Kathryn is a bit obsessed with understanding how to build confidence, achieve career success and grow resilience. She has had to learn this fast, working as a high-performance coach in the post-earthquake rebuild environment of Christchurch, New Zealand. Her role as a translator between academic researchers and senior leaders resulted in the Double Finalist book, Resilience at Work. These days, she plays a leading role in exploring how to grow stronger workplaces and healthier teams.
The need for resilient leadership teams and stronger workplaces has never been more important as it is now. Because of the pandemic and the oil crisis, the temptation to break down, put your business on hold and hibernate until the craziness has passed is great. But you know what? We should take events like these as a challenge to grow, improve, and strengthen our businesses.
Kathryn gives us all an important lesson on how to build resilience especially in trying times. That it's not about making hard decisions at lightning speed, nor is it about finding extremely unique ways to solve your current problems. It's about dialing up our humanity, by being present and taking notice of what's going on around us and what's going on in the lives of the people in our business.
Extracted from Kathryn Jackson's book, "Resilience at Work" this worksheet can help business leaders choose the right words to motivate, encourage and empathize with their employees. Download the worksheet here.
GET IN TOUCH:
Mark Leary:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
Kathryn Jackson:
www.careerbalance.co.nz
www.linkedin.com/in/kathrynjacksonnz
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
Wednesday, July 14, 2020
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, feeling, resilience, emotional literacy, world, leaders, notice, resilient, emotions, christchurch, fear, team, learned, conversation, words, guess, coach, recharge, life, leadership
SPEAKERS
Kathryn, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson, Leary and my name is Mark, I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And so what I do is I help business owners and entrepreneurs get control of their business. And part of how they do that is by letting you listen in on conversations between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world, talking about subjects you already know something about. But in this situation at a new depth, where there's more details and more information that allows you to pick out valuable nuggets, and break through obstacles and understanding in a ways where you finally get to break the ceiling. So a little housekeeping before we dive into our subject for today, please don't forget to subscribe and share and leave feedback, it helps so much more than you know. It's really helpful to get awareness and also understand that there's something here that's valuable, it does no good to anyone, if the people who could take advantage of it don't get access to it. So it makes a difference. And we love it when you do that. So for today, my guest is obsessed with understanding how to build confidence and grow resilience in the workforce in particular, she had to learn this very fast working as a high performance coach, in the post earthquake rebuild environment of Christchurch, New Zealand, a very tragic situation that was very disruptive. And she ended up writing a book about it called resilience at work. And so these days, she is playing a very important role in exploring how to grow stronger workplaces and healthier teams, especially now when the pressure is the highest. So please welcome Catherine Jackson.
Kathryn 01:46
Thank you very much indeed market so lovely to talk to you today.
Mark 01:50
Well, it's wonderful to have you here. And so you're in New Zealand right now. I am. It's your morning and my afternoon.
Kathryn 01:58
Isn't it amazing, it just still totally blows my mind that we can do this. I remember growing up, I lived in Hong Kong for a while. And we used to have to actually travel about an hour to a cable and wireless call center to go and book a call back to the UK. So I could speak to my grandparents. And then we had to set in a little square room. That was soundproof. And we were given an allocated time that we'd pay paid for. And we would talk to my grandparents for 30 minutes, and then suddenly the connection would drop, and then we'd have to drive home for another hour. So I just find it mind blowing that I'm in New Zealand, I can talk to you in the States. And we're just kind of hanging out at home.
Mark 02:40
It's It's incredible, because I hear you with this mean, it's like you're right here. And it's just it's amazing. This is it's really kind of mind blowing. I do this a lot. And I'm just really kind of taking it in it sounds great. And I think the listeners are thinking like, are you sure they're not in the same room? Sounds like it sounds like there's no it's fast Anyway, let's get to the heart of the matter. Sure. Last 12 weeks. You talk about resilience? Yeah, we talk about when work in the workforce and leadership? What have you as an expert in resilience? What have you learned about yourself?
Kathryn 03:13
Oh, what have I learned about myself? You know, the biggest thing that stands out for me is first of all, I'm not an expert in resilience. I think the reality is I'm a human who knows about resilience living in a really difficult world. And so I think, you know, one of the biggest things that I've learned about myself is that when you're a human living in a really difficult world, and you know about resilience, you can do more stuff to look after yourself. And that gives you the power, I guess, to observe what other people are doing to look after themselves. And that's really catalyzed me to think that or to realize that I'm going to continue to be obsessed about sharing what we landing questions because you know what, I think coverage and Coronavirus, whatever we want to call it this huge pandemic. I think what it's shown us is that you need to know this stuff. It's more than food, fitness and a sprinkle of yoga. You know, that's not going to get you through the last three months.
Mark 04:12
Well, that's interesting, because I heard a couple things in that not the least of which was the knowledge of it. Yeah. And that that means a lot to me Don't say more about what the knowledge of this is.
Kathryn 04:24
Yeah, I think there's some there's an interesting disconnect. I think we I think if we listen to our hearts as humans, we kind of know what to do to be resilient. We, we have an inkling that hopping on line and checking emails at 10 o'clock at night, knowing that you're expecting a really difficult email from a tricky client isn't going to make you feel great just before you go to bed. But we still do it anyway. Many of us kind of know that we're just about to take that decision. So I think for me, one of the really critical things about leadership through that through difficult times and actually, through through times generally, is not only helping people to understand what to do to look after themselves, but also make it helping them notice when they're making choices that aren't necessarily helpful. You know, I had plenty of times during lockdown, where I found myself sort of almost like helicoptering out of where I was sitting and thinking, wow, Catherine, you're reading the news. Again, this is like the fifth time today that you've read the news. You know, this is not helpful. What are you doing? So I think one of the interesting things for me about knowledge is that we can, we can read our pool we like about how to look after ourselves and stay resilient. The reality is that we become resilient by doing it, not by knowing about it, it's a doing word. So that I think is something that's very important for us to keep in mind, I guess, because this isn't going to suddenly get better and suddenly become, you know, or at least guy and fluffy clouds. Again, this, there's a journey ahead of us all for this, this new whole new world.
Mark 06:05
So that's probably part of the essence of what I think's most important right now. It's not gonna go away, like, tomorrow, we are kind of settling in I am anyway, to the realization that this is not the light switch, it's not going to be gone like magic, we are going to have to deal with this for a while. What do you see people doing in terms of reacting to the urgency in unsustainable ways, you know, what I mean, like is like we react, we all mobilize as leaders, we're going to go to work, we're going to work longer, we're going to work harder, we're going to be more focused. And that was sustainable for a week, or two, or a month, or two, or three. Now, what and we start transitioning back to maintenance mode, I guess, I use your words to describe you understand what I'm describing, turn, turn this into something sustainable.
Kathryn 06:59
I think the first thing for me to notice is that we need to be careful with generalizing. And so one thing that always strikes me during any sort of, I'm going to say I'm going to use the word disaster, which sounds quite dramatic. And I'm not just talking about earthquake disasters, because to be perfectly blunt, I've only got my own personal experience in that world. But any sort of disaster where there is a really significant change. And so in the world of business, that might be a team that finds themselves having to restructure out of an organization, or it may be a particular product line, that suddenly becomes unviable. So, that's the kind of disaster that I'm thinking about. And I think if we observe, if we kind of observe how we and our teams behave in those kind of environments, it's difficult to generalize, and I think it's dangerous to generalize, what you will actually see is that people behave in very different ways within that environment, some of them will be exactly as he described, Mark, they'll be catalyzed, there'll be filled with adrenaline, that causes them to really step up under, they'll become Uber productive. And so for a period of time, and they will be nailing stuff, you know, they will be getting stuff out the door. Like you would not believe there will be other people in your team who are frozen, who are paralyzed with fear, there will be some people who you're really confused by because they're kind of behaving the same that they always did. And, and it's almost like they haven't noticed that something in the world around them has really significantly changed. And there will be other people within your team who get really angry about what's happening and, and look around for places to lay the blame. And the reality is that in any sort of disaster, or significant change, people behave differently. And I think that's one of the biggest things that we, we, I think I took from the Christchurch learnings was that we need to as as leaders become more conscious of the assumptions we're making about people the expectations that we place on people and and and how we help people navigate their own journey rather than expecting them to follow a beautiful kind of flowchart of feelings and emotions, which means that within three weeks, everybody will have navigated how they feel about this, and they'll be back to their usual self. Because the reality is, that just ain't gonna happen.
Mark 09:35
Okay, so that's great. And I love the way you describe that breaking it up into really three or so I think was three, three or four potential reactions of people to that are all normal, right, Tom? And one of the things that add some dimension to what I've been doing with my clients and that is helping them make sense of how the core values of their work organization should be reflected. And we're seeing that a lot of organizations see a rising to the occasion, the core values are never more present. And sometimes we're seeing people in companies where the core values are kind of getting tested, like were these really, truly core and what was our team really look like? And that's, and that's really a different dimension. That way you describe that sort of under stress? Did we did we have who we thought we had? And this question is really hard. So I don't even know what we'll have to answer for this. How do you know the difference between somebody who's not a fit for the culture? Who under stress is sort of showing their colors? Or somebody who's reacting normally to one of those different sort of, yeah, stress? reactions?
Kathryn 10:45
Yeah, I love that question, Mark, because that really comes back to the power of noticing, doesn't it? And I think what I think what you're describing is, I guess, to some extent, what's the word I'm looking for? It's to some extent, exposing how well we know people in the world or how well we knew people in the world before the actual event happened. And because I guess what you're describing is, you know, if Peter is in my team, and Peter normally behaves a certain way, and that changes, and is not as not nice, during this difficult time, then I can potentially reflect on the fact that maybe Peter isn't doing so well right now. And we need to sit down and just have a chat about how he's handling the additional stress and pressure. But I guess if if Peter has always been not very nice, and and during the additional stress and pressure, he becomes even worse, and that's a whole different conversation altogether. I like to always come back to in in New Zealand, we have Mental Health Foundation, New Zealand, and they were really instrumental in supporting the work that certainly that I was involved with during the rebuild years. And they have a definition of well being which is feeling good and functioning well. And I love that within the world of business, because it means we can look at the people in our team through two different lenses, is this person behaving in a way that helps me to believe that they are feeling good, and functioning? Well, it is possible to be one without the other. So it is possible to feel good, but not function so well. So you might actually be doing okay, but your productivity productivity drops off. And, and it might also be that people are the opposite. And so they don't feel great, you know, they're really super stressed, and they're not doing so well, mentally, or emotionally or physically. But they still managed to somehow pull it out of the bag and deliver what they need to within workplaces. Is that the kind of conversation? Is that? Is that the kind of question that you're asking them? Mark?
Mark 12:54
Well, yeah, so I you really pretty got pretty much got out of the gate. And and I heard that as you have to be a present manager. Yeah, your present leader, and you have to kind of know is a little bit like when you take your kid to the doctor and doctor says it's fine. You know, like, I know my kids not fine. Yeah, and vice versa. So analogy. So I think you have to be a present manager, and you have to know, was this person, you know, kind of below the mobile. And now that disappeared like that I probably not a fit. And now it's really bad. If they were if they were strong before, now they're not you should connect with them. And what's what's going on. It's not one size fits all under stress. And that's probably where that where this goes is that we have some pretty straightforward tools to understand, you know, in the EOS system that I teach, you can really get a lot of clarity quickly on whether people are the right people, for your team or not, and if they're in the right seat or not. But I do think the burden of evidence collection goes up and under stress, because you need to know the rest of the story. And that's not to say that you should give lots of excuses, because I think you painted a good picture there. It's like if you were if you're struggling before and now you're really struggling, that's probably not the reason to give more chances. It's probably that much more reason to let somebody find it even a less stressful, less bad fit situation for them.
Kathryn 14:15
I think. Yeah, sorry. Yep. No,
Mark 14:18
I like what you said about that, for sure.
Kathryn 14:20
Great tight, I think there's certainly going to be a period of time as we navigate whatever new normal looks like for us to really have honest conversations in in a really, really quite peculiar way. I think what this what the pandemic has done is it's taken the time chunks in how we lead our teams, and it's really x. It's kind of price them open and it said, hey, look, I've been telling you for years, the universe has been telling you for years that you need to get to know your teams better and you need to have honest conversations with them about their level of psychological safety at work and how are they able to come to work and feel like they can be themselves or they have To put on some sort of mask in order to, to deliver that job for you. And if that's the case, then, you know, actually, maybe it's a good thing that the pandemic has exposed that because maybe it's a really great opportunity to have honest and difficult, but honest discussions with people in your team, about how much they enjoy your job.
Mark 15:23
Yeah, they enjoy or they cannot stand it.
Kathryn 15:28
How confident I feel in that job, you know, some people, they would feel much more confident if they just had a few more skills, or if they got more regular feedback about, you know, how well they do their job. So, resilience doesn't always just have to be about you know, what we eat, what we put into our body, how much we sleep, that's obviously a very important part of it. But resilience is also about noticing what you enjoy at work, having a conversation with somebody about that, looking at what you need to grow and get better at, and then putting a plan in place to be able to achieve it. Because that's interesting. So
Mark 16:03
you're so you're saying that the part of the resilience is having a sense of awareness of a few things that give you give you I don't want to sounds overly simple. So maybe, maybe, tell me, is it just about understanding what you do well, in a situation.
Kathryn 16:19
So so what we found in koshetz was that resilience has it at its kind of resilience as a concept, I think, is a hugely misunderstood, little bunny. And I think part of that is because the science is so new. So we've only really had well being science in our world for about 20 years. And from what I understand, it takes about 15 years for the science to become practicable actions. So actually, we're kind of right on the cusp of being able to use this stuff, which is amazing. The reason I say it's amazing is that if we go back in time, just to the 1970s, and I don't know if I can confess this, but I was born in the 1970s. You know, even when I was born, the resilience research was very much done in the world of understanding children. So what was it about children that are born into terrible situations in extreme poverty or neglect or abuse? What was it about those children that caused some to take one path for their life and for some to actually survive and not only survive, but to thrive? And so resilience research back in those days suggested that it was actually something you were born with, or you weren't. So actually, when I was born, and you know, the thinking was, you either have this or you don't. And what's really great is that the science since that time, seems to have unpacked that just a little bit more. And what they've realized is that, yes, most of us have a certain level of what's called natural resilience. You know, some people do find it naturally easier to think about life in terms of hope, optimism, positivity, and but we all have something that's kind of within that, which is known as adaptive resilience. And this is where we can actually grow and stretch, our ability to cope well under circumstances of significant adversity. And so when we think about life, life throws us significant adversity all the time. It might be teeny, weeny little bits of adversity that kind of come our way during the day and sappers of our energy, or it might be significant events, Death of loved ones, sickness, illness, job loss. And so the reality is that life brings us curveballs. And one of the things we learned about resilience in post earthquake Christchurch was that it can be quite helpful to think about it in terms of almost like having a battery pack within you. So when your battery pack has full, you're at 100% charged, and you're feeling good you're functioning well, that's what you look like when you're at your most resilient. And under those circumstances, you're likely to be able to, to be brave enough to do new things, or to have conversations that are difficult. And you're likely to be very, you know, optimistic and hopeful about the world and the future. But then what happens is during your day or in your life, generally, things happen to us to to drain that battery pack. So we might go from being fully charged at 100%, down to 80%, by the end of the day, or something terrible might happen. And we might be 1% by the end of the day. But what we know is that that battery pack needs recharging and it needs to recharging regularly. If we don't recharge it, our start point for anything that happens to us in life is lower than it could be and as a result we're at are less resilient. So what we learned from Christ Church is, you know, harness the science of well being to recharge regularly throughout your day. And to notice any time that you're not feeling good And functioning well, so that you don't gradually sort of lose your battery pack during the day, go home. And then your only coping strategy becomes to kick the dog, grab a beer, and in front of Netflix, or binge watch chocolate, and binge watch chocolate, binge watch Netflix or chocolate. You know, those are the strategies that so many people are choosing, because they've reached, you know, they've reached the kind of almost the bottom of where they should be with their well being pack. So what I guess my obsession is about is helping people to understand, what do they need to be doing differently to make sure that their battery packs are traveling from 100%, down to 60%. And then being recharged. So we do that regularly, as opposed to letting ourselves get right down to 10% or below, because that's what we really do have a problem, it takes us longer to recharge, it looks harder, we usually, you know, we might need clinical support to help us. And so that that's part of, of my, I guess my my dream to be able to influence that with people.
Mark 21:09
So it sounds a lot like self awareness is a critical component of this. How often do you encounter people who don't have the self awareness automatically to sort of realize that and start reacting to it
Kathryn 21:19
all the time, Mark, I think it's absolutely incredible the the number of people who sleepwalk through life, or hurtle through life, I find quite staggering. And so I think this is one reason why it's really important to have at least one person in your life, who will be honest with you, and who will help you and who will have the courage to say Mark today, you don't seem quite yourself. Or today, Mark, you've been a little bit, you've been a little bit quicker to get to get grouchy the sibling, you know what's going on? Can I want to talk about it, I'm here, I'm listening to you. And we, we found that you refer to it as self awareness. And I think that's, that's definitely a really great way of thinking about it. The Mental Health Foundation refer to it as noticing. So you know, what do I notice about how I'm feeling? And then when I wrote my book, I had to create my own framework, and I referred to it as emotional honesty. So do we have the words to describe what we're feeling? And if we don't have the words, how do we grow our emotional literacy, so that we can become a bit more honest with how we feeling? So that instead of just saying I'm fine, you know, of course, I'm fine? How's your day? So great.
Mark 22:33
So you skipped across a bunch of, of concepts, each of which is a pretty deep Well, again, so I want to slow that down a little bit, because you hit some nerves for me. Yeah, great. In terms of emotional literacy, that's a word that I'm working with. It's a phrase I'm working with for myself, because I think of myself and people generally describe me as self aware. But the truth is that there are there are some big blind spots from for myself that I'm working on. And what we've discovered is for me, I have a lacking vocabulary and some of the my emotional literacy for myself in certain types of emotions that have to do with weakness, or I perceive them as doing weakness. So So fear and sadness are words that I, I struggle to reach for first, I had to really teach myself how to add some some nuance and find the times when I'm in defense and attack mode, as a leader, as an individual, or whatever, the just shuts off access to those. So and that's not, that's not trivial work. The reason I bring that up is it's not just like, oh, write that down, be more, be more aware of your own emotions, because sometimes it's not easy. And it takes a lot of work and intentionality is to even know they're there. You know, speaking from a leadership perspective, for people who are expecting themselves to be at their best and are probably judging their best against what they see other people looking like, how do you get somebody started? Who's leading a critical team? Who needs to recharge themselves? And is sort of like, where do I start? What do you tell?
Kathryn 24:12
So I think one of the very first things I want to really acknowledge there, Marcus, that you know, what you describe with emotional literacy, and your own self awareness, observation, reflection, that takes huge courage. And so I think if for your leaders who are listening to this podcast, one of the things you need to ask yourself is how brave I am, because courage is something that you'll need in spades if you're going to start this journey of self reflection. But it's not an easy journey as he as you as you described. You can make it as light or as deep as you want it to be. And so I think this is something that's really important to remember when you're just starting out on the world of self promotion. introspection, navel gazing, whatever we want to refer to it as. And I was working within the construction industry within Christchurch. And so, you know, talking about emotional honesty and understanding emotional literacy was met, as you might imagine, with quite a healthy skepticism. You know, I remember one engineer saying to me, like, Mike, I'm an engineer, I'm black or white, you know, I'm angry, or I'm sad. I don't really understand why I need to know all these different words. And so what I would encourage anybody who wants to just toe dip into the world of emotional literacy to do, it's just google word, emotion words, lists, okay, so I had to, when I was designing, work, designing workshops for the teams within the Christchurch rebuild, in what I started to do was look up emotional word lists, to see whether I could use them in the workshops to to grow emotional literacy and understanding, what I found was quite fascinating. And part of this is because of our depth of understanding of classical psychology. So when you notice emotional words, less, what you'll find is that they are very heavily geared towards negative words. So plus, so called negative emotional states. So emotional states like fear, like sadness, you know, these are words that we are naturally we naturally gravitate towards, you know, our brain has a natural negative bias, and we will, we will notice them more. And when we experience them in our bodies, that the feeling of, of being of having a negative state of emotion tends to last longer than positive emotional state, we kind of brush off positive emotions. And what we know is that if we look in the world of science, there are more ways to describe negative feelings than there are to describe positive feelings. So I wanted to do something about that. And worked with a group of psychologists here in Christchurch to create my own emotional words less than if you like, Mark, I can, I can send that to you after the podcast,
Mark 27:12
and link to it and put in maybe put on the website to download whatever works for you. Yeah,
Kathryn 27:16
yeah, whatever works for you and your listeners. Because, you know, what we found was that it was really even even though we still couldn't come up with an equal number of words for positive emotional states to negative. And
Mark 27:28
that's funny, actually, we tried, we couldn't,
Kathryn 27:31
we tried, but we couldn't quite do it. So you'll notice it's not quite balanced. And but what we wanted to do was, first of all, balance it out a little bit. So try and make sure that, you know, you weren't just given joy and love has two positive emotions, you were actually given a whole raft of them. But we also wanted to break it down into what we're calling what we called soft, neutral and extreme emotions. You know, how when stuff happens, and we have a big emotional reaction, you know, when I think back to what it was like working in Christchurch post earthquake, I personally was not just afraid, I was terrified. There's a big difference between feeling afraid of something and being terrified of something. So I guess you know, one of the, the things that you can do to grow your emotional literacy is a bit of a diary, literally just sit with this emotions word list once a day, and just put a little tick next to all of the words that you believe you felt during that day. And I've done this with people who then come back to me and they say, wow, I have noticed that I'm happier. I'm actually a lot more positive than I think I am. It's just that I haven't really taken the time to notice it. And so you know, this is this is certainly one thing we can do. If you want to play with it even more, get your partner to do it. What did they observe it you get your kids to do it? What did they observe at you, and the the double whammy there is you're growing emotional literacy and your children too. So um, so if you want to get super brave and push the boundaries even more, you might want to ask your team to make a little note of what they see in you. So again, you can start to uncover your blind spots around. What are you what are you thinking and feeling? And how does that manifest for you at work?
Mark 29:20
There are a pause on that on that world, on blind blind spot, because I have a fear that there are people listening to this thinking like, emotions, I don't need to do is deal with that. That's not my thing. I'm fine, and we're good. And I'm like, Well, I work with a lot of leaders who could really do some work here and don't know it. And so the clue I think is blind spots. And and what I mean is, when people are confused by reactions I've had that when I think I'm communicating one thing and the community the receiving party of my communication is reacting in an unexpected way. They they're wondering why I'm angry and I'm like I'm not angry and or something like that. Where the reaction does not match what I think I'm communicating. And so those blind spots, those are the areas where I had to learn that I was just not in tune with my own emotional state. And so was there for transmitting random signals. And so I thought I was following my own words crystal clear, but the emotional energy that I was giving people yeah, and I've been working on this a while. And so it still happens, where, you know, it's just very confusing to the listener. So the trigger for you to know whether this is something you should learn more about is are you getting unexpected emotional responses from people? Are people getting angry with you at times when you don't expect them to be good at getting? Do people ask you if you're okay, and you're like, yeah, of course, why do you ask, that's a really big flag. If your spouse, girlfriend, partner, boyfriend, whatever is, you know, is is concerned and can reflect to your point and reflect back to you, you know, is there more of this going on, they may see the red light going off, when you have learned to tune it out. And it may be for me, a lot of a lot of this has been able to or has been understanding that it's for me, it's I don't want to go down the wrong direction of view when they get to positive words. But for me, it's fear. Fear is is something that I have, possibly intentionally not developed a language for, it's not something that I wanted to have a place for. And so when it pops up, like I don't know what to do with it, and so it's, it's, so I'm learning to understand the various flavors of fear the various degrees of fear to how to recognize it, and and sort of tame it in the sense of, you know, it's there. It's real. It's I mean, my world is about conquering fear, helping people conquer fear, I'm always putting myself in some some some sort of dangerous position, that can fail. And for there's, of course, fear there, that's what bravery is, is acting in spite of fear. So if there's, if I'm, if I'm denying the existence of fear that I'm not connected with reality, so that's the whole journey for me. So maybe that resonates for somebody on the call, I don't know, call the podcast.
Kathryn 32:02
But I really come back to mark, you know, what, these conversations are so important, and Wow, you are, so you're having such a powerful impact on your listeners, simply by having the courage to share that, to share that you're noticing that you're human. You know, the one of the intriguing things is that I guess if we, if we, if we park a certain emotion and refuse to experience that, then we're potentially living life less, we're not necessarily embracing all of the emotional capacity of being a human. And so what I really love there is that you've noticed that there's a word that means something different to you. And you've started a journey of your own to explore how to unpack and be curious with that word, word. And I think that that sense of curiosity is also one of the four foundations for, for being resilient. And what we found in Christchurch is that there is a foundation of learning, you know, if we're constantly looking for opportunities to be curious, then we are going to become more resilient, because we're going to grow our knowledge or awareness, our resource toolkit, to be able to help us through life when that emotion happens for you. And, and I think, you know, if I imagine myself into the world of an entrepreneur is somebody who's listening to this podcast. And as you've said, anytime something doesn't quite turn out the way you'd like it to. That's a really great opportunity to take it to your coach to take it to your supervisor to take it to your counselor, whoever, and to say, Hey, I just want to spend this session reflecting on what might have happened here. And it may be emotions, or it may just be, you know, a glitch in communication, or you weren't quite clear enough for some or you triggered something for somebody else. But that curiosity and and keep holding that strong sense of exploration is, you know, one of the keys to staying resilient when things don't go to plan.
Mark 34:13
Yeah, that idea of curiosity. I have learned a lot about that. And I've always known that curiosity is valuable. And I've been curious about safe things where I've learned more about it is to be more curious when I'm feeling a little less safe. Because for me, the natural tendency is to get judgmental, or defensive or take a posture of some kind. It's not a learning state. It's a protective state if things feel in some way unsafe. And so to have the bravery then, to say, Hey, I'm feeling a little uncomfortable here. But let me learn a little more instead of shut down. That's been a big shift for me, for sure.
Kathryn 34:54
Awesome. Well done. That's amazing. What sort of, I know you're meant to be doing the interviewing My curious question is, I wonder what impact that's had on on the work that you do?
Mark 35:11
Well, it's it's a, it's a progress. It's a what's the process. So, so much of it has happened. It's always it's always changing. And I found myself feeling a little less threatened in situations that I would have been threatened before where I can kind of just, just, I think, what what has happened is, as I have been curious, in uncomfortable situations, basically, nothing bad has happened. Like, I've learned the new habit that if I can get curious, and instead of saying, like, what are you doing, let's not do that, or, you know, or even, which is not exactly how it manifests in a real manifestation would be, I'm coaching a leader. And I see them headed down a path. And I say, like, I know where this path is going, we're not doing this, because I'm not going to see you fail, and you hired me as your coach or your advisor. And we're not going to do that. Because I start to feel the fear of them failing. That makes sense. Yeah, like that's, that's an that's not intuitive, I think, to somebody who is expecting a coach to not be plugged into that. But like, that's what happened. So I get a little fearful that they're going to fail. And so I would start to pull in the reins and say, like, you know, we're not going to let's, let's get you to a better decision. But now, I've learned I can go much further down the path of all right, well, why are you thinking? What don't I know about the decision that got you here? Instead of me making assumptions, and we get better work done? For sure we can. And a lot of times, I'll get to the point where like, you know, I made a lot of assumptions about why you were deciding that. And I do think it makes sense, we go down further, and I've got more of the story. And you may have more of my story, too. And now we can both get down this path to, to the to what you want. So yeah, that's been that's been pretty helpful.
Kathryn 36:48
That has been that what a great example, because I think what you're, what you're describing is that beautiful juxtaposition of being the person with the knowledge and the information versus being the coach. And so, you know, when when you describe coaching, in a coaching is very much about being that safe place, I describe it as a safe harbor, so a safe place for somebody to come and really, really step into choices that they'd like to make without actually doing it for real. And I guess, you know, one of the, one of the risks is that, as you've noticed, if we make assumptions about what might happen, we can accidentally take people off their own course or their own trajectory. So, so fantastic, because what you've done is you've created a real richness to your coaching, around embracing what you notice the voices in your head, what they're saying to you, and then, you know, really putting that curiosity on the table for your clients to, to really find their own way through. Because, you know, he, you know, there may even be some real richness for them, to actually exploring the what's holding them back and the fear that they're feeling that you're then picking up on. And that's what I think is so incredible about this platform of emotional honesty is that it is so complicated. You know, we we can't we don't have a flowchart or a spreadsheet of, of emotional responses, you know, what makes one person afraid, actually galvanizes another person into, into being excited. So that's very true. Yeah. So it's very much about you know, realizing that, you know, emotions are something that we we all feel we all feel, post positive and negative emotions. And, you know, the, the positive emotions ignite all sorts of really great biochemical responses within us, I call it the, the dose of positive emotion. So, the dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. So they actually make us feel good, as well as, as sort of feeling good. We're not within our minds, they can help us to feel good within our bodies. And the thing about the negative emotions is that even when we feel fear, state, emotion, like, like fear, or terror or horror, and it's actually providing us with a message, so we can actually think about the message and just be curious and wonder where that where that's coming from, and you know, what we might be what we might be afraid of. So Wow, watch what what, what a great depth you're bringing to your to your conversation here and do your coaching practice to mark?
Mark 39:32
Well, thank you. And I hope to convey that to the listeners and my clients and friends that it's not about me owning that skill set. That's it. That's a skill set for everybody. And what the biggest learning for me that I would love for people who listen to this to take away as well is that I was very surprised because as a coach, I can I can drop into a situation and they can tell me what's going on and I'm not afraid of it and I can coach them through it many times. And so I thought that was the norm. I thought that was how it always worked and I will was surprised to learn that I could take on their fear in certain spots. And, and I could take it on so fast, I wouldn't even notice, yeah, I would just either change the conversation or react in some way. So the learning I want to share is that you as a leader, and you are communicating and providing confident direction to your team, don't be surprised if if a conversation comes up with somebody else in your leadership team who was looking to you, or you see them in a spot, if, if you are afraid, if you pick up their emotion, if you pick up their horror, if especially if there are times when you don't, and you don't normally do that, that can totally happen. And if you find yourself reacting in a situation where you wanted to talk about a subject or know more about something, something, sometimes that's just it transfers over. And so, but you got to understand it's not it's not yours, it's it's theirs, and you have a little more safety, and you can train yourself to get curious in that scenario and create a safe space for them.
Kathryn 41:00
Lovely. And I think it's really important to remember as well, that that I guess infection can go both ways that emotional infection, it's actually we've, it's easier to catch a negative emotional state, and it is a positive one, it's one of the reasons why I think, I think the science suggests that's a five to one ratio. So if you've got a team of five, in one of them's that kind of office, he or you know, the the kind of negative Nelly, that's, that's always kind of down in the dumps and, and really problem focused, it's one of the reasons that your team as a whole, the culture will go down, because it takes five positive emotional events to overcome one negative emotional event. And so making sure that you know, if you've if, if you if you are afraid of something, or if you are, you know, going into work, and you've, you know, the morning has been really stressful and you arrive at work stressful, and you respond accordingly, that sets the tone. Especially if you've only got a small team of people, the team will pick up on that vibe, because we're hardwired to want to keep ourselves safe. So we're hardwired to spot when someone's in a bit of a bad mood. And you know, we might just make different decisions about how we interact with that person. And so, you know, growing the ability to notice how you are feeling, checking if what you're feeling is true, you know, inviting feedback from other people to become more comfortable with having feelings, and then being able to, I guess, arrange your inner voices to become more helpful, you know, because we've all got those inner voices. And, you know, how can we, what do we need to say to ourselves, you know, markets, here we go. It's that fear of fear thing again, awesome, here it is. I wonder what it's telling us today. So making sure that we're really tuning into that inner voice and finding, finding, I sort of encourage clients to create a bit of a debating Scott up there. So that, so that we've got another voice saying, really, you know, we're really gonna feel this right now, or we're really gonna behave in this way. I wonder wonder, what could? What are, what else we might choose? And those are really, really important things to reflect on.
Mark 43:14
So how do we create this the positive space? I mean, let's talk about your one of your five people at your max, do we fire yours? How do we think of yours? And how do we counteract it?
Kathryn 43:24
Yeah, I think I think we have to get to know yours. I think, you know, when we, when we reflect on, I think what we're seeing in the world right now, it's the impact of having that understanding, and that ability to actually reach out and hear our team. Because there's a lot of reason that people become yours. You know, sometimes they're an ER because they have a terrible home situation that we're just not aware of, sometimes their ears because their story, so the things that have happened to them in their lives in my life, have created a really, you know, a very negative, I guess, filmstrip for themselves, of what they imagined their life to be and their prospects and things like that. Sometimes they might be an ER because they just don't get along with people that they're working with, you know, there might be a conflict of values or a conflict of, of interpersonal skills somewhere, it they may be yours because they're feeling desperately trapped, you know, I work with someone at the moment who is is in a role where they have been promoted to, to a leadership space, but there are technical leader. And so the fact that they're having to lead people as not as not making them happy, but they see their options as either staying where they are in the organization, and leading people in, you know, that's what they hate, but keeping on that salary, or they leave and they take a salary cap, and suddenly they can't afford their mortgage. And they've played this scenario out over and over again. And that's it. feeling trapped in a role that you don't enjoy is just awful.
Mark 45:06
It's the burden of leadership, the leadership has to step in and say like, you know, I always say like, very, you gotta expect that your team is always going to say, put me in coach, even, you know, I can catch the ball and you're like, you cannot catch the ball. No, you want to help, that's not the position for you. And so you have to assume that you're gonna have to do that work as the leader. And so what I heard there for sure is, you know, you don't do any diagnosis until you're sure the right people, which in my parlance means they share the core values. And you're sure they're in the right seat, which means you've fleshed out exactly the function and the roles that you need. And they know that their God given talents are appropriate for that, if you got those two, if you don't start that, if you don't have those two, the rest of the conversation is pointless, you need to get him out of that seat, even if it means into another organization. Fair.
Kathryn 45:51
Absolutely. And sometimes, you know, sometimes there's a middle step. And I think it's really important to remember that what we, what we're not looking for is somebody who is perfect in the role, or and if they're not, they're fired. Because there is that middle ground, and that middle ground is actually about understanding what's causing them to have this reaction. And so you know, what, what, it's almost like, being a leadership detective and looking at, you know, what are the different factors that are playing out in this person's life, which is causing them to present in this way, they may not even know, they're presenting as the as the ER. So making sure that you're doing some detective work and having those conversations. And I think, you know, that's the reality of leadership is if you're not happy, and comfortable and confident and having discussions about how somebody is performing, then maybe leadership isn't for you, because that's actually at the heart of good leadership. That's so true.
Mark 46:48
So great, because it's a part of the tool set is talking about this concept of the three strikes, processed or strikes rule. And it's not so unique, a lot of people use it as a concept. But the idea is, if you're below the bar, which is you either don't share the core values, just by the core values, high enough level to be on the team. And or you are not showing that you understand, there's three words that get it one and have the capacity to do it again, it means you understand it, what it means you're trying and has the capacity, do you have the stuff? Is it like, is it inside? Yeah. And he has to have all three of those. And so for some reason you're below the bar, like your core values, or JDBC are not there, you're going to start the process of three strikes. And it sounds something like look, we have a bar, and you're below it. And I would love for you to be above it and stay, but it's a deal breaker if you don't. So this three strikes process starts now. But this is where I really love what you said, because it informs what you do in between the strikes, it's it is you don't let them die. You go to work and help them be successful, or help them discover that it's not gonna work. And do it with some authenticity.
Kathryn 47:59
Absolutely. And you know, what you were saying there about, you know, noticing with somebody that they are below the bar, and if you could also notice with them that you believe them capable, and, you know, you you believe in them, and that you believe they can hit that bar and not only hit that bar, but now that bar than that, and that your job is to help them do that. And then that, again, speaks to really authentic and supportive leadership. And I think, you know, the world needs more authentic supportive leadership right now. And if we look at the the patterns of, you know, what we learned in post Christ Church leadership, you know, it's very much around having leaders who see and hear people in workplaces, and who don't just expect people to come in, sit down and get on like, nothing happened. But actually to be comfortable at noticing, you know, somebody, somebody might be okay for a few months, and then suddenly, they're not performing. And it may be because somebody in their world loses their job, for example. And they may then feel the pain and the, the anxiety around that. And that might be something they bring to work. So again, as a, as a leader, it's about noticing your team, it's about being comfortable with checking that what you're seeing from people in the way of behavior, marries up with what they're experiencing in the way of feelings and emotions, and helping them to see when they're above or below the line in terms of, you know, what you what you want from them, and then helping them to put a plan in place and being supportive. And that's gonna be hard work, Mark, you know, and, and the reality is, most leaders sit down and say, Gosh, if I could only just get my, my team to just get on and do their job and not bother me. You know, that's great, but actually, that's not leadership. So, you know, what lies ahead is actually good leadership. And if you can nail that, then we will be as a as a I guess as a as a humankind stronger as a result of this, this pandemic situation.
Mark 50:06
So after all that I love where we've gone with this. tie this back to the word resilience what what is it in the context of all this? What is what is it?
Kathryn 50:16
Um, I think it's complicated. I think that's
Mark 50:20
because you're gonna say like Mark, I said, it already said, Are you not listening?
Kathryn 50:26
I think what it highlights is that resilience is complicated, you know, resilient people have, they come and they go, you know, I am, as I said, you know, somebody who knows a lot about how to be resilient, how to stay resilient, how to notice resilience, and other people, but even I struggled on days and moments and hours during lockdown. Because I'm human. So I think, you know, the part of, of resilience that I would love people to take away from this is that we can all be resilient, and we can all lose resilience. So it's gonna ebb and flow. And it's predominantly linked with well being so whether we are feeling good and functioning well. And so one of the biggest things that we can do to look after ourselves is a notice what we feel like, on a good day on a Green Day, when we are fully charged our batteries at 100% and start to notice, what am I doing to get me there? Who am I surrounding myself with? What conversations Am I having? What food am I eating? What exercise Am I doing, you know, what kind of work Am I doing, and and then look for ways of doing that more often. And he said partway through and I had a we had a we chase positive emotional states, that's one way that we do it, we notice the conditions for creating optimal, you know, resilience for ourselves. And then we chase it, we make it happen as often as we possibly can.
Mark 51:59
So I kind of heard the way you described it is really resilience boils down to the capacity at any given moment. Like you have a variable capacity to handle curveballs. And it's shock absorbers for your, your capacity to continue. Yeah. And and so it's the essence of resilience is understanding. And I think he did say this to the point that you know, it's not, it's not a constant state. It is something that goes up and down. And it's your job as a self aware leader, to get it to maximum. Yeah, so. So I what I just said, I like with that. So now I feel like I can I can use that language to look a leader in the eye and say, you have a job. That's more important than anything else. And that is to be as capable as you can of handing handling any curveballs. And it's not about john wayne, in your way through this. It's about understanding, really, what puts more energy in your batteries. So you can handle the most you possibly can at your best.
Kathryn 53:01
Absolutely mark. And, and, you know, to build on that even more noticing it and other people and encouraging it and other people, you know, don't don't just tell people to go for a run to re energize because that's what you do notice that for everybody, it's there was no chance.
Mark 53:17
Yeah. So that's a case of that actually multiplied. So you know, I guess there's two factors there. One is the, for you to put your oxygen mask on first. Yeah, that's it's pretty tactical, I mean, it's you really only increasing the capacity of one individual, all other things being all other things being equal, where there's multiplies if you can lead it into your team, because why I think that's so critical. As I see leaders stuck all the time, in terms of how they grow their business. And they're really not stuck in the business. They're stuck in their ability to grow their leadership team, because that's where the multiplication happens when you can get people to carry more and more of the load and more and more of the of the mission and vision. That's when you grow and make an impact. And so your your style, and your focus needs to change from growing your business in terms of like the widget technical side is growing people. And that's not easy, Trent and a lot of easy transition for people. And then sometimes it transitions again, from growing people to growing people who grow people. Yeah, I've seen that turn the light switch off for people. So when you're talking about resilience as an individual, that's one part of the conversation that has its Do you should have that conversation, but we're in entrepreneurship, it takes a life of its own a whole other levels. Once you have a little self awareness for yourself. It's now your job more than any other to make sure your leadership team is doing that for themselves and for their team because that's when it multiplies.
Kathryn 54:46
Absolutely. And that's when the magic happens. That is is when you give yourself permission and not only give yourself permission, but actually insist it of yourself, you know, insist that you look after your And make sure that you are as strong. Because it's actually it's it's a strength thing a lot of people think that that the well being is for you know, wimps. But actually, it's it's a strength, if you're not investing in your well being your battery is just getting flatter and flatter and flatter and your, you know, your emotional response will simply be less and less controllable. So, so when you give yourself permission, and then encourage others to do the same, so notice with other people in your team, you know, who, who is working extra hard, who is, you know, still in the office who is doing extra time, you know, talk to them, talk to them about why, if it's a short term, busy moment in their world, you know, that's different to if someone thinks the only way they're going to get noticed in a head is by doing long hours. So you know, just notice things with them, give them permission, and look for ways of what I call rappeling. This knowledge, you know, if you if we could help our friends, our family, you know, you can talk about this kind of stuff at the next barbecue that you're at, you guys are so lucky, you've got summer, I'm in the thick of winter over here. So, so when you
Mark 56:12
Yeah, I don't know,
Kathryn 56:13
if we've got an Antarctic storm coming in the next couple of days. So, I know, it sounds pretty dramatic, they usually are actually, but um, you know, when you're at your next barbecue, don't just make it about superficial chitchat. You know, ask people. So what do you do to stay strong to stay resilient? What do you do to reach out, you start to have a chat with with your buddies, because, you know, you might find that people aren't prioritizing it. And that's one of the reasons that we have this, this existing stress pandemic, before we had the corona pandemic, because, you know, people just aren't choosing to look after themselves. And we have to do if we're gonna stay strong.
Mark 56:52
Absolutely. And I love what you said there. There's two dimensions to it, and one is the permission, right? It's like, what are you doing to take care of you? And so it's kind of bi directional. Like, I'm asking, therefore, it's probably okay. And so if the person you're talking to isn't that you should think, Well, you know, maybe there is something I can do. And vice versa, like, if they're doing it, and you're not, then that should up your game. But you were also touched on this point of, it's not the same for each, each person. And I had that happen early on in the pandemic leadership team, I was working with one of the first teams that I was taking time with. And I think we're working hard, they had really mobilize It was a great, it is still a fantastic culture that just loves to go to work. And, and I had everybody on the leadership team go around the room, the virtual room, what's the one thing because I knew everybody's working crazy hours, I was not asking for like, clarity, breaks and vacations. You know, I was like, what's the one thing that you have to do every day that you must hold sacred, that gives you some sense of renewal? And I just threw it out there running for me, which is like your best example. Yeah, cuz you're like, it's not running for everybody. And for me, it happened to me running. But then it went around. And it was like, reading this lunch with my kids. You know, some everything was so different. It was our meditation in the early morning, I get up two hours early, and I get all this work done, or whatever it is, everybody seemed to have one thing, they could sort of put their put their arms around, like, I can't let this go. And there was at least two people two or three people on the call who were like, yeah, good point. Here, yeah,
Kathryn 58:25
that's that mark, that's great. You created that consciousness. So you know, if you could I encourage people to think about that as their well being anchor. So you know, what is your well being anchor? It might be daily, it might be weekly, it might be monthly, whatever. But what is your well being anchor thing that you need to use to recharge and how much are you doing it, and then check it so don't don't outsource your well being to somebody who's hosting a call with you. And, and, and, you know, you don't think about your well being unless they ask about your well being, don't outsource it, take ownership of it, and say, Well, okay, if that's my anchor, what am I going to do to make sure that I, I make time for that all the time, not just when things get stressed? And also, how am I going to give myself permission to have a slightly less than four battery if I don't remember to do it, so it doesn't become like a guilt anchor. Because, you know, reality is some days I'll bet you don't go for a run some weeks, I'll bet you don't go for a run. And so give yourself permission to not be really amazing on those weeks. And don't beat yourself up if you're not really really awesome and nailing out the work. Because it's just that you haven't anchored to that anchor.
Mark 59:46
That's so great. And so you paired up a two concepts one that I was going to mention, and one I wasn't and and the one I wasn't was permission to not be perfect. And that's that's exactly right. And I was not going to include that. I didn't think of it but I just thought That was set the bar low enough. Like if you know if you're like, it's a run less than 30 minutes is a waste of my time. Yeah, it okay. And so you're going to set the set that you have a 30 minute run, and you're not going to do it. Like that's definitely a waste. You know, setting the bar low enough to have it happen at all is so powerful. This, this shows up all throughout the leadership team setting goals. And on our scorecard setting objectives. It's so demotivating. And it's so defeating and it just cripple throughout the culture. And it's when you set the bar too high. It's x for what any number of reasons, it's not good. Especially when you're kind of down down to your last defense here, you're working like crazy. And you're like, I would love to go for a 45 minute run or a two hour run. Well, how much time you have 11 minutes, all right, it's a nice 60 seconds to take your shoes off, take them off. And so and that's your win. Because you set an objective, you had intentionality, you did it. And then maybe you can do that again. And you should reward yourself for that effort. Because it's a big deal. You honored yourself and your own commitment to taking care of yourself which in and of itself can create,
Kathryn 1:01:14
yeah, love. And while you're doing that nine minute run, notice yourself talk and don't just notice it, but drive it and don't find your inner voice saying you piece of whatever, you know, you can only just bloody manager, you know, at the nine minute run, What a loser you are no actually make sure that no voice is saying, hey, look at me getting that ramen. Amazing, I've managed to make time for this.
Mark 1:01:37
That's so funny because I've been using this app for my runs. And I'm not a runner. By the way, that's probably worth noting like I've never been a runner. But it's been pretty therapeutic for me. And it's been something I can do is there's no overhead just shoes on out the door. And I have an Apple Watch. And I use the Nike running club app. And it's all these recorded coaching things. And I'll tell you what, that's like the, that's like the mantra of all of them. They're all like, hey, you're running, hey, slow down, you probably run into heart. Like, we want you to enjoy this. Because if you don't enjoy it, you're not coming back tomorrow. Take it easy, and like smiles. Did you smile at somebody that's a win again, you started running, that's a win. This is awesome. It's all of this. Appreciate self appreciation. It's like, you keep doing this, it's just gonna build and and I can't. It's interesting how many aspects of my life, I've seen that exact message that is essentially like, set the bar lower, increase your appreciation for your progress and use that momentum. That's way better than setting the bar higher and failing more often.
Kathryn 1:02:40
Yeah, I love it. And what, you know, you asked me earlier about my summarizing resilience, and I think can it one thing that's, that's really important to take from this is, I believe, resilience and well being which is what we're talking about. It's a simpler concept than we think. But I imagine that As humans, we kind of want it to be complicated, because that gives us an excuse for getting it so wrong. And you know, we've got this global stress pandemic, and therefore, you know, because we've been stressed around the world for a very long time. And so, so that must mean it's really hard, right? Because, you know, we're all really stressed. And we're really busy. And we're all like, you know, running, running around hurtling through life. And but the reality is, if we want to grow resilience is really simple. It can be as simple as doing exactly that mark. And it some people that I work with get quite cross about that. They're like, actually, that's too simple. I need it to be harder. Well, no, it's not actually do these simple things. And then just notice the impact it has, on the emotions were diary that you keep, notice what happens to your emotional state, when you actually invest in the self care and the learning, and the connections. And, and then, and then reflect on what it does to your overall levels of resilience.
Mark 1:04:00
I think that we get so confused, and I can personally testify that it's so easy to compare ourselves to other people. And when you see, I mean, it's, it's actually it's impossible not to compare ourselves to other people. Now, we know that the best greats of golf in the world, there's plenty of stories. And if you're not a golf fan, you might not have heard the stories, but it's sort of like was it it was a super pressurizing for you to watch someone play against. It's like, I didn't even look at their score. I wasn't looking at the leaderboard. I was just looking at the putt for myself. And I think a lot of people think that that's fake. evidence suggest is not evidence suggests that people like LeBron James, are very self aware of their needs and put things like their sleep. And he's got an old kind of a almost not quite a podcast. It's like a master series on one of those meditation apps about was it I guess it was, I think it was called he has like the series of like, five or six episode series on his importance of sleep and how his entire world is organized around the priority he has for sleep and you will You wouldn't see that you wouldn't expect that. And if you think about like setting the bar lower for yourself, and you think well, but if I'm going to be a championship level, I got to make all this ground like, Well, okay, let's look at the very best in the world. Let's look at, you know, in terms of basketball, thinking of Steph Curry or LeBron James. If you compare their performance today to yours, it's embarrassing. Pretty much. If you compare them to their performance yesterday, it's basically identical. That's the one you got to match. You got it, you got to understand what you can do from yesterday to today. Yeah, it's basically imperceptible for them. They had a lot of talent, they may start off different, they've got other factors. But skipping steps is not your way to be like them. It following the process of simple repeatable consistent improvement, bit by bit, that's doable, that builds on the positive feedback loop. That's what you need.
Kathryn 1:05:54
Yeah, totally. I'd love to just sort of summarize that, I guess. And when you when I reflect on what I've talked about, and what you've just shared, if your listeners take one statement from the time together, it would be follow the science and run your own race. Because that is, I think, how you build well being. And when you invest in your well being, that's what creates resilience.
Mark 1:06:21
Absolutely. So I just realized that we got to start a little bit late, and I didn't check your time, how much time you had, but we need to wrap it up for you.
Kathryn 1:06:27
Um, yeah, I probably do need to wrap up if that's okay, within the next sort of five minutes or so.
Mark 1:06:34
Well, then give me 60 seconds to dive in a little bit. Around this well being I say 60 seconds, I'm feeling good and functioning well. Especially the way you described with one time, sometimes you got one and not the other. What do you do when you have one and not the other? Hmm,
Kathryn 1:06:53
I think the main thing is you notice it, and then you get curious. So you know, if I'm, if I imagine myself in a situation where I'm not feeling good, but I'm functioning well, then I might get curious about why what is it that's causing that disconnect? Because it is very possible to be to be like that, you see these people within office environments, they might present a someone who's, you know, nailing nailing targets, they might even be your office star performer, and you think, wow, you know, this person is amazing. But when you sit them down and say, so how you doing, they burst into tears and say, actually, and I'm, I'm just holding it together, I'm right on the knife edge. But the reality is that these are often the people within our organizations who we overload, because they're a safe pair of hands to do an amazing job. So again, it's just about noticing, how do I how am I feeling? How am I functioning? And you may want to think about quite pragmatic questions to ask in your one to ones you know, as leaders, you're, I'm, I'm hopeful that you have ketchups with your team, and you may ask them to give themselves a score, you know, on a score of one to five, how are you feeling right now? He had, how's he last week been? You know, and then when you when you compare, you know, how you're how you're performing? You know, what do you think on a scale of one to five? You know, are you have you just not done everything that you need to do? Or are you not feeling like you've got the skills and the knowledge and the capability to deliver? Or are you? Yep, just trucking along nicely, or if you had a really amazing week. So again, it's just gonna bring that consciousness into conversations.
Mark 1:08:30
So if somebody is feeling good, and they're not functioning well, hmm. How is that? One of the reasons that that's likely to be,
Kathryn 1:08:37
um, well, I guess, again, that comes back to to the complexity of humans, that could be a gazillion reasons for that. But you might find that somebody is in the wrong role, so that they're in a role that they just don't have the, the knowledge, the skills and the experience to be able to deliver. So they might kind of show up really, you know, looking after themselves and recharged and bouncing around the office like ticket as opposed to er, but you might find that they're making lots of mistakes. They're not, they're not delivering what you need them to deliver. And so again, that's just back to that curious conversation, you know, and, and when you have a conversation with them, and and invite them to reflect on where how they're feeling and how they're functioning, you might need to, they might find that, that they are, they might feel as though they're doing a great job. So you might need to see that this is a performance discussion, or the startup of performance discussion. So again, remembering it's not, it's not an in the moment correction. It's it's about being curious together, and looking at how someone's feeling and performing. And then looking at how you help them to feel good and function. Well.
Mark 1:09:45
Awesome. That was super helpful. So to wrap us up, what is your most passionate plea
Kathryn 1:09:52
my most passionate play
Mark 1:09:54
to entrepreneurial leaders right now?
Kathryn 1:09:56
I have to I have to summarize to one passionate play Mark, that's not fair. I think my most passionate play is dial up your humanity has so be okay with being human. be okay with being curious and sit with your team, notice your team, listen to your team. And if you can do that with your team, and start having honest conversations about how people are feeling and how they're performing, then this could catalyze your business to somewhere that you've perhaps never thought possible.
Mark 1:10:36
Thank you. I love that, because I've seen a lot of leaders under pressure, shrinking away from some of that creating a little distance, I think a lot of unknown, unknowing fear, I think it's assumption that everything's gonna be fine. Like, we don't usually communicate with our team on a deep level, but every quarter, and they don't understand the half life of truth has gone from one quarter to one hour. Yeah, and they need to read that's, and so that that's understanding that we've got to communicate way more awesome, or way more often. So if somebody wants to continue the conversation with you, either virtually or through books or whatever, how do people find you and your stuff?
Kathryn 1:11:15
Yeah, so I have a five man my stuff, so the best place to go, it's really just my website, I guess, which would be careerbalance. So dub dub, dub, dot careerbalance co.ns. Lead, that's the important bit dot code.
Mark 1:11:28
z.
Kathryn 1:11:31
About the season. So yeah, so careerbalance, Korea balance.co.nz. Alternatively, you can connect with me, please connect on LinkedIn. I think I'm Katherine Jackson, and z. And if you are interested in any of the work that I've done, then pretty much most online sellers, retail that the books that I that I've written, so please feel free to, to check them out. They're all designed to try and help leaders have better conversations at work, and to build confidence and resilience.
Mark 1:12:09
Awesome, awesome. So that's it for today. Please subscribe, as I've pleaded before and share with your friends. Anybody who can use this information so valuable, and it doesn't do any good. If they don't get it in their hands. leave feedback. We love the feedback. A few people take the time to give feedback and it makes a really big difference for us. And so we appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary. And that's me, Mark. See you next time. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes and to subscribe, go to leary.cc