Latest / Step Wise / Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky on What Happens When Speaking Up Feels Safe and Worth It

Transcript

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky on What Happens When Speaking Up Feels Safe and Worth It · Step Wise

0:00
SPEAKER_04: The one that I think is interesting, of course, we want it to feel safe and worth it.
0:03
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't mean there isn't fear.
0:06
SPEAKER_04: There can still be fear, but the fear feels surmountable.
0:10
SPEAKER_04: The one that's really interesting to me, this quadrant where it isn't psychologically safe, but it is worth it.
0:15
SPEAKER_04: And this is where courageous leadership will show up, where I feel connected to the stakes that I'm willing to uh put myself at personal risk or sacrifice to say the thing.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: This week's guest is an author, keynote speaker, and thought leader in a critical area for work and home today.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: That of creating a safe space for people to speak their minds and show up fully.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: Stephen Shedletsky, or Shed to his friends, helps leaders make it safe and worth it for people to speak up.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: His 2023 book, Speak Up Culture, when leaders truly listen, people step up, is a useful guide to leaders as it offers practical advice on something that's a blind spot for many leaders and organizations today.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Psychological safety.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: Shed has led hundreds of keynote presentations, workshops, and leadership development seminars across the globe.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: Shed worked closely for more than a decade with leadership expert Simon Sinek, serving as Simon's chief of staff and the head of brand experience, training, and development for Simon's company, The Optimism Company.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Please join me in welcoming Steve Shadletsky to Stepwise.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: This will be a lot of fun.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I've been looking forward to this for a bit.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: So, Chet, when you describe the work you, your uh market basket of things today, how do you describe your work persona?
1:51
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
1:52
SPEAKER_04: The cheeky thing that I say is I help leaders suck less.
1:57
SPEAKER_04: That's the cheeky thing that I say.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: That's a tall task sometimes.
2:01
SPEAKER_04: Um, my grandfather Ben led a small group of seven folks that became five by the end of the war in hiding in the Polish countryside.
2:11
SPEAKER_04: And so I began to be more interested in leadership, effective leadership through my university years and then into my corporate career.
2:22
SPEAKER_04: And I've always just been fascinated by who steps up, who takes charge, who empowers, uh, and who does it for good generative reasons versus who does it for self-interested reasons.
2:35
SPEAKER_04: And then what's the impact on the people in the world around them?
2:38
SPEAKER_04: I've been working foster with a like a working definition of what does it mean to be a leader?
2:43
SPEAKER_04: Um, and not leadership by title, leadership by behavior.
2:48
SPEAKER_04: Because you can hold the title, but nobody follows, they might do as you say.
2:52
SPEAKER_04: That's authority.
2:53
SPEAKER_04: But earned leadership, someone worth following.
2:57
SPEAKER_04: And the working definition I have of it right now is the attempt to leave the people and the world around us better than when we found them.
3:05
SPEAKER_04: That to me, I believe, is leadership.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm fascinated by Ben, your grandfather, and who was a leader who led under the most extraordinary circumstances.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: The notion of comfort crisis, um, it is a crucible moment.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: It is a crucible event.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm curious in your life, as you have uh uh as you lead or advise others and teach, has there been a similar crucible moment in your life that said, you know what, this is the right path for me?
3:34
SPEAKER_04: I didn't really have a clear vision of the career I wanted.
3:40
SPEAKER_04: I knew I didn't want to do more school.
3:44
SPEAKER_04: Um I've always sort of been entrepreneurial, intrapreneurial, which means that I can be a bit of a tricky employee.
3:54
SPEAKER_04: Like it takes a really good situation and a nice match with a leader who gives me quite a bit of autonomy for me to thrive.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, I just get frustrated by bureaucracy and boxes and all those things.
4:06
SPEAKER_04: I decided quite early on in my career, I was about, gosh, this would have been 20, probably about 12.
4:16
SPEAKER_04: So I would have been 25.
4:19
SPEAKER_04: And I was crystal clear on what I wanted to do.
4:22
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to work in the leadership development space.
4:24
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to work, I just knew I was obsessed with this thing called fulfillment, which I still am today.
4:30
SPEAKER_04: Fulfillment to me is every single one of us has strengths.
4:34
SPEAKER_04: Whether they're God-given, born into, developed, we all have strengths.
4:40
SPEAKER_04: Like every single human being has strengths.
4:43
SPEAKER_04: And can we use those strengths to contribute towards something bigger than us, bigger than profit that we care about?
4:50
SPEAKER_04: And if we're using our strengths to contribute towards something that we care about, the result is fulfillment.
4:56
SPEAKER_04: We feel well used, if you will.
5:00
SPEAKER_04: And I remember um I made the decision to uh full out go toward leadership coaching and speaking and facilitating and doing this type of work, but I was 25 and had very little experience.
5:16
SPEAKER_04: And so I was like clear on step 10, but I was very clearly at like step two, and I had no idea what steps three through nine were.
5:25
SPEAKER_04: And I sort of naively quit a stable career path.
5:30
SPEAKER_04: Fortunately, I decided I, as I was in that previous job, I'm like, maybe I just need to move out of my parents' house and that'll solve all my problems.
5:39
SPEAKER_04: I'm really glad that I didn't do that.
5:41
SPEAKER_04: And I'm really glad that I had the privilege and opportunity to live at home and save and all that fun stuff and lived in that city and all that meaningful sort of wind behind my back stuff, which I don't take for for granted and don't take lightly.
5:56
SPEAKER_04: And I remember about six months in, things weren't moving as fast as I thought they would.
6:03
SPEAKER_04: And sort of in a moment of vulnerability, one night, one evening, hanging out with my dad, we're sort of both working at the kitchen table.
6:11
SPEAKER_04: And I said to him, What if I've made a big mistake?
6:14
SPEAKER_04: Like, what if this hasn't, what if this isn't gonna pan out?
6:18
SPEAKER_04: And my dad, to his credit, I mean, my dad is conservative.
6:22
SPEAKER_04: He is not a risk taker, he's very introverted, he does not like to be the center of attention.
6:27
SPEAKER_04: And he said to me, uh, Steve, give it a couple years.
6:32
SPEAKER_04: He said, He said, give it two years.
6:34
SPEAKER_04: He he said, anything you've put your mind to, you've been able to accomplish, give it a couple of years.
6:41
SPEAKER_04: Consider this your MBA.
6:43
SPEAKER_04: And I was just like, holy cow.
6:47
SPEAKER_04: I I'm just I just so good.
6:49
SPEAKER_04: It gave me leash.
6:50
SPEAKER_04: It just gave me leash, and it gave me like, okay, I've got two years.
6:57
SPEAKER_04: Sure enough, like right at the two-year mark, things began to pick up steam.
7:01
SPEAKER_04: I met my wife, and just things just began to began to go.
7:05
SPEAKER_04: And I I give so much credit for for my dad of just giving me leash in space.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: And I give him so much credit because he didn't understand the world that I was endeavoring to be in.
7:16
SPEAKER_04: But he but he just he exuded, I believe in you.
7:20
SPEAKER_04: Like, go for it, and you've got a bit of leash here.
7:23
SPEAKER_04: That's a moment that definitely stands out to me, Foster.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Brilliant.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: You know, it occurs to me that it's kind of the metaphor for speak up culture.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: It allowed you the space to have your voice in something that mattered.
7:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
7:36
SPEAKER_04: Well, and it he he gave me a safe space for me to articulate my deepest doubt and fear.
7:42
SPEAKER_04: And his and his response is, I believe in you, I got you, give it some time.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: And I bet you get this question a bit.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: I get it all the time.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: I love to provide an ear for younger people coming up, and they'll say, I have step 10 in mind.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: I want to be Simon Sinek, or I want to be Shed, or I want to be foster.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: How do I get from here?
8:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm studying a few things.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: How do I get from here to there?
8:11
SPEAKER_02: What advice do you give people in that?
8:13
SPEAKER_04: Well, the first thing I say is you don't need to be foster, shed, or Simon.
8:17
SPEAKER_04: You need to be you.
8:18
SPEAKER_04: And take that from me who thought I want to be exactly like Simon.
8:22
SPEAKER_04: And as it turns out, that's quite quite disempowering because I'm my own person with my own unique experiences and skills and strengths.
8:29
SPEAKER_04: And even if they're similar to someone, I don't think it's healthy to ever say, I want exactly that other person's life and career, because there needs to be nuance.
8:40
SPEAKER_04: And so first and foremost, I think it's a double down.
8:42
SPEAKER_04: And this, there's no mistake, Foster, that in every single leadership development program I've ever come across, the first module is on self.
8:50
SPEAKER_04: Always you gotta figure out this instrument.
8:53
SPEAKER_04: If we were to envision our life or career as a pie, I think you can take some slices, maybe some big slices from some other people, but it's still your pie.
9:03
SPEAKER_04: I'm a really big believer in mentors and people that you admire and wish to follow, but I think you gotta figure this piece out too.
9:11
SPEAKER_04: It's figure out your own instrument.
9:13
SPEAKER_04: What tunes and songs and keys and tones do you have any business playing?
9:17
SPEAKER_04: How can you best harmonize with with others?
9:19
SPEAKER_04: You know, figure out what are the pieces that you admire.
9:23
SPEAKER_04: Don't fixate on any one and figure out your own path to who you are.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my my first comment is always do your work.
9:31
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:31
SPEAKER_04: And figure out what which constitutes figuring out, well, what is my work?
9:36
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: I am so blessed by the community I have around me here in Bozeman, Montana.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: We moved here about a decade ago.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I do now is I realized in the springtime that I I've always said community is important, and yet I wasn't really doing other than one-on-ones and one-on-twos.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: I wasn't doing anything to build it.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: So I started my Tuesday night.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: In fact, tonight is a Tuesday night.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Tuesday night, not a men's group, men's group.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: So we gather 10 or 15 of us around a fire pit outside in the beautiful Montana summertime, and we converse at a level at which I've known these people now for 10 years, and we haven't had these kind of wonderful deep conversations.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: And really important to have that kind of outlet.
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Did anybody tell you that your move from where you were to working with kind of a small company based on an idea was crazy?
10:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, your initial move to Simon.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, we're talking about Simon Sinek and Shed, describe your role with uh Simon and Simon's organization because it's quite significant.
10:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thank you.
10:43
SPEAKER_04: So I I was introduced to Simon Sinek's work and particularly his first uh TEDx talk, which is how great leaders inspire action.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't seen it, go out and do it, and we'll put it in the show notes.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: But you need you need to see this.
10:57
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a great talk and talk about passion.
10:59
SPEAKER_04: The passion was well live in that one.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: I was actually working um in a company where I was about to be moved into a marketing role, and I wasn't looking forward to it.
11:09
SPEAKER_04: I said to someone, I don't want to do marketing for an organization where I don't believe what they sell and how they sell it.
11:15
SPEAKER_04: And he said, Watch this video.
11:17
SPEAKER_04: And he sent me Simon's Ted TED Talk.
11:20
SPEAKER_04: I successfully procrastinated Foster for two months and then opened the link and watched it.
11:24
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, wow, everything this guy says uh is true.
11:28
SPEAKER_04: I just hadn't thought about it in those terms.
11:30
SPEAKER_04: Simon wasn't so well known when I joined him.
11:33
SPEAKER_04: He became really well known in sort of the the years that that followed.
11:36
SPEAKER_04: But there was one friend, Michael Bunge Stanier, who's the author of The Coaching Habit, as well as many other books.
11:42
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant, brilliant guy.
11:44
SPEAKER_04: And he's like, no, don't go work with Simon.
11:46
SPEAKER_04: Develop your own body of work.
11:48
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I'm gonna ignore that and go work with Simon.
11:50
SPEAKER_04: And I worked with Simon for 10 years.
11:53
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
11:53
SPEAKER_04: Um, first person to do his social media that wasn't him.
11:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh, led a team of speakers, the chief of staff to his former CEO.
12:01
SPEAKER_04: I had an amazing career journey um with them for 10 years.
12:05
SPEAKER_04: I still do work with them as an associate and go out and share um keynotes and workshops using Simon's ideas as well as my own practice, which is the majority of what I do.
12:15
SPEAKER_04: Sort of summed up perfectly by what Simon's previous CEO, Kim, said to me, You're gonna do this with or without us, and we hope it's with us.
12:23
SPEAKER_04: Um, to me, you know, Simon articulates a world that is far more inspired, far more psychologically safe, and more fulfilled.
12:31
SPEAKER_04: And I went, yeah.
12:32
SPEAKER_04: Like, wow.
12:33
SPEAKER_04: And my feeling was he was just way ahead and down the road of exactly what I wanted to be doing.
12:40
SPEAKER_04: And so it was a no-duff to join forces to help to learn.
12:45
SPEAKER_04: And now I'm still contributing toward that same vision, doing it with his team and doing it in my own pursuits as well.
12:52
SPEAKER_04: But it's still the same vision.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: In uh 2023, you published a book called Speak Up Culture.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: Again, we'll put this in the show notes for people.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, we'll put a link on our website to purchase the book.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: And I highly recommend that uh everybody read this.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: Through this book and before and currently, you've encouraged others to speak up and to find their voice and when it matters, when are you least likely to speak up?
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:20
SPEAKER_04: I hate to be so academic, but I'd lean into the framework.
13:23
SPEAKER_04: For me, like the the thesis of the book is we make the choice to speak up when it feels either consciously or subconsciously, where it feels psychologically safe and worth it to speak up.
13:36
SPEAKER_04: So psychological safety is defined as it feels safe to take interpersonal risk, to challenge an idea, to disagree, to dissent, to share feedback, to share an idea, to admit mistake, you know, all those things.
13:51
SPEAKER_04: When there's high psychological safety, we feel that we can take that interpersonal risk.
13:55
SPEAKER_04: The other axis or lever is efficacy, um, as Amy Edmondson called it, a perception of impact.
14:04
SPEAKER_04: So it might feel safe, but if it isn't worth it, you don't think anything's gonna change.
14:09
SPEAKER_04: So ideally, it feels both psychologically safe and worth it to say the thing.
14:14
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes it can be psychologically safe, but not worth it.
14:16
SPEAKER_04: And like, I've been to that well.
14:20
SPEAKER_04: It's dry, you know, eh, it's just not worth it.
14:23
SPEAKER_04: I certainly won't speak up if it's both not psychologically safe, so psychologically dangerous, and it isn't worth it.
14:31
SPEAKER_04: What's the point?
14:32
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna put myself at harm and risk, and it's gonna make things worse.
14:37
SPEAKER_04: I'll just keep my head low and figure out how to get out of this one.
14:40
SPEAKER_04: The one that I think is interesting, of course, we want it to feel safe and worth it.
14:43
SPEAKER_04: It doesn't mean there isn't fear.
14:46
SPEAKER_04: There can still be fear, but the fear feels surmountable.
14:50
SPEAKER_04: The one that's really interesting to me, this quadrant where it isn't psychologically safe, but it is worth it.
14:55
SPEAKER_04: And this is where courageous leadership will show up, where I feel connected to the stakes that I'm willing to uh put myself at personal risk or sacrifice to say the thing.
15:05
SPEAKER_04: That's really interesting to me.
15:07
SPEAKER_04: Um, and you'll even get whistleblowing in that instance as well, which is an external act.
15:12
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, the yeah, when it doesn't feel safe and it doesn't feel worth it.
15:17
SPEAKER_04: And though I wrote a book called Speak Up Culture, and though people will say I'm the speak up guy, does it mean I'm always saying the thing?
15:24
SPEAKER_04: No, because sometimes it's hurtful, sometimes it isn't useful, sometimes it's not the right thing, sometimes it's not going to get me or anyone ahead.
15:32
SPEAKER_04: So I still pick my spots.
15:33
SPEAKER_04: There's discernment.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: One thing I really, really like about this book is that you provide a real practical framework for leaders to create that safety and to encourage others.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: And I will work with a leader sometimes who will say, God, I couldn't create any more safety.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: I I encourage people, I all of that kind of stuff.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: And I it causes me to think, are you familiar with the Enneagram framework?
15:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, not intimately, but I I know.
15:57
SPEAKER_04: I think I'm a three, I but I'd go before I'm a thing.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm a three as well, Hank.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay, five.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: We have a fear, a variety of fears in there, but one of them is we always want to look good, look right, look like we've got our acts together.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Because to not look that way is distressing to us more than it would for an eight or a six or a two or whatever.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, these leaders will say, look, I've done everything I can.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: I notice for me that I put as many barriers around my sense of security in speaking up and speaking out as a leader might.
16:35
SPEAKER_02: I wondered if you'd ever experienced any of that.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: Like the leader is doing everything humanly possible, is humble, is you know, asking the right questions, is following up, all that kind of stuff, and still doesn't have quite the quite the speak up culture that he or she wants to create.
16:51
SPEAKER_04: The scenario you're speaking of of a of a leader, you know, where they say, I'm doing everything that I can.
16:58
SPEAKER_04: I've even read the books and I've tried, I've got a coach and this and that.
17:02
SPEAKER_04: To me, it's it's similar to a comedian saying, I brought my A game tonight, but this audience just wasn't feeling it.
17:15
SPEAKER_04: Pete Holmes says that you can bring your A game, but if the audience is a B, guess what?
17:21
SPEAKER_04: Your stuff's a B.
17:23
SPEAKER_04: But he said, you can bring a B in the audience's A, and guess what?
17:26
SPEAKER_04: It's it's more like an A, you know?
17:28
SPEAKER_04: It's interesting, yeah.
17:30
SPEAKER_04: So I think there are so many virtues in life that it is far more cheap to claim it than it is to earn it.
17:38
SPEAKER_04: Now, um, for a leader who's like, I'm trying all the things, but it's just not working, yeah.
17:44
SPEAKER_04: I think that's the time to ask for feedback, to look if there's a if there's a different way you can do something, or to even go, am I leading the right people?
17:54
SPEAKER_04: Is it the right audience for me?
17:55
SPEAKER_04: Right.
17:56
SPEAKER_04: To make the assumption that you're the right leader for all people.
17:58
SPEAKER_04: That's just naive.
17:59
SPEAKER_04: That's not, that's not gonna happen.
18:01
SPEAKER_04: The self-analysis of I'm funny, but no one's laughing.
18:05
SPEAKER_04: Well, like, well, guess what?
18:06
SPEAKER_04: Then you're not being funny.
18:08
SPEAKER_04: You gotta relook at the act, you gotta relook at the moves, you gotta relook at the time, you gotta relook at yourself and absent of looking in a mirror, get other objective external feedback, whether it's from your team or a coach or an assessment or a something.
18:25
SPEAKER_04: You know, like the number of leaders who say, Oh yeah, speak up culture, I tried that, but it didn't work.
18:29
SPEAKER_04: Right.
18:29
SPEAKER_04: Like, I'm like, it's ain't no set it and forget it.
18:33
SPEAKER_04: If you try something new as a leader, the likelihood that people will treat you as an alien because you're like, I've never seen this version of them before.
18:40
SPEAKER_04: So it's the consistency, and then I think it's getting feedback to see what's the gap between your intent and your impact.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's interesting.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: One of my great laments about the work that we do is the temporal nature of it.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I'm gonna build a speak up culture, and then that leader moves on, and the culture reverts to something else without the constancy, without the drumbeat, without the proof, you know, proof points, reinforcement that it's still safe.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, I've got it in the last four or five years, as my practice, as my active practice has diminished a little bit by design, some of the incredible culture work that has been done in our clients has taken, frankly, a step back.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, new leaders come in and they kind of got in in the beginning, but they kind of didn't really, they kind of understood a little bit and they echo and mirror and stuff like that.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: How do you help leaders understand this notion that, you know, all things in social sciences are maybe temporary, requires constant care and feeding, a lot of hard work, in fact, maybe harder as you transition new layers of leadership in?
19:52
SPEAKER_02: How do you help them understand that?
19:54
SPEAKER_04: I love that you point out that this is natural.
19:56
SPEAKER_04: So even if you even if you've done work with an organization, it's never a set it and forget it.
20:02
SPEAKER_04: If you wish to influence change, I view it as three interconnected gears that all need to be working.
20:09
SPEAKER_04: And if one of them isn't working, it's not going to be sustainable.
20:12
SPEAKER_04: To me, it's mindset, actions, behaviors, and systems.
20:17
SPEAKER_04: Mindset, you know, you can change your world when you change your mind.
20:19
SPEAKER_04: That's a line from Kinky Boots.
20:21
SPEAKER_04: Um, but you if you have a sort of a transformative experience where it's like, oh, people are the point.
20:27
SPEAKER_04: And if people grow, the business grows.
20:30
SPEAKER_04: And, you know, that's a shifted mindset.
20:32
SPEAKER_04: You then have to act your way into bringing that to life.
20:36
SPEAKER_04: If you have a shift in mindset, but you do nothing different, that's just a hallucination.
20:41
SPEAKER_04: But then you also need the appropriate systems, feedback loops, policies, all of the things to make it, you know, we we rise and fall to the levels of our of our systems.
20:53
SPEAKER_04: Leadership development work, culture development work, none of it is set it and forget it.
20:58
SPEAKER_04: It is always dynamic.
21:00
SPEAKER_04: And it's always dynamic with the shifting world around us.
21:03
SPEAKER_04: It is always dynamic as teams grow and shrink and evolve.
21:07
SPEAKER_04: And if a new leader comes in, there could be an education or a, you know, welcome to our pickle brine as the as the analogy for culture I like to use.
21:19
SPEAKER_04: And they won't do it exactly the same because we're not in the business of cloning, you know.
21:24
SPEAKER_04: Um, I think this is why we often follow leaders.
21:28
SPEAKER_04: So if a great, really effective leader goes to a different organization, oftentimes people will follow.
21:36
SPEAKER_04: There's a brilliant study that I know Adam Grant has researched of top performing surgeons at one hospital move to a different hospital.
21:44
SPEAKER_04: If they don't bring their team, the likelihood that they will reach the same level of performance at their new organization is extremely low.
21:53
SPEAKER_04: If they bring their team, so it's often that surgeon who's sort of on the front of the poster of The Wheaties box, but it's the team that's high performing and high trust.
22:04
SPEAKER_04: I think a lot of it is natural.
22:06
SPEAKER_04: And to expect a newer, different leader to step in and do it exactly the same way.
22:11
SPEAKER_04: No.
22:12
SPEAKER_04: Can they learn the tenets and the philosophy and the mindset, the actions, and the systems and do it in their own way and in their own right and with their own flavor?
22:21
SPEAKER_04: I think yes.
22:22
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's healthy and normal.
22:24
SPEAKER_04: In the same way that we said, don't become foster shedder Simon, become you and lead it in your own way and in your own right.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: I love you calling out this team notion that, like Michelangelo and the painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and there were hundreds of you know artisans and and uh folks around painting everything but the faces on those because it took a number of people to create that beautiful thing, and yet Michelangelo is given the credit for it.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: We see examples of that throughout throughout history, throughout, you know, politics, throughout, you know, uh economics and business.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: And so I appreciate you calling that out.
23:03
SPEAKER_04: Look at our books.
23:04
SPEAKER_04: You and I have books, our names are on the front, but I'm sure we're the first to admit that it's it though, though we're the front person, there's a team of people that if it weren't for them, I don't think my book would have come out uh and nor would it be as quality as I as I'm proud to say that I believe it is.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into the book a little bit more detail.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: You to you talked about kind of the kind of core premise, a speak up culture, one where people feel psychologically safe to speak up and they speak up in on things that matter, that that when it's worth it.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: What do leaders do?
23:39
SPEAKER_02: What's your approach to them?
23:41
SPEAKER_02: What's your advice to leaders to let they come into a new job, they may not have had that team before, and they want to create a speak up culture.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: What do you advise them to do?
23:51
SPEAKER_04: The most simple way to describe it is what I call the encourage and reward cycle.
23:56
SPEAKER_04: So if you wish to create a speak up culture where it feels safe and it feels worth it, you must encourage folks to use their voice and then reward them when they do.
24:06
SPEAKER_04: I love using the example of um a cockpit with a with a with a pilot.
24:11
SPEAKER_04: Ben Berman is a great aviation safety expert.
24:14
SPEAKER_04: He says every time before he flew in a commercial setting, he's now retired from flying in a commercial setting.
24:21
SPEAKER_04: He would say to his flight crew, I've never flown a perfect flight, and today is no exception.
24:26
SPEAKER_04: I need to know what you see.
24:28
SPEAKER_04: Like chef's kiss, so good.
24:30
SPEAKER_04: And like, feel free, as as you're hearing that, feel free to insert whatever is relevant in your context.
24:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
24:37
SPEAKER_04: You know, client meeting, RFP proposal, performance review, like whatever.
24:42
SPEAKER_04: Wherever you want the full engagement and feedback and buy-in from a team, I've never, you know, executed perfect X.
24:49
SPEAKER_04: I need to know what you see.
24:50
SPEAKER_04: You know, speak up.
24:51
SPEAKER_04: Great encourage, right?
24:53
SPEAKER_04: Beautiful.
24:53
SPEAKER_04: Now, to me, you then, as someone who sees something or sees an area for improvement, or sees a potential for an error or mistake or disaster or whatever it could be, you sort of pull the ropes of that boxing or wrestling ring.
25:09
SPEAKER_04: You step into the speak up ring, the spotlight is on you.
25:13
SPEAKER_04: There's a risk and a fear that can be associated with saying the thing.
25:18
SPEAKER_04: Not all the time, but I think a good amount of time, the vulnerability to say the thing.
25:22
SPEAKER_04: And then you say the thing.
25:24
SPEAKER_04: The question is, are you ignored?
25:26
SPEAKER_04: Are you worse punished or are you rewarded?
25:30
SPEAKER_04: Rewarded is far more intrinsic.
25:32
SPEAKER_04: It's thank you, Foster.
25:34
SPEAKER_04: Um, that must have taken courage to share.
25:37
SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate that.
25:38
SPEAKER_04: It's also um, I don't yet see what you're pointing out.
25:41
SPEAKER_04: How did you get to that conclusion?
25:43
SPEAKER_04: Like, tell me more.
25:44
SPEAKER_04: That's me both challenging you, but giving you more airtime.
25:48
SPEAKER_04: We didn't implement the team's idea or your idea, but here's why.
25:53
SPEAKER_04: Any other ideas to get around that?
25:56
SPEAKER_04: Um, or we did implement your idea and here's what's different.
25:59
SPEAKER_04: What do you think?
26:00
SPEAKER_04: These are all sort of forms to share with people that their choice to speak up was worth it.
26:06
SPEAKER_04: Now, sometimes people will speak up and it's not a great idea, or they're wasting air time, or the team's like, oh, them again.
26:14
SPEAKER_04: And how do you still reward the intent if the intent is positive, but provide feedback on or coaching, perhaps in private, on how to get better.
26:24
SPEAKER_04: And as well, you know, if someone speaks up and they had a negative impact, but it wasn't their intent, how can you reward the intent but provide coaching on the behavior and the impact of that behavior?
26:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, super important to unpack that.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Takes a great degree of presence, um, clarity, um, vision, shall I say, from the leader to be able to say, you know what, at the end of the day, I want to make sure that A, my relationship with Shedd is maintained.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: B, I want to make sure that Shed feels free to offer ideas.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: And C, I want to offer him some new things to think about in terms of kind of the next time he shares to give him a little bit more efficacy in what it is that he does.
27:07
SPEAKER_04: The beauty of the encourage and reward cycle is it either becomes a virtuous cycle and spreads, or it become a it can become a vicious cycle and and shrink.
27:15
SPEAKER_04: And as humans, we're always sort of paying attention.
27:19
SPEAKER_04: And so if we see that folks are encouraged and rewarded for saying the thing, we're more likely to feel encouraged and rewarded to step in and speak up as well.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing how that happens.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: People listening to this will be in various levels of awareness about psychological safety.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: Very few people are immune from hearing the term over the past decade.
27:45
SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
27:46
SPEAKER_02: Leaders still misunderstand about psychological safety.
27:49
SPEAKER_02: Ah, great question.
27:50
SPEAKER_04: I think the biggest is that it means a passive culture of nice.
27:55
SPEAKER_04: And that's really not what it is.
27:57
SPEAKER_04: When there is psychological safety, it feels safe to take interpersonal risk.
28:02
SPEAKER_04: So it isn't about being nice, it's about being kind, it's about taking risk.
28:07
SPEAKER_04: The other is I think people think, oh, it means being soft, and that there isn't accountability or boundaries, and that's not what it is as well.
28:18
SPEAKER_04: I think psychological safety marries very well with expectations and accountabilities and boundaries as well.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: Psychological safety is not about being nice and being passive, it's about being kind and being active.
28:30
SPEAKER_04: And psychological safety is that vehicle that enables us to actually achieve great results together.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: And again, back to the core premise of the book that great leaders are the ones that can create psychological safety to enable, to encourage, to create a fertile space for people to speak up, and that it's inherently worth it.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Which of those two, in your experience, is harder for leaders to create?
28:53
SPEAKER_04: I think the worth it.
28:55
SPEAKER_04: My experience of what is more likely to be missing is we like each other and we get along, but you know, we don't really take that risk because eh, nothing's gonna change.
29:09
SPEAKER_04: When we feel connected to the stakes, it can give us more courage.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: This stepwise episode is proudly sponsored by Mountain Mule.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: Our goal is to make sure your experience in Montana is unlike anything else.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: At Mountain Mule, we provide private chauffeur service and Yellowstone National Park Tours.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're traveling to or from Bozeman, have a private event, or want a once-in-a-lifetime tour experience, we'd love to get you there.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: Book at Mountain Mule.com and use code Stepwise.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: Most high performers don't need more ambition or vision.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: They need better support infrastructure and daily practices to hold it.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: Wholeness at Work offers leaders real tools for meaningful growth, lifelong impact, and sustained performance.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: Explore our holistic tools, insights, and practices for working in a way that actually feels like you.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Visit our wholeness at work.com.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: This is not about making nice.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: This is not about affinity.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: This is not about lowering standards.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: How do we do that when it's worth it?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Standards are up here.
30:24
SPEAKER_02: The leader is encouraging, pushing, enabling people to play at a higher level and still feel safe.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: Is the that seems like magic to me.
30:32
SPEAKER_04: You know, if you're really committed to and you work hard to create psychological safety and to speak up culture, it ain't for free.
30:41
SPEAKER_04: You're doing it so that people take risks, so that people grow as human beings and their career, and they give more or they refer friends to come work at this place.
30:54
SPEAKER_04: We're doing it so that right outcomes occur.
30:57
SPEAKER_04: Of course, it's the right thing to do, but it's also very good for business.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: This also implies a degree of vulnerability and openness on the part of the leader because sometimes the leader's going to be getting feedback and requesting feedback, and what could I do differently to blah, blah, blah.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it is carefully listening and not becoming defensive.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to turn the spotlight back on the shed.
31:18
SPEAKER_02: Are there moments you find yourself in getting certain types of feedback becoming defensive?
31:22
SPEAKER_02: How do you notice and what do you do?
31:25
SPEAKER_04: I have sort of whispers of a previous mentor and a previous boss that I loved working with.
31:34
SPEAKER_04: And she would say, if feedback triggers you, it's probably because it's true.
31:42
SPEAKER_04: And I use the word probably to be nice.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: It's great.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: That is great advice.
31:48
SPEAKER_04: One of the people who gives me the best feedback, and that quite frankly, I care the most about, is my wife.
31:55
SPEAKER_04: And my wife and I are part of a high trust, high-performing team.
31:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we lead our family, we lead our household.
32:02
SPEAKER_04: One of the really unfortunate parts about writing a book like the book that I've written, the book that you've written, is there's certain tenets or a certain vision or image of a leader that you're like, shucks, now I actually have to do it.
32:14
SPEAKER_04: So there's I've I've sort of written a manual on here's how I want you to experience me.
32:19
SPEAKER_04: Now, does that mean that everyone around me, and especially the people most dearest to me, my kids, my wife, my family, my friends, experience me that way all the time?
32:29
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely not.
32:30
SPEAKER_04: And so when my wife will say something like, you weren't listening, it triggers, it's hard because it's true.
32:40
SPEAKER_04: And because she's pointing out or providing a mirror to that isn't who I want to be or how I want to be received or how I want to behave.
32:49
SPEAKER_04: And I think the opportunity is to not react, but respond and take a breath and find the truth in it.
32:55
SPEAKER_04: Take a break from it, if that's the most productive thing.
32:59
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes the quality of a marriage is by what things aren't said, by what things are said, you know.
33:04
SPEAKER_04: I'm not proud of it, but I think we can be proud of our response.
33:07
SPEAKER_02: It's constant work.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: My wife and I have been married 36 years, and she points out things to me, not always when I want to hear them, and not always in the way that I want to hear them, but things that are true about me that are uh either embarrassing or shame-producing, or like, oh, you knucklehead, you know better than this.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: And and uh taking a break every once in a while and taking a taking a pause so that I can respond is ongoing, I'll just say ongoing work.
33:34
SPEAKER_04: You and I are paid to be good listeners.
33:36
SPEAKER_04: Does that mean that we're always good listeners, particularly with the people that matter most?
33:41
SPEAKER_04: No.
33:42
SPEAKER_04: And when I'm not, it stings because it's a gap between it's an incongruence between the I'm I just interviewed my friend Hannah Pryor today, who has a book coming up called The Signal Gap, right?
33:55
SPEAKER_04: Where she talks about um uh communicating incongruence.
33:59
SPEAKER_04: Where the th, if there's an incongruence between the signal of how you wish to be uh uh perceived and the way that you are, there can be trigger, there there can be tension.
34:09
SPEAKER_04: But to me, that just points out opportunity for for improvement here.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: As a human being, as a leader of others, as an influencer of leaders, what's the bravest question you've ever spoken up to have?
34:21
SPEAKER_04: When I was in biz school, one of the projects we had was a small team of us being uh hired for a consulting project.
34:32
SPEAKER_04: And we were working with a family-run for impact business.
34:37
SPEAKER_04: It was very clear for us what the right thing to do was strategically on paper, sort of academically, but for some reason they just couldn't wrap their head around it.
34:50
SPEAKER_04: There was this moment where we sort of presented our findings and it was met with resistance.
34:56
SPEAKER_04: I just paused for a moment and I was all of gosh, like 22 or something.
35:03
SPEAKER_04: And I just paused and I sort of said, you know, I'm I'm gonna say something and I'm gonna take my time and choose my words carefully because I think this really matters.
35:11
SPEAKER_04: And I just sort of said, We've presented to you our best work that feels strategically sound.
35:18
SPEAKER_04: You can take it or leave it, that's okay.
35:20
SPEAKER_04: But I I just sort of spoke some truth into the room and some uncomfortable truth, and it landed.
35:30
SPEAKER_04: Excellent.
35:30
SPEAKER_04: Um, it wasn't comfortable, but it landed.
35:33
SPEAKER_04: And I I remember and I sort of debriefed that with the person on the team who is who is a closest friend.
35:39
SPEAKER_04: And I was just like, wow, that was fun.
35:42
SPEAKER_04: Just that like tight rope walking of how do you deliver news that's really hard to hear, but it's important.
35:52
SPEAKER_04: How can you do it with dignity and with grace, but with truth?
35:58
SPEAKER_04: Um, and be willing to receive pushback.
36:00
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes the pushback might be anger, and that anger has more to do with them than it does with you.
36:06
SPEAKER_04: And that wasn't the instance in this moment.
36:08
SPEAKER_04: But I just remember doing that, and I'm like, I want to do more of that.
36:12
SPEAKER_04: That's interesting.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that example.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: The hard part is sometimes too, in that setting, you are a 22-year-old business school person, if I might say, you know, living in your parents' house.
36:23
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, what is this kid or what do these kids know?
36:28
SPEAKER_02: And you haven't had the opportunity, as you might in today's world, where you work with a client for a period of time and develop that trust.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: There wasn't necessarily that trust developed, and yet you were able to speak to it.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: So that was a seems like a very high-risk situation that you handled beautifully.
36:43
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
36:44
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
36:44
SPEAKER_04: And it was also a little, you know, fat uh um flash forward to me of like, oh, I want to do more of that.
36:51
SPEAKER_04: Tell us about your podcast.
36:54
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
36:54
SPEAKER_04: So uh we're just working on season two right now.
36:57
SPEAKER_04: It's called Shed Some Light.
36:59
SPEAKER_04: And everything with it is designed to help leaders lead better.
37:03
SPEAKER_04: So to understand frameworks or concepts or ideas or stories.
37:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh the first season was um not very guest-heavy.
37:11
SPEAKER_04: I had a co-host and we sort of unpacked, you know, the definition of leadership, the attributes of leadership is a behavior.
37:19
SPEAKER_04: What are the behaviors?
37:21
SPEAKER_04: What is trust, how to build it, what is culture, how to grow it in a in a in a healthy, thriving way.
37:27
SPEAKER_04: Um, so that was really the focus of season one: feedback, how to have hard, worthwhile conversations.
37:31
SPEAKER_04: And for season two, we're bringing on far more guests and having guest conversations.
37:37
SPEAKER_04: Um, Amy Edmondson is uh is going to be a guest, my friend Zachurio, Hannah Pryor.
37:41
SPEAKER_04: Um, really a great group of of uh of smart thinkers doing good work, but it's all around how can we help leaders lead better?
37:50
SPEAKER_04: Because it ain't easy to do, and it's a really important uh occupation.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: So they suck less.
37:57
SPEAKER_04: So they suck less.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: So they may suck less interrupt more.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: Good.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: And then your current book project about your grandfather Ben.
38:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: There's some words on that.
38:09
SPEAKER_04: Well, so if you had asked me 10 years ago, Shedd, will you write a book?
38:13
SPEAKER_04: My response would be business book, probably not.
38:16
SPEAKER_04: I work for a great author, but uh there is, you know, I do want to write my grandfather's memoir, my and my grandfather's sort of life story.
38:23
SPEAKER_04: And he just had one of these lives that you just cannot make up.
38:27
SPEAKER_04: You know, born in rural Poland, about 70 or so kilometers, uh, I think it was never a southwest of Warsaw, um, in a small town called Shlnica.
38:40
SPEAKER_04: Uh, the son of a butcher got kicked out of school when he was uh, you know, a young man for punching back an anti-Semitic teacher, joined the family business, drafted to the Polish army in 37, fought in 39, prisoner of war camp for two years, escaped, walked home, got married to his childhood sweetheart, my grandmother Eva, and then led a group in hiding because he heard a laugh of an SS guard, which he knew not to trust.
39:06
SPEAKER_04: I'm very fortunate because, you know, he was an entrepreneur and lived life very much by his own terms.
39:13
SPEAKER_04: Um, when he eventually moved to Canada in 1953, worked for somebody else for six months to sort of learn the city and learn the business, and then opened up his own shop called Ben's Meets, which he ran for close to 30 years.
39:27
SPEAKER_04: He survived the Holocaust on his own terms as well, somehow.
39:31
SPEAKER_04: And because, in many respects, particularly when he led the group through through hiding, he authored his own path.
39:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, he was very willing to share his story with anyone who would listen.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: Lightning round question one.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: What's influencing you today?
39:45
SPEAKER_02: What are you reading?
39:45
SPEAKER_02: What are you listening to?
39:46
SPEAKER_02: What's uh what's tickling your gray matter?
39:49
SPEAKER_04: I get a lot of kicks out of Amy Polar's Good Hang.
39:53
SPEAKER_04: I love listening to that podcast.
39:55
SPEAKER_04: And if you're unfamiliar, and it's a it's a lot of A-list celebrities, but Amy's so curious and so funny and well researched, and it really is, you know, taking these really successful people and what has made them successful.
40:06
SPEAKER_04: So that's really fun to listen to.
40:08
SPEAKER_04: The most recent book that I read and loved was The Little Liar, um, which is Mitch Album's most recent book, and it's actually a Holocaust-themed book.
40:19
SPEAKER_04: Um, but as with all of his book, it sort of looks at a meaningful life and looks at it from different angles and perspectives.
40:27
SPEAKER_04: So uh really enjoyed that book.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: Great reference.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: If uh the younger shed came to this older shed and tapped you on the shoulder and said, What do I need to know?
40:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, what advice would you give the younger shed?
40:40
SPEAKER_04: One I think he'd say, Where did all my hair go?
40:44
SPEAKER_04: Um that's one.
40:45
SPEAKER_04: Embrace your vulnerabilities, your strengths live underneath them.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: And then what's the lesson that you keep having to learn over and over again in your life?
40:55
SPEAKER_04: The lesson that I have to keep learning over and over again is we never arrive, we're always arriving.
41:02
SPEAKER_04: You know, I've sort of hit like a plateau in my business of like, okay, this is good, but if I want to take it to the next, I've got to unlearn some things or ask for help or do things differently or maybe hire differently.
41:18
SPEAKER_04: If you live a life well, you're constantly looking at the next challenge.
41:24
SPEAKER_04: I don't think life should be about ease.
41:26
SPEAKER_04: I think life should be about meaningful friction.
41:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you were fine with there, you wouldn't be raising this as a topic.
41:33
SPEAKER_04: No.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, excellent.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
41:36
SPEAKER_02: Read Shed's book, Speak Up Culture.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, follow him on Shed Some Light.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: Look forward to the book of Ben when it comes out.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: And let me simply say I'm grateful for your time and your wisdom.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you and the work you're doing.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: And it's been a real treat.
41:51
SPEAKER_04: Awesome, Foster.
41:52
SPEAKER_04: I hope I'm in Bozeman on a Tuesday night sometime soon, because that sounds like a great community to uh to to crash and visit with.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: That goes deeper into this territory.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: It's on my website at fostermobbly.com.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: And then sign up for our email list to be notified when my next book, Honoring, goes into pre-sale in 2027.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: And if there's one person in your life who needed to hear this episode, send it to them.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: Not because we need the numbers, because they need the conversation.
42:54
SPEAKER_02: Set the table, invite cool people, magic happens.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm Foster Mobley.
43:01
SPEAKER_02: As always, friends, stepwise.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Our music for season three is composed and performed by Montana musical legend Philip Aubert.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: Courtesy of Sweetgrass Music.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: Phil's recent passing was felt by many, including those of us associated with this podcast.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: We thank Patty Auberg and Sweetgrass Music for access to this beautiful piece.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Stepwise.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: Stepwise is produced, edited, and promoted by Zedist with support from Amber Gillard Consulting.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: Find more episodes and resources at fostermobli.com.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: And follow Foster on social media at Fostermobli.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.