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Leading with Compassion and Empathy with Wade Thomas · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
• 0:08
  things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:11
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
• 0:36
  This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
• 0:41
  Be sure to tune in next week for part 2 so you don't miss out on the amazing content.
• 0:47
  I wanted, Roxanne Durgeshott, of authentic living with Roxanne.
• 0:50
  Thanks for tuning in again today.
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  Today, I have, Wade Thomas, and he's an executive coach, and he talks about executive,
• 1:00
  dealing with executives at the heart level, which is something, as most of you know, that I
• 1:04
  talk about all the time, So I'm gonna say that most of us out there are trying to figure out
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  the most effective ways to lead, I would say prior to, 2 years ago, but even more so, in the
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  kind of the pressures of the, present economic times.
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  So, Wade, thanks so much for coming on today.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  I'd love to do these.
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  Okay.
• 1:26
  Awesome.
• 1:27
  So, it's a business is called aim to win, and, which is kind of what we're gonna be about
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  around leadership.
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  So it kinda tell tell me what got you, involved in leadership.
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  Was there was that something that was that was a passion.
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  Did you go to business school and decide that you wanted to go into, or did you go into
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  business and then kind of meander your way into executive coaching?
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  It's kind of interesting.
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  You know, I started out as a, you know, out of college.
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  In a retail environment, I came out with a marketing degree, which the net error that
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  meant you were gonna go to sales of some sort.
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  And so I went to retail environment, and we had a retail store that was, you know, very
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  successful.
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  That was probably the smallest market in my region.
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  Yeah.
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  I outperformed everybody, and it wasn't that was great at sales.
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  You know, I was probably a b sales player at best.
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  But what I learned through that process was what really mattered were the people.
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  The people that worked for me and how good they were at sales.
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  And and one of the things that just really excited me about the job is I had 6 different,
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  you know, salespeople.
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  And I and I usually had about 8 on staff.
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  So about 6, during my 2 years there, I got promoted to be managers of other stores.
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  And, I just realized at that moment, how much they excited me, how much seeing people
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  develop, excited me, and also seeing how much success is out there and just making sure you
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  have the right people in the right place and just engaged and excited much impact that could
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  have.
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  So I went back to business school and started a career in human resources.
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  You know, and and I was fortunate in my human resources career not to ever be suck in one of
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  those transactional paperwork pushing HR jobs that we all hear about.
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  You know, everyone I was involved with you know, my main role was how do we get the most
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  out of our people?
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  So I did a lot of coaching, a lot of leadership development, programs, the organizational
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  structure, things like that, and everything geared around, how do we get the most out of
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  it?
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  And so from there, that's kinda how I fell into leadership.
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  You know, I I had a leadership role right out of college.
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  And then in my HR career, I was leading people within about 6 months.
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  And so I've I've not known anything, but
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  Right.
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  So you started right out the right out the gates and with myself, I'm taking a different
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  kind of path.
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  I wanted to help people when started the psychotherapy wrote and then eventually went
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  into leadership development as well.
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  I know you work you previous, you know, you had worked with a lot with, sales teams and, in
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  your in your career.
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  You now work with leaders, and you said you you did something quite fascinating.
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  And I I I would say that, if you kinda think of of the traditional models of leadership, it was
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  kinda like, it was kind of autocratic top down, you know, your language, you know, kind of
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  followed a certain sequence of events with how you speak to people, you know, in a different
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  way.
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  And the higher up, there was not much expectations about your ability or capacity to
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  connect and then to communicate.
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  And that kind of, you know, if you all the business models kind of went to that kind of
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  perspective.
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  But what we're talking about is a little bit of a different perspective.
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  To help us understand when you when you talk about, heart leadership, how do you define
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  heart leadership, Wade?
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  So, you know, first thing I'll comment on is, yeah, we start off with an autocratic, and
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  we've but we have to evolve And later on today, I'm gonna drive to, you know, I'm gonna go to
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  my kid's school and pick him up from school and bring him home.
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  You know, a 100 years ago, it would probably have been doing that.
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  And a horse, not going in a car, and and leadership's no different.
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  So the what the way to find a heart based leadership is it's it's leadership that focuses
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  on empathy and compassion, you know, and really just be in there for your people understanding
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  what they're going through in a very deep level and then leading with that compassion.
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  So what are some ways that Obviously, you were in retail.
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  So I say in retail, you you better know how to reconnect, and deliver and not over connect
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  sometimes.
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  Sometimes I know, you know, when people are walking, I think of myself, right, and I'm a, I
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  kinda go in.
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  I know what I want.
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  I I've generally, you know, if I'm gonna buy, I'm gonna buy, if I'm not gonna buy, you know,
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  I'm not one of those browsers.
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  So it's kinda you're gonna have to figure out my timing and my tempo, I would think.
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  So there's a lot of, you know, when we talk about compassion and empathy, salespeople, I
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  would say, you know, our they're having to be in tune with a lot of things that's going on
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  and read kind of the the customer.
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  So what is it that you learned in retail that kind of helped you with some of the senior
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  leadership development that you've done since.
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  Yeah.
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  It was kind of interesting.
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  You know, I I don't necessarily make that tie very often, but But as I think about that, you
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  know, in that retail and sales environment, and like I said, you know, we had a smallest
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  market, yet we're the most successful.
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  The reason is we didn't have high volumes of people walking through our doors.
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  We sold to all of them, and we sold to all of them repeatedly.
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  You know, we we had a number of people that were in every week.
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  We sold computer software, and we didn't we're at the very beginning of the video game there.
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  So we sold video games as well.
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  And so we just had those regular customers.
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  And the ability, not just of May, there were a lot of people that even did it better within my
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  store, but the successful salespeople were the ones that just got to know them.
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  You know, they would come in and ask for a certain person.
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  You know, I I had a group of people that just wanna deal with me, and there's other people in
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  groups that just wanna deal with them because we really understood them.
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  We empathize with what they were looking for.
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  What they're trying to accomplish or in a case of video games, maybe what they're trying to
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  escape from.
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  But, so just really understanding where they were coming from as opposed to just treating
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  them like a transaction.
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  For sure.
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  And, you know, it's so it's so interesting.
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  So I've I I'm sharing a little bit about how I shop.
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  Right?
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  And I'm like, I'm not one of those people that say, let's go to the mall.
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  I kinda go in.
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  I know, you know, and I I don't like browse a lot.
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  If I I find a brand that I like or or, you know, a type of, you know, business, I I I go
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  back.
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  I'm a creature habit.
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  And this particular boutique that I used to go to, in Toronto in Yorkville, they figured me
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  out relatively quickly.
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  It was, you know, it was a small boutique.
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  There was a lot of, you know, bigger chains and stuff like that, but I can't I would go back.
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  And after a while, they knew exactly kind of what my style was, what my price point was,
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  kind of my, you know, what kind of things I would go to for certain seasons, and they must
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  have been collating, a file on me as they went because what would happen is not every time
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  they would I would get a call and say, hey.
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  We're just thinking about you, and we just got X Y Z in.
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  I don't know if you're in the neighborhood, if you wanted to come in.
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  And I I I kind of and sometimes I wouldn't because I really wasn't in the mood.
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  And but if I did go in, that would generally be the time that I would shop for that season.
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  And then I would, you know and that would be me because I'm not the consummate.
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  I'm going shopping all kind all the time kind of person.
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  So and I felt special because I thought, well, they thought about me, but, of course, you
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  know, whoever probably was it, let's say, assigned to someone like me, knew kind of my
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  wants and needs and kind of what how my my purchasing behavior was.
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  So they took the time.
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  And I bought from that store for about 15 years, before I kind of moved away into a
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  different environment.
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  So it's, it's interesting that you're saying that's getting to know, your customers and
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  spending that time is is is very, very valuable.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, you just illustrated something that I talk about all the time.
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  And when you're you're leading from the heart and you're taking a time to empathize with
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  people and even showing compassion, You don't have to do it because you're nice, but, you
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  know, a good business reason to do it is it works.
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  No.
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  Were they doing that because they really had a personal interest in you?
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  Yeah.
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  Maybe.
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  But the reality is is they wanna get some sales, and it worked.
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  And so many times, we've been taught that, you know, leaders shouldn't be nice.
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  You know, they shouldn't have compassion and empathy.
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  And that's, you know, when when I'm coaching, I run into that as an obstacle all the time
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  because people have been brought up in to believe in the autocratic I have to know
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  everything.
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  I'm not a vulnerable person style leadership, but the way I get at it is you know, you have
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  compassion empathy.
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  You use heart based leadership because it works.
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  It ups well, And, you know, in my example, like I said, I became a customer, and I spent a lot
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  of money in that little boutique, and I and I had lots of options along the same row with
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  probably a lot more variety, but I I kept going back to this one particular store.
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  So let's talk a little bit about the model of what you do with, you know, like you said, the
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  kind of the business models, like you said, the difference in transition from horse and buggy
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  to you know, to to kind of the industrial times.
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  There's an evolution in in leadership.
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  And when we're talking about heart based leadership, I'm gonna assume that there's some
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  of the old guard, a lot of the old guard in there that went through those traditional
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  models of leading.
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  So tell me how you approach them when you try to have them understand what the front end
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  customer needs because there are a couple of levels up.
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  Right?
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  Their aerial shots kinda high, and their touch points are less than, say, the middle matters
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  is all the way to the front line.
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  So tell me kind of how you approach those leaders and, what some of your experiences, is
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  like kind of starting to introduce it or use it on an ongoing basis.
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  This?
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  So it's evolved over time.
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  But, for generally, for most of my time, you know, I don't go in and teach compassion and
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  empathy.
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  You know, I I don't go to a senior leader and say, ma'am, let's put compassion empathy into
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  organization.
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  Sometimes I do it.
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  Right?
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  And that's evolved.
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  Right?
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  Now people get coming a little more open with it.
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  You can use those words now.
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  All those bad words like compassion, empathy, love, caring,
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  all the things that he used to be called about.
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  That's right.
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  Well 10, 15 years ago.
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  Or or 5.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Some cases.
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  But what I do teach is I teach them how to drive accountability in our organization.
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  I teach them how to have influence.
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  I teach them how to get engagement.
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  I teach them time management.
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  Whatever it is that they need to learn as leaders.
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  I teach them.
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  By teaching them to do it through the lens of compassion empathy.
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  So the most effective way of driving accountability or in your organization is to
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  win the hearts and minds of people.
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  And so I teach them exactly that.
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  And then, of course, that is loaded up with you know, compassion empathy.
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  Why?
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  Because it works.
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  And so, you know, they're not getting confronted with this.
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  You know, I've gotta change my whole mindset.
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  They're getting confronted with this is a better way to manage your organization.
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  This is a better way to do you know, those things that you have to do on a day to day
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  basis.
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  So let's let's let's let's you use an actual concrete example then, you know, to maybe bring
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  it home.
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  So let's say, I'm trying to get people to be more present, let's say, compared to, you know,
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  we know that sometimes there's present.
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  He is in the term about 65 percent productivity that you might get out of your team or
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  whatever, and you're the leader.
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  And you're trying to drive performance because you'd like to kind of let's say you'd like to
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  get it up from 65 to 75.
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  What kind of like you said, you go at it from the from the productivity lens, but you want
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  them to to look at it, from the people end.
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  Because you want the productivity to increase.
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  Correct?
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  Right.
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  So what kind of things do you do with that leader to help them see that or experience that
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  that would where they kind of leave the bottom line alone because it get kinda takes care of
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  itself.
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  Yeah.
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  So let's start with the traditional way of looking at, you know, productivity problems.
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  You know?
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  It might go get an engineer and figure out where are people spending their time, or you
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  might yell louder, or you might throw money at it.
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  You know, a lot of those old guard solutions, you know, happen.
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  Right?
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  And they don't work.
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  You know, sometimes, you know, you get some improvements, especially in engineering side,
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  but, you know, the other ways don't work.
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  The way I will teach it is I'll start with Why aren't you getting 75% today?
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  And why aren't you getting 75% from Bob?
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  75% from Rudy?
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  75% from Jennifer?
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  You know, what is going on in their lives or in your work lives or their home lives that's not
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  allowing you to get that 75%.
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  What are they going through?
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  You know, and and it could be something, you know, as simple as, you know, it's 7 steps to
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  get from stage 1 and stage 2 on a line.
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  And they would do it much better if it was 3¢.
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  So so it could be something like that, or it could be something like they're frustrated with
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  their leader, or it could be, you know, they're tired.
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  And so getting down and dirty, empathizing with, you know, every one of those employees
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  are trying to get productivity out.
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  That's gonna help you target a solution that's gonna work as opposed to throwing money at it
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  or throwing discipline at it or whatever you might have traditionally done.
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  So to kinda like, spray and pray that, you know, we're gonna make change.
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  You're actually drilling down to the, I'm gonna say the root cause of potentially, like, let's
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  say if you have a team of 10, some people are just gonna function and don't need any
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  connection.
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  And and you, you know, you can't use them as a benchmark, but Some people are just really,
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  really good at doing that, and they actually prefer that you leave them alone in the pre or
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  they're high producers.
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  You you got those personalities.
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  And then there's the people that, like you said, they did they need to connect to feel
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  validated?
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  And then there's the other people that say give me the tools and kinda stay out of the way.
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  So you're gonna have lots of behavioral kind of elements, I would think.
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  But if you're getting, say, you know, those 2 employees you talked about, and they're
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  consistently underperforming, I'm gonna say that that dot's valuable intel for the leader,
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  to really understand potentially what kind of blockages or things might be, getting in their
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  way of of higher productivity.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  Because otherwise, what we do is we kind of manage the need.
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  So we're gonna manage kind of somewhere in the middle.
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  So the people that need more of our attention aren't going to get enough of our attention.
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  People that don't want our attention, they're gonna get too much.
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  And we may have a couple of Oh, what did
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  what did you do?
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  You brought this guy in, and I was doing fine.
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  And now you want me to spend more time doing X Y Z.
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  So not fix not fixing what doesn't need to be fixed, looking at what's work working really
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  well.
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  And then but then, ultimately, addressing creating solutions that address the actual
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  issues that are in front of you.
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  And then teaching the leader how to engage with the simples employees.
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  Is that what you do?
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  Yeah.
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  For each person.
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  Right?
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  So Okay.
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  Okay.
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  For each person's different.
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  So that's kinda how I teach it is.
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  You know, you can't look at them as, you know, a massive employee.
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  You gotta look at it individually, and you can't be afraid to ask the questions and get to
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  know them.
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  And truly walk in our shoes and empathize.
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  Right.
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  What if you have leaders that are they don't know that the difference between, or maybe they
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  have experienced it, but they kind of think, you know, when I was an executive for years,
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  Wade, they, you know, I got the message, either implicit or explicit that you leave, Roxanne,
• 17:50
  the mother, and wife, at the front corporate door, then you get on that corporate elevator.
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  Your performance as an executive.
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  When you get back, you then your executive Roxanne for 12 hours or 10 hours.
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  And then when you jump back on that elevator, then you became Roxanne, the mother, you know,
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  the sister, the wife, all that stuff.
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  Right?
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  So we have a lot of that thinking still there in the separateness, which I know in the last
• 18:16
  little while, I mean, we haven't had that.
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  But do you still have leaders that don't know how to gauge that?
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  Like, how is it that I know I'm connecting?
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  But I'm not being too intrusive.
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  So I'm just curious how you might deal with a scenario like that.
• 18:34
  I wanna connect with you, Wade.
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  You're my employee, but I feel like, I'm I'm getting into business.
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  And but I wanna be empathetic, but I want to be empathetic in a professional way without
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  getting too
• 18:47
  Yeah.
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  I mean, that's that's a big one.
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  Right?
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  And, again, it's something that we've always been taught and has never been real.
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  There's never been a Roxanne as the mother and a Roxanne as the executive.
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  You know?
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  You know, I I never personally made that distinction either.
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  It's it wasn't like I could turn it off what happened, you know, in my personal life and go
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  to work and then turn that off.
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  And now, nowadays, you know, with the advent of the technology, you you can't do it.
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  You know?
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  In fact, companies don't want their employees to do it.
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  Right.
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  I mean, how many emails do you get after 5 o'clock when you've gone home?
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  You know, how many text messages are items or whatever the, communication method usual is.
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  And so That's that's real.
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  There is no separate person.
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  There's a there's only a whole person.
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  But we've always been taught as leaders that we don't get into people's personal lives.
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  And, you know, my question is, why not?
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  It is not a good answer for that.
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  So so how do you handle the, you know, the actual kind of one on one conversation and the
• 19:49
  the nitty gritty of it is you know, you gotta go over that fear.
• 19:53
  You know, research shows that most people want, you know, their leaders at to have some
• 19:59
  knowledge or be involved at some level in their personal lives.
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  That level varies, but, you know, most people want that.
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  So you can't be afraid of that.
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  And then you ask the questions, you know, and you can start very broad.
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  You know?
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  How's your day going at 8 in the morning or whatever?
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  You know?
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  It can bring in a how, you know, how are things going at home?
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  And, you know, if you go too far, you're gonna find out.
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  Because if you're really, you know, a good leader and you're empathizing, you're
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  listening, and you'll feel those pushbacks.
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  And, you know, it's not the leader's role.
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  To be the psychotherapist, but is leaders role to be supportive of the whole person, not just
• 20:37
  the work person?
• 20:38
  The leaders have really are affected and really have the high engagement from their people.
• 20:43
  They're involved with the whole person.
• 20:45
  Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive
• 20:51
  healthy change.
• 20:52
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
• 20:59
  rocksandirhaj.com/blueprint.
• 21:02
  We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.