So, Here's My Story... - TopPodcast.com

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Ep69: In Sickness and In Health Oct 02, 2018

Show notes

When illness befell the Hume household, Jodi learned an important lesson about empathy, and how bad we can be at empathizing if we haven’t experienced something for ourselves. It turns out, empathy involves more than emotional intelligence.

Why is that important for business?

So often in business, we jump to conclusions about the motivations, experiences and decisions of others. Sometimes, this lack of empathy is a matter of needing to develop some emotional intelligence. But perhaps more often, it is simply a lack of knowledge or a need to ask more questions.

Lack of empathy is often a lack of curiosity. We think we know what we are looking at and don’t take the time to do additional diagnostics. In the moment when you want to be frustrated with a behavior, there is power in being willing to ask a couple of questions.

In this way, empathy in general is more like a shared understanding as opposed to an emotional response. If you don’t understand why someone has a problem with something, maybe it’s because you don’t understand the problem enough.

This lack of empathy often lives in a blind spot and usually isn’t a conscious choice we make. It is important to pay attention when our inner dialogue is dismissive – and where we are making assumptions about other people – if we want to develop our ability to share understanding with other people.

Resources Mentioned

Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison. http://www.lesliejamison.com/the-book/

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Ep68: Platitude Smackdown Sep 25, 2018

Show notes

Business platitudes: they aren’t wrong, but they also aren’t right. And they annoy Jodi.

So let’s talk about them!

Why is that important for business?

There are many business platitudes around leadership – how many leaders there should be, for instance. Even Mark Twain said, “the perfect committee is made up of three people, two of whom are dead.” (Or at least Eliot insists he said it. Google isn’t as certain.)

But if you have the right people around you, you should value their input based on merit, not based on equity. The problems that people are attributing here to leadership clichés are actually an issue of lack of clarity, either in vision or priorities - it isn’t inherently a problem with the number of leaders.

It is clarity, not equity, that matters.

One of those things to begin to have clarity around is deciding, for each area of business:

Who is in charge or/responsible for this area?
Who needs to be consulted around decisions?
Who needs to be informed of decisions?

These are the three things that tend to get people upset. They don’t always need to feel as though they have a vote, but they usually want to know or be consulted about the issue.

But problems occur with any amount of leadership. And the issue with these platitudes is that they tend to shut down discussion and dilute the importance of collaboration in favour of certainty. Instead, having more than one or a complex leadership structure just introduces a new set of questions to think about, and an opportunity to tailor-fit your own solution. Accepting the platitude as truth takes someone else’s answer and pretends it’s yours.

Ep67: The Devil Sep 18, 2018

Show notes

Ep 66

It’s starts with a movie and this famous dialogue:

“What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around?

…He will be attractive! He'll be nice and helpful. He'll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation. He'll never do an evil thing! He'll never deliberately hurt a living thing... he will just bit by little bit lower our standards where they are important. Just a tiny little bit. Just coax along flash over substance. Just a tiny little bit.”

And from that simple movie quote, we get a story about how it is not the destructive people in our lives that we can see coming from a mile away that we need to worry about; it is the ones that move us just a little bit, slowly and repeatedly, away from our values that will destroy us.

Why is that important for business?

In business, it isn’t so much the employee stealing from you that is going to ruin you - it’s the one that get you to lower your standards just a little bit that truly does the damage. They might even be profitable, but they get you to depart from who you are, and those people are collectively the “devil”.

Often they have a small, almost imperceptible – but very toxic - impact on your business’ culture. They are the quiet spreader of discontent that poke holes in your culture that allow cavities to grow. It might be passive-aggressiveness, which makes it hard to address and therefore insidious. It can become the business version of emotional abuse and gas-lighting.

Because it is subtle and small – there is no distinct contrast – it blurs together and is harder to see. You may not even notice the damage the devil has done until they are gone. And it doesn’t just affect the leaders of these companies, but it undermines the entire culture and can start to dilute core competencies.

So how big of an issue is big enough to address? You don’t want to micromanage, but you also don’t want to create an environment where you send the message that it doesn’t matter. Context matters, as does who the offenses impact. It isn’t the individual incidences that make up a devil, but the ongoing impact and consistency of the action.

And sometimes you need someone outside of you and the business – your very own Albert Brooks - to look at you and say, “he’s the devil”.

What story do you want to tell?

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Ep66: Max Leadership Sep 11, 2018

Show notes

Sometimes, all you need is a public restroom and a therapy dog to teach you some important lessons about leadership. This episode is such a time.

Why is that important for business?

The episode starts with a story about a dog named Max and his annoyed owner, but it turns into a lesson on leadership.

There are leaders who micromanage and push and blame their employees when things don’t work. And then there are leaders who are compelling and make a space for people to be their best. People and dogs can tell when you are interested in them, when you are invested in them, and that interest is magnetic.

When you make your people do things, versus creating an environment where they want to do the things that you want them to do, you will notice resistance. You want your people naturally engaged.

In leadership, it is common to see managers and leaders try to control people’s behaviors in times when it really doesn’t matter. There is a difference between controlling when and how people do certain things that are vital to the job that they accepted and controlling things that simply satisfy the leader’s need to be recognized or catered to. If you are managing activities and not outcomes, then you have a leader issue, not an employee issue.

Interested in telling a story and trying to stump Jodi and Eliot to come up with a good business lesson. Send your entertaining story to Talktous@heresmystory.com and we’ll make some business gold out of your non-business anecdote.

Resources mentioned

Want to learn more about the x and y leadership Jodi mentioned? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

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Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

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Ep65: Fresh Start Sep 04, 2018

Show notes

Ep 65

Ah, September. Not only does it usher in the birthdays of your two favorite podcasters, but for many (or just Jodi) it is also a time for fresh starts. And even if you don’t naturally feel this fresh start energy, there are ways to bring a clean slate feeling into what you do.

Why is that important for business?

Fresh start energy can feel like a reboot, where you get to start with a (nearly) clean slate and bring some new energy to a project or business or client that had previously been missing. The baggage of past performance weighs less, and you get a chance to start anew.

But if you are like Eliot, and don’t naturally feel this energy, how do you inject some of that enthusiasm into your business and life?

You don’t have to join the Witness Protection program to feel like you have a bit of a clean slate. Even in most constrained situations, it is always a little possible to find that fresh start energy feeling, or to reinvigorate what’s going on. You just have to start recognizing the opportunities and perhaps even identify the rituals that exist when you do feel that energy. Those rituals don’t always have to follow the feeling – they can actually hack your brain into feeling a new burst of energy, and create the feeling.

How do you find your way towards this fresh start energy?

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

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Ep64: Secret Burger Joint Aug 28, 2018

Show notes

Ep 64

You know all those things you have to do in business, but you really dislike? What if it were possible to strip your business down to just the necessary and even – gasp – the enjoyable? In this episode of So Here’s My Story, we discuss the secret burger joint, and the lessons that it might be able to teach you.

Why is that important for business?

We often assume that there are things we will have to do in business, whether we like them or not. But there are businesses, like the secret burger joint in Eliot’s story, that belie this idea. They eliminated every part of the restaurant they didn’t care for and stripped the experience down to the parts they wanted to focus on. The message is clear: if you want what we offer, we will do it really well. If you don’t want that, don’t come here.

That begs the question: what is in your business that you wish could get rid of?

Sometimes businesses do things because they think they should. But is it possible to give thought to what can be pared away to reveal just what each business is really good at, or what they really enjoy?

If you don’t want to do what you have been told works, then perhaps it is best not to do it. It is possible to be successful by taking out the parts that don’t work for you. The clearer your business is on what is and isn’t important to you, the easier it will be for you, your employees and your clients.

And if you can’t hire and fire by your values, then you don’t have them articulated enough.

p.s. check out “Come From Away” on Broadway, the story of how the small community of Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, came together to house and feed 7000 stranded travelers on September 11, 2001.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

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Ep63: Not Giving a Dam Aug 21, 2018

Show notes

Not just any host of a popular podcast would be able to turn a disagreement with their spouse into a lesson for business. But that’s exactly what happens in this episode, as we discuss the layers and nuances of “good enough”.

The distinction of how “good enough” you do things comes up often in business and in life, because there are ultimately levels of good enough. Unfortunately, the whole discussion runs with baggage. The first to bring up the “good enough” discussion risks being labeled as someone who doesn’t care about quality. But it isn’t necessarily about suggesting that something be half-assed; good enough is often about triaging.

The problem with being absolutist about “good enough” arises when you spend all of your time solving problems that are seven problems down the road – problems that you might not even encounter – instead of the immediate need. It can even paralyze you from any action at all.

It is important to look out into the future at unintended consequences, but to stop short of becoming paralyzed around the action that needs to happen now. It is a concern when the level of “good enough” that you are demanding gets in the way of taking a next step – when getting ready for a deluge of clients gets in the way of finding your first client, for instance. You can look 5 chess moves ahead, but you also need to have the flexibility to move the piece and adjust your game once the board changes.

Often, “good enough” is about being clear on the nice-to-haves vs the need-to-haves.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

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Ep62: Seattle or San Diego? Aug 14, 2018

Show notes

Sometimes... you need to stop and get out the map. Yessss... we know it's 2018, but WAZE just doesn't WORK for the metaphor we're trying to use in this week's episode. Today, Jodi & Eliot explore getting stuck, spinning your wheels, when you need to know exactly where you're going and when you need to just DRIVE.

This episode is all about getting clear on where you are heading, not before you start, but once you are already doing the work of your business.

Whether or not you had a clear objective for your business when you first started, the need to gain (or re-gain) that clarity can emerge years in.

You can start with a clear mission and a clear problem to solve but find over the years that you have drifted away from it in pursuit of the opportunities that have presented themselves. And there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, the Photosynthesis Model where you bend in whatever direction that has the most sun. But when there is no clear direction that you are headed, it is almost like each individual opportunity that you pursue has its own rocket engine boosting in a different direction. That makes it hard to drive the overall ship.

Other times, you were clear on your don’t wants at the beginning, but need to take some time once the business is progressing to get clear on what you want.

(This is the case for this very podcast, so we put So Here’s My Story on the couch and bring you along for the process!)

There are two perspectives on planning. There is forward thinking planning, where you get clear on where you are now and where you want to be. There is also an option that involves just starting, getting into action in the general direction you want to go. You just start heading west. But still, at some point you have to decide if you want to go to Seattle or San Diego; somewhere in time, you need to pick a more specific path than “west”. It is usually apparent that that time has come when you start to feel a bit aimless.

Many great ideas go down in flames because energy and resources are too diffused over too many things and there isn’t enough focus. Anything you can do to narrow the channel of focus has value.

And if the question you are trying to answer feels really hard, you’ve probably skipped a prior question that needs to be clarified.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

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Ep61: When To Sweat The Small Stuff Aug 07, 2018

Show notes

In this episode, we talk about how the little things more than just count – they are what make up people’s first impressions of your business.

Why is that important for business?

People are making judgments about the details – a flicked cigarette in a parking lot, a tidy dining room table – and making decisions about what that means for the rest of your business.

Small things can often really matter, but you can’t possibly see or care about everything. You need to navigate which small things to care about by being clear on the overarching value. Details make it easier to dismiss your business, and they make it easier to ascribe values to your business.

It can feel like too much to think about – how can you be expected to think of all of the small things that might matter to other people. But if you simply ask, “what feeling or experience do I most want to convey?”, then it is easier to imagine what details can effectively demonstrate that.

If you start to infuse that value into every aspect of company, then you not only get clearer on the details, but you also know your priorities. Because you can’t make everything a core value.

Choose the filter through which you are going to examine the little things. And pick details that will truly matter.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

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Ep60: Care and Feeding Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Ep 60

It turns out, customers are a lot like cats – they are a lot happier when you follow their specific care and feeding instructions.

Everyone has different priorities, different things that they care deeply about. In this episode, we discuss the importance of knowing what makes people tick (and where they like to be scratched).

Why is that important for business?

A “care and feeding manual” clarifies these priorities and helps you address individual needs without worrying about everything. You know where the deal breakers are, but also where the areas of flexibility are. Everyone tries to take good care of clients, but if don’t have a clear understanding of their priorities and what they really care about, you are going to try to do everything well, which is an impossible standard. Using your own filter of what you care about isn’t enough, because we all feel cared for in different ways.

Much like the book The 5 Love Languages (http://www.5lovelanguages.com/), knowing what is important to clients helps them feel the way you want them to feel and deliver work that is good for them. This isn’t a manipulation, but fertilizer – it is the investment the relationship needs to thrive.

This involves establishing trust with your client. However, as Stephen Covey talks about in The Speed of Trust (https://store.franklincovey.com/books-and-audio-360/the-speed-of-trust-book), trust is both a rational and an emotional act. You need to establish both.

Asking clients (or even staff), “how do I screw up this relationship?”, can make all of the difference.

Note: knowing your own priorities is also important.

Different clients and employees need different strategies and care. Care and feeding manuals are not a must, but they make life easier. Think of them as a shortcut to making relationships thrive.

And all it takes is making the invisible visible, so it is a known instead of a guess.

What story do you want to tell?

So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!

Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup

OR...

Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com

Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast

Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.

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