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Katie Desiderio & Michael Frino: Bold Leadership Lessons from the Hive · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have two incredible authors and leaders and organizational experts that are going to help us understand transformation.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We have Katie Desiderio and we have Michael Frino in the house, and we're going to talk about not only their book their upcoming book but really their experience and their bold journey in leadership and organizational development and transformation.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to start off with letting them introduce themselves and give the highlights, and I'm going to hand it over to Katie to get us started.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks, lee.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having us here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: We're so excited to be here.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So, as she mentioned, my name is Katie Desiderio.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I'm a faculty member in the School of Business at Moravian University, where I'm professor of management.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I also have my own consulting company focused on human performance at work and there's a lot of threads of connection in my work in higher ed and in the consulting space.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: And, as mentioned, I'm also the author, the co-author, of the book the Beekeeper with my co-author and friend, mike Frino.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I'll turn it over to you, mike.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: I'm Mike Frino.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I also work in leadership development.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I work in industry.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I've been doing it for 20 plus years.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Really enjoy the kind of journey of helping people and development of human capital.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: As Katie mentioned, we've gone on a journey to take some of our practices and put them into paper through a book and we've co-authored the Beekeeper and excited to be on the podcast with you today.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited to jump into your definitions of bold, and we talked a little bit before we started recording just about some synergies between the bold framework and your work and the things that you do.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So what is your definition of bold?
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: One of the definitions.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I think it's such a good question.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: I think you know stepping out of your comfort zone is really important and I think for someone to be bold which we've had to do recently, both Katie and I to do things that are challenging and stepping out of your comfort zone.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so stepping out and stepping through it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So, when you think of a bold moment, what's a memorable bold moment for you?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think I was always scared of bees and we had to do a ton of research when we wrote this book.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: So I, you know, we a bold move was to kind of get out of my comfort zone and go out and learn from beekeepers and getting out into different, different settings that I was not naturally comfortable with.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: So for us to learn, you got to do stuff that's out of your comfort zone.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, what made you scared of bees?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I?
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: don't know Like.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I mean just the, the, the connotation of like they.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: You know they sting right there, you know they could they could hurt somebody.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: You know it was.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: You know I have kids.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: You're always rushing them away and like, oh there's bees over here, and never really appreciating, I think, the fact that they're such great pollinators.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: And you know, I think getting into a bee suit was pretty unique for me and definitely on my comfort zone.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, katie, were you going to add something?
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved what Mike just prompted and, evening your follow-up question, to say, like, what made you afraid?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I think there's an undertone in this idea of being bold, is, like you know, unlearning.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And in the spirit of being bold, I think it takes your you being curious to kind of step in to say like, well, let me explore, right.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So if we think about bees to Mike's point, they pollinate, right.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: They help the world grow and the goal really for effective leadership is to do the same right, to help people and organizations grow.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: And so, as we think about what Mike said, there was a space of like, unlearning some of our fears and kind of leaning in to say, well, let me just get behind the scenes, right, and let me, you know, have an experience with bees and then kind of create you know how I feel about them subsequently.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: And so I think, to Mike's point, when we get behind those bee suits, it starts to become this lens check moment of seeing the perspective of bees and what they do from a different lens and in many ways, the space of being bold, I think, helps us in learning and unlearning, which is what we need to do as leaders.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think sometimes our fears or potential, our thoughts about something you know how we should believe, our beliefs, are ascribed to us, versus we subscribe to that.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So like, for my example, like my mom was always afraid of tunnels.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: She's, you know, just hated to go through tunnels.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: They would be fearful.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: We would take the longest route around to not go through a tunnel and I instantly was afraid of tunnels.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I was afraid of tunnels and, like, up until my forties, I was still doing things like I wasn't sure why I was doing it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So it's a simple thing and it's probably sounds a little silly to some, but I was ascribed to this fear of something when I didn't subscribe to it myself.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So I needed to actually, you know, actually take control and be my own person and say, I'm not sure where that fear came from, but I'm going to drive through the tunnel, I'm going to do whatever I need to do Living around Boston.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You better get used to driving through tunnels.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do whatever I need to do Living around Boston.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You better get used to driving through tunnels.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: There is no way around it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: So that helped me, probably fast track that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: But I understand what you're saying, and I think it's a really important point so when you think about being bold, Katie, what's your definition?
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, similar to Mike.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Early on and I really come from you know I was an athlete my whole life.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I played soccer my whole life, played through college and then went on to run marathons for me pretty competitively, and there was a space of experiencing the state of flow right, or being in the zone, and in that state it's like challenges are high but you're meeting the challenge with knowledge, skills and attitudes right To move the challenge forward, to move the form of stress to the healthy form of eustress.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: And so when I think of being bold, it's always about raising the bar really echoes what Mike said is like out of my comfort zone, let me meet the challenge right, with more learning, more opportunity to say like I have some skill building opportunities, and so I think there's been a place of to your point.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: We're very habitual creatures, right, cause we're human and sometimes we do things without being active consumers in our life.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Right, we're kind of passive in what we do, like not really showing up curious to say, well, how do I raise that challenge or what can I learn here so that I can overcome a fear or experience this different?
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And so I think for me it's just always about kind of translating what I thought only existed in athletics into the workspace, that there's so many transferable parallels there.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: You know to look at how we kind of continue to own our journey right.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Author, the pages of our journey, mindfully, but you know, keeping challenges high with ongoing learning and growth.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it would be a memorable moment for you based on that definition.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And so you know it goes back to the example that Mike gave of writing the beekeeper.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So Mike and I had been co-authoring traditional academic journals for, you know, over a decade.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And when we sat down to say, and this really came from, you know, I was going up for promotion to full professor at Moravian and one of the criteria was to write a book.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: And we're like, do we want to write a book?
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Like what does this look like?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And we immediately went to like the traditional leadership book.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And when we sat down, we're like, well, what's resonating with people post pandemic, you know what, what are people looking for?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And it was like quick bites, storytelling, right.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: That space of creative writing did not come natural to us.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: That space of doing research with beekeepers in beehives was completely foreign.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And so that space of being bold is like people call us subject matter experts.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But we had to show up like with beginner's mind and say, yeah, we're the subject matter expert in leadership, right, concepts, theories.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: But how do we take this, you know, concept of bees and make it akin to how people can kind of get these quick bites and immediately have these actionable steps?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And so for us it was just about.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: You know, the boldness was being a little bit vulnerable and saying, well, I don't know.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Or you know, how do I put this bee suit on and really learn from beekeepers and then make the connections that are meaningful?
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Right, and there's incredible humanness and inspiration and I think people are drawn to people who are vulnerable and kind of share and show up and say I definitely don't know what we're talking about, but I'm going to learn and I'm going to grow and then I'm going to apply it to what I do know about Right, and you know, from the perspective of you both, it's the leadership, like you said, the constructs, the frameworks, how we learn what we do, how do we make it stick and all those pieces and parts.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So, when you think about writing a book, what made you want to write a leadership fable?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: That is not the normal type of book to write.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And then, how did you go from let's write a book and then get to B's?
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So B's and fables.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Tell me how we got there.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's an interesting story.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: I think Katie just alluded a little bit to the fact that in corporate we hear a lot about how storytelling is important and personally they're enjoyable books to read.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Personally they're quick reads, they give you quick lessons.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Katie and I were actually in Chicago for separate reasons she was there on a consulting job, I was there for work and we hadn't seen each other in a while and we ended up kind of connecting and saying, hey, let's grab Chicago pizza.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: And so, as Katie mentioned, we were thinking about writing a leadership book.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: But as we started talking about what the story could be, we said we should probably take a moment and tell this through the lens of a story, because storytelling is so important in organizations today.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: We actually it's funny, we still have it but we actually mapped out the book on the back of a pizza box in Chicago.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: We'll have a Chicago pizza.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: We kept it and basically, you know, we started kind of writing down the concepts of okay, if we want to write a book about how leaders can ensure growth for all things around them their organization, their teams individually what could that be akin to?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And we came up with the concept of the bee and how they pollinate everything around us.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: And from there it kind of naturally started flowing to saying okay, here's some chapters, let's think about this, let's take a moment and review it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And ironically we weren't sold on the idea, to be honest with you.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: But I think Siri definitely listens to you, because 18 days later on our newsfeed we saw a post from UN World B-Day.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: It was 18 days later and it said celebrate UN World B-Day.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: And we're like, wait a minute.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I don't remember ever seeing this before.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: And so we're like all right, this is kind of a universe moment.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Maybe we should explore, you know, going down this path.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: And so that's kind of how we thought of the concept.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: But the fable came from the art of storytelling, which we think is important for organizations.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, have you always been academic papers?
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I dabbled in storytelling with children's books back in the day, but really my focus was academic research.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So, as leaders, I think sometimes the curiosity, the storytelling, the vulnerability, which are three things we've just talked about, actually are things that get us a promotion, actually are things that kind of move the needle.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Now, I think when you have good leaders, those that see that or see that in you, I do think that that's very helpful.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But we always don't have that experience in the corporate world, so at least my experience.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So I think the fact that you're bringing it back and the leader can pick that up and then also understand how to take a concept and create, you know, guidance and structure and what to do next with it, I think is a really unique way to pick up a leadership book and to see you know how we can learn from it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So kudos to that, because I do think we need to be innovative and original and and thinking about our book, I mean that's why I created the bold framework, which at times organizations are like what's that about?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Like I don't understand it, and it takes a little bit of like.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is how it connects, and I think then they're like oh yeah, now I get it.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But sometimes I think we just don't.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: We don't encourage that in the leadership world and in the corporate world.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Do you agree?
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Disagree with that or kind of in the things you've seen in the organizations you work, both Katie and Michael?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Leah, I think you bring up something really important and you know, I want to agree in the space of, we often fail to recognize that leadership starts with you, with each individual.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And in the spirit of that, right, there's a moment that, when we think about leadership development, what happens first is self-awareness building.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Right, who am I, what are my strengths, how do I lead, what are my personality and behavioral attributes, what are my core values?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And how do I make Lee feel after an interaction with me?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: How do I make Mike feel after an interaction with me?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Because you're different than I am, and so there's a place for us when we think about leadership development that, yes, how are we modeling right, personal and authentic leadership, where there's this first like how do I show up, what are my stretch areas, what are the things that stress me out?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Right, who am I choosing to be?
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Which was a lot of inspiration for the book that every chapter is a be mindset.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: People get to choose who and how they want to be right, and so there's an undertone in the work that you do in your bold framework is how are we showing up, curious, first with ourselves, and then, right, we go to the group or team level.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: How am I learning about all of these people who are different than me and how do I effectively influence?
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Because leadership has nothing to do with position or power.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Right, we know that there are a lot of people with big titles who are not leaders.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Right, we also have people with big titles who are right, who are really inspiring and influencing and helping people grow.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: But there's a space there of first understanding that when we look at leadership, it always starts with you, and so we have the volition to choose, to your point to say, why am I afraid of tunnels?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And how do I lean into that curiosity to learn more about me, to kind of uncover that.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Am I doing this just out of habit or is this what I want to do?
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: And so to kind of have that agency and the volition to choose is something I think that sometimes we don't give ourselves permission to do.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or we think we're not supposed to, or we're too old to, or you know we can, you know, insert the excuse we give ourselves, because I think that's also where boldness comes.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: You have to figure out who you are and what you want to be.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And I think that was interesting for me at 48, when I quit my job without having a job, I was like I could be anything I wanted to be and I had to figure it out, and that was the first time I probably felt like that since I was 18.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: So I think ownership in that which you talked about, like you said, it starts with you.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: It's not someone else doing it to you or for you.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Like you really have to intentionally take the responsibility and ownership of it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So when you're thinking about what you learned and then the creation of the B mindsets, which you kind of cover throughout the book, tell me about how you selected each one of those and how that came about, and like what you want to be and what you want to aspire to be as well, yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we had a whole list on that back of the pizza box.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: It was kind of fun to go through and we did look at like all the characteristics of leaders and organizations and teams and what's important, and so that's kind of proximal means closest to the heart it's a medical term and closest to the center, and so we wanted to use that because we know bees go to the center of the flower to pollinate sometimes and that's kind of where they get their, you know, go to get their pollen and then they go out and pollinate the world.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: So we knew the center was important not only for bees but for even human beings and people in organizations and teams and individuals to place themselves at the center of somebody else's growth.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: That's where we came up with the kind of Be Proximal and from there we started thinking about like okay, what's in this virtual world?
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Or in a meeting we see too often people like grabbing their cell phones or not paying attention.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: And so Be Present came about right, and so we love the one Be Messy, which was a shared chapter for us.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: That was so inspiring because we think some of the best ideas and that probably goes back to the D on your bold framework, designing new things and creating and innovating.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Creating and charting a path forward sometimes requires us to be a little messy, and we have to encourage that.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Sometimes people think they have to be all buttoned up and have all the answers as leaders and it's okay to take a step back and be vulnerable and be messy, and we have to encourage that.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Sometimes people think they have to be all buttoned up and have all the answers as leaders and it's okay to take a step back and be vulnerable and be messy.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And so those are some of the impetus for some of the B mindsets, katie.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a few you want to share, but we had a whole list of them and narrowed them down as we were writing.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And I think to Mike's point, we let readers know that as they read the book, the menu of B mindsets that are chapters in the book are not like the only B mindsets, Like we get to choose exactly what B mindsets, but those aligned in the storytelling right Of the protagonist, Catherine going through this vacation that she didn't even want to go on Right and she had all these lens check moments right In the decision of who and how she wanted to be and what she wanted to see in those experiences.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: And so I think there's a space for us to like take that step back to say, like, well, why am I experiencing this?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Or can I look at this a different way, Right?
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Or like, what are those lens check moments that that could be transferable, that impact others?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the pandemic, which was, you know, right when you were connecting and creating the book, and then you know, having it come out, what do you think has changed with leadership for the positive?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Let's just start, I'll go positive here with regard to how we operate, how we work with one another.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: When it comes to leadership based on our experiences through the pandemic, is there anything you've seen with the organizations and the company and the?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously, the structures that you work within yourselves.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think you know, micah I'll be interested to hear what you say here too but I think there's a real humanness that we see.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: That's a very refreshing post-pandemic of you know more vulnerability, more authenticity, more like leaning in to say you know, all leaders don't come in in one shape or size, but there's a place of storytelling that comes with people understanding like what my leadership philosophy is.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: That's different from Mike's leadership philosophy, but we're aligned in a lot of work in right how we inspire vision or the way forward.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: And so in that space I think that we're seeing more and more leaders post-pandemic right have to show up to invest in that environment when they think about retention and having people come with their whole selves to work.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And in many ways I think that through conversations like this on Zoom, that there was a humanness that came through the pandemic of people being able to see each other's families and pets and things that were happening in the background that we may not have ever disclosed prior.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: That almost opened up more of that personal and authentic opportunity to just look at us as human beings.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And two that leaders, as I mentioned earlier, it's not about position or power, but the opportunity to lead from any seat, and so I that leaders.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, it's not about position or power, but the opportunity to lead from any seat, and so I think we see more and more young leaders emerging right in that space of influence and kind of helping to, you know, navigate the way forward, instead of just waiting right to be told or to be asked to voice an opinion.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Nice, mike, do you have?
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: anything you'd add.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Katie, well said, and just to kind, have anything you'd add.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: People can connect at a human level, and so I think the mindfulness of asking people to return to work is something that we have to be careful of, right, because I think people have been working since the pandemic, all through the pandemic, and so, you know, a lot of companies are using terms like return to work versus.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: You know how does that make you feel, right, like people have been working.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: It's like come back to the office and create culture.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Right, it's come back to the office and connect as a human being.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: It's like come back to the office and create culture.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Right, it's come back to the office and connect as a human being.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It's.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: You know, the words we're using are really important here, and I think it's a great idea, right, I think culture starts with, you know, one-to-one interactions and passing in the hallway and just asking how the family is and what's going on in their life, and it's hard to do on a 30-minute Zoom call sometimes, where it gets deprioritized because we're running from meeting to meeting to meeting, and so I think we keep the people at the center, which is really the art of being proximal, you know, is really important, and start with that human element.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's interesting.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Someone said the other day, when I'm, like you know, two minutes late for a meeting in person, no one's like sent out the Calvary to find me.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: But if I'm 30 seconds late for a Zoom, I'm getting a text, I'm getting a call getting like all these things that I said yeah, like it is interesting just to kind of see, you know how we switch back and forth.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: You know I'm a big proponent of the hybrid world.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: You know I like interaction, I really like connecting in person.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I think there's power in that.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: But I also like what I consider freedom of being able to be at home and, you know, spend the day home and concentrating on certain things and still being very, very productive.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So, you know, in some of those places, I think, honoring the human and kind of their experience, as well as understanding what we need to accomplish as an organization, I think that had to maybe change how people did things.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And then you saw some of the organizations who didn't.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It's like command and control.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I said you do, I say you come, you write, come back to the office, and that didn't work out too well.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I think in some of those cases of how it operates In situations in leadership, there are certain things that can happen that there wasn't a success or maybe it was a failure or something went really, really left, and there's so much to learn from that as a leader and when you think about our B mindset you know the ones that you talk about in the book and the things that you've learned in your research what are some of the ones that you feel like can be you know?
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Really, going back to your analogy, the thread kind of brought into when we have a failure or in that growth mindset of like, oh man, I really didn't want that to end up like it did.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: How do we use our B mindsets to really make sure?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: that we are using our growth mindset to figure out what to do next.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you touched on, you know, one.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: One of the B mindsets is be growth minded in the book, and so that's a place that, for Mike and I, we've really challenged ourselves there.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: That you know.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: We see a lot of you know leaders who come into conversations with imposter syndrome, right, and that's not something that's like publicly shared or right, it's like more in, like behind the scenes, or like why they're hesitant to lean in or do something.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: And so, in that space of like, how do we convert imposter syndrome into confident humility?
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And in many of those ways, it's that we're embracing this growth mindset to say I don't have all the answers, right, but I'm going to show up curious and I'm going to help orchestrate and facilitate conversations using my strengths.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: But there's going to be things that I'm going to learn from every single person in the room, regardless of their years of experience or their rank or title or right, even you know where they're coming from around the organization.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: And so there's this place of openness to as we're coming in, to think about you know, what we give our time and energy to grows and in many ways, right, in those be mindsets, we give our time and energy to things out of habit that we don't want to grow Right.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: So in those check-ins with ourselves of like being present, right With ourself to say what, like, why did I just entertain that Right?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Like, why am I making the decisions?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Like, but if we can convert that energy and time spent into things that we do want to see grow, we start to see those returns both for ourself and the people that we're working with and through.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: And so I think this is not only to the workspace, but for me, as a mom of two young girls, I'm always present of my B mindsets, and specifically in the space of what I give my time and energy to.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: And so I'm not entertaining drama, right, I'm not solving conflict, because I want them to be able to activate their voice and I want them to be problem solvers, right, and I want them to believe in their voice and their ability to get through things.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: And so I think we have natural inclinations to jump in and solve things, or I think we should, right, without the do I need to give my time or energy there, right?
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Does that have the returns that I want?
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: And so in those be mindsets of just always growing and learning.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: It goes back to the concept, too, that Mike opened with of you know the art of learning to be proximal, and that's keeping learning and unlearning at the heart of everything we do.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mike, anything you'd add.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Absolutely Well.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: First of all, I love the B bold mindset, like it's a new B mindset for me and I love it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I love your framework and I think that that's really important because, as we think about individuals, we've been doing a lot of this work when we work with different companies and industries, but everybody kind of has their own important B-mindset, something that's important to them.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: It could be multiple ones, right, but if you think about your own individual B-mindset, katie and I both have a B-mindset of the year akin to your one word for the year that we're like, hey, we want to think of our mindset for the year, but we also have shared B-mindsets that we're like okay, as co-authors, as working together, we should be both focused on these two things, and one is to be reflective and the other one is be brilliant, no-transcript, like, individually, everybody may have a different B mindset, right, but collectively, as an organization, culture is made up from a lot of different individual mindsets that create a really collective, thriving hive, and if you put all those individual mindsets together, you have a really beautiful picture of diversity of thought and voice, and so when we think about you, know how you choose to show up every day.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: We have to let people bring their these mindsets to work into their lives and then, you know, also build a team of diverse mindsets that can help us really optimize performance across the team, across the organization, even individually.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Also, one of the things that you noted is it may look like chaos from the outside, but people do know what they're doing, they do know their role and you know it's not my job or is it my responsibility, to like unlock some of the chaos or fix it all the time right.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just got to work through it.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I think, as a parent and as a leader which I do think parent probably is a leader in many facets you don't always jump in and want to fix it.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It's very hard to not do that sometimes, but I think, like you said, you don't develop the skills as an individual if you're always fixing it or intervening before someone can figure out how to resolve conflict or whatever it may be.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, you learn from that, right, that's again growth mindset in action, especially in certain years of growing up, I consider myself still evolving and learning, and that's really, I think, part of being a leader too is like you're never done in that sense.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So when we think about our future leadership and our future leaders, is there anything we need to know about now?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: As we, you know, take care of our hives and you know obviously we have different generations working.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You just talked about diversity, which is one of those.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Is there anything we need to do differently, as we kind of walk into the future and maybe run in some places?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I love that question so much.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: And well, firstly, I just want to echo what you said is that we're never done.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Mike and I always say leadership is a journey, right, and you're right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: It's just an ongoing journey of learning and unlearning and growth opportunities, and we have choice in all of those things.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: And so as we think about walking or running into the future, there's an undertone for us to really think about our agility and our willingness to adjust and get unstuck.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And Mike and I talk a lot about idea of unlearning, which is not easy to do for adults because we're very habitual creatures, right.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: And so as we bring awareness to certain things that we're like I probably shouldn't do that.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Or you know, I do give my time and energy there, I don't know why.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Or you know I'm not necessarily thinking about the alignment of intention and impact, right, which is a big one in leadership.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Development is like my intentions could be to help you and the impact on you could be.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: I never want to talk to her again, right, cause I don't like the way she makes me feel every time we talk to each other, and so that's up to me to fix.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And so, in that space of agility, it's like.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: It's not like looking at things as like a personal attack, but as the opportunity to say I could do that better, right, or I could like.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I authored the page this way today, but I'm going to turn the page and I'm going to look at it a little bit different.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: You know tomorrow and you know I could probably, you know, use it, use a different language or a different color pen or a different, you know, whatever it is, but there's a space that you know we try to model that.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: You know, in the work we do in leadership development, that we're saying like we don't have it all right either.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: We're learning with you.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: We're doing that with the book, right, we show up with a million questions and we walk away with a million more, and I think that's a place that is both freeing and intriguing and stimulating all in one.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: As you think about this book and the success it has as a bestseller, and moving into your next book, tell me a little bit about the next book that you are co-authoring and what you're doing differently this time from the first time.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: So when we decided to write these leadership fables, I think we were taking the approach of the tri-level of leadership right.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: So, if you think about the tri-level of leadership, it's the individual, and that's really kind of choosing your individual B mindsets and how they can help you grow and fuel growth.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: The second book is about team and team performance, so it's called the stargazer unleashing the brilliance of building brighter teams and it's going to focus on the team.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: And the third book which we haven't, you know, we started thinking about but we've been kind of, um, you know, asked to write it's going to be around organizational performance.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: So we're really focused on the trial of leadership, both in the both in the space of this leadership fable.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, we're excited about it.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: We think that the next book is you know how hard it is to kind of put thoughts down on paper and come up with something good and so our editors seem to be inspired by the Stargazer.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: So it's really, on its surface, a book about unleashing the brilliance of your team.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And so, katie, I don't know if you have anything to add.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Mike and I just got off a call with our publisher, lee, to talk about the launch and they're like, oh, it'll be available in September.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: We were like, oh, my goodness, we have so much work to do right and we don't know.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: It goes back to this vulnerability.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: It's like, how do we launch having two books?
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: How do we market the building on the leadership fables in the tri-level of leadership, as we're then thinking toward the third book, which will be at the organizational level, and so we're coming in the same way that we did with the beekeeper is.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: We can't do it the same because it's a different book and it's about teams, but we're building on this fable concept to think about right, how we're really being effective in looking at standalone right, individual level or team level or, as we do the third book, the organizational level.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: But they could be this group of books that we're learning about right each one when we think about leadership development.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Right and September 2025?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: So it'll be on pres-sale September 2024.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, cool, okay On bookshelves in March 2025.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Nice, okay, awesome, wow, that is coming up.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: That's what we said.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: That flies by, yeah.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So in that sense, is there anything you learned from the first one that you're doing differently this time with the second one, about yourself as an author or writer, or even how you both work together?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I?
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: mean there's so much I think Katie Katie mentioned it Like we're always, always learning.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm going to go back to, like your, your, your both framework, right?
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I think that if you look at this, like you know, it's inspiring because I think a lot of what we had to do was kind of follows this framework, right, we don't know what we don't know.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Right, holding back our limiting beliefs that we could be a, you know, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, right, how do we craft the story that we want to help shape the world?
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: So, and we're always continually learning, but I think one of the things that we learned from book one to two is that we wanted to listen to feedback from our readers and we didn't have that opportunity in book one, right?
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: So, as you start hearing people read and write reviews that you know good and bad, we wanted to make sure we were incorporating feedback and you know we always say feedback's a gift and it's helped really shape how we started writing.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: You know, the second book and some things to think about.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that you asked us this, because I know we're going to leave this podcast and we're going to say what are all the things we?
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: learned Because to Mike's point, I think we're always learning.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: We walk away from every conversation and going that was so interesting, right, or like we never thought about it that way.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Or, you know, I can't believe that person you know, and we just came off of, you know, giving a keynote with a lawyer's professional organization who used the book last year and then is threading it into their work this year.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: And I think, as like questions arise, it helps us in that space of learning to say like, oh, the interpretation of readers as the reading fables, and you know, we intended it one way, but the way that readers might interpret something is different, and so we're always putting ourselves in that space and I think as we wrote the second book, we were thinking about that, right, we should probably be clearer here, or let's be less nebulous, or maybe we actually call out the leadership learning instead of leaving it open to interpretation.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: So in some of the spaces, to be more intentional about how we were framing or you know, those kinds of follow-ups.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: But one of the things we did here that we incorporated into the second book a little different, that I thought was really interesting, is in the first book, in the beekeeper, the protagonist Catherine recaps her learnings through an email that would go out to her team right After every experience that she had, and so for the readers it was almost like the oh, here's the learning moments.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Right, she's sending these emails and these are like the little nuggets, right, that she's pulling out.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: And in the second book we took a little bit of a different spin, that in this book, jack, the protagonist right, actually keeps a journal and in his journal, right, he kind of pulls out like three key elements of things that he took away from experiences and then those become the threads that end up coming to life, to transformation at the end.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: But those were things for us that, like, as we're doing the fable, let's make sure we're bringing readers back, because people could get lost in the story, which we want, right.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: But how do we also call out the like did you notice this, or did you go back?
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Or do you want to go back and read you know this piece to say like, oh, I didn't see that, or I didn't, that didn't connect with me.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Excellent, those are great learnings.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So, as we think about someone who just might be ready to start either, to start their B-mindsets, start understanding kind of their role in the team.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Where do they begin?
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Where should they start?
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: You know I think one of the ways that I think is really helpful is to find a growth partner.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: You know we talk about this as one of the core tenants to really demonstrating the art of learning through Proximal.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: You know you can't do things alone.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: Sometimes people have this lone wolf mentality that they got it all figured out and they're going to go kind of be self-sufficient and go after.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: You know their goals.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: But you know, katie and I have been growth partners for oh God, over 10 years now, writing and working together and really those accountability partners are important to help you see things differently.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Maybe the way you're not seeing things and so you can come to the table with your B mindset and be like this is how I want to show up, right, but who's holding you accountable to that right?
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: And that's important because you can say you want to do something, but if you're not doing it and acting what you say is important, then you know people lose trust in you, whether you're a leader, whether you're an individual.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: And when trust gets broken and when trust isn't there, then you know performance suffers and willingness to you know be motivated to work for somebody or go the extra mile or demonstrate high levels of organizational citizenship behavior that goes out the window.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: So I think having a growth partner is is is one of the ways that you can bring those to life.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, katie, anything you'd add.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that Mike talked about that and this kind of threads into you.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Know a lot of people will ask us like how do you find a growth partner?
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Right, like I don't even know.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: And there's a place of like, I think that openness of healthy, you know, disagreement and kind of pushing, you know each other's thinking and you know, and those things take time to develop, but it threads into you.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Know, in the second book we talk about building your star system and in many ways I think growth partners can emerge from your star system.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: It's like who are the people that you go to that see things that you don't see, or that see things in you that you don't see, or you know, or kind of push you out of your comfort zone or give you feedback that you need to hear, but you don't necessarily want to hear right away, right, but makes you better.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Or the people that just comfort you when you need just a metaphorical hug, and so there's a place there in like, how are you surrounding yourself with people that just make you better and how are you prioritizing time with those people?
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: And so that becomes a space that we hear from a lot of leaders is wow, I do spend a lot of time with people that suck my energy and I'm not prioritizing the time with people who build me up and make me brighter and help me just be better tomorrow.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: And so to Mike's point how are we kind of taking the reins to author our story in ways that it's like I'm going to spend time with that person and that person right, because they just make me better?
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I call it the three C's find people who are going to cheer you, champion you and challenge you, meaning that you know, it's lovely to have someone that always makes you feel good, but maybe they don't tell you the way it is.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: And they tell you, you know your hair looks good when it doesn't.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: You know like I like people to say oh, you got something on your face, you know like, oh, thank you so much.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: You know, so thinking about who those people are.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: So that's an incredible point that you just made and kind of underscored in your book and in the future book.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: When it comes to teams, thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: All the information about their current book, the Beekeeper, and their upcoming book, stargazer, by Katie and Michael, are in the notes below, and how to connect with them and their services.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks, lee, it's been a delight.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.