Latest / Authentic Living / Faith, Resilience, and Leadership: John Robertson on Navigating Change and Relational Currency
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
- 0:08about things that really matter in our lives.
- 0:12And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
- 0:40Everyone, it's Roxanne Dorhodch.
- 0:42Thanks for tuning in again today to Authentic Living with Roxanne.
- 0:46Today, I have a colleague, r Robertson, and he helps senior leaders navigate crises.
- 0:53So, John, welcome to the podcast.
- 0:55Thank you so much for having me, and I'm looking forward to being an encourager for your
- 1:00listeners.
- 1:00So appreciate it, Roxanne, very much.
- 1:02Thank you.
- 1:03So let me just tell you a little bit about John, and, you'll get the gist of what John
- 1:08does.
- 1:08He's the author of two bestselling books, Run Towards the Roar and Living the I am in the I
- 1:15have culture.
- 1:16He's coauthored bestselling book, Elevator and Empower Insights on Personal Growth,
- 1:21Resilience, and Transformation.
- 1:22He's a workplace wellness expert and cultural alignment specialist with over thirty years of
- 1:28experience helping corp corporations and individuals navigate every kind of crisis.
- 1:35So, John, let's just talk a little bit about what got you on this path to being where you
- 1:41are today.
- 1:42What where did you start this path off?
- 1:47I guess if I'm gonna be really honest, I'm a bit of a magnet.
- 1:51So if garbage happens, it's gonna be in my circle sphere.
- 1:57There's two ways to live.
- 1:58Right?
- 1:58One is the if only
- 2:02Mhmm.
- 2:02That hindsight or the what if.
- 2:06And a lot of people get caught on those and the problem that people have is we forget that life
- 2:14has an if in the middle.
- 2:16So, we're not going to get rid of the if.
- 2:19We have to choose to live by faith or by fear.
- 2:24And so, I got started in it by a whole bunch of those kinds of things kept happening and you
- 2:30eat, I either turtled or okay, that didn't go according to plan.
- 2:34Now, how do I grow forward?
- 2:37And because I'm not a big fan of fixing or diagnosing people, it's when people would get
- 2:44what I would call a Charlie horse, be it psychological, emotional, spiritual, moral,
- 2:51relational Charlie horse.
- 2:53I didn't try and fix.
- 2:54I just listened and walked through some okay.
- 2:58So what do you wanna do to get your head back in the game?
- 3:01And I actually really enjoyed it and typical.
- 3:04Okay.
- 3:05I should probably get training in it.
- 3:06And you know how many times we start doing something?
- 3:09And and that's the way I'm wired.
- 3:11Like, I I love helping working with people, and whether it be individuals or organizations or
- 3:18leaders to stop doing whack a mole, start doing stop doing Groundhog Day and just never ending
- 3:25series of programs.
- 3:28What about leaning forward, leaning into the harness so that when we fail, we fail forward?
- 3:36Yeah.
- 3:36Because oftentimes, it's so reactive.
- 3:38John and I have had, I would say, similar corporate kind of trajectories.
- 3:43And a a lot of times in my capacity as an executive at health and wellness strategy, we
- 3:48would be called in because this team is, you know, there's an arbitration lots of
- 3:52arbitrations happening.
- 3:54There's been a trauma response and we've responded, but we have a couple of people that
- 3:59are still not getting along.
- 4:01Right?
- 4:01Then you go in, you do your thing.
- 4:03Right, John?
- 4:04And then the company goes, oh, that's good.
- 4:06Everybody's back to normal.
- 4:07Productivity's back.
- 4:09And then what we find is that's clearly, like you said, you know, playing whack a mole or
- 4:13plugging that hole, which is oftentimes not the real root cause of what's happening.
- 4:18Just to build off of that in a very real, just happened this past weekend.
- 4:24A guy was did his training for the week, trying to come home on a Saturday, stopped for
- 4:31something they told me, I don't remember what it was, And he died suddenly as a result of a
- 4:36heart attack.
- 4:38Wow.
- 4:38And so he didn't make his kids baseball game.
- 4:41But then it's a smaller community, smaller organization as well.
- 4:47And all of a sudden, now, what do we do?
- 4:50Because this guy, I'll call him Fred.
- 4:52It's not his real name but Fred was incredibly popular, always willing to help, always rolled
- 4:59up his sleeves kind of person.
- 5:03And now, what do we do?
- 5:04So, all the senior leaders, their heads are spinning because Fred would be the guy that
- 5:11they would call had this happened.
- 5:14Right.
- 5:15So, story short, I got connected to it and well, somebody connected me to them and I said,
- 5:22first thing I gotta ask you is, if your goal is to put a band aid on this cut, I'm out.
- 5:28Because it'll be two months down the road when his wife and kids and others, their life's gone
- 5:35back to normal.
- 5:38The people directly walloped.
- 5:41Their life has no normal to go back to as if that was what they were gonna do.
- 5:48Yeah.
- 5:48And I think the average leader thinks that so long as we get the support, on the ground
- 5:54within seventy two hours, kinda like with all the data says, and we get people that have been
- 5:58through other losses, all those things.
- 6:01And then what happens is that in fact everybody will go back to normal.
- 6:06And when I know that's in fact not the case.
- 6:13Isn't that a perfect I saw you.
- 6:37So I think
- 6:38Isn't that a perfect illustration, though, Roxanne, of what happens?
- 6:44And to illustrate and I know people are tired of the pandemic talk, but listen to the way
- 6:51people now view it.
- 6:53For years, we heard, well, when things go back to normal, when things go back to normal.
- 6:59And all of us on the other side of COVID, the pandemic, we all realized that Norm died during
- 7:07the pandemic.
- 7:08There is no going back to Norm.
- 7:13Maybe we need to name that Norm a new name because, like, again, here we are.
- 7:19Absolutely.
- 7:202025.
- 7:21And here we thought, oh, once we once we got past the pandemic and we know that most people
- 7:27are still anxious or depressed, you know, isolated and not functioning well again.
- 7:34But we kind of blipped over that and we kind of went along life and we got the you know 75 or
- 7:4065% productivity.
- 7:41This is kind of what we can expect And then we get walloped with other things going on
- 7:47politically.
- 7:48And now it's, woah, this pandemic was like, you mean there's other things like this coming?
- 7:54I was just talking with a couple different professions.
- 7:57And one of the things that's been a huge shift for them for years, their profession, one of
- 8:03them was the funeral service.
- 8:05Their profession was ten, twenty years of service.
- 8:09If they didn't finish their entire career in it, that's just the kind of funeral director.
- 8:15Now, they're talking five years and then they go on to something else.
- 8:19If we're serious about keeping people's heads in the game, I'm not a fan of banging on
- 8:26leaders' heads Cause that doesn't change anything.
- 8:29Flip side of that is how people and organizations respond to people through pivotal
- 8:38critical moments.
- 8:40Mhmm.
- 8:41Either keeps them longer or one of two things.
- 8:45They resign, they may not leave, or they leave.
- 8:50And, John, I think it when we think of it as big crises, it's, oh, we gotta do something.
- 8:55But oftentimes, it's the little the little ones, like the man you're saying that was, I'm
- 9:01gonna say, such a center of reference.
- 9:03And he probably was allied to a lot of people, and we might gloss over that.
- 9:08And that sometimes ends up being more a more critical mass to an environment because that
- 9:15demonstrates if you don't address it the right way, it means, like, if he was so well liked
- 9:21and nothing was done to address what happened to him, I'm just little old me that kinda I'm
- 9:26kinda
- 9:26super
- 9:27polite, but I'm nothing too special like he was.
- 9:30What does that mean about me if anything were to ever happen to me?
- 9:33Would I not be addressed?
- 9:35Right?
- 9:36Well, perfect illustration of this is that the educational, the tagline, whatever I use, is
- 9:43the event is never the real crisis.
- 9:46And quite often to your comment, we can overreact to the big ones.
- 9:52And if we react, we underreact to the stone in the shoe, to the little ones.
- 9:59But the event is never the real crisis.
- 10:02And any organization leader or person who forgets that is automatically gonna cause some
- 10:11of their own headaches or heartaches.
- 10:15So when you when you go in and you're called in and Yep.
- 10:19Let's say people have some knowledge of what we're talking about.
- 10:21Right?
- 10:22Like Sure.
- 10:22Yep.
- 10:22It's you have to address concerns.
- 10:25But they're like, you know what?
- 10:26I'm not really completely bought into this, John.
- 10:28Maybe big, needs 10 times.
- 10:30Maybe small, maybe one or two.
- 10:33But you kind of go in and you're having that strategic conversation to kind of have them
- 10:38look at the impact of if it's done well and if it's not done well.
- 10:42What how do you wade through that when you're having a conversation with a company?
- 10:47So actually a relatively simple process.
- 10:50So if you picture key benchmarks, there's an event, whatever it is.
- 10:57Then there is obviously the reactions.
- 11:00And the quickest way that that'll show up in the workplace is some form of decline in
- 11:04productivity.
- 11:06It could be an attendance.
- 11:07It could be actual output.
- 11:09It could be an increase in children throwing sand in the sandbox.
- 11:14Whatever we wanna call that behavior in the workplace.
- 11:17So, we do the intervention.
- 11:19So, there's an event, productivity declines, we do the intervention.
- 11:24Create all these ideas, thinking, and so forth But then what starts to happen is there's
- 11:32dissension always.
- 11:34And dissension is a simple whatever tug of war moment where the walk and the talk don't match.
- 11:43And expectations don't align with what's delivered.
- 11:48And in an organization anchored in values or supported by values.
- 11:55Not the ones on the website.
- 11:57I'm talking about actual operational ones.
- 12:00What happens is then they move it from dissension into a program.
- 12:06Oh, okay.
- 12:07Well, people are not playing well together at the workplace.
- 12:09So, let's do productive conflict resolution or let's do a leadership program or whatever.
- 12:16There's all kinds of programs that get offered and the result is dissension grows because
- 12:24there's more skepticism.
- 12:26Oh, great.
- 12:27Now, they're putting a band aid on a cut juggler.
- 12:29Right, right.
- 12:30And what comes out of that is often institutionalized which is a really fancy way
- 12:37of saying, your well-being is so important to me, us, that I've written another policy.
- 12:46I've written another procedure.
- 12:50That's the normal progression and the result of that is engagement, well-being, so forth start
- 12:56to decline.
- 12:57And the goal becomes survival.
- 13:00When an organization is values based leadership led, then, the support is offered at the exact
- 13:09same points.
- 13:10So, support is offered at the intervention.
- 13:14So, what do we need to do next?
- 13:16We need to do a program on how to have conversations so that people are willing to
- 13:24talk and I know how to listen effectively, not as a counselor.
- 13:29That's not the goal And then when the dissension happens, instead of saying, this is
- 13:35how we do it here.
- 13:38Because it's values based, the organization and leaders can actually evaluate where the
- 13:46dissension is coming from.
- 13:48And the result is moves into the five core pieces I call shift rap.
- 13:54And yes, you have to say that with clear diction.
- 13:57But but the shift are the five pieces.
- 14:00The leadership, the values, the intervention, what's the plan when the plan doesn't work?
- 14:05What does success mean in your organization?
- 14:08What we're not gonna keep everybody happy, healthy, and engaged at work.
- 14:13We're dealing with human beings.
- 14:16So what does success mean?
- 14:18And what does leadership mean?
- 14:21If I was new to English and you were talking about this leadership, leading, leader.
- 14:31What do you mean?
- 14:32And most people default.
- 14:34I shouldn't say most.
- 14:35Many people default to, well, title or position.
- 14:39That's the worst thing through a critical moment because it's about trust and respect and
- 14:46credibility and, if you will, followability even if they're not always likable.
- 14:54Absolutely.
- 14:54It's just about the humanness of things at that point.
- 14:57Humanness.
- 14:58Absolutely.
- 14:59I remember years ago attending as a first responder to a critical situation.
- 15:04It was in a one of high end hotel.
- 15:07And when I was doing the debriefings within the seventy two hours, and the CEO showed up at the
- 15:15beginning of every one of them just to show his presence for a second, just to say, I'm here.
- 15:22I support you in whatever you need, which was such a gentle it it it didn't seem contrived or
- 15:28anything like that.
- 15:29He didn't take much time.
- 15:30He didn't wanna take away from the process or anything like that.
- 15:33And I thought, you know, what an intuitive, smart, thing to do to be able to show people
- 15:40that I am I understand this.
- 15:42It was because a patron one patron who would check-in once every month, same suite, for
- 15:52years and years, John, had committed suicide on property.
- 15:58Wow.
- 15:59So everybody, quote, unquote, got to know that person.
- 16:02It was very private because it was a high end kind of place.
- 16:06Privacy was key.
- 16:07So people knew this person.
- 16:10The CEO knew of this per and then they one of one day, obviously, they came, and they had
- 16:15been obviously planning and they committed suicide on on-site.
- 16:18But, again, going back to that element to your point, what I love about what you're saying is
- 16:25it's kinda like forget what's hanging on the wall, forget whose CEO, whose frontline staff,
- 16:31whose customer service in that moment.
- 16:34It's just we are in it together, and we're all having something happen and how could
- 16:39we And we're all humans.
- 16:40And so one of the things that you just perfectly described is part of the shift that's
- 16:47happening, which is so exciting.
- 16:49It's long overdue.
- 16:51Younger people and whatever that means anymore, I don't know.
- 16:54But younger people are
- 16:56no longer enough fit that category, I
- 16:58I put highlights in for purpose.
- 17:00I see that.
- 17:01I saw that that silvery.
- 17:02Yeah.
- 17:02Sparkle.
- 17:03Yeah.
- 17:03Nice high.
- 17:04And so what's happening in the workplace is they're not staying for pensions and benefits.
- 17:11And I think it's phenomenal.
- 17:13I think it's long overdue.
- 17:15Because listening to people, well, I've only got five years, four months, and eight hours
- 17:21left until I can retire.
- 17:23Where's the job satisfaction in that?
- 17:26Where's the motivation?
- 17:27And tying it to well-being and health.
- 17:32Pressing through things doesn't isn't gonna make us healthier.
- 17:37And and I quote, back in the day when we called people mister and missus, our minister growing
- 17:45up, his name was mister Newton and I remember meeting him when he was dying and so he was on
- 17:53morphine for pain and I was about 17 and he said, don't forget, John.
- 17:58In a world of presence, people need presence and I looked at him and I 17.
- 18:03I'm thinking, you got a little too much morphine going here and he obviously read my
- 18:10look and he said, smiled and he said, no, John.
- 18:13It's not the morphine.
- 18:16In a world of P R E S E N T S, people need P R E S E N C E.
- 18:24And people can fix and diagnose and all those things.
- 18:30And sometimes most often there's no fix.
- 18:35And so therefore what they need is just our presence.
- 18:39Not listening to reply, all those other cliches as a leader, as an organization.
- 18:46How do you get your best out of your people?
- 18:48How do you help them engage?
- 18:51Show them that what they do matters.
- 18:55You know, it doesn't matter to me whether it's the front person at the counter, the admin, the
- 19:00custodian.
- 19:01I don't care the title because I may never meet the person with the title but by the time I've
- 19:07met all the other personnel, I've already got a picture of what it means to be in your
- 19:13organization.
- 19:15Absolutely and that what a what a profound statement for you to have received at such a
- 19:21it steered so much of my life, my career because I don't come in to fix, to diagnose, to
- 19:29it's okay.
- 19:31So help me to understand.
- 19:33What's going on?
- 19:34And I think when you can listen at that profound level, people would really they open
- 19:40up because there's no end point in mind.
- 19:43They're just like Absolutely.
- 19:44Trying to understand what's happening, what the actual pulse of the organization is.
- 19:50A perfect illustration of this is happening now all the time with our virtual meetings.
- 19:56So as you're talking, I'm doing the and it's okay.
- 20:02John's already stopped listening.
- 20:07So, John, tell us tell us a little bit about the books and when the listeners buy a copy,
- 20:14what they might experience, Run Towards a Roar and the living I am and I and K.
- 20:21In So let me I have culture.
- 20:23So let me interrupt and so let me take two pieces.
- 20:26So run toward the roar is the foundation.
- 20:30So it's the book that requires the thinking and work.
- 20:33So, the term I invented in that is called Pasio Fidelis.
- 20:38Pasio is the root word of passion and Fidelis is the root word of fidelity, of faithfulness,
- 20:46of loyalty.
- 20:47Mhmm.
- 20:48So when life gives us a roar, animal instinct in humans are animal as well.
- 20:55Animal instinct is fight, flight, freeze, appease.
- 21:00Most of us will run away from the roar instinctively.
- 21:04When we know what our values are, when we know what really motivates us, not something on a
- 21:11website, in a brochure, but the things we want said about us, either at our funeral or when
- 21:17we're not in the room.
- 21:19Those values are the motivation, the Pasio that we will make a commitment to be loyal to when
- 21:28the roar happens.
- 21:29Hence, the subtitle, transforming crisis and change into the opportunity to thrive.
- 21:37And there's nothing worse to it for a human being to finish in a way or to succeed in a way
- 21:44that doesn't matter in the long run.
- 21:47So, that's the first is run toward the roar ethos.
- 21:51The second one book is living the I am in an I have culture.
- 21:57Being the leader, being the person that people can trust through critical moments.
- 22:04And so what happens in those critical moments is what's inside.
- 22:09Look just like a teabag in hot water.
- 22:11What's inside always leaks out.
- 22:14Mhmm.
- 22:15When I do my work, when you do your work before those hot water moments, we're not destroyed or
- 22:23eroded by what's inside because we've been working on it.
- 22:28So, the term that I invented for that book is Persona Octaritas.
- 22:33Persona is the term that's used for that character, that image that we portray.
- 22:40Octaritas is the Latin is the root word that we have authority, power, prestige in today's
- 22:49marketing terms.
- 22:50It's called our brand.
- 22:51So, when I am working on, how do I want you to describe me non physically?
- 22:58Can you trust me?
- 22:59Can you respect me?
- 23:01Can you follow me even if you don't always like me?
- 23:05And the I am book is different than I have because you and I were chatting about this
- 23:13previously.
- 23:14I have a bachelor's degree.
- 23:16I have a master's degree.
- 23:17I have twenty years of experience.
- 23:19I have.
- 23:20Yeah.
- 23:21And through critical moments, that kind of leader is not trusted, respected, or followed.
- 23:27Absolutely.
- 23:28Because the very essence of that person is resonating through even more so when there's
- 23:33something critical that's happening.
- 23:35We're reading and oftentimes it's not words.
- 23:37Right?
- 23:37It's we're just in a state where I I think that's where the element of humanness comes out
- 23:43and the rawness of feeling.
- 23:46And if you're not, like you said, in that space where you can hold that space for people,
- 23:52they're gonna go, what's he or she doing?
- 23:55And to your point about dissension, and they go, what does what do teams go back and they
- 24:00do?
- 24:00They say, did you see what John said when this happened?
- 24:03Did you notice what happened?
- 24:04And there was a kind of a x y z happening, and then they start to kinda create these little
- 24:09pods of toxicity that gets, you know, described.
- 24:13And that's the like you said, that's the culture that permeates.
- 24:16And then then productive when either where there's more conflict, where why there's more
- 24:22arbitrations, why they don't care about getting things done online.
- 24:27That's the thing that a lot of times we try to quantify, which is tough to do.
- 24:32Right?
- 24:33Isn't that the truth?
- 24:34Yep.
- 24:35Yep.
- 24:35Actually, one of my keynotes, so some of the things I do are keynote speaking, but one of
- 24:40the keynotes is the formula, TLC equals RC.
- 24:45So TLC is not what it used to mean.
- 24:48Today, it's about trust, leadership, and communication is never what's said.
- 24:53It's always what's heard.
- 24:55But TLC equals RC, relational currency.
- 24:59Mhmm.
- 25:00And what you just perfectly described is relational currency.
- 25:04Those relationships that are in overdraft if you will.
- 25:07They're in debit position versus the relationships that have huge currency because
- 25:15they're in a credit position and you we could turn to them no matter what was going on and
- 25:20know that they would have our back not be focused on trying to knife us.
- 25:26Like you described those little pods of conversations.
- 25:31It becomes like the children's broken telephone game where those little conversations start to
- 25:40grow and they take on their own life.
- 25:43Yeah.
- 25:43They take away from productivity because people are just not feeling validated.
- 25:47They're feeling disconnected.
- 25:48They're not feeling cared for, which is such a pivotal thing.
- 25:52And I think of my own trajectory in my career, John, and it's so true.
- 25:57Right?
- 25:57Like the leaders that I would have walked on water for some of them, because they just were
- 26:03so good.
- 26:04And it was like, I'm trying to think, did they like, of course they taught me things but it
- 26:09was just because I elevated and special and I could be who Roxanne was in that person's
- 26:16presence and I'm talking about high level positions and wherever I was coming from it was
- 26:22like, it's okay, we got this.
- 26:23What's going on?
- 26:25What do you need?
- 26:26Kind of versus oh what happened?
- 26:28You know?
- 26:29Exactly.
- 26:30You
- 26:30know kind of what did you do?
- 26:31What time is it?
- 26:32Oh no.
- 26:33I gotta catch the subway kind of.
- 26:34Yeah.
- 26:34And to your comment it's that whole premise is not a program.
- 26:41It's remember that we are not human doings.
- 26:45We're human beings.
- 26:47And the minute we start focused on the doing, we lose all of those empathy and vulnerability
- 26:55and transparency and caring, and we lose all the relational currency.
- 27:00Because we'll go to tactical versus the currency, like you said, the basic fundamental
- 27:04things that people just need to know that you care about them in some way.
- 27:08They will people perform.
- 27:10They perform.
- 27:10They know what to do, but they need to feel like you're seeing them for who they are so
- 27:15that they could just feel connected and you could basically get out of the way so that they
- 27:19could do what they do very well.
- 27:22Well, and I think isn't that what you and I were talking about previously on another
- 27:26conversation was getting people to do what you want them to do is a performance management
- 27:33accountability.
- 27:34But when people are motivated to do what needs to be done, which one's gonna give better
- 27:42productivity?
- 27:43Absolutely.
- 27:45Now, John, this has been an amazing conversation.
- 27:48But I what I wanted I have one last question that I'm curious about.
- 27:52Let's say you're working with a leader, and he or she is, what's some of the first fundamental
- 27:59strategies or things that you do with that leader if they're kind of not completely bought
- 28:04in?
- 28:05They understand the concept that we're talking about.
- 28:07What kinds of things do you do with them to, you know, kinda open the space to get them
- 28:13learning some of the things they need to do to deliver what we've been talking about?
- 28:18Depending on the personality because some people like to analyze.
- 28:22Yeah.
- 28:22So, for those types, I will do like a triage.
- 28:26Okay, over the last two to four years, let's look at the programs you've done and let's look
- 28:30at the ROI, the residual value of all those programs.
- 28:35So, are you less busy and more productive today as a leader or are you kinda like the Mad
- 28:42Hatter off of Alice in Wonderland or Frosty the whatever it was.
- 28:46I'm late.
- 28:47I'm late.
- 28:47I'm late.
- 28:48They're always in a hurry going somewhere but not really sure where you're going.
- 28:53If a person is more, I wanna take my leadership to the next level.
- 28:57So, let me finish the triage.
- 28:59What comes out of that is those leaders get exhaust by always being busy and not actually
- 29:06feeling like they're accomplishing anything.
- 29:08That's where we start.
- 29:10Okay?
- 29:11What's one area that's kinda Groundhog Day?
- 29:16For those that are less on the busy side and more on the, okay, what do I need to do to move
- 29:24things forward side, then, okay, let's just pause and there's a visual.
- 29:32So, if your listeners are driving a vehicle while you're listening to this, please don't do
- 29:37this right now but if you're stopped, draw on a piece of paper, draw a circle like a clock,
- 29:45draw the 12 points on the circle.
- 29:49And draw in the middle of the circle, write the word leader or leadership, whatever.
- 29:55Then, write out 12 words or terms that come to your mind.
- 30:00When you think of leader and then, okay, how are you modeling them?
- 30:08And one of the things that I do is I get people to do this at a table of three to five other
- 30:16people and now, share how many you all have in common.
- 30:21And on average, it's about three to four.
- 30:24So, if you've got three people sitting at your table and you only share four terms in common
- 30:32around your definition of leadership, How do you think that's gonna ripple out through your
- 30:37organization?
- 30:38So, start by defining what you mean.
- 30:42What does it and the term I use is I don't use leaders.
- 30:45I use shepherd guides because they're in front walking the talk, guiding people.
- 30:50Leadership traditionally is the rancher coming behind people and driving them in the direction
- 30:55they should go.
- 30:57I also, we talk about the values.
- 31:00What are the real values here?
- 31:03And what does success mean as your organization?
- 31:08So, one organization I was just chatting with, we got talking about DI and diversity, equity,
- 31:15and inclusion and so forth And what came out of it was I did the well, why does that matter?
- 31:22Because the government and the normal
- 31:24Because of the regulations and what I'm going to be judged if I don't have it and blah, da,
- 31:27da, kind of thing.
- 31:28And I said, that's great.
- 31:30So just write a policy, do a program, and check the box.
- 31:33We want to make sure it's ingrained in who we are.
- 31:37Okay?
- 31:38Now we're talking about your values.
- 31:41Does that matter to You're talking about who am I and what is it that you want to resonate with
- 31:46DEI, not just DEI as a stamp.
- 31:49We
- 31:49are Absolutely.
- 31:50And
- 31:51those types of things.
- 31:52Yeah.
- 31:53And what you just perfectly described is rather than doing the reacting Mhmm.
- 31:59Okay.
- 32:00How do you want to grow this in the workplace?
- 32:03So I had a we had a phenomenal conversation because I said well really what you're talking
- 32:09about is psychosocial safety in the workplace.
- 32:12Because DI, if I'm not safe in the workplace, it doesn't matter what the package title is.
- 32:19Nothing's gonna fit.
- 32:21Absolutely.
- 32:22Absolutely.
- 32:23So it depends on which way the leader wants to approach it.
- 32:27I like approach of the triage.
- 32:29Right?
- 32:29If you're the frenzied, we're not gonna start to teach you anything.
- 32:33No.
- 32:33Exactly.
- 32:34You have to slow you down and figure out.
- 32:37And then but if you are the type that's already triaged into, okay, I'm managing, I'm
- 32:42functioning, but I'm recognizing now I wanna, you know, grow or flourish, then you kind of
- 32:48funnel down into those core areas, and then you start progressively working on things based on
- 32:55what
- 32:55You just said it a lot shorter and better than I did.
- 32:58But yes.
- 32:58I I don't know about that, John, but thank you anyway.
- 33:01No.
- 33:02So, John, you like you alluded to, obviously, you do a lot of consulting.
- 33:07You do keynote speaking.
- 33:08What else do you do out there in the world of work and
- 33:12Training and coaching would be the other two.
- 33:15So it depends on where organizations are at.
- 33:19So for example, it might be providing crisis intervention training on when we meet a person
- 33:25in crisis.
- 33:26What do I
- 33:27do?
- 33:28Yeah.
- 33:29Through to having that conversation, like showing appreciation at work.
- 33:36Genuine appreciation.
- 33:37I'm talking about
- 33:38The fluff, no fluff.
- 33:40Yeah, exactly.
- 33:41The real things.
- 33:42So you do pretty much kind of anything related to navigating crisis Yeah.
- 33:48From the microscopic with coaching or on all the way up to strategic planning based on where
- 33:54the company is at.
- 33:55So just to give you a visual because I love high IQ visuals.
- 33:59Picture a teeter totter.
- 34:01Oh.
- 34:02Okay.
- 34:02That's really high level.
- 34:04I I know and I'm gonna push you right outside your comfort zone and so that fulcrum in a
- 34:10teeter totter is that critical moment.
- 34:12Be it crisis, change, or growth.
- 34:15Yep.
- 34:16How a leader handles those critical moments, tilts
- 34:21the
- 34:21teeter totter towards safe, engaged, productive.
- 34:25So, recruitment, retention, all those things are not a big challenge or how that leader
- 34:31handles that critical moment tilts towards unsafe, disengagement.
- 34:36They're always dealing with fires.
- 34:38It will never leave it neutral.
- 34:41And Roxanne, let me and I please don't name names.
- 34:44But I can illustrate that critical moment fulcrum.
- 34:48Think about a critical moment in your life.
- 34:51And you remember, you will remember the people that you thought were your nine one one friends
- 34:57would always be there for you, and they just evaporated like water on hot asphalt.
- 35:03Yep.
- 35:04Yep.
- 35:05And other people that you maybe didn't even know cared came out of thin air.
- 35:12And what can I do, Roxanne?
- 35:14Yeah.
- 35:15It's often amazing how that happens, right?
- 35:17And you really do learn a lot based on this when you're going through something yourself
- 35:25and your expectations are high of certain people.
- 35:28And then other people out of nowhere, a quiet presence, a different space, and you're like
- 35:33blown up.
- 35:34And you're like, wow.
- 35:36What it's taught me, John, with things that have happened in my life is not to judge
- 35:41because people have qualities that you might have to be in the right space for them to
- 35:46demonstrate it to for you, for them to be able
- 35:49to do
- 35:49what you need.
- 35:50And maybe you've never had that opportunity in the past as well.
- 35:54And just dark humor alert.
- 35:56I'm one of those personalities that if we're in a boat and everything's smooth sailing and
- 36:01everything's going like clockwork, you don't want me in your boat.
- 36:04Because I'm that personality that'll stand up just to rock the boat and say, now this is
- 36:12gonna get exciting.
- 36:13And that's just I don't do status quo routine well.
- 36:19It's not a good thing or a bad thing.
- 36:21It's just my strength is, okay, let's find a way to get this boat planing your organization,
- 36:29your leadership, your personnel so that people want to work here and people know how to
- 36:37thrive.
- 36:54So John, sorry about that.
- 36:56But what I'd like you to do is to let everybody know where they can get ahold of you.
- 37:02So the easiest way is shoot me an email, and it's my so the domain is Fort Log dot co.
- 37:12And it's .co because I work with people, work with organizations.
- 37:16So colleague, collaborator, coordinate, and so on and so forth.
- 37:23It's a co.
- 37:24Fort Logs, Fort Safe Place in the Frontier.
- 37:27You gotta know where you're going.
- 37:28And a log is a journal to help others sail the sea because you no point going there alone.
- 37:33And the easiest way to do it is send me an email at hello@FortLog.co.
- 37:39And let's just have a simple conversation.
- 37:42Awesome.
- 37:42This has been an amazing conversation.
- 37:45So everyone, again, like the podcast, give us a review.
- 37:48We love to have people like John who is sharing his wisdom with the world.
- 37:52And I'm walking away with just drop down into your essence as a leader.
- 37:58Give yourself the time to be able to spend that space so you can connect with others.
- 38:04And with me, what's new, in the fall, I'm starting a first cohort on the ROR course.
- 38:10So if you're interested, just reach out to me at Roxanne@RoxanneDurkodge.com.
- 38:16Okay, everyone.
- 38:17Take care.
- 38:17Bye, John.
- 38:18We'll talk to soon.
- 38:19Thanks, Roxanne.
- 38:20Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
- 38:26healthy change.
- 38:27Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
- 38:31To work with Roxanne, visit roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
- 38:37We'll see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.