Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Kakil and if you're interested
in building trust, teamwork, vulnerability and authentic
leadership, this episode is for you.
Joining me today are Yossina and Charlotte, business
psychologists and founders of Bravely, where they help
leadership teams do better in start up and scale up
environments. Enjoy what is usually the ask to
which a company comes to you with.
Yeah. So I think the majority of all
the the programs that had the, the request that we receive are
about first time managers. You know, fast growing start-ups
all of the sudden with a a new leadership team that needs a lot
of help and training in the area of basic leadership skills,
communication, you know basically how to deal with all
kinds of conversation throughout the whole employment cycle.
I think that's the majority of the request that we receive and
next to that's definitely you know, we want to establish a
feedback culture. How do we do that?
Yeah. And why do companies usually,
especially in the start up phase, need help with that?
I think what happens quite a lot in start-ups is that people join
the company because of its kind of friendly culture or because
there's a culture that speaks to them.
And then what tends to happen is that we make a lot of friends at
work, right? So a lot of our colleagues
become friends as well. And when you're not that
experienced yet with working in kind of a business environment
or you've only worked in these kind of circumstances, you want
to stay friends with everybody is something that tends to
happen quite a lot. And we sometimes as humans
confuse that a positive atmosphere or strong
relationship means that we're not allowed to be critical or
direct. So I think that's a fear that
quite a lot of people have, that they might ruin the relationship
or ruin the atmosphere or the good culture if they give
feedback for example, especially critical feedback.
So that's really something kind of to do.
Also a psychological safety that has to be established that you
feel safe enough in the relationship or in the culture
to be able to make mistakes of course, and also address them in
others and address your own needs and boundaries without
fearing that that relationship will be destroyed or change.
Yeah. Do you believe that there's a
way to still be friends then and still be very critical of each
other? Within an environment like that,
especially, things can get heated.
Yes, but but what we see, and you see that from research as
well, is a properly deepened relationship.
A strong relationship is one that has gone through conflict
of some sort. So actually going through these
lows, let's put it that way, going through those together and
then managing to connect again means that you increase your
psychological safety by so much. So trust will be increased.
So you have a stronger bond after than you had before.
So it's a good thing for a relationship if you have the
skills and the environment to kind of grow and go through it
together. That's what we see a lot in our
training program. So what we always include is a
very practical part. So yeah, when we have a a
training actor coming in, they practice conversations with each
other, difficult conversation, let's say a challenging feedback
talk. And then if you're then able to
sit with the discomfort that you experience in this conversation
and you're able to deal with that and help the other person
to process it, it actually increases trust.
What happens a lot is that people avoid it, right?
Because it's so awkward. They don't want to experience
that discomfort. They don't want the other person
to feel sad or get angry or whatever it is, you know, right,
that they're feeling. So what we teach them is to
actually go through it. We teach them skills so that
they're actually handle, you know, to deal with all those
kind of challenging situations which will indeed like actually
increase trust if you can get through it.
Yeah, very interesting. That's very hard to do right.
If you look at, maybe it's yourself, your own, in your own
personal life, the relationship that you have with each other.
It's sometimes so hard to to be very honest with each other and
to you have to deal with all those difficulties, because of
course you also get emotional yourself sometimes, right?
You have your own triggers and allergies and it takes some
vulnerability to be able to sort of step out of that and to see
what the other person is feeling and to sort of hover above and
to address that. Then you can get out of that,
maybe that discussion or that discomfort or you know you can,
you can deal with it together. Yeah, I was talking to my coach.
Her name is Monica Duvall. And we also recently did an
episode and I said I'm going to have this conversation and we're
going to talk about leadership as well as empathy.
And she sent me a video. It was from a researcher called
France Duval and he researched chimpanzees and also bonobos
specifically with regards to alpha males and behaviour.
And it was very interesting that he had a chart where you saw
let's say mid rank chimpanzees and lower ranked chimpanzees
that the females had higher empathy levels than the males.
But then when it comes to the alpha males, the leaders of
chimpanzee groups, empathy all of a sudden was a way, way
higher. And I didn't expect that.
And then he laid out that even in presidents and even with the
Pope, you can see empathy on a different level compared to,
let's say, people that are not as prevalent of leaders.
And I thought that was very interesting.
Because maybe also it's their main well, it should be their
task to care about the people you know, to take care of them.
Maybe the least, yeah, how you say the least.
Happy person, for example, in the team, you know, it's your
job to make sure that they're all engaged.
So maybe therefore they develop higher empathy skills.
I'm not sure. That's an interesting research
for sure, yeah. Yeah.
And then I thought of, OK, is empathy something you can train,
or is that something you're kind of born with?
And I feel like in some environments I've been in,
people don't think they have time for empathy because
everything is kind of time bound, deadlines and everywhere.
How do you train empathy in the first place?
I think it's a, it's really a combination of environment and
the individual. Like you said, sometimes it
feels like there's an environment or a culture in
which there never seems to be time for empathy.
So in my mind, that by definition means there's no time
for a growth mindset. There's no time to make mistakes
and learn from them. There's no time to share
learnings. There's no time to ask for help,
right? So if there's a certain
environment in which a talent cannot bloom or develop or a
skill cannot develop, then it is also almost impossible for us to
facilitate that because of course, we can inspire people if
we see them once a quarter or something like that and they'll
walk away, Yeah, I'm going to change this.
I'm going to change that. And then they're going to run
into all these obstacles because of the environment they're in.
So whenever we work with a client, we also have, well, we
have mainly very thorough conversations about how their
company looks like, what their culture is like.
So is that skill that you're looking for truly something you
desire? Does it really work in the
circumstances you're in? And are you walking the talk,
are you doing, are you showing that skill yourself.
So I think that's the, that's the first you need to look at
the at the environment and empathy itself.
Yeah, I think certainly it's I'm, I'm pretty sure it has a
genetic component to it. At the same time, it really is
also something that you grow up and learn to develop.
So some children learn it maybe more through observing their
parents. It's naturally something that
plays a big role in their family or they have many siblings,
right. So there may be different
factors, but for sure what we see a lot is if it's not
something you very naturally use on a daily basis, showing the
strategic advantage or the use of empathy, especially in a
business environment, cause most people are empathic with their
friends and family, That's not that's not a big deal, but
they've somehow learned, maybe through movies or I don't know,
culture. That work is like a professional
place, right? We don't show emotions, we don't
talk about private things. It's all business has to be
professional, but once they learn that there is a massive
strategic benefit to be had from strong empathy skills, then
suddenly it makes sense to use them.
They want to reap the rewards. Exactly.
Interesting. So sometimes it's also framing
things, right? Because empathy is kind of a it
can be a bit of a red cloth to some people because it's oh, no,
not feelings. Again, come on, it's work, You
know, let's get over it. Let's get on.
So our job, I feel to a certain extent, is to gauge what
triggers people, right? So how can we get them on board
with this? By showing them the science, By
giving them the skills, By explaining the strategy, how it
will benefit them or others or the project or whatever it may
be. And then we find the entrance,
so to say and then we have them on board.
And then it's something that really can be practiced and
used. But very often, I think one of
the things we say most during role plays, when they practice
challenging situations is think friend.
If this were a friend and you were, you know, having a cup of
tea together and they would tell you all about their boss and how
they're feeling so belittled and so sad and so frustrated, what
would you say? And then empathy comes
naturally. So it's very interesting to see
in those training situation we always have time out talks.
So they can always take a time out whenever they feel stuck.
They don't know what to say, they don't know what to do, how
to address things. And then usually they talk to
us, say what I really want to say is this is and this and say,
OK, why don't you tell him right.
Tell him what the effect is on you, how it makes you feel,
what's your what's your wishes, what your goal is.
Tell the other person, they're usually so afraid to do that, to
actually address it. But you know, if they can
overcome that and actually have that conversation, that real
conversation, as I said before, that real honesty creates trust.
But you know, they need to experience that and they need to
feel what it does, right? You know, if they do that
intervention, why it actually works.
And as you say it, it saves us so much time, energy, you know,
because otherwise that frustration will only increase.
Then you may be avoid that person, right?
Or drama arises, gossip, maybe someone feels left out.
You don't want all of that. And there's indeed so much
research that backs it up as well.
That's active listening skills and actually really increase
that the team performance, the engagement, motivation, increase
sales, whatever. You know, if you look at maybe
you know that project that, that quest that Google did, they
wanted to try to really reach that perfect team, right, the
high performing team. So Google, Aristotle, they had a
lot of data. They looked at what is it really
that makes an effective team. And indeed, what they found was
the foundation is that psychological safety and also to
have that word is already efficient, because then they
could talk with each other, hey, you know, remember,
psychological safety let's you know, let's have this
conversation. So sometimes having that common
language can also already help in, for example the whole
performance cycle. Yeah, I've done a training like
that and it was 5 days. And it was also fun because it
was abroad, it was enrollment. I'd never been there, but I was
with a group of people and they were not with like a traditional
tech background. There was only one person
similar with a background like me, more in the security field,
but there was a person that was a teacher and he went to a high
school where he actually went to high school himself.
And then he became a teacher in history and now he's a team lead
and he has all all these challenges and there were a few
more people and during that training session we had these
conversations. We had to have our most
difficult conversations probably and really be vulnerable, give
feedback to each other and reenact certain scenarios.
And during it I was not comfortable at all.
But then looking back, I was really appreciative of that
period specifically. And also sometimes it's hard to
build trust, but because of that environment and because of like
a five day kind of incubation process, we really trusted each
other. And I still know those people
and we keep in touch even though this was two or three years ago,
I remember that fondly. That's awesome.
Yeah, that's it's very interesting sometimes.
A while ago I was in the supermarket and there was so
many looking at me. You know that feeling when you
think I think I know you, but I don't know where from.
I I just can't quite grasp it. And eventually I walked up to
this lady and I said, do I do I know you?
And she's like, yeah, a long time ago I was at a different
company. You were that.
I'm also a training actress, so she said You were that one
client that made me cry. Oh, no way.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, she's.
I distinctly remember, but it was it was a apparently I
couldn't remember, but it was a practice about setting
boundaries and I had as her customer in that role play.
I pushed her boundaries so far that eventually she started
crying. She felt overwhelmed.
So we practice obviously took a time out practice again and
again until she was able to set that boundary.
So it's amazing that this one moment, it takes like 1520
minutes maybe for her it's it's a one of the most memorable
moments from her career. Because she said, yeah, from
that time on I thought, oh, I can actually say what I need or
don't need. That's always what we say,
right? This is not you're you're going
to feel uncomfortable like you say, and that's the purpose.
We want you to get there so that you feel the same emotion as
what you would experience in that real situation and then get
through it and try to fix it together.
But it's never going to be fun, right?
No, it's it's always going afterwards afterwards.
After to see the relief people. They're bonding.
They're so proud of themselves and of each other because it's a
tough thing they're doing. What you say.
It's also interesting because you were five days in Rome, you
said. Yeah, Yeah.
So in itself, the training experience of how, you know
doing this together with that group is already a bonding
experience, especially now that there's a lot of people working
remotely. Sometimes we train fully remote
companies or hybrid at least. And then the intervention of
being together, physically together and doing this together
already is a beautiful side effects of, you know, having
that leadership training where of course they will also learn a
lot of skills. But that's I think definitely
now even more than how it used to be.
Yeah, great at it value. Yeah, Strategic empathy is
something that triggered me and I think it's very interesting to
dive into that. What would you say like the
strategic benefit is of empathy? One of the things I I nearly
always say is you cannot change another person right?
No many. How many, no matter how many
courses you followed on sales and whatever in the basis,
somebody always chooses how they behave towards you.
So what you do is you extend an invitation of how you would like
the other person to behave. What you can adjust, what you
have a lot more control on, is yourself.
However, to adjust yourself to what you need from the other
person, right? So to to kind of make that
invitation as specific and as inviting as possible, as
enticing as possible, you have to really know what the other
person is looking for, where they are in their brain, are
they in their emotional brain? In their reptile survival brain,
are they in their rational brain?
So in order to be able to make that invitation really nice, so
the other person is very likely to show the behaviour that
you're looking for, you need to 1st dive into them a little bit.
So how can I make this imitation specific to you, to this moment,
to what you need, so I can get what I'm ultimately looking for?
This is what we see. That happens a lot, right?
I think one of the most familiar cases is that they're just not
aligned. So, you know, you talk to
someone and that person is completely in the rational brain
talking about, I don't know, the agenda, the targets that you
want to set together, the goals that you want to achieve, I
don't know, certain new projects that you're taking up upon.
And then the other person is maybe stressed about something
clearly not in the rational brain because maybe something
happened at home or maybe stress about certain deadlines.
And then those two persons, they want to have a conversation
together, it doesn't work. You're not on the same level.
So the other person needs to see, hey, OK.
I see that you're stressed. I see that you're dealing with
something right now, what's up? And if you're able to address
and if talk about that, then you can, you know, meet each other
on the same level. And after that, it's also very
efficient because after that, the person consent, you know,
can release some of the stress. Say, you know, this and this
happened. I'm so stressed about it.
Hey, what can I do to help? Maybe.
Or oh wow, you must be so upset about that or whatever it is
that they're feeling. And then you can meet each other
in that same mindset, that same level as Charlotte's already
talks about. And that's super efficient.
So that's in a way also very strategic of course to do that.
Yeah, and it's naturally something we already do with
people. We're hurt people, right?
We're hurt animals. We want to belong.
So biologically, from an evolutionary point, we will
always seek connection. So I, I, I don't really know.
I think that's industrial revolution talking for to
whoever it may be. But somehow we we introduced
this construct that at work, that doesn't matter, right?
So only your output or the content matters.
However, we are first and foremost human, so our brain
doesn't have a work switch. It's the same one that you have
at home with your spouse or your children or your friends.
It's the same one you bring to work.
So to harness that by by using the skills that we have in our
brain. So relationship first, soft on
the relationship, tough on the content.
When we're soft on the relationship, when we pay
attention to that, when we are careful about that, when we
treat that with time and attention and focus, then we can
go much quicker on the content. Because when the relationship's
good, you can just zoom on the content.
It's it's easy to make an agreement, right?
Or or I don't know, find a solution with somebody.
When you're chill together, when you feel aligned, it's easy,
right? And you can also have a
discussion and not feel bad about it.
You can have kind kind of a meaty or tough discussion with
somebody that you're OK with, right when it's a bit awkward,
when you don't quite trust the person, or it's always a bit
difficult or you don't, you don't really feel a click.
It's very hard to come to decisions.
And this is what we see a lot. So we see two people having a
conversation. The other person constantly
repeats himself about certain arguments.
And the other person is like, you know, clearly getting
frustrated because you don't hear me, you don't see me,
right? That's often what's underneath
that, the need to feel seen and heard.
If that other person doesn't see you know, if you don't need each
other, then that's going to be a very frustrating and long
conversation about who is right, essentially.
Followed by a whole line of FYI emails and angry slacks and.
And gossip. Gossip.
Colleagues, it's a shit show that you want to avoid and you
can actually avoid that. Yeah, and that's quite strategic
if you can call it like that, you know to really be open to
each other, really listen to each other.
It's all it all comes down to active listening skills, you
know, really listen with the intents to understand instead of
to reply, you know that famous quote and that's really true.
But that's hard because sometimes you know in a lot of
cases we were actually applauded of having a a wonderful opinion
or being the smartest kid of your in your class or whatever
it is. So we're very trained to, to
have those discussions and to win those fights, so to say,
right. And sometimes it just takes, you
know, to let go and to really listen and then to find a
solution much quicker. Yeah, it's easier from like a
third party because, especially from this podcast, I feel like
I've developed this active listening scale continuously.
And then within my team, if I see an argument or two people
having a conversation, I can see that maybe they're not listening
to each other, or maybe they're saying the same thing, but they
don't understand each other. Or I have to be like, guys, come
on, is this really the most important part?
Why do you? Think it's easier as the third.
Because I can see both sides and I'm impartial.
Basically, what's the difference of being in?
You know, let's say you're one of those two.
It's like I have skin in the game sometimes, yeah.
So it also has a lot of, a lot to do with power, right.
So we sometimes also train managers and you know they're so
used of having that authority and having that control, right.
And then all of the sudden they need to just listen and you
know, give up, that's that's, that's feeling of control as
well. And maybe they need to adjust
their own assumptions, right, Because if you really listen to
someone, maybe it also changes your mind.
So there's also some risks there.
So that's why we see that managers fall back and they had
to hold patterns or sort of learn behaviour, which isn't
always. That's effective of course.
Yeah, Especially especially in the long run because it really
diminishes autonomy in your team, right?
There's there's a continuum of space that is about power and
and ownership. So if you take up 80% of that by
being controlling or being dominant in conversations or
always being the one in the lead, that means there's only
20% left for somebody to take autonomy and develop ownership.
So one of the main complaints that we hear is, oh, my team
doesn't take enough ownership. They're not creative or they
they, they never come up with their own ideas or whatever.
And then when you dive into OK, so how do you have these
conversations and you and we practice A1 on one and the the
lead or managers literally controlling the entire
conversation speaking 70% of the time saying oh this is what you
need to work on. Here are some suggestions how
you can do. That the rules that I set for
you exactly. Yeah.
And this is your timeline and this is how you should be doing
it. So they're giving no space
whatsoever in this continuum for the other to develop autonomy,
develop ownership. To make mistakes.
So if you want ownership, you
have to give a lot of space and trust and safety for people to
even start to develop it. So it's really a lot about
control and power. So you have to let go of some
control in order to Createspace. This takes time.
People don't immediately jump in there because they're testing
the waters first, right? Is it safe?
Is it OK for me to try this out? It will take some time and
encouragement and then they will step in.
But it's a it's a big thing. So once again, they're also
empathy is a strategic thing, because you want as a leader,
you want to be empathic, as in, read what The other person might
need to take this step to develop autonomy, for example,
or develop whichever skill that you're looking for right.
One person wants more verbal encouragement.
The other person wants you to just really step back and get
very situational. And it makes it hard right to to
effectively manage your whole team, because they're all
different individual, different needs.
Your friends, you know, maybe someone just started, right?
Is in the onboarding phase. Maybe someone else is maybe
losing a bit of motivation, like looking for new projects.
So that's it's hard. It's not an easy job to do.
Yeah, Well then to play devil's advocate, me, let's say as a
leader I can do a few things, right?
Because it I would only have to kind of personal and tailor made
things in my communication based on if I have a heterogeneous
team, for example, I can also hire people like me and have a
homogeneous team. And then I have to kind of act
similarly without all of the nuances there and then build up
a relationship like that. But then I lose that benefit
that diversity offers as well. Yes.
And also it is a bit of a bias to think that just because
somebody is a bit like you, they will think and feel and act like
you, right. So just because somebody seems
similar, it makes us sometimes it's kind of like a smokescreen.
It's even worse because you're going to think, oh, assume,
right. Assumption really that they will
think or act the same way. So especially when you have an
homogeneous group, it's even more important to have the
conversations where you're double checking your
assumptions. Hey, you know, after that
meeting we just had, I'm kind of assuming that you know that I
want this and this and this from you.
Is that true? Right.
And very often people will go like, oh, I thought actually
that we're going to do XYZ, right.
So especially in an homogeneous group, you want to always double
check. Yeah.
And then also with giving control away, there's a risk
involved there. Because if if deadlines are
tight and I all of a sudden decide, OK, maybe I was too
controlling. And especially new leaders or
new managers can have that. If they move from the content
all of a sudden to the people that have to do the content have
to let go of what they're good at, and all of a sudden their
skills are different or what they have to be good at is
completely different than the content they used to be good at,
then you can be controlling. But that control also ensures a
certain level of quality, maybe that you previously strived for,
but then letting go of that might take in risk kind of the
quality that you aim for. Of course.
And that's that's working with people and that's also the
challenge when in leaders you want.
That's why personal leadership is such a big topic.
Because you want a certain confidence and calm, right?
So this really comes back to emotional regulation.
How good 'cause control is a sign of your survival?
Brain kicking in going? I have no overview.
This is scary. This might, you know, burst into
flames it. Needs to be perfect.
So let me do it, you know. So that's that's.
Really. Survival.
Brain talking. So whenever you've, you feel
that as a leader coming up, you really want to regulate your own
emotions, right? So take deep breaths, go out for
a walk, feel your whole body, feel your feet on the floor.
So anything you can do to regulate your body back into
your rational brain, your rational, calm nervous system,
because those are the moments when you're back here where you
can really make A an executive decision, right?
So what do I need to do? Do I need to do I trust Person
A, whatever, to manage the deadline, even if it may be in a
different way than I would do it, right?
Do I? Do I feel they have enough
experience, enough whatever, help, etcetera.
Or do I need to step in? And then whichever part you
choose, have a conversation about it with person A.
Sit down with Adam, let's call him, and you know, to say you
know, and then there's a set line coming and I'm feeling kind
of anxious about it. It's the first time I'm letting
you do it completely and I trust you and it's also challenging
for me. Also, what it sometimes takes is
setting boundaries, maybe managing up because they're
under a lot of pressure themselves, right?
Maybe there are deadlines or stakeholders, you know, asking
for certain things. Investors, founders that you
know need certain things. So there's a lot of stress
involved as well. So maybe they really feel very
responsible of handling certain projects very well.
So maybe indeed they would think, you know, let me do it,
because then at least it's quicker and more efficient.
It's of high quality though. You take away autonomy then,
right? So if you give the other person
the chance to really try the project and maybe you're there
to help and to support and if they fail and that's always the
balance, right? In certain situations you really
cannot risk because it will cost the the company a lot of money.
So you really cannot risk it. And then maybe you step in and
also you can discuss those. Situations, exactly.
That yeah. So maybe now I step in, but, you
know, shadow me, see how I do it and learn from it.
And next time you can do it alone or, you know, together so
slowly. Then you let go.
So this is also very situational.
In some situations you completely let go and you can
delegate. Other situations you may be more
more involved. But but this is the this is the
process and that's beautiful. But that's often what we see.
Indeed for especially the first time managers, very difficult to
let go and to delegate. It's completely different
mindset. That's what they did as
individual contributors and experts.
Yeah, yeah. I'm curious to learn about your
experience as well because especially in this tech field,
there was this, and I'm talking about 1020 years ago, this
trajectory of you're really good at the content, really good at
software engineering. And then the only way is to move
up basically, and they take you out of this individual
contributor role. And all of a sudden you're
managing people that do that now.
And there's a different expectation of you, Peter.
Principle. Yeah, And nowadays, luckily it's
different and you can go very deep and actually stay an
individual contributor. But for me it's the question of
when is the right time to, if you're interested in this people
side and that different skill set, move to that.
Because you're dealing with start-ups with people that might
not even want that or might not even strive to get to a level to
achieve that. But they get rolled into this
position and all of a sudden they have that responsibility
and accountability. Yeah, Well, we see what happens
also quite a lot. I worked internally at a fast
growing start up and what we did there is also we established for
example a mentor program or you know a body system.
All those kind of yeah, certain projects that they could they
could do to already see hey how is it to actually coach someone
and to mentor someone so they could already develop certain
leadership skills or maybe they could hire interns, right, to
manage so slowly they could develop those leadership skills.
Maybe they would join our leadership program.
And that's really a nice route to, you know, to maybe one day
becoming a A-Team leader or manager because then they
already know, hey, maybe this is something that fits my
personality and gives me energy or they know.
OK, this is really not for me because I'm all the time having
those conversations and I actually miss, you know, my
expertise and doing the job after individual contributor.
So that's really a nice, I think, a best practice of how
company can approach that. Yeah.
Other than that, what is a nice when, when do you know it's time
is sometimes you just experience when you are promoted, right.
Some companies use certain personality tests to see what
gives you energy. What doesn't.
Is it really in your quality or not?
Yeah, the promoting your best individual contributor isn't
that great. Right.
Because you lose that the best salesperson, for example, the
the best developer and it's so hard to replace, you know a lot
of knowledge goes away, so. I I think it's also it's the
feeling of at least that's what I've heard from a lot of people.
When you really start to become more interested in or your
curiosity develops and why do people do their work well or how
do they? How can I make them, you know
work better or how can I work best with my teammates.
So when you start to become more interested in the why or the how
and not so much the output when the what kind of becomes a
little less interesting maybe right.
So it's once again that thing relationship towards content,
right. So when the relationship is
something that that that you're curious about, when it's
something that tickles you in a way, then leadership might be a
more interesting path to take. If it's something that only
because it frightens you doesn't matter, it doesn't mean that
it's not for you, right? New things scare us a little
bit. That's how our brain is wired.
So that doesn't need to be kind of a boundary.
But when it's still fascinating to you or you're like wondering
why does this person work well in those circumstances or not,
then leadership is an interesting thing to do.
When you when you really, when you get most energy and joy from
let's say a finished product or the process of making something,
then I wouldn't necessarily for this moment advise to go into a
leadership role because you'll be a lot less involved in that
obviously. But luckily there's this now,
this evolvement where it isn't so much any more about the
traditional ladder, right? Because if the system promotes a
manager position and you're going to earn so much more than,
of course a lot of people want that position.
Which sucks, basically, because then you don't get that had a
natural, yeah. Well, you're losing expertise.
You're losing expertise in the right field, right.
So it's it's like when we, when we walked in here and and I I
made the joke that I'm, I tend to be the least technical person
in the room. So we work with all these tech
companies, right. And I'm, I always say like oh
how do I connect my computer? I have no idea guys.
There's too many cables, right. So it's just, it's not my
expertise. My expertise is in a different
field. And I think that you want to
stretch people to a certain degree, right?
Especially when they're kind of towards the end of the
situational leadership cycle, right?
So they, they, they, they know the skills that then that are in
their role, they're maybe starting to get a little bit
bored or are looking looking ahead, right?
What else can I do? And of course you want to
ideally mould your people a little bit with the growth of
the company, right, so that you're that it's somewhat
aligned, but you want to stretch people within reason.
That's the intrinsic motivation. If the if the reason is money or
power, then we will advise against.
Yeah, you're going to fall flat. Yes.
Interesting, This combination of or this alignment of people and
content, it needs to be in alignment.
And I agree with that. But I've also seen an
experienced management where they've been removed from the
content for a long, long time and then it's like, OK, from my
side, I'm looking for a few things, let's say within my
manager. One of them is to help me
achieve kind of my goals or to even help me explore what my
goals are, because as a person I'm very curious.
So that those can be numerous basically and I have to decide,
make trade-offs but also in kind of guidance and mentorship about
the content itself is something especially early on I wanted.
And then with managers or leadership that are far away
from the content itself, I felt kind of this gap in their advice
versus what I thought was relevant for me.
Is that something you've seen as well?
And I think it might be especially relevant in tech
here. Yeah, they want someone to look
up to, to learn from someone, really a mentor.
Also, regarding the expertise, sometimes you cannot have it
all, you know? Sometimes you have a great
manager, you know, with a lot of people's skills.
Very inspirational, very motivational, but then maybe
lacks the expertise. And sometimes you have someone
who's created content, right, Great, expert and maybe isn't
the best visionaire or whatever. Yeah, you cannot.
There's so many different type of leaders and there isn't one
perfect leader, right? That doesn't exist.
And sometimes you can maybe choose to have a mentor in that
specific expertise or that specific field that you want to
develop further in and have that great, you know, people leader.
We also sometimes see companies with both an expert and a coach
and that's can be a wonderful combination.
Yeah, interesting. Yeah, we also touched on
psychological safety as well as building trust, building
relationships and building teams.
For me, it's interesting because if I look towards a leadership
team, I expect the people within that leadership team to also
operate as a team. But sometimes they get into a
position because either they're best at what they do, they've
built up certain relationships and they get promoted or they're
really good at the content. Again, with the same kind of
scene we've seen at the tech scene and they come together
within this group of individuals that are all leaders, all either
best at their craft or with the right relationships or just get
promoted for certain reasons I don't understand.
But then the time and effort that gets into building a team
is the same for a leadership team.
But I don't know if there's the same care and attention that
there needs to be. We work with quite a lot of
leadership teams as well and I see where you're coming from so
quite often. What we also experience is that
they they're wondering why do we even have to bother?
Like right, why are we even here?
We're all super busy leading our teams that really need us, so to
say. So what is actually the added
benefit of us being a team? What's the point?
And I I I see where they're coming from because from a
content point of view, they are all experts in their own field.
So. Right, what?
What can I get from you? What we see happening a lot
though is also especially as the company grows, right, especially
when you scale and your teams become bigger and bigger, so
very often the distance also increases so to say and and
right in terms of hierarchy. So even if you're really the
culture is very flat and you're, you're good to go.
Once there are so many people you can't talk to everybody on a
daily basis anymore, right. So distance so to say in
relationship grows. So they also tend to become more
lonely and that feeling of well you know I'm sort of managing 50
people down the line with managers or leads in between,
but it's gotten so big that it's you're you're only occupied with
strategy and long term focus and all of that.
And on a content level, that's fine.
But I mean, one of the main human cravings is connection.
And a lot of us, when you work full time, you spend most of
your waking hours working, right.
So the the brain and the body craves connection to a certain
degree. So that can be one of the major
benefits even in a leadership team to have that connection
with each other and kind of share that, that loneliness, so
to say, right? Share your experience.
Oh, I'm always the one that's called upon when things go
wrong, right? Or I need to fix another fix
another thing or actually I never quite know what the team
is talking about because they can't really join them for
lunch, right, these these kinds of things.
So it's sometimes it's connection first and foremost.
And I think also they sometimes lose sight of the strength of
their leadership in terms of being inspirational like Yosine
just mentioned, right. So that really is another thing
that goes through empathy and. A connection.
You can't be inspirational if you're not connected to
somebody. If there's no click, right I Who
are you to tell me then how I should be doing things right?
I don't. I don't trust you.
We need to trust a leader. Otherwise it's not truly a
leader. It's just somebody that's kind
of pushed upon us to tell us what to do or how much money to
earn. But a true leader is somebody
who inspires who you feel connected to on some level,
somebody where your rational brain goes, oh, what can I learn
from you? Because that person is so safe
that my survival brain goes, oh, I'm chill because she's there,
right? She's a safe leader.
We're good. She's going to lead us away from
home. The emotional brain is OK
because there's a safe connection.
I'm connected to that person. So then the rational brain goes
on and that's the moment where you learn and you thrive and you
grow and you become curious. And together, of course, you're
also responsible for maintaining a certain culture with certain
norms and values, right? Incorporate.
And how do you see those values back in the day-to-day behavior?
As a leader, of course this is something you're the the role
model for, right? You have to show you know walk
the talk. How do you do that?
People will look up to you and see a you know how does this
person deal with certain stress or you know how often does he or
she take holidays you know. So I think, you know being aware
of that position as well is very important and to get at all
leadership team, you know they they also establish the culture
in a way I I have no idea of. This actually is an answer to
your question by the way, but you said it came up.
Oh, it's a nice app. No, I think it, I think it's an
interesting insight and I hadn't realized that.
I mean, I I have realized that from an individual contributor,
if I'm working towards something and it's so far down the line
that I don't really see it making an impact, then I lose
fulfillment from that side, but I can still find fulfillment
within my team and doing it together, Yes.
And how you laid out kind of that leadership aspect,
especially in a company that is numerous amounts of people,
while you're kind of top of the food chain and your command is
also a few thousand people, then yeah, you don't get fulfillment
from those, again, because you don't even know the people that
you're leading or you're managing.
But you are responsible for their for their daily life,
right? You're responsible for a big,
big part of the happiness and for a big part of their private
life as well. Because you right, your, your
strategic decisions determine whether they'll be able to
continue to pay their mortgage. Yeah.
Whether they'll have to find a new job while maybe their
partner is at home with a baby they just had.
Whatever, right. So you you carry a lot of
responsibility while not necessarily always gaining right
that effect that you just mentioned without getting that
warmth so to say or the the well really the good hormones that we
get from connection. And the people that have those
similar challenges are then also within that same leadership team
exactly. So they can really empathize
with. You yeah, what we see a lot also
what we always advise is after training sessions to or after
our training programs to have intervention peer-to-peer
learning activity that they have for example on a monthly basis.
So they come together and maybe first session we will
facilitate, but after that they will do it themselves and they
just discuss difficult cases with each other, you know
challenges and they learn from each other peer-to-peer learning
And that's very essential if you know if you really want to have
that learning culture, so to say that's the culture maybe as
people refer to it, you know that element is very important.
You know how how often do you sit down together and discuss
certain challenges and how you deal with it and if it really
reflects the company's values, for example?
Very important. Yeah, absolutely.
Your your team is, in evolutionary terms, your team is
your tribe, right? So after you've encountered
something difficult or scary, the bear, the wolf, the angry
customer, whatever, the financial crisis, you come
together, you huddle up around the campfire and you share your
stories and you blow off steam. And that is what you need your
tribe for. That is where safety starts,
right? The safety is the moment
psychological safety comes. And it it it, it's not something
that magically appears. But it has to be worked on and
it's worked on and it and it grows.
When you sit around that fire and you blow off steam and you
think about solutions together and you connect, right?
And then next time you go hunting, that's when you're back
in your rational brain. But it's not the moment while
something really big is happening, it's the moment
after, right? So that really is that campfire.
This is also one of our exercises that we throw in quite
regularly in training programs. You know, let's do Campfire, and
then they share stories about their leadership experiences.
And challenges and how they made them feel.
Stories in itself, of course, have a huge, you know, power in
itself, right? Which is always a very
inspirational exercise. You see really people opening
up. And.
And you don't feel so lonely anymore because apparently all
these other people had the same that you felt kind of shameful
about, right. The same sort of situations.
And you're like, oh, you had that too.
You always seem so together, right?
Or I'm kind of impressed by you or intimidated, even.
Right. So usually also the higher up
you go to use that old school term, the more closed people
become because they have to really show for themselves
because they earn a lot of money.
They have a lot of responsibility, Right.
So I'm not allowed to show weakness.
Yeah. Recently we had a group of
leaders who were actually all dealing with the same issue,
that their CEO in their biweekly meetings was the only one
talking. And the rest of the leadership
team was there listening, you know, OK, collecting the data.
Slacking each other. Slacking each other like, Oh my
God, this is such a long hour and he's talking a lot again,
you know, but what are you going to do about it together, right?
What is your next step then? What is your action?
How are you going to address it? So how are you going to use your
influence? Or aren't you just go?
Aren't you just going to let it be and accept it?
And that's what often what happens, of course.
Well, let's just accept it. Let's sit through it.
But what are you going to change then, right?
But that's once again ownership, right?
And if you don't feel connected, there's no ownership.
No, it's not going to happen. You're not going to take that
autonomy. It doesn't feel safe because
who's going to have your back? Yeah, the vulnerability that
people share within a team and especially from leadership, I
think it would be valuable if let's say the people they are
leading also experience either that same vulnerability or they
share that story as well. Is that also something you
advise them to do? Yeah, and a lot has to do with
authentic leadership. So to be completely be yourself
as a leader. You're also just a human being
with your pitfalls, your strengths, sure, your allergies
as well. If you can be vulnerable about
that and you know, do self disclosures it definitely.
It actually increases trust. So they feel much more safe with
you as well because you're also only human.
You're real. You're real, right?
And there's, you know, the hard thing sometimes still is if that
same person is still deciding your salary raise, you know,
because then you're also the judge and the coach and that
safe person. But, you know, at the end of the
year or twice a year or whatever, they're also the one
deciding, hey, OK, do I get a pay raise?
Yes or not? So also then what can really
help is to have one person completely dedicated to personal
development and coaching, you know, and that that's safe
relationship and someone more on a performance.
You can do both, but it's it's it's challenging for sure.
Yeah. And I think an important tip
there really is the timing, right?
So just coming back real quickly to that evolutionary example,
the moment to share is around the fire, not when you're
heading into the next hunt it. Should be separate.
So next time that let's say you're facing a challenge,
you're taking your spear and you're heading out for that is
not the moment to go. I'm actually kind of nervous
about this. I don't quite know what I'm
doing right. That is when you want to be like
the the, the, the right, the the kind of strong and energized and
confident leader. The moment around the fire,
that's the moment when you want to share.
I'm also kind of nervous about this or you know, I'm, I'm
leading this team and the the challenges that we're facing now
or the KPIs or whatever, they're also quite big for me.
What can be very powerful as well is that you know, the
manager also shares the feedback that he or she receives from the
team. Like, hey, OK I received this
and this feedback about certain areas and this is how I will
address it or how I'm going to approve.
That's so powerful because you know what it what you're
actually saying is that you're also only human with certain
growth areas and it's it will help them.
So to to also share, hey, OK awesome.
This is what I want to do right. It's sort of sets sets that tone
very, yeah. Vulnerability invites
vulnerability. Maybe you've been you've ever
been in a situation where you're with a friend or family member
or somebody you know privately and you know them well.
And I don't know, you're having a beer or you're having a coffee
and they confide in you. They share something with you
and maybe they even say I've never said this to anyone before
it. Will increase likability?
Trust, yes. Huge.
Boost for the relationship. Also, it makes you feel like you
need to share something with them, right?
That you kind of want to say, oh, it's.
Unfair otherwise. Right.
It kind of. It almost feels out of balance.
So as a leader, when you show vulnerability in any degree and
once again this is kind of strategic.
And still they use this, right? So they'll open up about what
they did in the weekends or whatever, you know, add some
something personal, yeah. And that's also something really
you can do in leadership right when you share.
Like Yoseen just gave the example.
I'm working on this and this and I'm actually quite struggling a
bit. I find it challenging.
I need your help. I need your help.
Could you give me some feedback on how I'm doing in terms of
letting go of control or giving you autonomy, right, or giving
you space to develop that invites by definite by, by
definition, the openness from the other person as well?
And once again, it will most of the time not come that second
right? Because for a long time you have
set the example that maybe you as a leader, you're the talker,
you're the decider and you're taking up a lot of space.
So people will test the waters first, it might take 341 on ones
before they really start. So if you decide to change the
way that you want to approach this to give people more space
or be more vulnerable, give it some time a.
Good, yeah. A good tip or advice for this is
also to read about Lyrics Rose. So that's what psychologist
Timothy Leary invented. The model Lyrics Rose, what we
always use communicational model where you really see the
dynamics of, you know what happens if you're the one taking
the lead while the others will follow.
OK. If you then sit back and lean
back, you know they will use that space that all of the
sudden is there and they will take up, take that
responsibility, they will take the leads because you allow them
to, but that takes time, right, because they're so used of
certain dynamics the same. It's an invitation.
That's it. You're extending an invitation?
Yeah. So if also.
Referring back to that example that you shared earlier, if you,
if you're a manager and your team is very negative,
complaining a lot and you're like, you know, maybe they will
come to us and say do something fun with them, you know,
organize a nice team building activity for my team because
then at least they will be happy.
Don't, you know, Of course we will say, hey, let's have a look
at, you know, your behaviour. What do you do then sort of to
put them in that corner? And maybe that person is very, I
don't know, competitive, maybe a bit aggressive in you pushing
his or her ideas through. And of course they will be there
complaining because they don't feel like they have the space to
initiate certain projects or come up with certain new ideas.
So yes, they will be negative complaining.
And if you can look at those dynamics and see what can you do
to change that, that's really powerful.
But it doesn't. Yeah.
Sometimes you need multiple interventions for that, for
sure, yeah. And it's also interesting how
once you're in a dynamic you can get blind to it, right.
You don't it's it's sometimes very, very hard, especially when
you're constantly in your survival or emotional brain to
rationally look at it from a distance.
It's very difficult. You kind of get caught in these
dynamics. And then so that's also why
sometimes it's very useful for us to we just look at a team
when we give them an exercise or whatever and we just see how it
pans out and after 20 minutes it's like, oh, these are your
dynamics and and they go oh that's.
What you say Patrick, right. It's about.
It's so easy to be the third exactly.
Absolutely, yeah. I've really enjoyed this
conversation. I must say.
I think it's going to be really fun listening back to it as
well, and there's a lot of tidbits and learnings in there.
Is there anything you still want to share before you round off?
I always do this at the end and it takes a second, yeah.
Exactly. I'm thinking, did we cover our
most? What's to talk about?
Yeah, it's definitely our mission to put back or to put
empathy in the workspace and to to show others that it's so
important to really listen to each other, to really connect
with each other. Not only because it makes you an
better human being, I think, but also because it increases team
performance, your output, etcetera.
So definitely make work out of that.
And if and if you're struggling to do so, if you're struggling
to hear someone or see someone, they're like somebody who's in
your allergy. Oh no, that's him.
He's always complaining, right? Or Oh no, that's her.
She, she, she never will, you know, finish talking.
She just keeps talking. Don't look to the other person
to solve it, but look to yourself and how you can
regulate yourself in order to be with that or sit with that.
So don't try to change somebody else, but look within yourself
into your emotional regulation, what you can do.
Emotional Agility, for example, by Susan David is a very
interesting read around this topic because we all have
triggers and they will negatively influence how we can
lead or cooperate with others. Which is fine, We're humans,
it's OK, but it makes you such a it makes you a lot more dynamic
and flexible person to work with when you're good at regulating
your own emotions, because then nobody will really bother you
anymore. You can go back to content with
everybody. So I think that is that's an
important tip to take away as well.
Start with yourself. Awesome.
Thank you so much for coming on and sharing and I'll round it
off there. Thank you for listening and
we'll see you on the next one.