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Leadership, Simply Smarter Episode 2: The Curve of Change with Donna Hughes · Leadership, Simply Smarter

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: The information in this podcast is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute a lawyer-client relationship.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guest knows that leading through change isn't a skill that you read about in a textbook.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's one you forge in the fire.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Donna Hughes is the founder of Hughes Solutions, an executive coaching and organizational transformation firm, and she brings something very rare to that work.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: She has lived every challenge she now coaches others through, from navigating a company bankruptcy during the 2008 financial crisis to steering a pharmaceutical company through explosive global growth across 100 countries.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Donna has led through it all.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that firsthand experience is the foundation of everything she builds with her clients.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Since launching Hughes Solutions in 2022, she has supported more than 800 leaders through one-on-one coaching, workshops, and speaking, helping them lead, adapt, and thrive when the ground is constantly shifting beneath them.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Donna believes that leadership is an act of service, and today she's here to share what that looks like in practice.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Donna, welcome to Leadership Simply Smarter.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Donna.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Leadership Simply Smarter.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: We're very thrilled to have you on board today, and I'm excited to dive into the discussion about all things leadership.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know you pretty well from ABA as well as being a fellow Jersey girl, but for the benefit of our listeners, I'm just gonna ask you a little bit about your own leadership journey and how you got to where you are today.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, and great to be here with you, Vanessa.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned we've known each other for a while.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you didn't date us too much.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh God, no.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been a it's been a good time knowing you through ABA and other organizations.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, as you know, I started my career as an attorney in law firm practice, first commercial litigation, and then quickly pivoted to employment advice and litigation.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh after that, I went in-house uh at circuit city stores.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Some people may remember Circuit City.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I do, I do there during uh the heyday when we were number one consumer electronics company, and I was also there when we went from 30,000 employees to 100, literally in like two weeks, basically overnight.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was part of the 100 to wind down the organization.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh challenging time across the country in 2008, 2009 because of the financial crisis, and that was very, very challenging, but I learned a lot and it let me know that for the moment I didn't want to stay in retail.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to do something different, but I still wanted to be in-house.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I switched to pharma.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I went to what was then called Watson, it then became activist and became allergic.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And now that company is at V.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in-house council, was their first in-house employment council.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we did lots of mergers and acquisitions and spin-offs and all sorts of dynamic transactions.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got to learn a lot and uh didn't sleep much, but learned a lot.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was asked by a former head of brand at Activist who had left to become a CEO at a small cap pharma.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was asked by him to come be his chief people officer.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from in-house employment counsel, who I did where, you know, my hat definitely tilted quite a bit from to HR practices because of all of the integration.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I certainly did not follow that traditional route.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I hesitated a little bit, but I figured if he was going to let me grow and bump my head under his leadership, I should do it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be challenged and do something different, and I was very glad that I did.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was my entree to the C-suite.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I learned so much about a business that I wasn't learning before from a different lens.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I did that work for several years before we sold the company.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was a chief human resource officer in healthcare at Emblem Health in New York, which also was a great opportunity to work with an organization that was coming out of a turnaround and going into transformation and working with them to shift culture as well as the business.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and then um, like many people during the pandemic, I thought about is there anything next for me?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that whole self-journey.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided after some real laboring over it, that I really wanted to go into executive coaching.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I left my corporate gig after planning for a year because I'm a planner, and opened my own firm.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, planning is important when you make a shift like that.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so you went from being in-house to and in organizations and leading organizations to entrepreneurship and leading in a little bit of a different way.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did your prior experience, what have you taken with you in your current um coaching role?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll say my firm Hughes Solutions, we work with leaders who are navigating and spearheading major change, major transformations, different levels, primarily senior leaders, but different industries, but very dynamic times for them and for their employee base.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I work with those leaders because I know what it's like to be in that midst of change where it's just kind of whipsaw.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your head is on a swivel and you've got so much going on, and you're trying to lead and you're trying to support, and you're you're trying to keep all the balls in the air, and it just doesn't feel like it's even possible.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I empathize, but I also know how to get to the other side and drive positive outcomes, and so I can appreciate where they are when they're stuck, and it's a beautiful process to help them get unstuck and become the high-performing leaders that they want to be and take their teams on that journey as well as their communities.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we do at Hughes Solutions, and that's why we do it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to uplift leaders who can then pour into their teams.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And by doing that, they're also creating not just high-building and performing teams, but they are also making change in their communities because I believe that when you make behavioral shifts, it's not just within the four corners of your work environment.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is also how you show up in other places.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's an extension of what you do.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that it's important for leaders to show up in a way that is positive and driving positive outcomes in every space that they enter.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that includes within their communities.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And right now, uh that's even more important than it was when I started the firm, when we are dealing with a lot of unfortunately divisiveness and people retreating to personal positions and wanting to interact in a way that is positive but challenged in doing so in this current dynamic.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I personally want to have a firm that helps leaders lead positively and evoke great change amongst diverse teams and communities inside the workplace and outside of the workplace.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's really great.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: And thinking back on some of the CEOs I've known, they seem to always have some type of volunteer position where they're really pouring back into the community.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's really excellent, that that's you know, uh one of the tenets of Hughes Solutions.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: So tell us a little bit about Hughes Solutions.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Tell us about your team you have going there.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we work with leaders who are going through lots of change and transformation, and we do one-on-one coaching, but we also do team coaching and teamwork, and that is very rewarding work, and there's a lot of demand for that right now.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And once leaders are focused on themselves and they're able to shift some of the behaviors to be greater in what they do and better in what they do as they lead their teams, they also have to remember that they are part of a team, an executive team, and that that team has to be working cohesively as well and crossing the finish line together, not separately, not in silos.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we work with teams on their dynamics and it runs the gamut.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be a team that is just very new and needs to work on team assimilation, like you know, CEO is new, or part of the leadership team is new.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to feel each other out and figure out what their norms and operating principles are.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or it could be a team that's been together for a while, but there's been challenges and they've never faced them.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So working on trust and working on conflict, things of that nature, nonprofit, for-profit boards, wherever you see a team, there is opportunity to drive great connections and build relationships.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's also opportunity to have some breakdowns.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we help teams wherever they are on that spectrum so that they can not only perform well together, but show up well together for the people who report to them as well as the rest of the organization, essentially producing that culture that they want to see and need to have in order to deliver on their strategic goals.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's excellent.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a lot going there.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do each of your team members have a little bit of a specialty among coaching, or do you all kind of work um the same layers and the same way?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we all have training where we have certifications in coaching, and we use a co-active meth method, which is we are focused on not fixing, we are focused on driving people's success and setting them up for great success and reaching their high potential.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I get calls where organizations are saying, we're about to let this person go.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really working, but for our last chance, could we do some coaching?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that person, my company's not that company.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: We focus on setting folks up for greater success and reaching higher potential.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so we don't believe that you start with the premise of fix them or they're out.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we really help them to bring the agenda to the table.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that they want to work on?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be because they've received feedback on certain things, it could be because they're aspiring to be next level.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely have coach people who are aspiring to be to the C-suite, people who are in the C-suite who are aspiring to go to boards, emerging leaders who are aspiring to be more senior.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: We focus on what is the agenda that would help them reach their goals.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we also coach the whole self.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so certainly what does what does that mean when you say coach the whole self?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly we're executive coaches, so we're working with leaders on different competencies as a leader, and you don't focus on all competencies, you focus on where are the competencies where they want to drive more impact.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is it communication?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is it presence?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it managing conflict?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is it influencing key stakeholders?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're talking about the whole self, we're also focused on what else you need to bring to the table to make sure that we aren't coaching in this vacuum and we are coaching in a way that you are able to show up well in the workplace because we have considered any other dynamics, personal dynamics that might be going on that might impact you.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: By way of example, if a leader were to say to me, you know, I really, really want to be promoted within the next year, and that job will have me doing a lot of travel.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can focus on what are the skills they really need to develop.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But if they never mention that they are the only family member that gives care to a parent that is suffering with dementia, then we aren't really coaching the whole self and making sure that whatever actions we put in place and decisions that are made at the end of the day actually support the goals that they want.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And those goals might shift based off of any personal dynamics.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I never forget to focus on that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Our teams don't forget to focus on that because it's really important.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, personally, when I was a leader in corporate America, I certainly went through those types of personal changes, and it was important for me to make decisions not just based off of my career, but based off of family too.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so there were times when parents were hospitalized and I maybe had to take a leave of absence to care for them.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, my parents took ill at the same time in their latter life and died within uh just five months within each other.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was very challenging, very challenging.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I I made a decision to stay out of the workforce during that time period.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I transitioned out of one company where we were being acquired, and I was going to be leaving and going to another company, and I decided that I would leave a little earlier than had been planned and work with my mother's care to make sure that her transition was one where she knew I was going to be there to support her.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and then my father took ill the day before her funeral and passed uh less than five months after.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that you have to make important decisions that are consistent with what you want to do, both personally and professionally.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I get that, and some of those decisions are very, very hard.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And to be able to have those conversations with your coach in a confidential setting and be vulnerable about it so you come out with the solutions that serve you is important.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for sharing that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: That absolutely must have been a terrible time for you.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I give you a lot of grace for being able to say, This is a time I need to step away from the workforce and just concentrate on my family and what's needed at the time.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that's, you know, sometimes you need to do that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be everything to everyone all the time.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, having that perspective, I'm sure, really helps you coach authentically to other leaders that may be going through the same thing.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: It does because when you think about it, it is also leadership decision.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the point in time when I chose to lead in support of my family, and the rest would just have to take a pause.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right, absolutely.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I know as as an attorney and an employment attorney, I think of myself as a trusted advisor.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And you've talked about um hoping that your clients open up about their lives as a whole so that you can address the whole person when you coach.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: You consider yourself a trusted advisor as well.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: There definitely has to be the trust between a coach and coache.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I wouldn't use the word advisor because we're pretty careful about the distinction between coach and therapist, consultant, mentor.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I am a trusted partner in the coaching process.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so everything we talk about is just in that room.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's confidential, gives space for them to say whatever it is they need to say, demonstrate empathy with their challenges and concerns so that they can bring to the table whatever it is that is necessary to help them make the considerations they have to make, and that we are doing it together, but always in service to that coaching.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a number of different things.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: It can run the gamut for sure, but there is a lane for why people want executive coaching.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And first, let me talk about how they come to us or who comes to us.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: So most of our clients are the sponsors, the corporations, and then we serve the leader who wants to be coached.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: The corporation has an idea of why they're getting this coach because generally there's been a discussion internally about it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of organizations are very uh coaching friendly, I will say.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like they invest in it, they understand it, they put budgets behind it, they maybe coach for certain levels like VP and above, they coach for when people get promotions.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there are a lot of companies that are very focused on leadership development and they know the returns on that, and the returns are very meaningful.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the leader has to get the corporation on board.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So there might be a leader who wants some support and they go to their company and say, you know, would you sponsor me to be coached?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are individuals who will invest in themselves and say, you know, my company isn't interested in doing this, but I want to develop myself.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how the conversations start.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it could be any number of leadership competencies.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It could be based off of maybe some feedback that the leader has received.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they know some areas they want to hone in on.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: It might be based off of changes that are going in the organization, like they're going to be promoted and they need a new scope, they're going to get a new scope of work.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so that will require them to maybe enhance some competencies that they don't use at the time.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or in addition to promotions, it could be wanting to uh fine-tune a couple of different areas.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so it can be anything like communication, uh, influencing key stakeholders, like I mentioned.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: It could be how to build relationships, how to engage productively when it comes to conflict, those types of things.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is always customized.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: The only time that I would say sometimes we coach in a more packaged way that maybe is similar needs for several uh coaches is if a company is looking to have their new leaders of a certain level or coming in focus on certain things.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the company may want a new leader to hit the ground running in the first hundred days, and we do that type of coaching.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we may be focusing on helping them get to know their team, make an assessment, build their team.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: We may be helping them with who did they need to be partnering with and building relationships in those first hundred days.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do they need to be influencing on?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: What are the values of that organization and how How do they plan on showing up and showing those values?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that kind of approach that every leader would need to be focused on when they first enter, and they want to make sure that while they're doing their listening tours and figuring out what's going on, they've got a coach that's also supporting them once they learn these things to make sure that they are driving some traction within those first hundred days.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I often tell younger associates or those coming up the ranks that we learn a lot from our mistakes and challenges.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes that might be a harder sell.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's just my perception.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a harder sell for someone who's more senior in their career.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: But is there a challenge in getting some executives to embrace vulnerabilities or areas that maybe are not strengths for them or are more challenging?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: We do come across leaders who sometimes have those challenges where they don't want to admit they don't know things.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they'll admit it in the coaching room, but they won't admit it in the workplace.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they won't even admit it in the coaching room.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then it could come from past experiences in their life and in their career that make them want to feel like they need to show up that way.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It could be how the leaders before them leaded, and that was their training by watching who's in front of them.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it is something that we all as leaders need to get past, which is our fear of being vulnerable or open or feeling like we have to be perfect.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say, while I don't generalize because I just got finished telling you that it's customized and it could be different for different leaders, I will say that my attorney brethren, and you all know I'm an attorney, we we tend to have challenges with perfection.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um and often when I'm coaching uh in-house counsel or even partners in law firms, and I get feedback from different generations around that partner.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: There can be times where there isn't a willingness to recognize that we make mistakes, we learn from them.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what we should be doing is when we fail, fail fast and learn from it and digest it because it will make things better for us.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's how innovation becomes great processes and great strategies and great outcomes.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, lots of things are not created in perfection, they are a process.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And leading through ambiguity is an important uh competency to consider as well.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's lots of leaders who really are focused on black and white.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: What does that mean, leaning through ambiguity?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are working in an organization where you are focused on driving innovation, and there may not be a very prescriptive path, or there may not be immediately black and white in terms of the answer and where we need to go.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: We need to process through it.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Some people struggle with that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, give them a math problem and they'll make it happen.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Give them theory and ask them to explore, it can be a challenge.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that is something that comes up often, and I'd say more often, recent date, because as organizations are trying to stretch themselves and stay competitive, you have to think differently than the next organization.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that means you may have to spend some time in theory as opposed to black and white.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I would think with anybody, certain strengths uh are more second nature, and some of them you really have to work on and develop.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you talked about being at organizations that did go through transformation from Circuit City going from thousands and thousands of employees down to being of the last hundred, and then you talked about being at a former company that had lots of mergers and acquisitions and merging that in.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you've had lots of experience with organizational transformation, and you also mentioned that's part of your coaching.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, why do you think some transformations and the goals for organizational change aren't successful?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's some data that says that when organizations have been going through transformations, they generally don't meet all of their goals.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, 70% is the number on average of goals that aren't met.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: But people don't always know that that's happening.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're moving very quickly, you're trying to get things done, there are deadlines being set, and people are going through major, major change.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And while there may be asks of them, and intuitively they may understand that there are asks of them, personally, it may be challenging for them because of the emotions they might be going through with respect to the changes.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: People may be going through personally emotions that are challenging for them when there is a major business change.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you may have heard of the change curve that was created by psychologists Kubler and Ross and focused on stages of grief, but it is something that has been applied to workplace dynamics too.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: When workplace dynamics are their people are experiencing a lot of change, particularly when there is more focus on getting it done and less focus on change management and less focus on communication.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So some employees may not experience any emotional challenges about it at all.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is what it is, you know, let's let's go.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Some employees are fine with it in terms of they enjoy change and chaos and disruption, the more the better.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's how they think.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then you may have employees who are really more steady eddies and who have been doing the same job for 20 years and they like it and they don't want to change, and now you're making a lot of disruption, and they're not able to get on board and adopt that.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it leaders in those times, in the urgency of trying to get from A to Z, sometimes fail to recognize that there is a responsibility to bring people along that curve.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And your team, different members of your team, may be at different places at different times along that curve.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so paying attention and giving people what they need in order to ultimately get to adoption or at least get to a place where they can articulate whether or not they are willing to continue the ride.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: Do you help executives or teams manage that change curve and build that into sort of the blueprints of the organizational transformation?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: It like I said, it depends on the individual leaders.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I might have a senior leader who is leading significant change and is talking about the challenges that they're having with getting their team on board.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we may be coaching around the behaviors that they need to demonstrate in order to support their team and recognize the individual concerns of that team.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: In addition, we might be coaching around what's your plan towards navigating and spearheading the change itself as well.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then certainly coaching on their own relationship with change.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be hard to spearhead the change if you're resistant to change, if you don't believe in the change, if you don't understand the change, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: All of those, you know, there could be any number of those things sitting in the room, and it's my job to pull that out and talk about it, because we don't always stop to even think about how we feel about it.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And having led through lots of transformations, I've been in organizations where we uh have different opinions around the change, and the talking and the discussion isn't always in the right place.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and people feel like they need to vent about how they feel about it.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes uh they're venting to team members, and there's all sorts of disparate thoughts that are going on, and we're not holding people accountable to really leading in a responsible way, and that's when the change that you expect for the organization could really fall apart.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I do a lot of speaking engagements to leaders, keynotes, like conferences, and talk about different things like leading and embracing change.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And an example I give is have you ever had a situation where you made this major, major technology change and you had new systems that were brought in?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: You bring in those new systems, and everybody's supposed to make their switches at different times within the system.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this group you're gonna be switched on at this time, this group you're gonna be switched on that time, and then there's supposed to be education around it, and so forth and so on.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's supposed to be completed in a year, and you look up, and 70% of the people are still on the old system, and only 30% of the people are the new system, right?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I say that, and there's an audience, like you know, you see the heads nodding because something that so many of us have experienced, which is that people are not on board, they don't want to do it, nobody's holding them accountable to do it.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So now instead of having new efficiency, new system, everything running, you know, smoothly as you had intended, now you've got even greater clunkiness because you've got an old system and some people still on that, a new system and some people on that, terrible inefficiencies, and the money that you spent on this and the efficiency that you were supposed to drive went right out the back window.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that is the easiest way I can explain when a transformation is going in the wrong direction and leadership is not showing up in the way needed to drive that transformation.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that's a good example.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I was smiling too, because I know, you know, in the last year or so we had to upgrade our um, you know, back-end financial system because the version we had was no longer going to be supported, you know.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we had this one that was supposed to be easier and more integrated and all this stuff.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: And we all got trained on it.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I started working with it, and I was like really frustrated because even though I had training and I'm pretty good with software apps, it still was very clunky to me.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I would just get frustrated at it.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then so we would have talks in our business unit meeting, like, why is everybody's hours down?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Because it's really hard to entertain now, you know.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: I was neutral to the change and maybe even somewhat like, okay, well, you know, if it's not supported, it has to be done.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I so I didn't really have any vested opinion about it, but nonetheless found the change tough, even though they had done that.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do you do in that circumstance?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like you do the training, you you get buy-in or or at least not hostility to it, but it still doesn't sort of roll out right, you know.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: What's the magic secret there?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in my farmer days, we would call that a failed launch.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So this is not a good thing.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you have you may have to reset.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: You may have to reset, you may have to go back to why did you communicate?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that's you communicate the why, and you communicate the expectations, and you reset, um, and uh and you know, and then accountability.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think it was also growing weakness because I think it took a little bit longer for people to get used to it than maybe what was anticipated, because you know, now I use it, now they've added upgrades to it, and it's easier than I thought it was, and I don't know what I complained about all about in the first place, but so I could just imagine change on a bigger scale than that, but that's a lot.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: So earlier we talked about sometimes executives come to talk about various competencies, and one of them you mentioned was conflict and conflict resolution.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you maybe expand on that?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: I know in my practice, and you must remember from being an employment lawyer, getting our clients to have difficult conversations with employees and work through things or not was always a tough thing.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: Can you speak a little bit towards that and how you coach around that and how Hughes Solutions does that?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: I do remember.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and then I was counsel.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I would joke with managers, but I was serious in some part where I would say if you could just be willing to have the difficult conversation, you could put me out of a job.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: So let's try to put me out of a job because the complaints that come to the table are often because of lack of communication, poor communication, non-existent communication, the wrong communication, failure to write it down, failure to use the appropriate words, whatever it is.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then they can get worse in terms of silos and so forth.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's definitely the perspective I had as in-house counsel.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as uh an executive coach, it is really a focus on productive conflict versus conflict for the sake of conflict, and productive conflict is the healthy debate that you need in order to drive the right solutions.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you start with that premise that there is such a thing as productive conflict, right?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm working with an executive team that's very new with each other, and and they're all great leaders, but they really want this to work.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's been a lot of turnover on that executive team, and so they think that this is the right team, and maybe they're tiptoeing around each other, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: But they've got this runway for a strategy and the things that they have to do.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: At some point, you have to stop tiptoeing around each other.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: You have to actually have the willingness to have those debates and get everybody in the room comfortable with let's do push and pull on people's ideas.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not personal, but we have to get to the right idea.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we do that is being willing to push and pull, being willing to disagree, and then also making sure that once we finish this conversation, when we walk out that door, we are aligned and we don't share what happened in the room.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's important.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's important.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when uh I'm working with organizations or my team is working with organizations and the conflict and the silos is so deep, we will have everyone take a productive conflict assessment and a leadership assessment.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it will show not only the person's genuine leadership style and the way they tend to lead, what are their tendencies, what are their motivators, what are their stressors.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: It also will show how they may show up in the midst of conflict and how they engage people who have a different style than they do during conflict.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we're able to help them step away from the situation and really start looking at it as we're all team members, we just come at this a different way, we lead different ways, and what are some of the strategies we can start using so that I can have the conversation with Sally Sue that really will be helpful, or we can have the team debate that really will be helpful.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: What are some of the strategies that we can put in place?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it can be a one-on-one support, but it's also very powerful when there are teams that are having challenges and they're going into silos and it's getting deeper and deeper, you know, like you can go two, three levels down and the silos are intense to do an analysis there and understand what's going on and maybe also help them understand themselves through assessments and how they may show up and how they may make just some of the slightest tweaks, quite frankly, to show up in a way that invites conversation as opposed to invites conflict that you can't get past.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: I will say that most often when people are not willing to have that healthy debate, it can sometimes be because they're trying to feel each other out and they're soft pedaling, but it's often because there hasn't been the effort to build the trust first as the foundation.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Either they haven't made the effort to get to know each other enough to build that trust, or there has been a breach of trust and there hasn't been effort to regain that trust.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And because that takes time and vulnerability.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And without coaching support and intervention, it doesn't always happen.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's powerful.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: I try to look at it when I have to have difficult conversations with associates on performance or they didn't meet a deadline or whatever they were doing just didn't really meet what my expectations were.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: I try to look at it from the perspective that it's my job to teach them.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if I don't do my job to deliver that message and do it in a way that is productive, um then how are they gonna learn?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because nobody comes in here knowing how 100% to be an attorney.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: We we're all learning.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm learning new areas today.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm trying to figure out how to do AI and where it's helpful and where it's not helpful.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we constantly learn.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: But that's when I look at it.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, that's part of my job.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: That is my responsibility.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Does that resonate?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think about that?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: It is your responsibility to give feedback and to support and to help develop.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Also, leaders need to be thinking about how do they empower people to become those talented attorneys or talented employees or talented leaders in their own right, you know, for sure.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's something else to consider in those instances is you may understand, and other leaders may understand that yes, I should be giving feedback, I should be supporting, I should be empowering people, but sometimes you don't know how it's going to land with that individual.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so getting to know your teammates, what's important to them, and how you may need to sandwich this conversation.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: There will be the people that can't hear you at all, but if you make sure that you're thinking about the delivery may be different for this person than it is for that person, then you have at least treated them like the individual that they are, appeal to what's important to them.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when I was leading in an organization, I had a person who reported to me who was fabulous, did a great job, always got exceeded expectations.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And there was this one year where I had to give some strong constructive feedback because I was hearing from a number of people, but it wasn't anything that the person couldn't get past.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't anything that was earth-shattering, and it wasn't anything that kept them from getting exceeds expectation.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: But for that particular behavioral circumstance and showing up consistent with the company values, there was some work to be done.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a challenge for them to hear it and digest it and believe it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it took a while before they said, okay, I now I'm ready to have this conversation again and consider what I need to do to work on this.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: And how we perform and how we behave is a two sided coin.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is what we believe we are doing, and it's also how we are received.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And how you are received is the side of the coin with where the feedback is recorded.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so your intent may be different and your belief may be different.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if the majority of people receive it this way, you have to think about why.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's a really good point.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Someone else said something similar to me recently.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: You believe you're presenting somewhere, but how do you show up?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: And how do other people see you know, showing up?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that's interesting.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you gave me a lot to think about here.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not just a matter of giving feedback in a constructive and productive manner, but also sort of setting a stage that the person's able to receive the information in the way in the spirit in which it's given, and then understanding how that person may receive the information so that you tailor it to each individual and figure out ways to empower them.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not just criticizing, but you're giving them tools to move forward in advance.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I got a lot in five minutes.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that, Donna.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And may I just give you one more thing that in any conversation, active listening is important, but really important when you are already facing conflict or about to, you know, you're about to face conflict or this conflict in the room, you know?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's different levels of listening.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you, and when I say you, I mean anyone, not Vanessa, but if you are listening and you are listening only to the extent that you are waiting for that person to just close their mouth so you can say what you have to say, that is the lowest, lowest level of listening, right?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to be on the higher level where you are hearing what the person has to say, you're repeating back what they say, you're giving some summary, some reflection to make sure that you're accurate, and that you are recognizing that even if you have a different point of view, that doesn't mean that you haven't heard what they have to say and what their point of view may be.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that you are also listening not just to their words, but to what they're expressing otherwise, their body language and so forth.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: If a colleague tells you that everything is okay, but they've got arms crossed and daggers coming out of their eyes, everything's not okay.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and as a leader, you shouldn't be like, whoo, run out the room and okay, I had that conversation.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: You had the conversation, but is it landing where you need it to land, or are you willing to go deeper and actually ensure that both of you have some level of alignment?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so that act of lifting listening is a very important part of just leadership in general, but it gets even more important when you're trying to manage conflict.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: Donna, you've been incredibly generous with your time.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I have even personally gained by getting a little coaching and tips to level up my game a little bit.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: But as we conclude today, can you think of maybe one tip that our listeners can take away from here on leadership that they wouldn't necessarily get in an MBA class or some kind of management leadership course?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, something that you can offer them from years of being a leader, being around leaders, and now coaching leaders.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think all leaders have to take the time to not just assess company values and how they show up in company values, but to assess what their own personal values are and and what's top three, top five values that are important to them.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because it will help to show up authentically, it will help to crystallize things in your mind in terms of leadership and the way you deliver.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And also if there's conflict or you're uneasy with something, or something's just not working right as you're trying to lead through something, if you look at your values, there's a high possibility that there's something going on that's inconsistent with your values.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be where the struggle is.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing I would say is that making sure that your leadership is on brand.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want to show up?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: I reflect often on a leader that I coached many years ago, and that leader still comes back to me every six months or so to just check in and say hello and say, I'm still driving the values and the competencies that I think are important.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still showing up the way I think I want to show up.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that leader emphasized that the shifts that they made, which allowed them to be a great leader that was able to drive outcomes, but not do it by leaving bodies in the road.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: That they really appreciated that they were able to make that shift and no longer were receiving the feedback about the rough elbows and breaking you know eggs, as they say, in the nice way of someone who's just being very command and control and in an organization, and was showing up that way not only in the office and with their teams, but also in their communities, like I say, is our philosophy.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a point where a manager wanted this leader to go back to some of the abrasive ways, and because that leader thought that it was the right way to handle that other team that isn't doing what we want them to do.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the leader that I was coaching said they were strong enough to say, no way.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I like how I'm showing up and I like the interactions that I'm having, and I like the building, the relationships that I have.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that doing that values assessment and really appreciating how you want to be on brand and what's the legacy that you want to leave should be the building blocks and then what you stand on in your leadership.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: It will always serve you.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_02: So speaking of legacies, Donna, what is the legacy you want to leave with Hughes Solutions?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have a coach now of thousands in terms of one-on-one teams and keynote engagements.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And what I want the legacy to be is that uh in every space and every room that we are in and how we support, that we are known for being the servant leader that puts other leaders first in our support and coaching, and that the people who we interact with are not only driving great outcomes within their organizations, but that they are making positive change in their communities as well.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great, great legacy to leave.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's wonderful.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, my last question, because I've asked you tough questions at the end.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think is your superpower?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: What distinguishes you, Donna, and Hugh Solutions from other coaches?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you that my secret sauce is kind of multi-pronged.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: My secret sauce in coaching individuals is my style.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's humor, a lot of intuition, and a whole heck of a lot of accountability.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what you get when you work with me.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: And in particular, my intuition is very strong.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I use it to serve the leader.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there are times when I see things that they're shocked that I can see.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: But to bring it up out of them and put it in the room makes a big difference in the benefits that they get out of coaching.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's my secret sauce.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: Then I would also say this from a distinguishing standpoint is any coach comes to this with different backgrounds and so forth.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: But my background of being an executive leader, being an attorney, being a chief people officer, being in various different industries is a combination that helps me coach in a certain way because I understand what leaders are going through in these major transformations.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there, I get it, and I can empathize with them on that.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so often I coach people in all disciplines, and we work with organizations that are for-profit, not-for-profit, Fortune 50, small family business.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it really does run the gamut.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: But oftentimes I'm called to support someone who knows my background and wants someone who is not only a good coach, but understands what they're going through because they personally have held similar positions or they personally have gone through transformations in large organizations like I have.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a huge differentiator because you've really been there, done that, seen that, and you can really relate.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: So that's very important.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: Donna, thank you.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: You've been wonderful.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, really enjoyed our chat today, and I wish you every success with Hughes Solutions and keep doing what you're doing.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_02: You're building better leaders and better community.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for inviting me to chat with you.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed it, and uh I appreciate your support and well-wishes.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: The information in this podcast is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute a lawyer client relationship.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.