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What Do You Mean by That? · The Pause Before You Lead

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, just listening to you talk about how much is going on for leaders, you know, sometimes it might feel like the discussion around our understanding of a word, respect or collaboration might take too much time.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we just need to get going.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: And the issue is that by not taking the time to say, when we say respect, are we all on the same page about what respect looks like in our culture, in our team, how we'll know that it's present and how we'll act when it's not.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: The time that it takes later when people are operating without the clarity of that takes longer than the commitment to have the conversation in the room.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_04: Hi, and welcome to the Pause Before You Lead.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Alicia Saint, and I'm Heather Haig.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: And together, we've both led teams inside large organizations.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: And over the past decade, we've coached and partnered with hundreds of leaders and teams navigating complexity.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: We've seen, felt, heard, and supported leaders through the challenging and sometimes really messy parts of leadership.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: And while a lot has changed, many of the patterns that quietly take leaders off track just keep showing up.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: We work with leaders who don't want to lose momentum, but who know that clearer thinking is what makes momentum sustainable.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: This podcast is for leaders who are moving fast, leading teams, and making decisions under constant pressure.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: And leaders who know there's a better way to think, lead, and respond in those moments.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: Each week, we bring you real conversations drawn from our work with leaders and teams, where speed matters, stakes are high, and the quality of your thinking shapes everything.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: So in each episode, we're going to pause just long enough to think more clearly, to see what's really going on, make better decisions, and build high-value teams.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you're listening before the day takes over, on your way to work, or in the middle of a full day, this is your pause without losing momentum.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: So before we begin, take a breath and join us.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, welcome to the pause before you lead.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Heather Haig.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Alicia Saint.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_03: And this week we're talking about what do you mean by that?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Something that both Alicia and I have been exploring in conversations we've been having both with leaders individually and with teams, because language matters.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Not just the words we choose, whether it's trust, respect, innovation, accountability, collaboration.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: We can use those words to describe how we want to behave as a team, as a collective.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_03: But do they all mean the same thing to everyone sitting around the table?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so, Alicia, I know we've had a story working together that you're going to share to kick things off.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll turn it over to you.
• 3:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's kind of what sparked this idea, wasn't it?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_04: So reading a book, Compassionate Accountability, and I came across a phrase that I thought was really powerful and positive, and it was safeguarding your heart.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, I was so excited to share with you.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I really think this is a cool, really positive way to think about, you know, compassionate accountability and and you know, in that context.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: And then so surprised when I shared it with you, and you were like, don't think so.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: So share, share with us what your experience was as I'm all happy and smiley.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting because I think when you first shared the concept with me, I'm not sure that I got as much of a I think this is amazing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think you were just talking about like the there's this concept safeguarding your heart.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: And it's and it's useful to, you know, protect.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: I can't remember exactly how you worded it, but it was like useful to make sure you weren't being overly vulnerable and letting other people sort of uh dictate how you should feel or how you how what your worth is.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: And and it's interesting because I, for me, safeguarding your heart felt defensive.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: It felt like like I was withholding, so drawing inward.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_03: I even had an experience as I thought about the word, because I was kind of thinking it through as we were talking in the moment.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, that feels it feels cold.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: It feels emotionless.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like there were all these things that were coming to mind that I was having like a I don't want to safeguard my heart.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like that feels like I've spent a lot of time bringing my heart to the forefront.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so just knowing my own sort of head heart, gut, spirit work felt very contrary into the way that I think about how we operate in the world.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, I had a very different reaction.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember telling you the that reaction and you sort of having a that's not how I was thinking about it at all.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: Surprise.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: Because I think the opposite word to it was un so safeguarded and unsheltered.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: So the safeguarded was sort of the positive, and then the unsheltered was having having sort of no boundaries, no protection, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_04: So that's the context.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: And so, yes, safeguarded was was presented as a very positive approach, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: And so, yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_04: So, and then you having this this reaction, it's like those words mean the complete opposite.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_04: No, I'm not saying complete opposite, but feel very different.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, quite, quite different.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting because when we talked about the counterpoint, so if that's the one safeguarding your heart is is on one hand, on the other hand, is this unsheltered, no boundaries, you know, completely vulnerable in a way that is potentially threatening to your safety way, we could both agree on that definition.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: But it was the other, the the word, and so what came to light in that conversation, and and this is really the piece I think for us to be unpacking today is how a word like safeguarding, just that one word, can mean something completely different to two people like us who've been working together for years.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: But as we tend to uncover each time we explore what does it mean to you?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: What does it mean to me?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: We're often seeing things differently.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: So we could share the same values by the words.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: We like the words, the words capture.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: But when you start to explore, well, what does that mean?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: We may come to very different places.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_04: And and our ability to be able to stay with it.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: Because I remember when you started, you know, being very strong, right?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: And presenting your point of view, I was like, huh, I can, I can see that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_04: I can see that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_04: And there was a moment where I was like, okay.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: Like I was just ready to sort of give up on how I saw it and how it felt and landed for me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember in that conversation going, no, I'm gonna stay in this, this sort of healthy dis you know, conflict.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know, it wasn't conflict, but it was a discussion, like a discussion that had some tension to it, which said, huh, isn't that interesting, Heather?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: That's I'm so glad you shared that with me.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_04: Isn't it interesting how we can see these two things, this one word, so differently and viscerally.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like it wasn't just a logical, it was a visceral.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_04: And and being able to stay with it and say, you know, Heather, tell me more.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_04: Like what's what's informing that for you, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_04: And for me to be able, and at the end of it, we never came to a place that said, well, your definition's right and mine's wrong.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't, I think this is maybe sometimes where people can get stuck, right?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: When they're trying to define the meaning of something is like, I need to persuade you or you need to persuade me, we need to get on the same page with this.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: And to more just accept that, like, there can be more than one meaning to something as simple as a word.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just say if we took this and extrapolated it further, that we were going to use safeguarding your heart in some of the language that we talk about.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: The danger would be in the assumption that that means the same thing to everyone as we agree that that's the thing we're working towards.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because it just doesn't.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-mm.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: It it reminds me of of a conversation with a team recently where they were exploring their values and, you know, had identified some of the words that they were potentially going to consider as the core values.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: And the word innovation came up.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: And what was interesting about it was if we had said, yeah, that should be a word, there's the potential that you could kind of just, you know, move on.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: But instead, it was, well, what does innovation look like?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: And wow, like a really robust conversation across the team with very differing views on the their interpretation of the word innovation, and then extrapolating that to what does this look like in the context of our work?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: And some were concerned about risk and others were very excited about opportunity.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you just recognize that like the power of one single word across a team.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we saw the difference between the two of us.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: You put eight, 10, 12 people in a room, and now you understand how important it is to not just write down the word on the page, but to really spend time in conversation exploring what do I mean when I say that?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean when you say that?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: What do we mean when we say that?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: When we put it on the poster on the wall, right?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: So value is not only in choosing the right word, but it's also in really exploring and being willing to be in that place where you can hear all the the different ways that people can see and feel that word.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: And that pause, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_04: Being willing to, like with you, the work you did with that team, the willingness to slow it down and go, wait a minute, hold on.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_04: Is everyone buzzing about this word?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Because sometimes it's the quiet people, right, sitting at the back, like I was about to do with you.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like, yeah, whatever.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: Who cares?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: As we're as we're thinking about this, how do you hear every voice in the room when you've got uh, you know, more than just two people?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, in in a two-people conversation, it's pretty easy for us to sort of share our points of view.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And even still, you noted a potential to release your definition to come along, even though that that wasn't the ask or the expectation or right.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: So just knowing how easy in in a two-person exchange, so in the room, how do we hear everyone's voice without them being influenced?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know, how many times have you sat and gone around a room to ask for everyone's input?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: And by about the third person, they say, well, what she said or what he said, or same.
• 12:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Ditto.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh because it's easier than maybe bringing forward a different perspective, a different definition.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: Because then might that create some friction on the team if we're not all in agreement in the room.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then the leaving the room and having having disagreement externally, like outside of the room, because we didn't do it, we didn't do the work in the room.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then all that work to create engagement, alignment, purpose is fractured.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's fractured as soon as people step outside of that room, right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I I know the work I'm doing with leaders right now is so many are about finding purpose, like connecting into the work.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm working like crazy, and I really I'm not feeling fulfilled by it, I'm not feeling connected to it.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: And then when you start to work on values, so just tell, you know, the importance of being able to connect.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: So that though those words, what do they really mean?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_04: When you say that, what's the action that follows that word?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: What's the belief that supports that word?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: So, what do you mean by that is layered and layered and layered, and it's so important because people want to feel connected to the work that they're doing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_04: So much is being demanded of people.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: They've they want to feel like this means something.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I, you know, just listening to you talk about how much is going on for leaders, you know, sometimes it might feel like the discussion around our understanding of a word, respect, or collaboration might take too much time.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we just need to get going.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: And the issue is that by not taking the time to say, when we say respect, are we all on the same page about what respect looks like in our culture, in our team, how we'll know that it's present and how we'll act when it's not.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: The time that it takes later when people are operating without the clarity of that takes longer than the commitment to have the conversation in the room.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Even though that I don't want to create disagreement.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want us to, you know, for people to argue or or push back too far, because maybe then we don't have, we don't, respect isn't one of our values.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: And part of me kind of goes, if you don't do that up front, how are we operating when we leave the room beyond?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you know if respect is happening if we haven't defined what we mean by it?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: And how do we how do we support one another?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Because culture is the daily interactions.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's the daily it's the relationships that we have, the the way we speak to one another, the way that we behave with one another, the way we make decisions.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's what culture is, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's a daily moment by moment demonstration of what what do we care about?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_04: What do we think is important?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: Felt heavy all of a sudden, didn't it?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and and maybe that heaviness that we're feeling in this conversation might be the exact reason that leaders choose not to, you know, because we've been in the room with teams where it can get, it can feel heavy.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like, it feels like a struggle to spend time on a word and and talk about it, explore it, break it down a little bit, challenge it even, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: To say is like, is this the word that captures who we're who we're trying to be?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Are we really clear on what we're trying to achieve by saying this is one of our values?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Too often when when you start that work, people kind of give up and sort of they're like, ugh, this is this isn't the fun part.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: All the kind of exploring and putting the post-its up and saying, like, here are our values, that felt really high energy and lots of fun.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And right.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: And now you're holding our feet to the fire to like define it and ugh, that feels like heavy.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's break time.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I totally get it.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because we were just feeling the heaviness right now in this moment as we started to to talk about it and unpack it.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: And and yet we know how important it is.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because if if you and I had gone ahead with that word or some of the other things that we're we're working on, where we might just go, oh yeah, that's it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: And we write it down.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: And then later we come back to it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I always love these moments.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: What did we mean by that again?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: Or we present it, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like we present it and we're like, and you and I, let's just say we're aligned on it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: We're so excited about it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: And somebody else in the room has that strong reaction to it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: And it it's like we, if you don't invite that into the room, we didn't even see it.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_04: Like we didn't even notice it because we're so caught up in wow, we love this word and it's great.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: And it means so many positive things to us.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's the best.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's the best.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: And again, you know, I think it's it's the invitation to pause.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes the pause feels a little bit heavy and it feels hard and it feels like it's a struggle.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it's the reminder that to slow down helps you speed up, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: Because when the team's all operating and understanding what's expected of each other and what we mean by and what it looks like and what it doesn't look like, it just creates more cohesion, right?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Just more connection, more even accountability.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if if for if for the leader, and maybe we can test this in our next engagement with a team, you know, if if the leader acknowledges that this may, like this, this, this can and does sometimes feel heavy, like some sort of recognition, not trying to make it fast or easy, because this is this is the slowdown work.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it was, as you said, you know, slowing down so that you can you can move more quickly.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: I was actually, well, right when you said it, thinking slow down to go faster.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it not only will will teams go faster with the clarity of those words, having had the conversation.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: And everyone doesn't need to agree with the definition, but as a collective, you do need to agree how you'll measure it.
• 20:14
  unknown: Right.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: So you don't necessarily all have to say we see it exactly the same way, but you do need to come to a place that says these are the things that are important about this word for us.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so that is gonna feel a little heavy.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's work that's worth doing because it's gonna help us not only go faster, but it's gonna help us relate to each other better, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like we will we will operate not just faster, but better with each other.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Trust.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: Build trust.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Just having worked through it.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_03: So there may be heaviness involved, it's worth it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: We can't see it now, but it's worth it.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: So what do you mean by that?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_04: Is your pause question for this week?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: Where when you reflect on, you know, how your team operates your the your own values, your team's values, the organization's values.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: What do you what do you what do we really mean by that?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_04: And are we are we actually aligning to that?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: Are we actually behaving and making decisions and rewarding and incentivizing around that?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_04: And how many of us have the same definition?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: Have we ever explored it?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_04: Have we ever actually explored what that means?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: Some great questions.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Some great questions that simply kick off with what do you mean when you say that?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this feels like a good place to end for this week.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: Join us next time.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget to pause before you lead.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: See you soon.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for joining the pause before you lead.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: If this conversation sparked something for you, share it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because more leaders need space to think clearly in the moments that matter.
• 22:31
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• 22:37
  SPEAKER_04: We shape these conversations for you.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Before you move on to what's next, pause just for a moment.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: And notice what might change if you led from here.