Latest / Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture / Behavior Never Lies

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Behavior Never Lies · Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture

• 0:11
  Hey friends, welcome into the Leadership Sandbox.
• 0:17
  Today I want to challenge a belief that I think changes the
• 0:18
  way we lead people.
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  And here's the statement behavior never lies.
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  It never does.
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  It's simply the evidence of identity.
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  And now before you disagree with me,
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  I want to stay there for a minute.
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  I just want you to ponder that thought because I'm going to
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  shift some perspective,
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  I think, today in this episode.
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  Because you know, every day as leaders,
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  we spend an enormous amount of time trying to change people's behavior.
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  We tell someone to communicate better, to take more ownership,
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  to be more accountable, to speak up, to collaborate more,
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  to stop micromanaging, to stop being defensive.
• 1:03
  And we're constantly trying to coach to the outcome or the behavior
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  that we want to see.
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  But what if behavior isn't actually the problem?
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  Which for a moment in the sandbox kind of is mind-blowing because
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  I speak all the time and train all the time to change
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  behaviors.
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  What if the behavior, however,
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  is simply the evidence of something much deeper?
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  Because behavior always leaves clues.
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  The question isn't why did they do that?
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  The better question becomes what belief about themselves produced that behavior?
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  And that's a completely different conversation in the sandbox.
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  James Clear, who's the author of Atomic Habits,
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  if you haven't read it yet, pick it up.
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  It's great.
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  You want to read it.
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  He says it this way every action you take is a vote
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  for the type of person you wish to become.
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  Wow.
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  Sit with that, put that on the whiteboard for a minute.
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  Every action that you take is a vote in the direction for
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  the person you wish to become.
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  So if your outcomes are not producing what you want,
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  then you're producing the person you also don't want.
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  I love that because every repeated behavior is reinforcing an identity in
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  you or for that other person in the office.
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  Not just creating a habit, but reinforcing a belief about self,
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  about others.
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  Let's take someone who never speaks up in meetings as an example.
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  Most leaders look at that behavior and say that they're disengaged,
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  they're shy, they're lacking, or they need time to properly process,
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  or they're not prepared.
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  Maybe that is true, but what if it's not?
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  What if the identity underneath says, My ideas don't matter,
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  my voice doesn't matter, or every time I speak up,
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  I get shut down, I get turned back,
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  or the safest thing I can do is stay quiet.
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  Do you hear the difference though?
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  The behavior is silence.
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  The identity is self-protection.
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  If all I do is coach the behavior, I might say,
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  I'd really like you to participate more if I'm their leader.
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  But if I coach to the identity, my conversation changes.
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  When did you decide that your voice wasn't valuable?
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  A better way of saying that is: I'm really curious.
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  I've noticed that you don't speak up a lot in meetings.
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  And what makes me curious is I'm wondering when you decided that
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  your voice wasn't valuable here.
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  Tell me what happens in the room that makes it difficult for
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  you to contribute.
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  And what would need to change for you to feel safe sharing
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  your perspective?
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  In that moment, leader, you're getting somewhere because behavior gives us evidence.
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  Identity gives us understanding.
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  And here's another one for you.
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  Think about the leader who micromanages everything.
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  Can I see some hands on the back of the room, please?
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  That's you I'm talking to.
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  That one who micromanages everything, and we usually label as controlling.
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  But I don't think that control is the issue.
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  I think control is the symptom.
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  It's what's underneath.
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  The identity underneath often says, I'm not needed.
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  If I'm not needed, I don't have value.
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  If I'm not needed, I don't have value.
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  Or if someone else makes a mistake, it reflects on me.
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  Or maybe no one can do it as well as I can,
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  might be one of the other storylines.
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  Again, the behavior isn't lying, it's revealing something underneath.
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  And I see this with accountability a lot too.
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  Someone who misses deadlines over and over and over again,
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  even when you give them really clear by when, someone blames.
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  Everyone else, because it's always got to be somebody else.
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  I can never look in the mirror and take full responsibility.
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  And someone gets defensive every time they receive feedback,
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  or someone who refuses to admit that they're wrong,
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  we focus on correcting the action.
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  But I wonder what identity is that behavior protecting?
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  Right?
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  What identity is that behavior protecting?
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  Because people will defend an identity far longer than they will defend
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  a goal.
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  And that's why some people can't hear feedback.
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  They reject it profusely.
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  If their identity says being wrong means I'm a failure,
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  then feedback doesn't feel like information.
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  It feels like a threat.
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  And threatened people don't learn, they protect.
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  That's human behavior.
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  So now I want to make it personal.
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  Because before we point at our teams,
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  we've got to point at ourselves.
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  We got to turn the point around.
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  How many times have you said something like,
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  I'm just not good at difficult conversations?
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  I'm not strategic.
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  I'm not creative.
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  I'm terrible with numbers.
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  I'm just wired that way.
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  Really?
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  But are you?
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  Or is that an identity you've rehearsed so many times?
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  That you've mistaken it for truth because identities become our comfort zone.
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  And comfortable identities become our cages.
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  And one of my favorite questions to ask leaders is this What
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  identity are you protecting that your leadership can no longer afford?
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  That question usually creates a pause of silence, but the good kind.
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  Because I've got someone at a heart level.
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  It's the kind where people stop defending themselves and start thinking.
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  Now, here's where this gets really interesting.
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  Organizations create identities whether they mean to or not.
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  A company may never say, don't challenge leadership.
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  But if every person who challenges leadership gets embarrassed, gets shut down,
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  gets ridiculed in meetings,
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  people quickly learn who they need to become to survive.
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  And an organization may never say,
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  Stay quiet, don't speak up.
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  But if ideas get ignored, silence becomes the safest.
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  It's the safest identity in the room.
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  And you may say in your meetings that you value innovation,
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  but if mistakes are punished and ridiculed,
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  people begin identifying as cautious instead of courageous.
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  Think about that.
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  If mistakes are punished,
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  People will start to identify as cautious instead of courageous.
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  Remember about failing forward?
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  It's such a great thing that we want to encourage people to
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  do because risk taking helps us all get stronger.
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  But if our identity is locked into it's not safe,
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  we're not gonna do it.
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  That's why I always say behavior is data, it's evidence.
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  If your team won't speak up, don't immediately coach to communication.
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  Ask yourself what identity your environment has been rewarding.
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  If your leaders won't make decisions, don't just teach decision-making skills.
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  Ask what identity has been reinforced every time someone took a risk.
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  This is one of the reasons why I built COMMAND™,
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  the Leadership Behavior Operating System.
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  The first step is C, claim reality.
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  Behavior is reality, not assumptions, not intentions, observable, observable behavior.
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  But once we've claimed reality, we have to become curious.
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  And I use have to intentionally.
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  You want to become curious.
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  Because every repeated behavior is asking us to investigate what's underneath it.
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  And that's where real leadership begins, friends.
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  Not in correcting people, but in understanding them.
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  And today I'm going to leave you with this.
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  This week, instead of asking, how do I fix that behavior?
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  How do we fix that behavior?
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  Ask what belief about themselves, that individual, is producing this behavior.
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  And while you're at it,
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  ask yourself the same question and take a look in the mirror
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  because your behavior is telling a story too.
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  The question is,
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  is it the story you want your leadership to tell?
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  Thanks for joining me in the sandbox today, friends.
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  I know that leadership isn't something that you're born with,
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  it's something that you grow into.
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  And this episode gave you the opportunity to grow into that next
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  level today.
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  And if it challenged your thinking,
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  I want you to share it with another leader who spends more
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  time correcting behavior than understanding it.
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  Because that's where real change in organizations is going to start to
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  happen at the belief level.
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  Until next time.
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  Remember that behavior never lies.
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  It simply reveals what we've come to believe about ourselves.
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  Lead well, lead boldly.
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  God bless you.
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  Make it a great day, friends.