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Eileen Habelow on Curiosity as a Superpower · Expertly Said

• Kristen Sweeney: My guest today is Eileen Havillot, PhD, CEO and founder of Leadership Link and Know to Grow. You're listening to Expertly Said, a podcast on the art and impact of communication. I'm Kristen Sweeney, founder and CEO of Every Little Word. Eileen has over 30 years of experience in improving the performance of people managers, teams, and leaders. Her coaching and leadership development efforts have supported more than 110 companies, most of which are in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Eileen empowers smart professionals with the tools to make a significant impact and build people expertise through the practical application of empirical research. She's conducted extensive searches of academic literature and written critical summaries of the research regarding practices of high performance teams in team formation, effective decision making, capitalizing on conflict, and cognitive bias. Eileen, welcome to the show. Eileen Habelow: Thank you so much, Kristen. I'm happy to be here. Kristen Sweeney: Likewise, very happy to have you. So we've heard, obviously, a lot of your career has been spent building and leading Leadership Link, but I'd like to have you take us a little bit farther back than that. Can you share a little bit about your origin story? Did you always know you wanted to work in leadership development and learning development? Eileen Habelow: sure. Well, and actually, I've been at LeadershipLink for 14 years, but that's not half of my career. I've been working a really long time. ⁓ But I would say actually, starting with my academic experience, ⁓ I ended up, had a bachelors in social work. And I realized very quickly that I was not going to be a great social worker because I took everybody home with me. And actually got that feedback from one of my advisors. And they're like, Yeah, I don't think you're going to do this well unless you can, you Kristen Sweeney: You That's it for this episode of Expertly Said. We are produced by Every Little Word, a boutique content and communications agency. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, or leave us a review. If you want to connect with me directly, please do. You can find me on LinkedIn, just search Kristen Sweeney. Thanks for listening. Talk soon. Eileen Habelow: make that change. I ended up going into education, got a master's in instructional design and was so, I was like, this is it. I love learning and development. I love learning. I love teaching and I kind of knew that. ⁓ And then when I learned how to design instruction and to how to design learning for adults, my curiosity got the best of me and I thought, you know, I think I want to go back to school and figure out why this stuff works and how it works. So I pursued a PhD in educational psychology and literally dug into how does the brain work? How do people learn? How do we, what teaching methods work best? And then my dissertation topic, which actually leads to something I'm, many people don't use their dissertation topic. I'm using it now. It was, how do people learn and perform? Kristen Sweeney: Amazing. Eileen Habelow: using technology as a support tool in their work. So I actually did research on a tool that was at Bank of America. You know, when you sit at a teller and they say, kind of account do you want? And they ask you all these questions, that's a performance support tool that helped them make a recommendation. And ⁓ I did a research study on how that tool made the customer service reps more ⁓ effective in their job. So That kind of got me into the corporate world, so to speak. I always thought I wanted to be a teacher. And I ended up doing an internship in adult learning at AT &T. Loved it, had an awesome career there, then started having kids. Got to another corporation that really valued learning and development, really made it part of the way we worked. I had a great experience there. Here's my, here's my biggest pivot point and I think the best decision and pivot I made. We moved to Boston. I was moved from my job and I was a regional manager and I was responsible for this industry called biotech, which I had never heard of, just never heard of it. And I got so enamored by the industry and every company that was our client, you'd walk in and you'd see their mission statement and you'd say, ⁓ my gosh, Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: They're trying to cure cancer. They're working on ALS. They're working on CNS diseases. And I thought, wow. And I literally said, I have to work in this industry. who, it was just so easy to get behind the mission. And so I just watched the job boards at my clients and did some networking and found a company that was willing to hire me, even though I had never been in the industry, ⁓ to work as the director of team effectiveness. And it was the smartest move I ever made. It was the best job I ever had. And ⁓ it really was the turning point of my career because it pivoted me to after a couple of years inside a company and some organizational changes that didn't really work for me. had somebody say, why don't you just go out on your own and do this for every biotech and pharma company you can find. And so that's what I did. And that's how I got to Leadership Link. And then my final step, which we can talk about later, but is the No2Grow company that I co-founded with a very close friend. to bring a digital solution to the same industry. So it's been a, yeah, very full circle exactly. Kristen Sweeney: Very full circle from your dissertation, right? Yeah. I want to talk a little bit more about the biotech piece and who you serve today, but I want to go back to something you said. said social work wasn't a fit because you take your work home with you. Do you feel like that's ⁓ something you've managed to overcome, or was it really the change of industry and focus of your work that's allowed you to have maybe healthy boundaries? Eileen Habelow: Yeah, I would be lying if I said that was for my whole career. ⁓ That would be a lie. I've gone through phases where I've been very unhealthy in my balance. But I think it wasn't necessarily the industry change. It was actually just maturity and realizing, you what are we doing? What am I doing? And I will, I'll have to say, I give both of my daughters who are in the workforce now a shout out because they will often ask me, why are you doing that? And I have to think and I have to say, yeah, why am I doing that? Right? Why am I working until 1 a.m.? so, you know, it's maturity and experience. And then obviously some wisdom-filled questions from the younger generations have helped. Yep. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Those little sages, right? The younger sages. Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit more about the kind of nature specifically of the work at Leadership Link. And I'd love to hear maybe... Eileen Habelow: Yep, exact. Just the questions. What are you doing? Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Anything that is aside from your personal connection and obviously feeling like you're supporting these companies and fulfilling their own missions, are there any unique challenges in pharma and biotech in terms of leadership and learning development? Eileen Habelow: Yeah, that's a great question. ⁓ I think one of the most unique challenges, besides the complexity of the work that they're doing, which someone else could be much more literate about, I think from my perspective, one of the biggest challenges is there are so many brilliant people in the same room at the same time. And I don't use that word very lightly, but there are just so many smart people. in their incredible, with their incredible deep expertise in their functional area that have to come together in the process of drug discovery, drug development, and commercialization. Like all of it, takes so much deep expertise that is diverse. And having all of that deep expertise in the room is such an advantage, but it also creates one of the biggest challenges, which is getting all of those deep experts to not work in their functional silo and to be able to head up and literally get it together into this synthesized, into this soup that makes things move. So I do think that is a, I'll say a challenge. I don't know if it's unique. Of course, there are other industries that have that kind of expertise, but that is a ⁓ challenge that makes what we do at Leadership Link have an impact and be valuable. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah, think too, like we've worked with a range of industries, many of which are quite technical. And I think that sometimes by virtue of that deep expertise that is required. ⁓ I don't want to make too big of a generalization, but they may rise on that expertise. And maybe that gets more of a focus than management and leadership as they're growing, whereas maybe somewhere else in a professional services type sector, some of the management expertise might be just weighted a little bit differently, if that makes sense. Eileen Habelow: Yeah, for sure. And also the technical, the educational backgrounds and even some of the professional backgrounds they come from, you rise with your deep technical expertise and it's a competition, right? There's a competition for funding. There's a competition for resources. There's a competition for ⁓ staff. And when you come into the, and that's how it works, right? The winner takes the funding, the money, the research. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: And when you come into the corporate environment, you have to unlearn that because it's not competition function A versus function B, right? It's literally competition of here's the disease and here we are. So you have to unlearn a lot of things that frankly made you successful, right? If you think about, and I'm going to generalize a little bit, but if you think about an MD, and I even say like a surgeon, they are taught and rewarded and recognized for being large, in charge, the person, the call, and that's exactly what you want in your surgeon in an operating room. And yet, when you get into the corporate environment, that kind of ⁓ approach to work can really narrow the field of what you hear. So I think it's unique and interesting. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And tell us a little bit more about what kind of the scope of the programs looks like for you. Are they big ongoing relationships? Is it very targeted training? Eileen Habelow: Yeah. So I have to share our mission statement because it really is, it's one of the clearest statements of what we do. We turn teams of experts into expert teams. And what I say to clients, you have all the expertise in the world. You have all that you need. And what our job is, is to help you get it all on the table, get it all synthesized, get the best. What I love to say is I love to get the best out of each one of you so that you can get the best out of each other. Kristen Sweeney: Please. Eileen Habelow: And so our programs, ⁓ we actually do a wide variety of things because we actually start with the relationship and what the client needs. And we've been doing it for 14, almost 15 years now. ⁓ We're a little bit more disciplined around, we don't say yes, yes, yes, yes to everybody who comes to us. ⁓ We do have some programs, ⁓ three specific ones, leaders in motion, teams in motion, managers in motion. Kristen Sweeney: Ha, yeah. Eileen Habelow: where ⁓ they are series that we can customize. So that's like a kind of a standard learning and development. ⁓ We have lots of custom workshops all around the topics of great teams, psychological safety, ⁓ thriving and change, right? Some of the more common things that teams need to understand. But then all of us do some leadership coaching, right? So if it arises where an individual could use some leadership coaching, we do that. Kristen Sweeney: Okay. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: And then I love working with teams on a longer term basis. So leadership teams or technical teams who will have us in for maybe their quarterly off sites or, you know, helping them grow in a specific area. A lot of times we're brought in where teams are not functioning in an effective manner. So we do some diagnosis and then some combination of the consulting and learning. So that's pretty much it. Anything that would help a team or a leader. be more effective. Kristen Sweeney: I love that. I saw ⁓ in some of my research before our conversation that you use a version of disk. Is that a key part of how you kind of help teams see one another and people see themselves? Eileen Habelow: Yeah, it's, I love disc. We also use insights. A lot of companies in the biotech use insights. They're very similar, but I love disc ⁓ or an instrument like that because it is a simple tool that helps you understand complex human behavior. You know, not the whole gamut, but I always tell people when you read a disc profile, it's about this much of who you are, right? It's not, you have all kinds of other things that create who you are. Kristen Sweeney: Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: But what I like about DISC is it gives you some clear language around how people like to communicate and receive communication, how they like to collaborate, how they like to decide. And so we use that as an entry tool for teams, kind of a simple one, even if a team is dysfunctional, it's a safe tool that helps people understand what's behind the behaviors, right? So, you you can see their behaviors and oftentimes we judge people by their behaviors. But there's some intentions behind it that can inform why they're behaving in that way. So I like to use this as an entry tool to give teams some safe language rather than saying, ⁓ Kristen, the way that you do this, we can say, Kristen, with your style, I understand what you're trying to do. And yet we need this right now. So it makes it less personal because it should be less personal. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I like what you pointed out, because I think that it can be, obviously, extremely valuable to understand intentions. And yet, as you kind of said, sometimes that doesn't mean that behavior has no impact or repercussions, right? That still needs to be addressed. But knowing how to address that with people in a different way ⁓ can sometimes get you better results. ⁓ Eileen Habelow: Exactly. Kristen Sweeney: I was going to say something about disk. I'm a fan as well. ⁓ I got advice years ago from someone who also used disk very frequently working with Teams management consultant. And this took me a while to learn. What he was like, what a disk can't really tell you is how good someone will be at the function of their job. So. It can surely tell you if someone's got more of a like business development profile or if that's going to be a really tough fit for them or, you know, ⁓ that's going to be your closer, you know, maybe. But, ⁓ I was looking for, I was kind of looking for answers editorially, like, will they be a great writer? You know, ⁓ it's like, ⁓ can I identify these character traits? And at end of the day, not really. ⁓ it could tell me how they're going to work within our team and whether that may be a fit for us, but, ⁓ Eileen Habelow: Right, right. No. Kristen Sweeney: It was a lesson I had to learn of separating trying to like read the tea leaves and and like hope that the disc would tell me Give me all the answers and some sort of predictability before I was making a hire Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah, that is great advice because a lot of people make that mistake. I always tell people if a company is using disk in their hiring process, run, right? Because it's not predictive. It's not about your strengths. Number one, it's about your natural instinct. But by the time you're my age, my natural instincts, I've kind of learned to tame them, right? And I've learned to adapt and I've learned to pull out my natural instinct when it's valuable and not. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: It's a reflection of your natural instincts. yeah, would not, yeah, it's not validated for hiring, so it wouldn't be wise in general, but it is a dangerous thing. ⁓ It is a dangerous thing to use as a hiring tool, Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a lesson I had to learn. I want to switch gears for a second and talk a little bit about some of your research. I'm wondering if you can enlighten us a little. ⁓ Is there anything you see in terms of what you know to be true from research that is sort of misconstrued or misunderstood by the rest of us when it comes to leadership or learning and development? Eileen Habelow: I don't know about everyone being ⁓ misinformed, I do want to admit that I am the nerd who would pay for academic research articles and download them before I teach a topic. ⁓ I would go back and do another PhD. I love reading and research and synthesizing. Kristen Sweeney: Maybe me. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: So that is one of the things that we commit to with our clients is every program we have, if you want research on it, I can share it. And that's very important to me because this is an investment, leadership development and learning in general is an investment. So I don't want to teach something that is popular. And by that, I mean, pop that does not have validation behind it. So I think, ⁓ yes. A lot of myths are being dispelled about what makes a great leader. I actually, in our Leaders in Motion program, because it's all based on research, I've actually written a book about it. It's being edited and looked at right now. And yeah, it's very exciting. I feel like I've been writing it for 14 years and I finally sat down, you know, for six months now. And what... Kristen Sweeney: Gosh, congratulations, that's huge. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: What that organizing that helped me realize is some of the myths of what a great leader. Sometimes it's myths we hold ourselves when we become a leader, right? It's like, ⁓ my gosh, I have to be the expert. I have to be the smartest person in the room. I have to be the best at this job. And it turns out that the greatest leaders are not that. They've actually become a catalyst to build other people, right? But we put this pressure on ourselves. And by the way, you mentioned it earlier. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: I've been promoted for this thing. And I think this thing, this expertise that got me here is what's gonna make me a great leader. And it actually turns out that's not what makes you a great leader. So I think the knowledge, the impression that we have to be the hero or that we have to be the expert, the other one is the hero, I must fix all things. I must make all things great for my team. And yet the best leaders actually are not the heroes. They empower their people to become the heroes, right? They educate their people. They become multipliers of people who can solve the problem. And ⁓ then there are two others. So these are the sections of the book, but I really do like the organization. are two others. ⁓ Leadership, now this is kind of old school, but was, ⁓ just gonna, I have a title, I have the power, I am going to bulldoze my way. You will do it this way. And actually you can get responses from that, but they're not sustainable. The best leaders become bridge builders and relationship builders. And then kind of the same thing as command and control versus building a culture. So I think those myths and really those old stories we're telling ourselves about what great leadership looks like have really been dismantled in the leadership literature. ⁓ But it's such a mindset shift for all of us, especially in the US. It's such a mindset shift. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. know, you know, the things you shared, think something that resonates with me is that, that the the work required to empower teams often requires like a, I've heard it referred to as like a healthy stress or like in order to empower someone, you have to also give them responsibility. And that can mean holding space for some discomfort on your team. And so that can, you know, sometimes go against ⁓ as my, I have a training as a yoga teacher. And so in that regard, I feel like I actually had quite a lot of experience of like holding space and allowing people to, Eileen Habelow: Mmm. Kristen Sweeney: be uncomfortable and the discomfort that they were choosing, certainly, they had that autonomy. I find it a little more challenging in a business environment sometimes to hold space for team and say, if we're going to share responsibility in this way, ⁓ that doesn't always feel like we get it right the first time. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah, and I think part of that stress is, ⁓ my gosh, I could do this and we could be done, right? But I'm going to create space and I'm going to pause and I'm going to basically pause my productivity, right? And I think the other stress comes from you're the leader, so you're still ultimately accountable for the outcome and the output, but you are giving responsibility to somebody else. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Hmm? Eileen Habelow: Right? Because as the leader, I'm ultimately accountable for the performance of my team. And yet I'm saying, no, no, Kristin, you go ahead. You do it. Right? Creating that space. Do it your way. It's going to be fine. It's going to work. Right? ⁓ Yeah. So there's, it's natural. It's very natural. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Do it your way. It's fine. Yeah. Something else that I think is really important for leaders to have, and you mentioned this in your bio, is this ability for effective decision making. this struck me, it really stood out to me because I feel like right now, and I know I can speak to this myself and many other people I speak with, that There's this feeling of kind of information overload all the time, overwhelm, lots of dynamic change happening, many, many choices to be made, not always knowing what is the right choice. ⁓ So I'm wondering if you can just speak a little bit more to. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: what effective decision-making looks like and maybe if there's some guidance for our audience around how to do that in a world that feels like too many options in some ways. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So the research that we've done is decision-making in teams, but I'm to share a little bit because I feel like it can easily be applied to an individual. ⁓ One of the most compelling pieces of research that I have found that has had an impact, again, and it aligns with you have the experts, right? I can just help you become an expert team, is ⁓ Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: I'm not gonna cite it, because I don't wanna get it wrong and have it immortalized in this. I'll share it later. But there is great research done that shows that the process of your decision-making matters six times more than the expertise you have in the room. So, and if you think about it, I mean, I bet everybody who listens can say, ⁓ yeah, I was on that team and we were the smartest people in the room and we couldn't get anything done. We couldn't get a decision made. We couldn't get whatever, whatever, whatever, right? And so what we do, what we teach teams and what we work through with teams is we actually have documented a process and it could be a five minute decision conversation. or a five month decision conversation. Some of these drug development conversations are, you know, months long. And literally what we've done is we've created this diagram of a process to show people where they are. First, you frame the decision. Like, what actually am I deciding? Then once you've got that decided and how you're going to decide what's important to you, you go into the bigger space, which is, okay, now I need to explore and debate the alternatives. Kristen Sweeney: Sure. Eileen Habelow: And once you've done that, you say, all right, I know enough or I don't know enough, but I know all I'm going to know. I need to decide. And so that works really well for teams because a lot of times all they need to know is where are we in this process? Right. And I think your question is great. And I do think that could be applied to individuals. Like if I, I'm a very, like on the desk, I'm an ID, I'm very fast moving. My personality is. slightly impulsive. ⁓ So I move quickly, I decide quickly, I'm not afraid to decide quickly and ⁓ I'm okay with suffering the consequences. Like, okay, I did that. But if I could use that process in a world that is coming at me with all of these things, and it does it all the time, I'm like, what should I do? Where should I take this? Where should I take that? If I can pause and I can say, I mean, what decision are you trying to make? And what would make it a great decision? And I love a phrase that I've learned from a company. What do I value even over other good things? And if I get my decision done, I can say, okay, then you can go into what are my options? What are the alternatives? You know, kind of the standard, what are the pros and cons? And then, okay, do I know enough to make a good decision? And then you make the decision. But you have to pause, slow yourself down a little bit. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: I might even, know what, Kristin, one of the best pieces of advice in terms of individual decision making I got years ago from a friend at work and I was, I don't know what, was ruminating over decision and ⁓ my gosh, and what am I gonna do with, what am I gonna do with, what am I gonna do with? And my friend Claudia said, you don't have a decision to make yet, because none of this has happened. Like you don't have a decision to make yet. And I think that could be really valuable now, right? Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: all kinds of new things coming at me every day in every part of work. I could read. If I read everything on my book list, I would die before I finished my book list. Right? So because I hear of a great book, I hear of great research, I can't do it all. So how do I decide? I need to pause and I need to say, I even did it yesterday. Somebody, somebody offered me the name of a book that I was working with and I'm like, that sounds so cool. And I looked at it last night, of course, and I said, you know what? It does sound cool. Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: I looked on on the, on the, thrift books and I was like, that does sound cool, but I don't need to read that now because there are so many other things I should read. So I think maybe making sure there is a decision to make. And if there is like not a today decision, maybe there's not a today decision. Maybe that's later. I can put that off so it's not swimming around as an open circuit in my brain. Maybe I don't have a decision at all, but then if I do have a decision. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: Let me sit for a minute. What is the decision? What are my options? And then what's the best I can do right now? And I say I'm willing to take the consequences because you have to be. You're never gonna have all the data you need to make a decision. So you basically have to give yourself some grace and say, I made the best decision with what I knew at that point. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, I love that. ⁓ I am a CD, so I like all the information and to move quickly. sometimes can be challenging. ⁓ But I think it gets back to what we were talking about with the teams, which is that you have to recognize which parts you can control, which are the decision you make, but not necessarily the outcome of that decision. You place your bets, you're developing a hypothesis, right? Like you go with... Eileen Habelow: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: what you believe to be the best option in the moment, given the circumstances, ⁓ but recognizing that actually you aren't in charge of what happens next with, you know, and you can't know with certainty. It's one of the hardest parts. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And the circle of control is one of my favorite tools to share with leaders. If you have circle, what can you control? What can you influence and everything else? You've got to figure out how to let go. It's one of my favorite tools to keep leaders sane basically. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. ⁓ Before we jump into our one big idea, which I'm really excited to chat about, I want to ask you to tell us a little bit about AI Lean and Know to Grow. And we talked about that full circle moment where ⁓ your dissertation research in technology is kind of coming back around for you. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah. And, ⁓ it is, yeah. Hey, Eileen, I know it's a little awkward for me every time I have to introduce it, but I know it's a cool name, but it's a little, it's a little, ⁓ embarrassing, but, my business partner, ⁓ who I've worked with for years and have known for years, we just, you know, we've, we've kind of swam around each other and intersected and I don't even know how it came about, but we were talking about, in fact, no to grow was not an Kristen Sweeney: Am I saying it right? is it Aileen? Okay. Eileen Habelow: an AI based company for the first six months. We were talking about just putting things online, giving access to people who can't, know, companies aren't really willing to commit for that long, that long, you know, one week off site anymore. So we were just talking about that. And then AI boom came and we literally, we thought, ⁓ my gosh, what if we could train a bot? on all of the leadership link models, all of the training and the research that we've done. We've trained it on disk, we've trained it on other tools and to make it available to people as a thought partner. I mean, just like you use, well, if you're using chat GPT effectively, right? So we decided to create Ask AI Lean. as something that lives on our site. So that when you take one of our live courses for LeadershipLink, we actually create a page for you that has all of the source material, the course material, if you want to dig deeper, related research, we'll update it periodically, but you always have Ask Aileen down in the corner. And what I like about her is that she's got boundaries. She's not going out to the web to find out every feedback model and give you five different ones. She's actually been trained that if she knows a feedback model or a difficult conversation model like we have, she doesn't go out and find all the other great ones. She says, you learned IOIC plus A. Here's how you implement it. I do like, I love to offer that as a resource to people for, ⁓ I guess I should get my wording correct, but it's like for the smaller things or for the. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: the thought partner for the, help me get started. Give me advice on how this sounds. You know, I wouldn't want to ask Aileen for any legal advice or any, you know, employee related, none of that. But I have to have a difficult conversation. I'm having trouble adapting to this person or making, I don't know how to motivate this direct report I have. So all of those things, I have this team that goes straight to red-heated personal conflict and they don't first, you know, Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, sure. Yep. Eileen Habelow: So I like to think of Ask AI Lean as a resource first, just a starting point. And what the research showed, and this is kind of how it goes back to my dissertation, what the research shows is there's a few things that are going to make, and I'm going to say in general, the use of AI more effective. ⁓ If you just do chat GPT, like I could say to chat GPT, ⁓ help me ⁓ find a molecule that will Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: cure ⁓ acne, whatever, I just picked something. So, and it could give it to me. But guess what? I can't do anything with that. Because the research shows unless you have foundational knowledge, this extra knowledge is not going to be valuable. So what we learned in the research is one of the success factors of these performance support tools being effective is you've got to have base knowledge. You've got to have Kristen Sweeney: Mmm. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: some understanding of the concepts that you're writing about or that you're asking about. So that was one thing that, we designed like, take our online learning, take our facilitated class, but then come back here for application practice because you've got the concepts. And the other thing that actually we built in a long time ago, even to our in-person things with at LeadershipLink and now at Know2Grow, we do it online is ⁓ the biggest predictor of success of using these online tools. Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: is actually manager reinforcement of using the tools. Does your manager expect you to do it? Does your manager ask you to do it? So what we did years ago, and now we've really, I wouldn't say perfected it, but we've made it much more effective is after everything I do, the managers of the people who participated get a reinforcement guide. Here's what your people learned. Here are the behaviors you should look for. Here's some great questions to ask to reinforce. Kristen Sweeney: Nice. Hmm. Eileen Habelow: Because that, I you can even, I mean, that's where the impact comes from, right? Is when somebody is expecting you to do it, supporting you doing it, coaching you through it. So it's that, so you can have your manager do it and then you can also have Ask Aileen, right? So all of that is turning, I was off turning, learning into performance. And my oldest daughter will tell you that she still has PTSD from her high school days when I, so I, Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah. Yep. Nice. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: Read a book years ago called the knowing doing gap and it's about what makes you know, we say knowledge is power. I don't really believe that. think knowledge that you use can be power, right? But just knowing something. so anyway, you know, you, you know, a lot of things that you don't do, right? I know, I know a lot of things that I don't do and my poor kids, they would say, I know mom. And I would say, yeah, but you're not doing like, what's, what's the difference? And that's. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Eileen Habelow: That's kind of what I've brought into my work also. How do you do it? How do you apply it? How are you trying? Kristen Sweeney: It's interesting that you say that. And one of the things that I have sort of recognized, ⁓ I just joined a group. It's like a six week group where we're focusing on writing, writing in community. ⁓ I, like in one of my reflections, I sort of acknowledged, I like, you know, I feel a little. silly that I feel that I need this. ⁓ This is a pattern that's come up with me, you know, pretty much every time I invest in something that I think, I know how to do that already. I feel like a little bit of inadequate because I can't. And I started to come around to the idea that actually maybe that is a belief that has been ingrained in me that I need to do everything alone. And so I think about the model you offer, which is in community with facilitation, with these experts, not saying, OK, the information is enough and now you just have like that there's no support required to go translate that into action. So yeah, yeah. Awesome. I want to make sure we have time to hit our. ⁓ Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Kristen Sweeney: our one big idea because I know we have a lot to talk about here. So this is the chance for us to dig into one ⁓ specific insight or experience. And we've been talking all along, and I think it's going to be pretty straightforward for readers and listeners ⁓ to understand that communication is a very foundational part of everything we've been talking about with your work with learning and specifically around leadership development. ⁓ Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Hehehe for sure. Kristen Sweeney: When I spoke with you and said, how would you relate ⁓ communication more specifically in this interpersonal sense? And you said the one big idea we wanna talk about is curiosity is a superpower for leaders. ⁓ So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and let's dig into like what it looks like to really be curious and do that well. Eileen Habelow: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny, I want to, I want to go back to the last thing you just shared before we transitioned to this is you said, right? You said, you said, cause it ties to this. said, you know, I always feel badly or, you know, in comp, you know, not incompetent, but I always feel badly when I sign up for something I should know how to do. What if instead you looked at that, like, I am a super great writer. I'm so great that I can, you know, ⁓ teach other people and I can help. Like it's a gift for you. And what if you said, but I'm curious what else I can learn. Kristen Sweeney: ⁓ yeah, by all means. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: I'm curious what other perspectives I could take. And that would just shift everything. that's curiosity as a superpower. I've said it for years. I learned it myself about probably 20 years ago now. ⁓ And then of course, I'm a huge Ted Lasso fan. So the Be Curious, Not Judgemental. I actually have a Jeep with a tire cover that says Be Curious, Not Judgemental. So I'm like really all in on this. Kristen Sweeney: Hahaha Eileen Habelow: And so, and I had a hard time. That is my one big idea that curiosity is a superpower. But what's really important to me is that we understand it's not just asking questions, right? So underneath, like if I'm going to be and I think about, I think about you as an expert in your craft, and I think about the people that I work with as an expert in their craft. And one of the things that you have to get over or address first to be really curious is the mindset of, I'm already the expert. I already know what I need to know, right? I can already do this. And which is very true. And yet if you're gonna be curious, there are all kinds of other perspectives and viewpoints and ideas that you can actually learn from that would add to your, I already know this, right? So to use curiosity as a superpower, you have to first get over the mindset and the belief that I'm good. I know, I know what I need to know. And that's hard. The more expertise you have, the harder that is, right? Because the more experience, the more success, the more rewards you've already experienced. that was one. And then the other thing that tying it back to leadership for me is everything a leader says and does is amplified. And so when I think about that for communication, I think every idea that a leader throws out, this is where I first learned it, every idea that I throw out in a brainstorm has more weight than anybody else's idea in the room just because of my position. Even in the most equality driven teams, there is a weight. And so leaders need to be aware that when I say something, Like if I throw out an idea, a lot of times that lands as, yeah, that's how she wants to go. She's already decided. Kristen Sweeney: when what you're really looking for is like, give me some feedback on that. Yeah, yeah. Eileen Habelow: Exactly. Exactly. Right. And so then the third part of it is, so you have to shift your mindset. You have to realize and be aware that, you know, I'm not just throwing out an idea. I'm throwing out an idea with a 10 pound weight on top. And then the third, because the third thing is, all right, I have to be as a leader. And this is the communication part. Genuinely curious. Like not asking a leading question that I already know the answer to. Not. asking ⁓ a question that, and I use the word, not asking a quagestion. So not asking a question that's really a suggestion, right? Leading the witness, can't, know, ⁓ and just, I have to ask a genuinely curious question. When I ask you a question, if I was asking you about leadership, even though I know a whole bunch about it, I need to be genuinely curious about what you're thinking. Kristen Sweeney: Leading the witness, yeah. Eileen Habelow: so that I can be open and kind of goes back to the first one that I'm not, I might be an expert, but I don't know everything. And there's always something new to learn. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, it's so interesting. you know, when we work with experts, which we do, this is kind of the core of our work, but we're working with them to take their knowledge and translate that into. marketing and communications messages that are going to resonate with their audience. And so I find that I, in that role as the interviewer, having that dialogue with experts have to kind of hold two ways of being because I do need to be genuinely curious. This is someone who has lots of information I don't have and I need what they have. And at the same time, I've got one eye on, but I do know the Eileen Habelow: Hmm. Kristen Sweeney: the shape of what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to create. And so I also need to guide them. And I have pattern matching and experience. And it turns out certain things about what people want in B2B businesses are quite universal. And so I have some expectation. ⁓ So it's interesting that I find I'm able to, I need, in fact, to do both in that particular setting. But. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: different from, that's not exactly a leadership setting, it's just making me think about the ways that shows up for me professionally, yeah. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah. And I, and, and it's hard, I'm guessing, right? And it takes intentionality because you probably do know sometimes the best way, the quickest way. And yet, you know, if you push too hard on that, the person's not going with you. Right. So that's, they call it the paradox of expertise, right? The more you know, the less you think you need to know. Kristen Sweeney: It does. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: ⁓ There's a lot of different principles around it, but it's really hard. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. I'm curious about, curious, when you bring this genuine, don't know the answer to the question, what comes up for me and, you know, probably like very revealing of is that that like solutions oriented mentality. So sometimes this happens with my kids. Honestly, they'll tell me something and I'll be like, uh-huh. And that's not enough for them. But I'm kind of like, what is it? Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: you want me to do? How do you want me to fix this or address this?" And so, and maybe that's not what they need. Maybe they just need me to say like, that is a boo boo, baby. Like, it is. It is. I can't see it, but it is there. ⁓ But I wonder if... Eileen Habelow: Right. Confirmation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: how you think about kind of holding that space in between of, okay, well, something unexpected came up from me being genuinely curious. Now, now what? Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Well, I think so there's one thing when I ask ⁓ a genuinely curious question, like I always say with my coaching clients, I'm so thrilled when somebody says, ⁓ my gosh, I never thought of it like that. Great. That's great. That's exactly how we unpack thinking and how we learn. And I love when somebody makes me say that, like, ⁓ geez, I never thought of that. Because and you have to love that and you have to be okay with that. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: And you have to not take that as, oh, geez, they're smarter. Or how could I not think of that? What a dumb, you know, no, it's it's wow. When we put your brain together, my brain together, we've got better ideas. So I like actually to. So, I mean, I love to say that's interesting. And then another question is, do we want to dig into that? Like, is it interesting and useful or is it just interesting? Right. Like, is it good for where we're headed? so I, I don't know if I handled that space where somebody said something I didn't expect. don't, I think I handle it the same way. And I say, I'm curious about that. Like, let's be curious about that. And let's be curious about that until we get to the point where we say, all right, we're going down a tangent. This is super fun, but we should probably just have a coffee and do that one. Or this is really interesting. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: and it's getting us somewhere. And I do, I literally, stopped a group yesterday that I was working with and I said, is this conversation that feels like a tangent to me, is it valuable now or would it be more valuable as a one-off? And one time they said, one-off, let's stop, great call. And the other time they said, the program leader turned to me she's like, we need this, can we have another 10 minutes? Sure. Right, decide, you decide, right? But it's somebody asking the question, Kristen Sweeney: Wow, yeah. Eileen Habelow: Is this serving us now or could we do it later? Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, well, and one of the things I think I hear in there is taking that space, right? Of just like, that the acknowledgement and staying interested, yeah, can be enough, at least for that moment. It doesn't have to turn right into, what do do about that? What do I do with this information? Where do I file it? How do I apply it? Like right away. Yeah, sitting with it a little bit. That is. ⁓ Eileen Habelow: Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's the closure you want. That's the performance culture. You want closure, you want to finish, you want the problem to be solved, you want it to be done. I don't know that you could use this on your younger kids, but you can use it. But I ask my adult kids when they call, are you venting or do you want me to help you solve? Because either one is fine. But if you want to ⁓ I'm on your side. I'm listening. If you want me to help you solve. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm Yeah. Eileen Habelow: Let's have that conversation. So you probably couldn't ask your littlers, little ones that question, but you can kind of figure out like, what do they need right now? You know? Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Yes. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I mean, who hasn't been on the side of someone trying to solve our problems or being like, you should just, and you're like, no, I'm not there yet. Still in complaining mode. Eileen Habelow: And you know what else, I think, you know, of course I'm a reformed problem solver, advice giver, and so I'm the worst, right? So when somebody comes at me, I share a problem and they say, you should do this. I literally say, don't you want to ask me a few questions first? Sometimes I say it, I always think it, but you know, it's like, I'm a reformed advice giver, so I'm the worst of the worst. Kristen Sweeney: Nice. I love that. I love that. So curiosity and that letting, sitting with that, I think, is, you know, what I'm really taking away. Eileen Habelow: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the other, so I have a, my brain definitely needs closure. Like I, I will ruminate and if there's too many things going on, I'm scattered. So sometimes I do, like I journal a lot. I journal a lot. ⁓ if you saw my desk just last night, I had probably 30 sticky notes, four or five by seven pages full of notes and ideas. Cause I just, have to get them out. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Eileen Habelow: And then what, but what that does is it lets me get them out. Like my LinkedIn posts, which I'm about to start again is like, I've got a list, but I've got to get them out. And then when I come back to them, it's actually easier to say that was a random thought. That's not valuable. ⁓ this is really valuable, right? It gives me space to evaluate. ⁓ Because I am very curious. So I do have lots of things flowing around in my brain and I, but I have to write them down because of Kristen Sweeney: Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Eileen Habelow: You know, if I had, ⁓ you know, in the moment ability to post to LinkedIn, that would be embarrassing. That would be embarrassing, right? Because I would be like, people would be like, what is she doing? ⁓ So that curiosity is great, but then there is a pause that's required. Yeah. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Pause, yeah, yeah, I love that. So Eileen, before I let you go, this has been such a fascinating conversation, but I wanna make sure we get to our lightning round segment. This is the last word. Every guest gets the same five questions, so you could go with your gut on these. Are you ready? Question one, what is your favorite word to say out loud? Eileen Habelow: Yes. Yeah, I loved it. Okay. Okay. Yes. ⁓ ⁓ So this will tell you a lot about my personality, it's booyah. Booyah! Kristen Sweeney: Hahaha Eileen Habelow: I do love that. Yep. Kristen Sweeney: Question two, what's a word you know from reading, you're not quite sure how to pronounce it? Eileen Habelow: I guess somebody would have to correct me on my pronunciation. think what's more, ⁓ what's very confusing to me are some of those words ⁓ that have the weird, weird, but the Latin, like alumni, alumnus, alumnae, alumna. I have no idea. Like, even in my business, don't know curricula, curriculums, curriculum, curriculas. I don't know. I guess it's the you. I don't know how to. Kristen Sweeney: Mmm Yeah. Eileen Habelow: But is it conjugate that verb? Probably not conjugate, it is. Okay. Yeah. I get very confused with all of those. So I typically say like alum and course rather than using those words. Kristen Sweeney: Yes, yes, yeah, yep. Yeah, there you go. Just the avoidance method. I think too, ⁓ I did take Latin for a summer. I was a medieval studies major along with being a musical theater major because only an actor believes that to be a practical second path. Yeah, I say if I go back to school, I'd love to just like go and research and dig into that more deeply at some point. ⁓ But. Eileen Habelow: Wow. Wow, that's cool though. Yeah, cool. That's cool. Kristen Sweeney: So I did take Len and I remember our teacher having us like punch while we did our conjugation because he was very into being like a kinesthetic learning as well. Yeah, yeah. But at the end of the day, it's also like depending on the environment you're in, if you're too proper, then it's also a little off putting to folks. So ⁓ yeah, I love, I... Eileen Habelow: Yeah, some good research on that too. Yeah. For sure. My youngest brother calls me out on that all the time. He's like, can't you just say this simple? I'm like, yes, I could. If I could. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Number three, what's one phrase or saying you wish could be retired for good? Eileen Habelow: That's so easy. Whatever. I hate when people say whatever or whatever, like no opinion. No, drives me crazy. Yeah. No, I don't like that at all. Yeah. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. What's a communication practice or principle that's non-negotiable for you? Eileen Habelow: It's kind of back to what we just said, about it's, ⁓ I love, and I got this feedback on my first dissertation, actually, my first draft, my, I thought it was brilliant. And my professor turned it back and he's like, yeah, but nobody can read it but me and you. It's not valuable. And so I've always remembered that. And I think it was Einstein who said, it's easy to make something complex. It's difficult to make something complex simple. Kristen Sweeney: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: Right? Like, so I do try to, and I have to be challenged sometimes. Like that sounds very fancy, Eileen, but what are you talking about? So ⁓ I try to get marketing empathy. ⁓ So yeah, I think that, I think that would be it. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah, when I am writing for myself, it's not necessarily that it or, you know, doing marketing for for every little word. It's not necessarily that what I'm. trying to explain is so technical, but it is sometimes nuanced and can feel very swirly inside my brain. And I will say out loud, like, what am I actually trying to say? And then write some notes and then be like, ⁓ there we go. That's the starting point now. We can jazz it up from there, but really stopping and saying, OK, what in the plainest terms am I actually trying to communicate here? Yeah. Eileen Habelow: That's good. Yep. Yeah. That is great. That's a great thing to stop. Yeah, stop and think. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. And last one, what's the last thing you read, or watched that really stuck with you? Eileen Habelow: I thought of, ⁓ I thought the second Wicked movie, The Wicked for Good, had some pretty profound messaging in it in terms of, I love the first one, but I think the second one made me, got me inside Elphaba and how difficult we make it for people who stand up for rights. for what's right, just because it's uncomfortable, like they're against the grain. That really, was a sad, ⁓ for me, it was a sad picture of the inside scoop of how we make somebody feel just because they're different. So hopefully that's not too depressing, but that's how it hit me. It's like, wow, we make it so difficult for people to be different and to go against the grain. And then to see her as a person. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. No! Yeah. Eileen Habelow: and how it made her feel, like really struck me. Really struck me. Kristen Sweeney: Yeah. Because often that makes us feel uncomfortable, you know, hard to see someone... I don't know. Yeah, I know what you mean. I know what mean. Yeah. Eileen Habelow: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. In fact, thinking about it makes me want to go back and watch it again, because I think it was just such a personality study. ⁓ Kristen Sweeney: I have. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. I've seen the show, I've read the book actually, which is quite different from the movies. ⁓ But it's been on my list and I was just saying the other day, was like, you know, I never saw that. It just, I don't know. Thanksgiving seems like it was just yesterday. ⁓ Eileen Habelow: It's good. It's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was good. It was, it had a big impact on me. Yep. Kristen Sweeney: Awesome. Reinforcing, I'm gonna make the time for it. Eileen Habelow: Good. Good. Kristen Sweeney: Eileen, thank you so much for joining me today. If our listeners want to learn more about you, where can they go to find you? Eileen Habelow: probably leadershiplink.com or I'm on LinkedIn, just Eileen Hablo. Yeah, I'd love to connect. Great. Thank you, Kristen. Yeah, I had a blast. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Kristen Sweeney: Thank you so much for being here today. Really appreciate this conversation. You too.