually quit your boss.
Speaker 3:And they came up, they landed on three or four characteristics that are the main drivers for turnover. The number one is toxic culture, and toxic culture is so kind of like hard to define for some. So they go a layer deeper and I'll probably get the three or four wrong, but just know that at a high level it's unmanageable workload, unfair expectations, unclear communication. And the last one is lack of manager support. Those four items, and when you put them on paper which I've done because I'm that nerd when you put them on paper, there's an obvious theme among those four items it's leadership, it's people. And they go on and they use actually this one's from Gallup. They say why my company cares a lot about my overall wellbeing and the numbers go up and down and they're probably at historical lows at this point, which I think is such a cop-out. I've never met a person named company. I've never met anybody named leadership or management, to your point, the intro that you gave man. It's like these are all people, not necessarily even bad people, but they're part of the cycle which I know I was, and I'm sure many in your audience, maybe you guys as well part of the cycle. Well, where I want to get promoted, I want to do more, I want to make more, I want to get these fancy titles, so I start to emulate the shitty behavior that I really don't care for, but I recognize when I emulate it I have a better chance of being asked to do more, because the people making those decisions to put me in the position to take on more get a fancier title, more comp. Those decision makers are the ones whose behavior I dislike, but I know to endear myself to them. I should probably behave similarly.
Speaker 3:And so this cycle creates and it's over and over again until someone stands up and says enough, we don't have to have the Sunday scaries to the point where we got to take medication. We don't need to. We should not hate our jobs. Now, guys, I'm not naive. People aren't going to spring out of bed every single day and run to work. It's called work, it's not called vacation. I get that, but I do believe it's an obligation of those in any type of position of leadership has nothing to do with title, by the way. We endeavor and push each other to create that environment where we all come to the same conclusion that, well, if we're going to be here 100,000 hours of our life, we better make the most of it, and that involves being more human than robotic, which is what so many organizations encourage us to do is become something other than ourselves. It's a real shame, well.
Speaker 4:Cal, you made a really critical point there. When you talk about the organization, like there's humans behind the organization, sometimes we just throw those blanket statements out Well, like the organization decided, or we're going in this direction, and it's never the bricks and mortar right. It always comes down to human beings. So, out of those 10 we's that you've kind of crafted, have you found that organizations struggle with one in particular more than the other?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm going to play back what you said, because even inherently in what you said I think is kind of a rub. It's like you said, what organizations have a hard time? No organization has ever had a hard time with any of my principles. The leaders inside of those organizations are the ones that might kind of push back, and there is one, it's number eight. We number eights, we challenge each other and it was the toughest for me to grasp so really quickly background. So I established these principles the night before I was going to meet with the top 40 or 50 leaders inside of a new organization that I had kind of inherited.
Speaker 3:I joined this company 60, 90 days ago. It's about 14,000 employees, $7 billion program for the federal government and that was my chance to get in front of this group of leaders for the first time the night before. It was a real gut check moment for me. It's like I made a personal commitment that I was no longer going to leave with that command and control style. I needed to find a way to resonate differently other than my business card. So the night before I was in my hotel room and I started. I knew I needed to put some slides together, because I was on stage the next morning and these principles started to come to me. And they came to me after I asked myself two questions what are the experiences that you've really really taken away? Value? And you felt as if you were valued. You felt like you were a contributing member to this team. Pause, and then the other angle was okay, let's think about those scenarios that left you feeling the exact opposite less than whole, a cog in a machine, not actually valued for the work that you do. You don't feel like you're contributing something bigger than yourself. And from that I ended up with these 10 sentences and the one that is by far the toughest for folks to grasp in. Well, not grasp but actually live every single day, including me. I struggled with it. I still do.
Speaker 3:From time to time we challenge each other because historically, as you guys know, the challenges almost always come from on high and they flow in one direction only If we're lucky we might be able to challenge occasionally up this direction, but we're going to tread lightly because we know of the retribution that could come Rarely. Is there encouragement of peers challenging peers? If we're going to be a great team, we need to hold each other accountable. It's just that simple. We can't have one person dragging behind and expect one person the boss to be the one to say hey, man, you're not pulling your own weight. So we challenge each other is incredibly important, but it's chaos without we number nine, which is we embrace challenge. Can't have one without the other. So those two in combination, to me, have been the most pivotal and the most profound in terms of transformation, not only in myself, but with those I work with as well.
Speaker 4:But with so much content out there now and so much dialogue about us needing to have that vertical feedback, feedback needs to be free flowing. Why do you think it is that leaders continue to struggle, either being proactive and seeking that feedback from the people below them in the org chart, or just developing that trust from the people below them in the org chart, or just developing that trust from the people in their inner circle to be able to hear that constructive feedback.
Speaker 3:It's a great question and, my man, I think you really highlight what is the Achilles heel to bosses becoming great leaders, and that's ego. It's ego. It was for me and I see it in those that I keep a small. I keep five or six executives that I do individual one-on-one coaching with and without outing any one of them, is obvious to me.
Speaker 3:The ego manifests itself in a way that is a threat to my authority. I have to have all the answers because I make more than you and I'm put in this position of authority. It's expected that I know everything, but not really. No one expects perfection out of their boss. They expect fairness, they expect authenticity, they expect us being relatable. So when the lack of ego results in the exact opposite of those things, my voice must be the loudest. I must have the right answers, because I said so is almost always the fallback in case I get challenged. But I tell you, man, and it was the most, it was a really transitional moment for me when I realized and this was getting 20 years into my career I didn't have to be the smartest guy in the room, I didn't have to have all the answers, I didn't need to be right, I needed us to find right. I didn't need to be right, we needed to do right. So, if, if, especially in those that have not been in their career for a long period of time, because they feel as if, when they get promoted or hired into this position of authority, there's these, there are these expectations that you know everything. You just can't say I don't know.
Speaker 3:But but when we realize the value that comes and the relatability that comes when we tell our teams man, I just don't know, what do you think? I'd love your insight on this. You've been here longer than I have. You must have more information or intel than I have. I'd love to hear that. And then being candid and open and transparent about that feedback.
Speaker 3:So if you say something, AJ, I say hey, AJ, man, what do you think about scenario X? And you give me a solution and in the back of my mind I know is harebrained, let's just use that example. I have a choice at that point. I could either shut you down and say no, that's not, we're moving on, or I can say you know, let's think more about that, and once we have a little more dialogue, I say you know what? That's probably not the route we're going to take, and here's the most important part of my answer. But here's why. Here's why Because everyone gets quiet and refuses to raise their hand after you've raised it two, three, four times and it's not acknowledged. So once we lose the ego and are open to other people's point of view, their perspectives, their pushback, their challenges, I think results are unlocked so much more easily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just seems so simple. But of course I've also been on the other side. We've all engaged in Ask Clown or we've all done things because again, it produces results for us and if you get dumped into that culture you're like this is the way things. I personally never cared about hierarchy and moving up man, I always thought people up there were Ask Clowns to begin with. I never really liked, I just think I had just a bunch of bad leaders. Man, I'm like I don't want to be like these people, but I realized that after unpacking standards for creating leadership courses and certification, I'm like they're missing the fundamentals of leadership.
Speaker 2:And from my perspective as a behavior scientist, I'm like the DNA of leadership is the science of human behavior principles and we always talk about all behavior occurs because of reinforcement, right. All results require behavior. How do you get behavior reinforcement? But one of the things that you just mentioned about getting reinforcement is establishing yourself as a positive reinforcement forcers, giving them voice and choice, and that is huge right. And so I believe that people want to feel valued and they want to produce valued outcomes and that starts with finding out what they value, because they everybody needs to understand what's in it for them at the end. You know they're in there for the organization.
Speaker 2:I know Simon Sinek says make it about the why, right, and this is why you know I think we're going to, because I really want to hear about what your 10 we's are here. That's going to be exciting, but we have to. We have to engage our stakeholders and even if it's a school, even the cafeteria worker and the maintenance person is adding, contributing some value to that school. That's helping that school move towards a vision and mission and produce some sort of goals and they need to recognize that their behavior, however menial other people might see it, is contributing to that and they need to recognize that they are valued and how they are lending to them.
Speaker 2:They're pouring into the bucket and I find that bad leadership know bad leadership, right, people with position of authority don't do that and they don't do things like you just mentioned by providing the why. It's the simplest thing If you've got to say no to something, give voice and choice and say and here's why it shows respect to get, treats them with dignity, and it's just missing a lot. Man, I don't think our higher ed courses are doing very good job of training our leaders. It's like you know they're dumping them in theory, but it's like me giving my fighters theory and dumping them in the cage or the ring, expecting that they're going to perform. That's not the way shit works, man. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great metaphor. I'd love to run something by you because you're much more decorated from an academic perspective than I which doesn't mean shit, by the way, but go ahead. I've seen lots of respect. Yeah, same I. I actually agree with that. But you are obviously learned on this topic. Uh, or these topics I created not created, but in my mind it's as simple as abc, and I've never actually said this to an academic like you and I'm curious, your reaction, your unfiltered reaction. It's abc. Every single human on the planet, with some exception, very few, some exception. We want to add value. A, we want to be valued. So the things that we contribute we want to be valued and recognized for. And I think ultimately and it's the hardest part, especially in kind of like back office or less client-facing roles is they want to connect the value that they've contributed to those that ultimately benefit from it. To me, it's that simple.
Speaker 2:I'd love your reaction to that man. Yeah, I, you know it's all kind of going to come back to what people's positive reinforcers are right and values are kind of like. It's like a preference assessment, assessment like what's important to you, you know it's important to. People want to be seen to your point. Absolutely. They want to be seen. Right, your point, absolutely they want to be seen. They want to feel valued. I think part of feeling value is them seeing that they're adding value, but ultimately they want to produce again valued outcomes. I think, wherever you go, you want to do that. I don't think anybody goes to a job and says I want to suck, you know what I mean. And nobody goes in there and says I want to be treated like I suck. And I think the people in these leadership positions that are just driving folks to get results, I think there's a handful of narcissists out there. I do believe that there are the narcissists.
Speaker 4:Only a handful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, borderlines. Well, the higher they get up man, the more they seem to weed them out right, because they're producing those outcomes, unfortunately, and I blame those above right We'll talk about this in a little bit because we got to have some sort of metrics, what we call social validity. It's not just about the way we get results, but it's how we get results, how people are feeling about that, because those are leading and lagging indicators that, let us know, are people are still going to be around next year or the year after, and it's also if they're not feeling good about their leadership and their support. I don't think we should be beating leaders up with that. I think they need coaching. They need somebody like Kyle or AJ to come in there to support them with being better leaders, because people tend to be poor observers of the behavior and this is leaders as well Poor observers of the impact of their behavior on the environment. That includes the people in the environment Poor observers of the impact of the environment on their behavior. And so people need awareness, and without some sort of metric, because in the end, it's not about intent, it's about impact, which is our tagline for the show. You got to be able to measure your impact. And so folks that are above you know, let's say it's the board right, and they're just looking at results like you're fucking crushing it.
Speaker 2:I don't man, I just dropped a F on here. Aj, you know, that might just be part of our thing. I'll have to put the X rate, x on this one, or R, yeah, but at what? There you go. But what? At what? At what cost is that happening? Right, and so if all you care about is producing profit, that's okay. I'm not going to judge you Right, but you will get more profit if you take care of your people.
Speaker 3:Over a longer period of time too Right man. It's not sustainable.
Speaker 4:That's right Over long periods when you talk about those ABCs, so many of those things. They involve exceptional soft skills, they involve emotional intelligence. They require things that are not necessarily technical skill or that you can't pick up from a college or university all the time. So we typically award and reward and promote people with those technical skills without giving a lot of focus on those soft skills and those exceptional people-connecting qualities that the ABCs that you just mentioned really require, don't you think?
Speaker 3:I couldn't agree more. The challenge for? Well, let me I'll give a really brief story. So before I left corporate to to write the book, um, I worked for a fortune uh at the time I think they were probably fortune five pharmaceutical company. I had uh, it was a massive team at $2 billion budget and, guys, I was cranking a lot. This was the old me, admittedly. I was cranking along, feeling like I was making a difference, doing big things inside this organization. But I needed it to be validated Because you guys know, as you climb in an organization, your jokes get funnier. People will tell you what they think you want to hear instead of the thing you need to hear gave a little survey to my directs.
Speaker 3:I might've even gone a layer deeper, but I'm pretty sure it was just my directs and the results were not good. They weren't. It was a smack in the face I had. Again back to choices, I had this choice to be like well, you know, yeah, yeah, I could, I could have brushed it aside. But I actually called the group together and I said I got some work to do. Guys, clearly, by your it was all anonymous, but I can. You can kind of tell who's saying what, depending on how big the audience or there's list of respondents is. But I was like guys, I got some work to do and I just owned it. And I don't know if I ever got there with that team, candidly, cause I would do a follow-up surveys. I ended up leaving that organization just over a year into it. But if you don't ask, you really will know. And then you think you know because you might ask people that are going to tell you what they think you want to hear. What do?
Speaker 4:you guys think.
Speaker 3:How do you quantify it? What would you recommend? Good, AJ.
Speaker 4:Well, I think even a very powerful lesson for our listeners, even in that brief story you just told, is you'll never get to that connecting piece if you don't show that vulnerability. Even you go in and say, hey guys, I got some work to do, like I think that is so huge because people seldom feel connected with people that they don't see themselves in and who you know who, as a leader, has not made a mistake or has failed. You know what I mean. So that's part of it. But the first part was actually seeking the feedback, like actually doing some introspection and some self-reflection and saying where am I not getting this right? Where am I not getting this right?
Speaker 4:And if it takes you sending out a 360 degree, you know feedback, or survey, or going to your inner circle and say, you know, tell me something I don't want to hear today, I think that is the first step to growth as a leader, because there is no perfect leader. The only one we had, it crucified him. So I mean I feel like you doing that work as a leader and looking in the mirror before you look out the window. That's the first step to me.
Speaker 3:What do you think, dude, it sounds AJ. So much to unpack there. It was a brilliant 30 seconds there. Self-reflection, self-reflection is huge. I call it the mirror of truth. If you can't stare into the mirror of truth, which can be a human? If again, if you got someone tell you like it is, or it's just finding the time, it doesn't have to be every day. Ideally it is to just sit in silence, sit in quiet.
Speaker 3:Was I the person that my mother would be proud of yesterday? For me it's every morning. I go over the things that I did yesterday, that I make good good on my commitments. Did I behave in a way that, if it were broadcast all over the company newsletter, the internet or even more broadly, would I be embarrassed or would I be proud? And that never happens without self-reflection. I just think I didn't want to go too much further, man, without commenting on your take there, because I just think it's brilliant.
Speaker 3:And then you said something else that I just could not be more adamant about, and that's relatability. If I don't relate to you, I don't trust you. It's just that simple. It's my favorite example and, by the way, I say trust is always found in relatability plus authenticity. So when my team knows that I'm familiar with what it's like to have an ailing parent or I've been through financial struggles. If I can relate to you on any number of human levels, we are much closer to you trusting me.
Speaker 3:Now, if it's authentic on top of that and you know, man, oh AJ, your child's sick, you're going to be a little bit late today. No sweat, man, I get it. Been there, you see, that relatability and I'm authentic in just saying you know, I could just say, well, get here by nine. We could bark an order back at you. I could say I get it. And then, when you get there, hey, how's the kid, how's everything going? It's all good, everything good. Anything else we can, can we do anything for you? Can we do anything for him or her? That relatability and authenticity is the only way to, in my mind, to secure trust. Really well said.
Speaker 4:And I don't trust you is the prequel to I fear you. And going back to that self-reflection, going back to that self-reflection for any of our listeners plan it, schedule it, put it on your outlook, put it on your calendar, make time to do that self-reflection and that deep thought. And I want to let Paulie jump in on that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Man Kyle, what separates you clearly is that your values drove you to ask. You cared about the way people felt, about things that are going on, and that's a difficult thing for people who haven't had that value. There's a lot of people that are just driven by the corporate world, about money and about status right, and that's very difficult. But you cared enough to say and had the courage to reach out to people and ask them how do you feel? And you got the feedback in his thumb. Um, and I I find that level of courage is, uh, is wanting out there.
Speaker 2:I think that the those kind of social validity metrics need to be baked into the organization. I think we need to be getting so it's a feedback loop from people, right, we need to be checking in with our stakeholders regularly. I know you're going to get into principles, right, if we're saying we want to be principal leaders, right, we need to have a measure for that, to feel how people feel you know about us and the way we're in our business. But here's the caveat with that is that if you give feedback directly back to the leader, nobody believes it's anonymous, right, so it's a catch-22. I think that that data should go. Let's say, you know, you are my direct, you know supervisor Kyle and AJ is above you. Right, what I report out should go to AJ as your coach, what I report out should go to AJ as your coach, and AJ should take a look at that data and measure your own performance against itself to say like, hey, here's, remember, this is just.
Speaker 2:This kind of data is biased, though we all have to recognize that. Right, it's just a piece of the puzzle, right, but here's some relative strengths according to the people around you. Here's some areas let's focus on. Remember, it's just, it could be bias, blah, blah, blah, but let's, you know, because we start to promote some sort of self-awareness. I think over time, we start to get some trends and patterns of it. It really allows people to self-reflect more on their behavior because they're getting some sort of feedback on what's going on. But I do think that they got to take great care to make it so it's not just a check the box Like, oh, we check in with our people. The other thing is we can't have things at the end of the year. The end of the year surveys are a fucking autopsy. What are you?
Speaker 2:going to do with that data.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's so special about a year? By the way, I'm with you. I couldn't agree more, couldn't agree more. I don't know, man, I don't know. I think it's a check the box man. Hey, fellas, but we probably would be doing a disservice if we didn't get all the surveys in the world. All the self-reflection, all those things are great. If you don't relay the information that was captured, you're worse off than if you never did the survey. Absolutely Right. Right, guys, there was a another org that I was with, the same org.
Speaker 3:Actually, I'll be honest that I joined this company. I had 40 locations. I would fly around the country, meet with leaders and frontline folks all around the country, and I had to focus. It's not gonna shock you guys, it could shock others. I'm in this focus group of probably 20, 25 people and I'm brand new to this pharmaceutical company.
Speaker 3:I said, well, do you guys have a mechanism that allows you to give unfiltered feedback? Right, because again to your point around anonymity, and someone says, yeah, yeah, we got the suggestion box. I was like, oh, this is old school, but okay, it's better than nothing. It's better than nothing. Let me feel this out. Long story short, many people in this focus group were well aware that even dropped off letters you know it's because it was handwritten into this suggestion box met with the leaders after that focus group and I said hey, man, great, you guys have some kind of medium, a mechanism in place. None of them were aware of the suggestion box. They didn't know it was there. So we got. I said let's go, let's go, let's walk over there right now. We had to get maintenance or facilities to come unlock this box. Dude, there were dust filled, dust covered pieces of paper inside this, inside this little box. What a shame, what a shame. You took the time to write all this shit out and nobody even read it.
Speaker 2:Nobody's going to fill it out anymore after that. That's right. You have to act on the feedback and even if you can't act on it, at least you can give them the why. You know, hey, here's why and thank goodness you heard from that, because that stuff will have a ripple effect across the whole organization If people don't understand, like you know, why is Kyle doing this, or why is AJ or why is Pauly doing this kind of stuff. You know, I hear you guys, here's why. Like, oh, we didn't know. Thanks so much for giving us feedback, you know. So let's.
Speaker 4:The funny thing about real quick, pauly, the funny thing about that is the followers. They're watching that process play out and can you imagine the feeling of hopelessness that they felt that anything would ever change, you know, within that organization or within that department? Because as leaders sometimes we forget the followers are always watching. They're always watching and they're seeing that practice go on day by day by day watching. And they're seeing that practice go on day by day by day and, like you said, paulie, I mean they just stopped filling out the you know the survey card, even giving the feedback, knowing nothing's going to get done about it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to do a video on that.
Speaker 3:Sorry, you know that optimism is reignited. Right, they leave, they go somewhere else no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I think we've had a lot of good conversation here, but let's hear what you have to say about that.
Speaker 3:I'd love to Thank you for the opportunity, but I need to give one caveat and then ask a favor. The caveat is as I run through these and I say this on stage as well it's like I can almost hear you guys saying well, no shit, kyle. Of course, because it is very simple. These principles are incredibly simple, but simple is not easy. It's not. We all know how to lose weight. We got to burn more calories than we take in. It's hard to do, though. We know the recipe for so many things in our lives, but we just never take up that opportunity because it's hard. It's difficult, and I tell people if you want to adopt the 10 wheeze and you want to lead in a different way, your job gets harder. It does for a period of time, and then the question is well, how long? My answer is I don't know, because I don't know your commitment. I don't know the toxicity or the level of toxicity, if at all, inside the environment. Favor, and this is something that's the most beautiful unintended byproduct of the work I do now. I never anticipated this. As I walk through these, I would ask people to kind of take their work hat off for a moment and think how and if these principles might play a role in your personal life as well. They've changed who I am as a human, not as just some corporate nerd. They've changed how I interact with my loved ones, my friends and family, my wife and so on. So with that in mind, I'm going to fly through these.
Speaker 3:The first and the most fundamental of them all is we. Number one it's we do the right thing Always. I never leave out that one word. Second sentence Always the right thing can be a slippery slope, we can argue and wrestle over what the right thing is, but we will never enter a scenario, we will never enter a scenario with anything other than we will do the right thing. It may cost us more, may take longer, but if I'm committed to doing the right thing as a leader or a teammate, the number one way to demonstrate my commitment is number two we lead by example. The question is should I or should I not lead by example? You already are To your point a moment ago, aj. They're watching. The three of us are leading by example right now and in a corporate environment, you're always being watched. So lead by example. Well, if I want to demonstrate my commitment to leading by example. That gets me to we number three.
Speaker 3:We say what we're going to do and then we do it Pretty simple, right, there's an understanding, almost a given, and we're going to make good on our commitments to those that we serve externally. But when I have a fancy title and I commit to something for a member of my team, I don't get back to them. What retribution or payback or outcome is I don't have to. So when we say we're going to do something especially for one another and Paul, you said something at the beginning that I just love I don't give a shit about the client experience at first. I care about how we treat each other behind the scenes. If we're high-functioning behind the scenes, they'll feel that, those we serve externally they'll feel it. If we're dysfunctional behind the scenes, likewise, we'll ultimately be exposed there as well. So we've got to make good on our commitments. That's we number three. Well, if I was walking through, I handled this process, I processed this widget earlier today and, man, if we can just eliminate this step or insert this step maybe it's technology, whatever it is we will take just identifying the opportunity to be better is taking action. It's not a license to go be a cowboy in somebody else's domain. It's recognizing there's an opportunity for us to be better and it's your obligation to call it out. As we've already illuminated, no one is going to do that without the following couple of weeks.
Speaker 3:We number five we own our mistakes. We're not judged by our mistakes, I think, as humans. I think it's a little less so inside the workplace, which is unfortunate. That's what I'm trying to get people back to is we don't judge people by their mistakes. We judge them by how well and how quickly they remedy the mistake if it happens. Again, those two things. So when we have this environment where people are focused on owning their mistakes, raising their hands say I blew it without fear of retribution, we have to remember and live.
Speaker 3:Weed. Number six we pick each other up Regardless. If you're struggling at work, you're struggling at home. Whatever the scenario is, and we don't need to know all the details. We're not going to pry into people's personal lives but if your results have always been here and all of a sudden they're down here, you don't start that conversation by saying what the hell's up with your results. You say, hey, man, everything going all right. I noticed that, I noticed, you know, notice, you're not quite performing at where you have historically and I just want to make sure you're okay.
Speaker 3:The second component of that one is, I think, equally as important. We've got to lift people up to new heights. So it's not enough to pick someone up when they're struggling. When someone is trying to take on more, do more. Maybe they want your job, maybe they want to leave your team because there's an opportunity somewhere else. It's our obligation as humans to help them on that next step. How many times have you guys?
Speaker 3:I know I used to be in the situation a member of the team would come to me and say hey, man, I found this great role If I was fortunate enough for them to share before it was too late. I want to help them land that next job. If I have nothing for them, I want them. They need to know I care about them and their growth, not what they can do for me and for our team. So we got to. We must pick each other up as we go seven to 10, it gets a little more difficult for some to live.
Speaker 3:We number seven is we measure ourselves by outcomes, not activity. And the corporate world, I think, regardless of size, is so obsessed and in love and infatuated with meetings. We have a meeting to talk about a meeting and then we'll have another meeting to talk about that meeting and if there's any scope creep, you guys know what we're going to do right, we'll schedule another meeting. We end up being so in love with busyness that we lose sight of the things that we're actually here to do and that's deliver outcomes. Same with our same inside the team. It's like hey, aj, we've got a staff meeting next week. Could you bring the uh, you bring the quarter four number, a quarter one numbers, cause I want to discuss blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:Whatever you show up to the next meeting, you're like hey, aj, where's that report? You said oh well, I emailed John in finance, I'm still waiting on that. Not acceptable. You walked away with the to-do from the last conversation To show up again. You have made a commitment and not have it. You have not delivered on that outcome. That's not who we are. If I can't trust you on my team when we're aligned on the same objectives, how can I trust you to do the most simple and fundamental of things for us to achieve excellence? So we've got to focus on outcomes. I say it this way, if you look at your calendar and you see a packed calendar, your double triple book, you have maybe 13, 14 meetings a day. It's like look at those meetings and then juxtapose that with your annual review process. If you're lucky enough to have more than one, that's great, but connect those. If you can't draw a straight line from those meetings, that activity, to the outcomes for which you've been assigned, why are you doing it? It should be scrutinized.
Speaker 3:We number eight we talked about we challenge each other. I think it's the most important of them all. It really unlocks growth and development among individuals, but also team performance Lost without. We number nine we touched on that already. It's we embrace challenge. And then the last one is, I think, the icing on the cake, and I was intentional not to have it earlier in the list because I think it's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3:We number 10 is we obsess over details? In so many environments, so many industries, the difference between good and great, great and excellent, excellent and world-class is the details. Are we obsessed enough to put a product or a service in front of our client that we know we have taken great care to develop? We've looked at it from all angles. We're not perfect. We're not striving for perfection, we're striving for excellence, and that will separate us from those who are down the street trying to steal our consumer's dollar. We must obsess over the details. The details are not trivial. The details are what make us great. It will make us excellent. So I just I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to share those.
Speaker 3:The favor that I asked, I think, is important because if we find ourselves, if we hold ourselves accountable to principles inside and outside of the workplace, we have this authentic existence.
Speaker 3:People know who we are, how they can count, how and if they can count on and why it is that we do what we do. More than a paycheck, more than checking boxes, it's about having an impact on those you lead, those that you don't lead, the person that you walk across the hall with or walk towards someone when you just say good morning versus keeping your head buried down on your phone. That's leading by example. So, anyway, those are the 10 wheeze and those 10 principles came to me at probably midnight, 1 am in Lawrence, kansas transformed an organization of massive size, not just the results, man. We got to watch people transform from bosses to real leaders, and I'll end this little monologue with this, first 20 years of my career left me with maybe two, three, maybe a handful of confidants that I still have regular contact with the last 10 years, after discovering these principles, evangelizing them, writing the book, I have kept in touch with probably two dozen of former colleagues.
Speaker 3:To this day I have former direct reports from two companies ago that I still have scheduled one-on-ones with on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Why? Because they know I care about them. Should I stop caring because I don't work there any longer? That's not authentic. So anyway, introducing those principles changed my professional existence but also, I think, has made me a more reliable friend, husband and partner on business stuff. So that's where I would end it.
Speaker 4:And good stuff. So much to unpack there. I'm going to make one comment and ask you to follow up on it, because so much of what you said really just breeds a good culture and I know a lot of your work is on establishing a culture of excellence. Peter Drucker said you know, culture eats. Strategy for breakfast and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4:Two of your principles we take action.
Speaker 4:I would just say I feel like we should take action consistently, but just because in my experience and even doing some consulting, I've seen a lot of good things get started, I've seen a lot of initiatives, I've seen a lot of good systems be installed, but unless you're following up on it every day, you're maniacally focused on it, obsessed with it it typically falls by the wayside and it doesn't create just like the suggestion box, right, it wasn't followed through on.
Speaker 4:Somebody didn't see that thing all the way through to the end and follow it long enough, where it created a positive culture. So so that that was one of them, and the other one was to another role, another position, another organization. I just feel like that's lacking a lot in so many organizations businesses and leadership models, and I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it. Businesses and leadership models, and I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it. I don't know if it's, at worst it's insecurity and at best it's a feeling of scarcity, of not wanting to lose the talent, not wanting to develop the talent too much, not wanting that person to outshine someone else, or something like that, so I was just curious of your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:Um. So I'll go um in reverse order, so starting with where you, where you ended. Um, it is ego. I mean, that's what we touched on earlier. It's um, so many, many years ago this is before I kind of had this epiphany I had a fellow on my team come to me and say Kyle, I am this close to a role outside the company. It's a title that I know he was kind of like my right hand guy. Company. It's a title that I know he was kind of like my right-hand guy. It's a title that we don't have and it's kind of an elevated title versus what I have today. And I know you can't match this comp. So it's a good chance I'm going to get this.
Speaker 3:I've gone through this whole interview process. I've got one final interview a week from Monday and, to his surprise, my reaction was fantastic John, Good for you, let me see your resume. I was like what he said yeah, let me see your resume, let's do a mock interview. Who's the person you're speaking with? A week from Monday. So I went on LinkedIn, found this guy and I played the role we role played. John was so ready for this interview, man, I was certain I was leaving him or he was leaving me and a week from Monday comes and goes. Tuesday morning I said, hey, dude, how'd it go? Just waiting for the worst because he was a stud Still is he didn't get the job.
Speaker 3:We worked together for 14 more years at three different companies Because you think he was less loyal, you think he trusted me less because I wanted to help him get. Now, sometimes I'll have him. So I say this a lot If you want to leave this organization, I will help you. I Now sometimes I'll have them. So I say this a lot like if you want to leave this organization, I will help you, I will absolutely help you.
Speaker 3:Some people read that into I want you to leave Because, again, they're not going to tell you what they think you really want to hear. They're going to tell you what, so that I think they think I am gently pushing them out and you have to prove that and you have to earn that equity with them over and over again. So I love that story because it's 14. Well, now it's 20 plus years later and we're still. We're still in tight contact because I earned his respect, I earned his trust and vice versa. So I think that is that. That. That, I think, addresses your, your, your second question, the take action part, your first. The first part of your question, I think, is I'll I'll toss back to a comment I made earlier it's harder.
Speaker 3:It's harder. It requires more work to be, to be, an effective, impactful leader, one that demonstrates care every single day, lives these principles not every day, but every interaction. It's harder, it takes more work because you start to prioritize those around you over your own objectives, over your own kind of personal growth and accolades, which, in a really ironic kind of perverse twist that I never understood until the last decade or so, was when I put aside my own inclinations to ascend inside of an organization and put all the energy into others. It happens. It happens anyway, because if you're leading a team with great results, no one's going to say, hmm, who on that team can I promote to replace Kyle or even take them higher than Kyle? It doesn't happen. If you're a strong leader on a high-performing team, you will be recognized and it doesn't matter who actually delivered those results In most circles. I'm not naive. There are some weird environments where people will poach and kind of hopscotch the leader, but I think it's so rare nowadays, especially nowadays.
Speaker 2:So, uh, man, I I first of all, I'd love the simplicity of it. I believe you know I forget what the quote is, man, but if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. And, um, I think everything you said really aligns with with my personal values. And, uh, I could certainly put a behavior analytic lens on and be like that's all right, that's really good stuff. I do want to end with this. That is, everything you talked about is behavior.
Speaker 2:The measure of a leader can be found in the behavior of the followers, not in the results, because, as we all agreed on earlier that there's lots of different ways to get results, and you laid out beautifully a bunch of really important behaviors that are there, right, and I believe that if you value something, you measure it, and too often we are not measuring this stuff.
Speaker 2:We're not checking the CR how many people are doing the right thing, you know? Or even in some sort of social validity survey, the climate survey. Do we believe that we do the right thing all the time? Right, you said all the time is a good way. Do we do it most of the time, you know? Are we leading by example, you know, or do we do it most of the time? Are we leading by example? How often are we taking actions based on goals, et cetera, et cetera. So I believe that we have to take a look at if we're in a leadership position and we have folks below us that we're supporting on the org chart. We have to take a look at the behavior of those folks. That is the real measure of us, and if they're not performing, they're not doing the right thing no-transcript.
Speaker 3:The moon that was like the bar, and nearly three years into it it has eclipsed that by 50-fold, almost Literally. We're about 40,000 copies sold at this point and those interactions that come from readers or people that might follow on social media, they make me better, which hopefully in turn I can repay that favor. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Right on, man. We've got to check back in with you next year, man, and see how things are going. It was a great conversation, man. Thanks for coming on, Kyle McDowell.
