Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Ep. 51: Your Leadership Problem Might Be a Communication Problem - Keith Greer
Transcript
- Joe: What if the biggest obstacle to your leadership isn't your strategy, but the conversations you're having every single day? Welcome to the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore personal growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with people that make an impact. Our guest has spent more than four decades helping leaders, organizations, and families unlock power of communication. As an executive coach, trainer, and leadership expert, he specializes in building trust, strengthening relationships, and using conversational strategies to help people become more effective leaders. Glovisor welcomes Keith Greer Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Joe, good morning. How are ya? Joe: Great thanks. How are you? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Good, good. Thanks for inviting me in. Joe: you're welcome. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Good, me too. Joe: So, Keith, please share with us a little bit more what you do. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: So I I walk Joe in the executive coaching space and I work with some clients in the corporate world, not for profit, and and when I share a little bit more about my background in history, this will make sense. I've developed a bit of a niche in working with family owned businesses, which is which is a fascinating, absolutely fascinating, complex conversation to be in of that. that intersection between good business practices and our family stuff. And just have a a a group of clients that I enjoy, I have fun, I'm blessed. I'm one of those guys, Joe, who most days work doesn't even feel like work. Kind of a natural extension of who I am. Joe: Well you do what you love, you don't work a day in your life. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: There it is. That's it. I I I I get to live that. I'm very lucky. Joe: what inspired you to pursue this path? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: as you said in my intro, I've I've been doing helping work, I like to say. I've been in the helping world for over 40 years. So it started in the more traditional clinical world. I was a clinical social worker. family therapist was really my the first kind of modality that I fell in love with. and and there's connections between that and my move into coaching, because family therapy was a place where I got. One of my first messages in the helping world that I don't need to be an expert on anybody. in fact, don't be. I don't know anything about what's best for the family in front of me. I need to be an expert on how to facilitate family therapy. The family's the expert on themselves. And that was a very different message at that time in my career than where my career started, where I did get a bit of a message in the helping world about. kind of being responsible for fixing people and making sure things go well. And I remember even early on, like this is in my early 20s, feeling that that was not right. it it it just felt kind of funky, like who am I to know what's best for any other human being? So did the family therapy thing for for the first half of that 40 plus years. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then I started reading about coaching and It was again, it was like the next step in this in this journey of finding a way of being of of playing a significant role in the lives of of folks. But I don't I don't have the answer. I I I don't need to have the answer. In fact, to this day, Joe, I often joke with my clients that on most days I can barely keep my you know what together as a human being. Never mind thinking that I I have some magic answer. And it's also a challenging part of doing this work because many people don't underst when they come to coaching, they don't understand what coaching is. And they do think they are going to sit with someone who's going to tell them what to do. And I adore the fact that I don't. and I adore the fact that I don't, one, because it's much easier for me than thinking I I know what's best for people. And and much more importantly, it allows me to be in a conversation with folks where. They discover their strengths and their capacities. And they discover that even at moments when they don't think they have their answers, they do. They just don't know that they have them. And so I get to do that conversation in helping them shine a light on that and discover where they want to move with their personal or professional lives. It's pretty, pretty cool conversation to be in. Joe: Now what's the difference between being a therapist and a coach? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Awesome question. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give it's this is a bit of a simplistic answer, but I I think your audience will get it. It's always made sense to me. So one difference is I call it the temporal quality. Like where in time and space does the conversation take place? Now, this is a very general way of describing therapy because therapy can be lots of different things these days. But in general, or like when I entered the therapy world, therapy took place. Starting in the past and moving to the present, past losses, hurts, trauma, hopefully helping a person get to a better level of functioning, as they would define that today, past depressing. Coaching starts today and moves to the future. So in in the purest form of coaching, you'll sometimes hear coaches say, I don't go into the past. Now, I I would tell you that that is not necessarily true for me. But there's a big but. Going into the past with my clients is looking for strength and capacity, then bringing it to the present. So we're not spending a whole lot of time in the past. We're not digging into. I trust everybody has a past. I trust everybody has positives and negatives in their past. This is a conversation that starts today. Where are you today, client? What's your vision for where you would like to be? And and now we're gonna move to To the future. So past to present therapy, present to future coaching. The other difference is, in some traditional ways, is that there can be components of therapy that is more process-oriented. So we are spending time talking about feelings, processing through feelings. because for many people who find themselves in therapy, that is an incredibly worthwhile conversation. So let me just be really clear here. I'm not saying one conversation is better than the other. It's it's the conver what conversation is a person looking for. So process a little bit more process, coaching, bit more action oriented. We're not spending time processing through thoughts and feelings, with again, a little bit of a caveat to help people increase levels of awareness of maybe assumptions that hold them back, things like that. But it is action-oriented. Where are you today? So in in you know, my world of doing leadership work with folks. It's where are you today in your practice of leadership? How would you define that and describe that? Where would you like to be? What's the vision for the future? And let's start plotting a course for for you to make action oriented choices that get you there. Joe: who is your ideal client? You mentioned a family business, but is your by size of employees, so how much money they earn on a yearly basis. Can you explain to us a little bit more about that? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: If if you had asked me that question at different times in my career, I obviously I'd probably have some different answers. I'm at this really great place in my career and just this place in my life. this might sound trite. I hope it doesn't. I I'm looking for people who are fun. I want to have fun in the work. Fun. So here's how I might define fun. Fun is I want to be in front of someone who's courageous. I want to be in front of somebody who is really curious about themselves. and and curious both about their strengths, the things that move them forward, as well as a level of curiosity of, you know, maybe what are some things that are holding me back that have made it difficult for me to move in the direction I want to move in. I'm looking for people who are, and this it takes such courage, who are invested in. Personal development, personal awareness. in today's world, in my work today, Joe, I I'm clear, I put myself out there as an executive coach with a with a bit of a niche in leadership development. I would be lying if I said, in my work, I don't hear my family therapy voice sometimes. Because here's a bias I bring to my work. I bring specifically the leadership work, which goes back to I want to be in front of people who are courageously self-aware. To me, at the end of the day, leadership is nothing more than a relationship. It's a relationship you exist in with your team. The rules that govern relationships in our personal lives are wholly relevant to the rules that govern the relationships between a leader and and the people they lead. My experience with leaders, if I think of times where let's say a few weeks ago I was in a conversation with a client of mine who's in a leadership role, and he was feeling incredibly stuck. Those were his words. He needed to have a very difficult conversation with somebody on his team. And he was hemming and hawing and dragging his feet, and he was worried about it and worried about how he would sound and if it's going to upset the person and You know, will I say the right things? To the point where he wasn't having the conversation other than in his own head, but was not having it with the person on his team. So a stuck point like that, what is that for leaders? I would make the argument, a stuck point like that is not that they haven't read the most updated book on leadership. That's our stuff. Like that's old stuff. That's assumptions we have about conversations, assumptions we have about who we are supposed to be. That's fears about being in a conversation that's very emotional or conflict comes into the room, or what if this person gets upset? Those are some some tapes and narratives that for most of us go back pretty far. Now again, some have said to me, but Keith, then aren't you just describing therapy? I would make the argument Good coaching that challenges people to look at assumptions and gain awareness sometimes does skirt the therapy world. And I'm pretty comfortable with that. And I believe that the most powerful leaders are people who have not read all of the leadership books. They are people who are very self-aware, put a invest a lot of time and energy into looking at that part of themselves, being curious about that part. Man, if you can get me that person that that just I just I adore that work. That's the best. Joe: if one of our listeners wanted to work with you, what would that journey look like? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: it would start with an initial conversation. and and you know what I say to folks in preparation for coming to that conversation is you need to come to that conversation having made no commitment to anything beyond that conversation, because quite honestly, that's how I'm coming to the conversation. as much as the client has a a need and an obligation to determine maybe in this conversation, do I seem to be the kind of person they would want to work with? I I'm in I'm involved in a in a similar internal conversation, Joe, for myself. Am I sitting across from somebody who is, to me, is is sounding and looking coachable, who's ready to do some work? Am I across from somebody who understands, back to your question a little while ago, the difference between coaching and therapy? And are we clear, that person and myself, that they're looking for coaching, not therapy? And again, not that either conversation is better than the other. They're just, there's different. And I, it is, you know, I've had my experience of folks who come, we have this first conversation, and we reach the conclusion at the end of it, they're looking a little bit more for therapy. Right? Not then I'm not the guy. That's it. So we're gonna we're gonna take a look at that, explore that. again, I I emphasize that piece of you are making no commitment beyond this. It's gotta feel right for you. We'll look at where you're at. We're look at where you would like to go, what your vision is. I try in that first conversation to give them a taste of what coaching with me would be. So asking lots of really good questions, listening, trying to identify strength and capacity, which seems to be challenging for a lot of us human beings, to give ourselves permission to to say out loud, here's what's really cool about me. That that's a big part of my coaching. and then I I You know, always end that first session giving people permission to do a couple of different things. If if this feels like a good fit and you want to get moving, let's. If this boy doesn't feel like anything you want to do, I will not take it personally. This is too important, please say so. Or what often people do is listen, you know, go away, leave this conversation and give yourself a few days to mull it over. And if you you let me know whether you want to hire me or not. So that first conversation. is an incredibly important part of determining are we going to coach together and if we are, how to get that process started. Joe: Now can you share a client success story that illustrates a little bit of the transformation your work has created? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: there is a a a a woman that I have worked with. she's an employee of a company that I do a bunch of coaching for. And in this company, I have developed and facilitate, in fact, tomorrow I'm starting another cohort. It's a a 15-hour five session leadership development program based on some of the models that I work with, like conversational intelligence and motivational interviewing, psychological safety, things like that. So she is kind of on a second level of leadership within this company. It's a kind of a techie company. And she now oversees three other people who oversee each team, each person oversees a team of 10. So she has some level of responsibility for about 30 plus folk. And one of the things we focus on in this training is how to conduct. A productive team meeting. it if if I this is again my bias, Joe, but man, so many team meetings in companies are an absolute waste of time. They're a waste of time. Could send it off in a memo or an email. Nobody is attending to levels of trust in the room, or are we even in the same conversation? And so you you spend 50 minutes and people leave. And you know, the evidence for me that a conversation the group conversation wasn't very productive is how often after those group conversations in the days following are there the water cooler conversations, right? Little groups of two or three saying, my God, what a waste of time that was. And, you know, Keith said we're going to be doing this and nobody asked me. And I have more than enough on my plate. Those water cooler conversations happen for a reason. And and and it's so indicative of the the big meeting, some things not taking place that should have. So We talk a lot in this training about how to create trust on a team, how to see everybody through a lens of strength, how to facilitate a meeting where everybody's on the same page, they they know why they're there, it feels good, how as leaders to always make sure that you are voicing appreciation and value. Because if you Google the top three to five reasons why people leave companies, it's it's always in the whatever the language is. Did not feel appreciated and valued, is in that that top three to five all the time. So we talked a lot about this. And she, I remember at the time she was going through the training, it seemed to really resonate with her. Again, back to my description of my favorite clients, very self-aware, very courageous, willing to look at herself. So anyway, we we complete this. This was, I don't know, maybe a year ago. so I get a call from her a couple of months ago at the start of the summer, wanted to meet with me again. And what she shares with me is she went back and started facilitating these group meetings. once a month, the team gets together, they use it for planning, they use it to celebrate, the, you know, to connect. Those meetings are going so well. she is getting such positive feedback. There is such a a positive tenor of the interaction of the people on her team. That the company, which it's a company of about 500 people, the company came to her and said, We want you to do an in-service with all the other people in the company at your level of leadership on what the heck you're doing. Because what we're hearing from the people on your team is they love these monthly meetings, where across the company they hear the opposite most of the time. What a waste of time they are. I love that. And and you know, I I it doesn't say anything about me. I simply deliver some of the information, but it was it's just so cool to experience someone who something about what we talked about resonated. I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna be courageous, I'm gonna try some things, I'm gonna experiment, see what works, I'm gonna make myself vulnerable as a leader, right? To up in front of my team. And it has proven effective and positive. and her little corner of the company are being incredibly effective. They are being unbelievably productive and they're enjoying each other. That that's pretty cool. Joe: going back to something you mentioned, during these cohorts, you explore a few different models. Can you explain them in maybe a short example for each? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Sure. so the the training and much of my work is built on a foundation of from a modality called conversational intelligence. conversational intelligence was created by a a brilliant woman by the name of Judith Glazer, who again walked in the executive coaching world pretty internationally. She was she's well known. I had the privilege about tw 11-ish or 12 years ago to train with her for a year. Sadly, very shortly after that, she passed away. and what conversational intelligence or CIQ looks at is it looks at the neurochemical underpinnings of how very specific conversational strategies or patterns, when used between two individuals, cause each individual's brain to say, either I trust you or I perceive you as threat, and I go into some level of fight-flight. And and the, you know, some of the really cool aspects of CIQ is what it empowers coaches to do. is I can deconstruct, I can sit with clients and deconstruct with them their very specific conversational patterns, the words they use, the tone of their voice, the the correlation or lack of correlation between body language and and and the their verbal, you know, whatever they're saying, the content of what they have to say. And we can identify where when you say this in this way under this circumstance with this person, There's a greater chance it's going to land in their ears and their brain is going to perceive you as threat. Or it's going to land in their ears and they're going to say, wow, I I I like what this person is saying. I feel their authenticity. I feel their honesty. I feel their respect of me. So it very, very, very much shines a light on trust creation, which is the foundation of every relationship we exist in. Do I or do I not trust you? And by the way, two people come together who've never met before and start interacting. 0.07 seconds is how quickly brains are determining friend or foe. and the the the last part of that I'd say, Joe, is that when we perceive somebody, and this is so important in leadership and in the workplace, if I am interacting with somebody who I perceive as threat, I'm in a different part of my brain than I need to be in to do really good thinking. Because I'm stuck in the feeling part of my brain. Because fight, flight, the what's its purpose? Its purpose is to keep the human person safe. So if we want people to be doing their best thinking in the workplace, that only happens if they're interacting with people where there is a great level of trust. So conversational intelligence is in there. psychological safety, the the concepts from there of Again, that's where you get some of the our need to voice appreciation and value. Not appreciation and value because of what a person can do in their job, appreciation and value because that's what human beings deserve. And and when they are offered that, they flourish. Right. So what are some what are some things to keep in mind? Like person, it's their first day of work, they're new on the team, right? How do I, as the leader or how do I want to support the other people on the team? In interacting with them to bring appreciation and value into the picture. Positive psychology, the whole world of positive psychology, which just focuses on strengths. There's not any evidence in the world that people grow when leaders are constantly pointing out what they don't do well. There's great evidence that people grow and want to be with you when you are the person who helps them see the strengths in them. Because again, for many human beings, that seems to be really hard to do. I I build some pieces of motivational interviewing in there. Motivational interviewing is another modality that it comes out of more of the clinical world, and specifically from the world of addiction, where it's a way of interacting with people that helps people find what they are most motivated to do. A false narrative in the leadership world is that leaders are supposed to motivate their team. There is no evidence in the research that I see, Joe, that it is possible to motivate another human being. Motivation is an internal experience. I can influence somebody, I can inspire, maybe. But we need to help people find where they're most motivated. The challenging part in leadership is sometimes we have people on our teams who where they're motivated is not where we would love them to be. But You cannot inject a person with motivation that that they decide on. So motivational interviewing MI is a modality. It's a way of interacting, asking questions, being curious that helps people identify where they are most motivated to either move or do things or change. So just building in a lot of different things that at the end of the day bring a focus on trust and relationship. Joe: So in that last one, the interviewing is being conducted by the leader in order to find out what the team member is motivated by. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: That's right. Right. So let so I'll give it a, you know, here's an example. I have some you have someone on your team who's coming late to work. Now, it, you know, it's interesting in the work world because there are some realities in the work world. Like you can't keep coming late to work, right? Or or you run the risk of maybe losing, you know, your job. So that's there. But the threat of things like that isn't necessarily what motivates people. And so instead of sitting with that person and saying, you need to be there on time, and you know, and this is gonna happen if you don't, it's a way of interacting with them that's that gets curious with them about how they see the world, about what might be playing a role in them being late to work, and how they're making that decision, maybe in the morning, about what decision they would be ready or not ready to make to alter that, because at the end of the day, you know, you need to come to work on time. It would be taking a stance instead of saying you have to come to work on time, it might be at the end of that conversation taking a stance of me saying something like, you know what, Joe, I so value you on my team, right? You bring this, this, this, and this. I gotta be honest with you, I'm worried. I'm worried that if you don't make some different decisions, it could impact you staying here with this company. But you know what? At the end of the day, Joe, it's your call. What motivational interviewing recognizes is a reality, which is we cannot control any other human being. We like to think we can, and I would argue that a a good portion of human unhappiness, personally or professionally, emanates from people trying to control things they can't, namely other human beings. We cannot control other human beings. Not possible. We can we can take care of our own stuff. And so motivational interviewing along with some other aspects honors, I would argue, it honors reality. I I can't control you. If you want to keep coming to work late, coming late to work, you can. I mean, I I I can't I have no control over that. I can engage with you, I can try and connect with you, build our relationship, help you take a look at, you know, maybe what the pros and cons are of this decision. But I will always honor your call, your call, human being. And I think we would be in much better places if we stopped trying to control Joe: Now, if listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what do you hope that message is? Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Trust, trust, trust that we go nowhere. We go nowhere. And and Joe, if we take it out of the leadership world and out of the world of work, all we have to do in in in our society today is look around at the tenor of conversations that are taking place societally. It's horrible, right? It's horrible. We we don't trust each other. We if I run into you and you think differently than me, it's not just that we have different perspective, we demonize each other. judge each other. And and then what happens is we push, right? So I'm gonna convince you, Joe, to see the world as I see it because you see it wrong. Tell me when that strategy ever works, right? I've never seen that strategy be used. And the person who's being pushed on says, my God, Keith, thank you. I hadn't thought about it that way. It never works. It just helps people kind of dig in their heels and deepen into their belief. And everything, everything about how we function in any relationship we're in, in our personal life, professional life, as a leader. The dinner table with friends and family who maybe see the world differently than we do starts and ends with trust. And and what we we have a level of knowledge now, especially in in the brain science world, of very specific strategies that will engender trust or won't. And we can use those. We can use those in every single relationship we're in. We just have to be willing. In that to go all the way back to where our conversation started today, to look at ourselves. You know, if you and I have a conversation that goes south, if we both walk away from that conversation and believe it went south because the other person was to blame, we're done. If we walk away from a conversation that didn't go well, or every time I interact with you, Joe, man, I just have this reaction to you. I don't even know where it comes from. If I can respond to that by getting curious, huh, what is that for me? Where where's that coming from for me? Then we have a chance. Then we have a chance to find some ways to foster trust between us and our conversations, our interaction, our work together, our time together will be much more positive and productive. Joe: That's a great message. now, where can our audience connect with you? Learn more about your work and continue this conversation. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: So if people are interested, they can find me on my website. It's KeithGreercoaching.com. or my email is Keith at KeithGreercoaching.com. And and what I'd like to throw out to your audience, Joe, is is you know, if there's anyone, you know, listening and any aspect of this resonated with them and they think it might be worthwhile having a conversation, to the first five of your listeners who reach out to me. I would be more than happy to schedule a time. you know, no, no fee, no commitment whatsoever. We can look at how maybe some of this CIQ or some of these other modalities could help them at work or again in their in their personal life, wherever. I would I'd love being in this conversation. I'd be more than happy to to spend that time with some of your folks. Joe: thank you for the offer and thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time. Keith Greer, LCSW, PCC: Joe, thanks for inviting me in. I enjoyed our conversation. Joe: You're welcome. Thanks everyone for joining us. If this episode inspired you, share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget to follow the Glovisor Podcast for more conversations that make an impact. Till the next time.