Welcome to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources
podcast. I'm Tracy Chernoff, and I've
spent my entire professional career in HR.
Each week, we'll explore the delicate balance between people
and business with the aim to reconnect the two and create
meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human resources. Hello everyone, and welcome back
to the Bringing the Human Back to Human Resources podcast.
Thank you so much for being here for another week.
Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you're
catching this episode. And this week, we are going to
hopefully actually have a lot of laughs because of the content of
our discussion. But I have Howard Miller on and
he is a #1 best selling author of Burdens and Saying a Lie.
I'm so sorry. Let me take that again.
I'm tripping over my words so my editor will kindly edit this
part out and take it from the top here.
Howard Miller is the number one best selling author of Burdens
and Blessings, A lighter hearted approach for middle-aged folks
dealing with aging parents. A heartfelt and humorous exploit
exploration of the challenges and joys of caring for aging
parents. Through personal anecdotes,
Miller shares his journey of navigating health issues,
emotional struggles, and loss, emphasizing the transformative
power of levity as a coping mechanism.
With over 10 years of experience teaching management skills in
the corporate world, Howard empowers professionals with the
tools to work smarter, not harder, to achieve greater
results. He's a sought after speaker and
engages corporate and community audiences with relatable stories
showing how levity can strengthen relationships, reduce
stress, and positively impact a company's ROI.
Plus, in addition to his writing and speaking, Howard is a
successful entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in
the bookkeeping industry, and his work bridges the connection
between processing grief and approaching life's everyday
challenges, inspiring others to face adversity at home or in the
workplace with resilient resilience, perspective, and
levity. And I think the first dose of
levity that we'll have is that I apparently I'm tripping over my
words today. My goodness, I'm sorry.
I hope you still feel proud of what you've accomplished.
Tracy, I was trying to, I I thought, oh boy, I could start
laughing and you'll start. I know, I know it would happen
that. Way it's great to be here.
Thank you for having. Me of course, of course.
You know, I, I pride myself on being pretty well spoken, but
for whatever reason couldn't get the words out today.
But hopefully that'll improve over the course of our
conversation. You know, whenever I would teach
a class and something you know you do it after a while becomes
routine. But if someone challenged
something at the beginning of the class or something technical
went wrong, I said to myself, oh this is good, because I knew
that the day would. Be right there's something yeah,
it's true it's true we can't all be perfect all the time Well
first of all, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
I think this, this topic is one that, you know, I didn't
necessarily expect to bring to the to the podcast because it's
something that I think sometimes we don't necessarily think
about, like how do we caregive? How do we bring levity to the
workplace? How that's all related.
And levity is a, a big part to me of what makes me feel happy
at work, like when we share laughs and things like that.
So I just, I guess I just didn't realize how much of A of a
talking point this is, that levity is something that doesn't
exist everywhere. Well, what's interesting about
that is when I first taught management skills and the way
that communication, leadership skills and the way to be more
effective with that, I wasn't necessarily thinking the same
thing either. It was after experience.
I don't know how many years, 10 years of my life can be very
different because you as your parents start getting older.
And I was taking more time with them and in the journey of it,
creating over 350 documents about doctors, home care
agencies and just some thoughts and feelings and pills and all
that. But and then writing the book
for me initially because it was cathartic, one way to process
grief, but I also realized other people can benefit as well.
Definitely. And then I thought, well,
lighter hearted approach is levity.
There's a lot of funny parts to the book because I grew up with
humor. Laughter is the best medicine
was a book that was in our house and my mother in the, you know,
if we could get her to laugh in that moment, she was alive as
anyone else, right when people when people would laugh.
And it got me thinking, well, if I could have levity about this,
where can people have levity in the workplace?
And I do want to say that levity isn't necessarily being funny.
Some people are just aren't funny or they're not as funny
or, or you know, it. It's.
So that's not necessarily what it is.
It's being more lighthearted. And it it's.
It could be something as simple as changing your perspective.
Yeah. So when you're looking at it, if
you're stressed in a situation by reframing it, by asking
different questions, that's a form of levity.
So I thought that's how I came up with this.
You know the concept. Oh right, they do connect.
Yeah. I really appreciate you sharing
that. Here I go with my words again
because after we initially spoke, however many months ago
at this point, it was I thought about a time in my career where
I felt so weighed down by an experience that was, I felt was
like really negative. And I was like unhappy and ready
to leave. And at that time, you know, I
wasn't like the mature person that I am now.
And I was like, OK, I'm just going to leave.
And when I was reflecting on some of the points that you've
just shared that we had talked about, initially, I thought,
like, wow, if I had just reframed what was happening in
that moment, if I brought to myself a different perspective,
even though I wasn't getting that elsewhere, maybe I would
have overcome that challenge. Maybe I would have responded
differently. Because in the workplace it can
feel very intense when something is negative.
Yeah, and you might have expanded, you still might have
left, but it is all growing experiences to not just leave,
but to learn and go, OK, it's still a certain way.
And you still choose to leave. I had a friend who was
constantly in data, some kind of data software development and
kept leaving companies. Well, what was the common
thread? It was them, but it takes, as
you said, as we get older and learn.
And it was my dad who lived to 99 and it was July of 2021, and
it was a few weeks before he passed.
And my brother spoke to him a lot about his work.
My brother's an entertainment lawyer.
And he would be on the phone driving in LA in traffic, and my
father would just listen. At the end of this conversation,
my father said to him, Andy, that's my brother, it'll work
out. And if it doesn't work out, it
worked out. And he told me that after.
And then he died a few weeks later.
We didn't know he was going to pass.
And I was like, he may not have lived his whole life like that,
but the fact that he shared that with us, then that's the quote
in the front of my book. And it's a mantra I say to
myself every day. So we're not going to make all
the right things, but decisions. But isn't it about now, Tracy, I
would ask you, I don't know how many years ago this one of those
that job was, but do you remember the specifics of it or
you just remember you weren't happy?
Right. Yeah.
It's kind of like the feeling you remember.
Yeah. But you get so intense and you
know when it's, it could even be just months later and it's not
gonna meet him. Totally.
Yeah, totally. And you know, it, it not only
the the title of your book, but also just the the content of, of
what it brings. It makes me think about
something that I often say still to this day.
So if any of my Co workers are listening, they're probably
like, yeah, she just says she says this anytime.
Like, you know, something is like not going right or
something is messed up. And we're like, Oh my God.
I'm always like, listen, if you don't laugh, you cry.
So like, let's let's find something about this that we can
just like, you know, not feel so brought down by.
And I think, yes, I, I, that's how I, I think that's how I live
my life. You try to find the glass.
What's what's happened because of it?
You know, something that you didn't want to have happen, but
if it didn't, you wouldn't have had something else.
Yeah, right. It's all about the journey, I
suppose. Yeah.
Well, it'll work out. Yeah, absolutely.
Yes. Well, that's interesting.
It is about the journey. I would go if I had a class of
managers and managers, if it could be new managers, leaders,
but they had managers under them.
And I would say, OK, you're going, You have 30 minutes of
content to go over in a meeting. How long do you make the
meeting? And I'd get answers from
anywhere from 20 minutes to maybe an hour.
And the answer really is at least an hour.
How come? Because there's content and
process and what part is usually ignored?
The process. The process, I mean, but they
could be questions, there could be discussions.
And so we're all, we all have to be goal oriented.
But it really, when you look at it, it's the process.
I look at all the things you said that I do.
Did I plan all that? No, I mean, it just happens,
right? And you look and go, OK, that
makes sense that that job made sense.
If I hadn't had that, it would go this way, you know, so, so so
it's yeah, it's the process that we all really should be that
that will that will sustain us. And we'll look back and see
that. Right.
Yeah, That's really helpful. And it does make me think about
how one of the things that you tend to talk about is that
levity can play a role in reducing stress and burnout,
especially if, you know, an employee is balancing multiple
priorities between their work and their personal lives.
Where do you see that taking effect, so to speak?
Well, first, how do you feel about that employee in general?
Right, Because it's, it, it comes down to the hardest part
for any kind of leader is to get over their ego, get over how
they think about things. So if they have a negative
feeling about a particular employee, they're going to look
at that and go, you know, they think they're not getting their
work done. What you just said about not
balancing work in person, well, if they spent more time at work,
right, as opposed that if they had things going on like they,
you would be like, wow, how can I help them?
How can I help them prioritize? So you, you, it's all about
communication and meeting with them.
Now, first of all, that employee needs to go to their manager,
right, and say something. But then you have to listen and
be there to help them, not necessarily challenge them.
It's it's easier to say than done.
And with some people that you know that an example I've always
used you have a great employee, someone from another department
comes to you and says I have a problem with them.
What do you so one person? What?
What was that? I said like, what does that
mean? Yeah, what you'd be like, you'd
probably brush it off, right? You have someone who you're
having issues with. One person, one time comes in
and says they're having a problem.
You're all over it, right? So it's, it's hard and we can't
like everybody, but yet how do you put that aside?
So when your, your question though, is how do you balance
the work and the personal I, I, you have to trust the employee
wants to get their work done and you, but you, you can't, you
don't ignore it. You have to say, OK, this is, I
need to get this done by a certain date.
The more specific you are about it, not about you're just not
working hard enough or things are falling to the wayside,
whatever it is. Yeah, no, that's fair.
I, I think when I, when I think about levity, especially in this
case where someone maybe is feeling all this pressure to
perform in both their work and personal lives and isn't
necessarily getting the support that they need because of these,
you know, obvious leadership kind of pitfalls.
I do see, you know, if a leader to your point can overcome those
pitfalls and infuse levity or infuse more understanding or
whatever it might be into their environment that it's like you
have a little bit of a reprieve. Because it's kind of I guess it
kind of goes both ways. If you have a personal life
that's really balanced and regulated and you don't have
anything too chaotic or like burdensome happening, like
you're getting a reprieve from your maybe more chaotic work
life while you're, you know, not at work, but and then like the
same, I feel it could probably be true vice versa.
But if you have two chaotic environments, that's probably
not great. But there's you can't like as
you can't control someone else's.
No. Actually, just for some reason,
because I finished season 2 of Severance, where their brain
goes and they separate their lives, that's not what.
No. Yeah.
Right, right, right. Real life isn't like that right
here. But you as the manager, there's
only so much you can OK the manager.
Here's the focus they should have.
Is the job getting done or not? It's not.
They're too involved in their personal life.
Is the job getting done or not? You go, you have scenarios,
someone comes in early or late and I have my own opinion about
those, you know that. And it's like, but if they're
getting their job done, what are you focused on, right?
And it doesn't matter and it doesn't matter.
And of course the managers might use that 4 letter word beginning
with F that they shouldn't use, which is no, not fair,
professional, no fair. Ohh fair.
That's. Fair others like fair is a
terrible word because it's subjective.
Right. Like what is fair?
I don't know. What is fair?
I have no idea. And when I do ask people, no,
none of us do you ask if I ask managers what's a four letter
word beginning with F, and I say this is a professional, you know
what that you should avoid. Most of them say fail.
And I say, well no, but the first 3 letters are correct.
You have to let, but you have to let employees fail.
Of course, failure is a huge part of learn Success, yeah.
I tell them the first 3 letters are correct but and then they
get fair because if you try to be fair you, you will fail.
And so it really comes down to are they getting their job done?
And if they're not getting something done, how do you get
them to do it? And don't say because it's their
personal life. I mean they only might bring it
up and there's totally legitimate reasons, right?
Every all of us have things in our personal life that should
take priority at different times.
Yeah, it's true. It's true.
Like even hearing your story about like your parents and, and
some of the, you know, specific experiences that led, you know,
and I realized we, we should probably talk about this too a
little bit further, but that ultimately led to you writing
your book. There is no controlling life.
And when life happens and it's, it's how you cope with those
things and deal with those things.
And you just reminded me, and I don't know if I put this in the
book, I was teaching live. This is before the pandemic and
my father had broken his head, but it hadn't been that year.
So 2017. And I was about to start the
class or no, no, no, I started the class.
I happened to glance down and my brother called.
OK, ignored it. Then my mother called.
I'm like, you know, I, I, I, it's like, OK, So I kept going.
And then when they were doing something, I quickly and it took
me just a second when I heard one word.
It wasn't in the emergency. But then I, I, I had my mother.
I said OK, look, I will tell you when I'm teaching and don't
call. In the morning.
I I, well, yeah, even, I mean, don't.
And so I'll call you during my breaks or at lunch, you know,
just to check in because at that point I was checking in with
them at least once a day. So.
But yeah, it was. My dad is is notorious for
calling like 2-3 times then texting call me and I'm like
what's going on? Is everyone OK?
And he's like, Oh yeah, I just wanted to see or you and the
girls. Are you guys coming to Jersey?
Like could this not have waited? Like I literally had a heart
palpitations, like come on, right but.
And that's I gave specific instructions and they were
followed. But there, you know, there's
times we we all have both lives, but it's and even the managers
who want The Who feel like their employees personal lives are too
much. Sometimes the manager is going
to have that. So we all have it.
It's true, it's true, it's really true.
It's this is I mean, it's, it's perfectly likened to my podcast.
It's called bringing the human back to human resources.
Like and it doesn't just exist in HR.
Like bringing the human back to anything makes sense And I.
I hope so. I hope so too.
I hope so, because when that stops, then we're not relevant
as human beings, right? If that stops, I think what no
matter what technology we go and move forward, the human being
matters and. 1000% yeah 1000% I would love to hear more about
the the inspiration behind your book, how you even came up with
the title Burdens and Blessings, and what you maybe even learned
from writing it yourself. So first, it's, it's not my
first book, but it's a personal book.
When I was a coach earlier on, I put little marketing blurbs out
where I learned three things. My, you know, just everyday
life. My father said, please don't
include me anymore. But it was, it was called you're
full of you're full of shift. And and then I wrote a book
about managers called the manager Trap.
So I so I was accustomed to writing down things.
So I had the idea of writing this.
So I, I had the idea of writing books.
I knew how to do it. And going through this, I took
all these notes in the back of my mind.
I thoughts this I, I will need, I will write it down.
I didn't know where it was going per SE, right at the moment.
I that's, that's just how I was. And I think it was my mom passed
December of 22, so it was around March.
I went back down to LA to get stuff.
I left at my brother's and I went to a cafe and got an
outline of what I could write the different, you know, how to
handle just the different topics.
I put in there financial considerations.
You know, what, how you, how you, when do you become the,
when do children become the parents and just, you know, and
then of course there was humor that they couldn't hear, they
wouldn't get hearing aids, things like that.
So but what I've so I wrote it as I said for me, but then I
what was interesting to me is some of the thoughts in the book
lines I just wrote. I don't say they were put aways,
but how they connected with people like I wrote in there.
I didn't like when people called me a good son.
Never like, Oh, you're a good son.
I I was a dutiful son because some of my thoughts Tracy, were
not necessarily. Good.
Now really, I have a tennis buddy who wasn't close with his.
He was estranged from his dad. And I said, would you when he
goes, are you going to have any regrets?
He goes no. No.
And I go, in some ways I was kind of envious really, but
yeah, you know what I mean. And.
It's like to just be so unburdened.
I was not. I was.
And I think I even said to them once, you're my burdens and
blessings. I don't know how much they
appreciated that. Well, the question is could they
hear if they were not willing to get the hearing aids?
Maybe they never even heard what you said.
No, they heard. They heard when they, you know,
it's funny. After Dad passed, my brother
said to me, I could see why he didn't want a hearing aid.
He didn't want to necessarily hear everything my mother was
saying. Well, they heard, but it would
just be enhanced. Yeah.
So, so. Oh, no, my mother also couldn't.
And this is this is in the book. She couldn't see.
She and she did. She had macular degenerations.
The shots didn't work, but one time I came in after driving 6
hours, I walked in, she goes Howard.
Those shorts are hideous. And I said I thought you can see
she goes Howard. One doesn't have to see to see
how hideous those shorts so. What did you do with the shorts?
Eventually I got rid of. But not until you wanted.
To yeah, right. It sounds so funny, but, but so
there were So what I learned from writing the book is there's
different parts. Oh, so the dutiful versus good
son. That's what I was talking about.
I, I just, I did what I was raised to do.
I mean, it, doesn't it? I, we did, I couldn't have not
done it, you know what I mean? I could not have done what we
did. And it was and I'm very grateful
for it. I'm grateful that my parents
lived to 99 and 92 and dad lived with his mind.
You know, he broke his hip at 94, lived five more years even
though 90% of people die. After after a major fall, I
guess, yeah. My, my, my dad, who never was
athletic, took five years. My mom who played tennis till
about 80 and she broke her hip and was dead in less than 48
hours, mercifully, mercifully, because at that point, so you,
you don't, you don't know, but just, it was what we, what we
did, what I, I couldn't have not done it, but there were a lot of
changes your life. So I was a little jealous of,
you know. Of that, but like the lack of
heaviness, I guess. And although I guess it's hard
to know if even without those burdens, if there isn't
something different burdening that person potentially or
feeling heavy, you know? Right, of course.
But I feel I had the privilege to watch two people get old
without major illnesses. Yeah, my mother had her
illnesses, but there was no cancer.
There was, you know, there wasn't anything like that.
And in fact, when they were for a while, they would joke like I,
I guess it could have been even my father, either late 80s or
early 90s, and my mother would have been maybe early 80s.
And they said to me once or twice, how does it feel hanging
out with old people? And I'm reflecting on that.
I realized you're not old when you say that.
You're not. You're not.
You're just not. Because when they got old, they
didn't say that, you know? And everyone gets old at a
different time. You know, we could all joke, oh,
we're feeling things, but we don't, you know?
Yeah. You know, So.
Yeah. So.
And I'm still learning from, you know, when I.
In fact, I'm doing an audio version of my book on Wednesday,
and I'll learn more as I read every word of it.
Yeah, yeah. Especially aloud.
I mean, yes, reciting things is totally different.
Well, when I did that invite to get the, you know, with someone
else to get the, the kinks out and all that, I really felt the
burden. You could feel the, the stress
of it. And, but everyone has that.
And I mean, as people are living longer, we're all going to have
that. And that does impact your other
your purse, your life, and including work.
Definitely and. And there's no, so This is why,
you know, I was, I maybe I was naive, but I thought once the
pandemic started and so many more people were working from
home, companies would realize, oh, there's still things are
getting done. We don't have to have mandatory
work hours of people come in. But I feel like there's a push
the other way. Yeah, Lately, yeah.
And I, I and I feel like if, if people had more flexibility to
get the work, I think most people want to get their job
done. They feel responsible and they
have to. They need to balance it out.
So I agree, I agree, I think most people do.
Also, I think this is where it comes back to leadership
pitfalls. Like if a leader is unable to
get past their sense or need for control, then they're going to
require that people are in the office so they can watch and
see. Well, then they're not, in my
opinion, effective leaders, but they do have an ability to
control and that is because if you're working and actually what
I if my experience was managers, this is back back in before I
would say in the mid well, I don't know what decade 2014,
fifteen, whatever, you know, 2010 to 15, I don't know, we
call that decade. I know the but yeah, I go, I go
managers I felt who had remote employees had more process with
them than the ones they see every day because I'm a big
believer in weekly one-on-one meetings.
And I have an agenda for that, to let the employee talk and ask
them what their what's going well and what their challenges
is. And then you bring up what you
want based on their challenges and you use their words.
It's much more effective. So you have control.
You're just not, you know, if especially if you need something
done and you're meeting with them and you could say, well,
this needs to to get done. Sometimes they don't know what
the priority is that you want. A thousand, 1000% And I think
when I, when I reflect on my work experience in both typical
office settings and then now being a remote employee, I think
there's much more time spent one-on-one with people and with
my leaders than when I was in an office.
Because it's true. You kind of just like, I mean,
maybe if you add up the times where you're like, hey, I have a
question for you or oh, can we just chat about this?
Maybe if you add that up, it's like kind of similar.
But I do think that there is a bit more of an organized
approach to just operating being remote because you can't have it
any other way and there's so much more interfacing.
And it doesn't mean you're not being, you can't be human as
well, right? But I think the process doesn't
mean you're not human. It just means it's building the
communications to be more effective to get, you know, is
the job getting done or not. Right.
You can't really.
For if you look at your personal life, I don't think you're ever
going to say it that way. Is everything getting done
because it doesn't, right. But but it is a way.
I think it's helpful for everyone involved.
I agree. I agree.
It's funny, so I related a lot to what you said before around
how does it feel to, you know, be hanging out with a bunch of
old people. My grandma is 99 and my her
sister is 103, if you can believe it, right?
And they both, thank God, knock on wood, live independently and
all this stuff. And my grandma, every day she's
like, you know, we'll say to her, why don't you like use the
senior bus every now and then? You can go and get your nails
done, your heads. She always has us order an Uber
for her. God bless, honestly.
And she's like, I don't want to hang out with all those old
people. I'm like.
OK, so I just your, your your 103 aunt year old aunt lives by
herself. She does.
She's very fortunate. They both do, yeah.
They don't drive. No, no, no.
No, OK, But you have a OK, So you have many, many years ahead
of you. That's kind of cool.
Well, yeah, the outlook. My parents did take the bus.
I remember my father had pacemaker put in.
I get, you know, and interesting enough, because it was wireless
connected, he figured out how to do that.
But I was there once when he had the phone call with OR.
I don't know if I zoomed with the doctor and he asked how long
the battery lasts. He was 97 and she checked.
He goes eight years and he goes, what do we do after that?
Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, good for him.
He. Always said he wanted to live to
120 so good for but. Wow, that's amazing.
Well, the will to live is a big part of living, I think, you
know, seeing what you have in front of you.
The will to live is significance.
We all need to feel significance in our lives.
And when we're younger, a lot of us put it just in not just into
our OK, I'll say just into our jobs.
But then that's why that word retire seems strange to me.
As someone who works for myself. It's like I don't have to as
long as I could balance my life. You know, now it's harder when
you're working in a in a for someone else full time.
I get, I get that. But you still maybe do something
else. But when you get into your 90s,
I don't know. It sounds it's like some like,
what did you do this morning? And they say I had breakfast.
That was that's a source of significance for that.
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, if we just said we
had just what did we do this morning?
I had breakfast, maybe, you know, it's like, Oh my God, I
got nothing done right. If you ask me, I would say that
for myself, but it's, it's interesting because how often
are we reflecting on life and the present and the past and the
future in a way where we're like, well, what was significant
for me then and what's significant for me today?
So I don't think we do that. I, no, my experience is I don't,
I can't pick a year, but certainly I, I think there's
either you, you've had an someone like people who are
younger who's someone's significant size, you might
reflect, but generally I would say it's 40s or above.
That's why it's, you know, I don't know what middle age is
anymore where you start to reflect.
But but that doesn't mean so. So, but you don't have to
reflect For someone listening to this is like, well, that's not
me. But you do get stressed, right?
You might not have what you think is to be funny in the
workplace, but you do get stressed.
There's an easy way to shift that perspective.
And the easy way is how you talk to yourself and others in forms
of questions. And most of us start questions
with the word why. And I say don't start with the
word why. Do you know why, Tracy?
Well, what happens when you break your own rule?
Now, do I know what? Well, I I think it probably
makes someone immediately think about what you're looking to get
from their answer. It it puts you on the.
Defensive to answer that question.
And and actually, and so I say start every question with a what
or a how, you know there's a where or when are neutral
questions. Where are we going for lunch?
But what or how? And you could change every why
question to what or how. And if anyone tries that, it can
change their whole perspective of life.
And I'm dead. I'm dead serious about that
because when I do that, it's, you know, why is this late?
What prevented this from coming in on time?
And, and it's amazing how people can answer that differently.
Yeah, yeah. It lets their guard down.
And my question to you that said, do you know why I would
say never start with leading questions?
Do you know why will you get this done?
Because when your boss says will you get this done by Friday,
what do they want to? Hear Yes, that's the only
option. And you say it to shut them up.
You know, it's like or. So if you really want an answer,
how will you get this done? Yeah, so.
So what help do you need to get this done?
What? What?
Well.
But that's a little leading too I suppose.
What help do you need to? Well, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's leading. Well, it's leading.
If you don't want, if they say to you, I need your help, if
you're not willing to give help, you better make sure or you're
like, what, what help or what support do you need?
You may not be able to give them any, but you, but you could ask
it. No, you mean not every question
is even with a water. How is great, but I'm just
talking about adding levity And and I I thought of that because
you mentioned when do you reflect back?
And it's like, I think that's you, you know, I, I think the
old you get you do. I mean, after I, this is going
to sound, I don't know, corny or whatever, but after I think just
my dad passed and I looked at a tree and it's like we humans are
that tree is around a longer time than we are.
We're here and our time goes fast.
It may not seem like it at some point, but then you look back
and go what just happened? Literally, literally, it's so
true. So, you know, and again, that's
what I think what my father said, it'll work out.
If it doesn't work out, it worked out.
So there are a lot of things at any age that people could could
do to for levity, which which is is funny, But and you have to be
careful about that too, because if there's a situation in the
moment where humor isn't appropriate, that may not be,
you know, you have to you pull it back a little.
Bit sure, you have to have some awareness of the situation.
Situational awareness. Absolutely, because it's
sometimes, but you know, and again, sometimes one-on-one I,
it depends, you know. Yeah.
It also depends on the relationship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, as I especially said, if for the manager who
doesn't like an employee or you know, or the employee doesn't
like the manager, right, the employee doesn't trust the
manager. They're never going to be able
to connect with the manager if they keep holding that.
Yeah, it's so true. I think about how, you know,
sometimes there's a breakdown, especially cross functionally
sometimes, like if one department wants something
specific, the other department wants something specific and
there isn't alignment there. How it can be such an intense
like conflict ridden experience for people and it feels personal
when someone tells one thing or says another.
And when I think about even really your, what your dad said,
it's like, well, there's, there, there are hard and fast rules to
certain things. And also like everyone has this
opportunity and this capability to, to be flexible and to think
about their own needs maybe even a little bit differently.
Like, sure, my needs and my department are going to feel the
most important to me, but they're not always going to be
the most important to other people.
So how do you that's where I think, like relationships are so
critical because a lot of where people start to care about what
you care about comes from them having respect for you and
feeling, you know, something other than, oh, this is a
coworker. That's yes, I had.
I coached a leading chief architect at a software company
in the Silicon Valley and he had a very important job, so he told
me. But he did.
He took that direction, but people weren't listening to him.
And in my first two coaching sessions with him, we just
weren't connecting. And I was confident enough to
think, OK, it's not my coaching, just we're not connecting.
So I was going to bring it up and he brought it up in our
third or fourth session. And he said, you know, you've
been giving me suggestions and I've been fighting them.
And he goes, I just always thought relationships would just
work themselves out. It's it's the, you know what,
the end result that matters. And that I really, we could have
ended our coaching then. And he then set to meet people
when he went to towns and just go out for coffee necessarily
not about what he wanted, just just what you were saying, just
to get to know them. And and then you get when you
get to know each other a little bit.
Goes a long way it it. It goes, I used to have problems
with my upstairs neighbor and now we, we had, we had
something. And then, I don't know, we get
along now. You know, It's, it's, it's, it's
really because we're all, well, yeah.
Because we're all human, yeah. Absolutely.
At the end of the day, like, I mean, that's what I, I, I don't
try to boil things down so much where it's like, oh, are we
oversimplifying things? But really we're not, I mean, at
the end of the day, we all close our eyes to go to sleep and we
all hopefully open our eyes to wake up.
And that's just, you know, that's what makes us all so
similar. And we have like, there's so
many things that we can relate on with other people.
And especially for those listening who are in HR, there's
so much that they can do, so much more they can do in their
careers if they focus on building relationships, I think.
Yeah, one, one story here that I gave give an exercise to people
and I say you're leading a department, you've been working
for a while with them about a direction you're going to go and
you made your decision. One third, one third of the team
will love the direction you're going to go, 1/3 of the team
will hate the direction you're going to go, and 1/3 of the team
are on the fence. You have your first meeting
after you make your decision, which of those three group
groups do you focus on in that meeting?
And I put people into groups to decide which one.
And most people pick on the fence.
Yeah, that's what I probably would have gone with.
The answer is the group that hates it and the reason I
remember I said one third, one third, one third.
If you have 100 people and two people hate it, talk to them
offline. But I'm talking it's equal.
And the reason for the first meeting you do that is everyone
wants to be heard. Let them vent.
Let them vent one more time. Plus the people who love it will
talk with you, and the people on the fence could help make their
decisions. But.
That's a really good point. Yeah, this it goes down well to
you about it. It's what you were saying.
Everyone wants to be heard. Yeah.
And and and it goes to the great name of your podcast that it
were just all human. Yeah, we're human.
I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah.
No, that's so helpful. And I've really enjoyed our
conversation today. And as expected, I think we've
touched on so many things that that will hopefully allow
everyone listening to think maybe a little bit differently
or feel really inspired by what they can do to even just ask
questions differently or add levity into their own
experiences or in their workplaces.
And so with that, I'd love to give you the opportunity to
share where everyone can connect with you and, and you know,
really learn a lot more about what you do and who you are.
I I appreciate that. Thank you.
Well, my website at which will be fulcrum point partners dot
com and I actually have a back slash with human so they could
connect to us and there you could get my book, but also get
a link to I teach management classes and I'd love to speak
more on levity. I'd love to come into different
corporate your organizations and talk about it and just because I
think it's it's it makes us all human and I and actually and
let's talk business wise right now.
Remember of a bookkeeper. It'll help your bottom line.
It will it will help it will. That's what all this is is
about, right? I mean, when you look, I mean
it's more than that, but when you were it's it also makes you
work not as hard when you work not as hard, you get more
results. It helps your bottom line.
It's. True.
And you know what? Frankly, there are people who
only care about that. And maybe that's OK.
Maybe that's how you have to appeal to them, you know, and
help them to. Understand there are people who,
there are people who should just care about that.
I mean, that's a whole other conversation.
Sorry to bring that up. But I feel like there are
people, they have other things that they might think, but they,
they, their job, their role is to just care about that.
Let me rephrase it. And you need people to do that.
Yes, it's true. Because, because let's, Because
we're a, we have an economy and we have, you know, there's
there, but it doesn't mean we can't have both.
Right. Two things can be true at once,
and everyone serves a different purpose and upholding the the
balance between those things. You know, that's right.
Yeah. I love that.
What a perfect way to close out our conversation, actually.
And I would love to, you know, let's let's keep the
communication channels open. If you write another book, if
you come up with other ideas around how to, you know, really
jazz up the workplace and help to bring the human back to all
of it, we'd love to have you back on.
I would love to do that. Amazing, amazing.
And for all the listeners, we'll have the link with the specific
landing page for all of you in the show notes so you can click
there and connect with Howard and learn a bit more.
So Howard, thank you so much again for your time.
Really appreciate it. That's great.
Time has flown. By I know, right, we've had so
much fun. Thank you so much.
Hey, just before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the show
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