Download the Are You Awesome Today? – Transformational Leadership with Jason Scott – Part 2 Transcript

Stephen Shaner:

Welcome to the Are You Awesome Today podcast. I am your host, Steven Shaer, and you are invited to join US Weekly as we talk with successful people who will share with us their personal and professional experiences that have taken them from great to awesome.

Steven Shaer:

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Are You Awesome Today podcast. I am your host, Stephen Shaer, the Attitude Chiropractor. Welcome to part two of Transformational Leadership with our guest Jason Scott, you have a comment here in your bio that I’d like you to expand on a little bit why you should communicate your accomplishments daily.

Scott:

Okay. So thinking about what we’ve already talked about and your audience, I’m gonna tell you a story. I have the pleasure of working with a lot of IT executives in Fortune 500 companies. People in technology have an outright disdain for anything that feels, sounds like, looks like sales. Yes. So what happens? So what happens is they, they’ve the vast majority of their engineers, they’re really smart. They have these degrees and they’ve bought into this concept of if we build it, they will come. Right? So, hey, they’re gonna do these com super complex things that are, it’s like what NASA does at, like, everything they build is customized for the business way out there on the bleeding edge of technology. And the vast majority of their customers think all they are is the help desk. You know, the people you call when your computer’s not working Mm-Hmm.

Scott:

<affirmative> when in fact their, their global supply chain doesn’t work unless their IT department is killing it. Right? Like literally nothing works Like it is layer one of every organization today and the vast majority of their customers don’t get what they do. They think they’re the help desk. One of the big problems that IT departments face is, first and foremost, they think of themselves as sg and a or just an expense on the books, right? They, they just spend money instead of thinking, okay, how can we spend money in a way that drives growth for the business? And in that case, their thought process is driving impact on both sides of the p and l. Not just the loss, but on the profit side becoming a growth partner. So in becoming a growth partner for their businesses, the biggest problem that they have to overcome is that their per the perception of it is only as good as the last time something broke, which frankly isn’t that often.

Scott:

But the impact of the things that they’re operating breaking is generally very huge costly. Alright? The other thing is that they don’t exist. Like, you wouldn’t have 700 people in an globally, in an IT department in a Fortune 500 company if you didn’t think everything was gonna go according to plan all the time. You don’t need all those people to keep the lights on. Right? Right, right. You need all those people to drive growth and then solve big problems when they happen. Why should you communicate your accomplishments every day? More importantly, regularly? Because the IT department that’s seen as the IT department that breaks things that’s not competent, meaning that has outages where things go wrong. By the way, the IT department that’s not communicating what their accomplishments every day, right? mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the only time anybody hears from them is when something goes wrong.

Scott:

And now they’re perceived as the IT organization or the, the, the cyber organization or the digital organization. That’s like the bad news bears, right? So you know how the organization asks you to help them digitally transform when they perceive that you’re, that they tell you the least qualified people tell the qual their engineers and their subject matter experts how to do their jobs. That’s not good. That’s bad news When you, the bad news bears IT department because you’re only communicating when things go wrong. Go and ask for funding to do something that you know will drive growth for the business. They don’t trust you. They tell you no. But if you’re looking at the work that your team is doing, if one, you’re rationalizing what you’re doing in respect to how everything you do improves customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction and profitability. And if you can’t figure out how it does that, it won’t.

Scott:

So don’t do it. Right? So now you start by rationalizing everything in, in that frame. How does what we’re gonna do, how does what we’re gonna spend this money on, improve customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction or profitability. You then socialize that. You get that greenlit, you drive those outcomes, you communicate your wins along the way. Then when you have these big outages, which are gonna happen because, you know, nobody hires a leader ’cause they think everything is gonna go according to plan. Nobody hires <laugh> and I a global IT department that doesn’t need like, people that operate like nasa. Alright? Then you’re winning so often and there’s awareness that you’re winning. There’s appreciation for the fact that you win. Right? Steven? Do you, when somebody does something kind or generous or helpful, doesn’t feel good to appreciate them, like right now, just stop and feel that feeling of appreciation.

Scott:

Sure. Gratitude. Yeah. Absolutely. So what if I was solving problems for you every day and I never told you I would be robbing you of the opportunity to feel appreciation. Have you ever had a bad day and then somebody did something kind for you and that one single mo moment of appreciation lifted you up like almost like it was a gift? Yes. So when you are moving the needle, when you’re accomplishing something every day, letting your stakeholders know that you’ve done it gives, it’s a gift. It’s like giving them the opportunity to appreciate you. More importantly, it’s letting them know, look, I’m mission focused. I’m accomplishing things every, every day. And then when things don’t go according to plan, there’s a, like using the IT example, there’s a large outage, A system goes down, they’re, your customers aren’t freaking out. They’re like, oh, that’s no problem. ’cause these guys are winners. That’s no problem. ’cause these guys are gonna have it under control. Okay? If you’re the IT department that only communicates when things go wrong, you’re the bad news bears and now you’re the bad news bears responsible for solving a big business problem that’s probably costing them a ton of money every minute.

Steven Shaer:

Sure.

Scott:

So there’s just no downside to pausing at the end of every day and asking yourself for yourself, what did I actually accomplish today? And attending meetings, you, that’s not an accomplishment. What was the meeting meant to accomplish? And did you get that done? Practicing recognizing, formulating, recognizing accomplishments, driving accomplishments and communicating accomplishments is literally like the wax on wax off of business that for the younger listeners that was a Karate Kid reference.

Steven Shaer:

Okay, I got it.

Scott:

So you’re literally practicing focusing on what is an outcome. Planning to get that outcome, executing on that outcome, communicating that you got that outcome, you’ll become sharper, you will become able to deliver more outcomes in a shorter period of time. And because you’re communicating those outcomes, people are appreciating that you’re the person that gets those outcomes. So when it’s time to get to work, ’cause here’s the thing, when is leadership really necessary? Not when everything’s going according to the plan. You’re just walking around high fiving people. Yep. Leadership is really necessary when there’s a breakdown.

Steven Shaer:

Mm-Hmm.

Scott:

And if you’ve been communicating and celebrating your team’s accomplishments, people are like, it’s no problem. We’ve got a breakdown, but we’ve, the Avengers are on it. Right? Like, we have superheroes on this breakdown. They’re gonna take care of it. In a way, communicating your accomplishments. And we believe at 120 we communicate to lead. Communicating your accomplishments is a form of leadership because you’re communicating to your stakeholders like every day. We’ve got you. So they feel like when things don’t go according to plan, they feel much safer. They’re much, they’re much more willing to trust you. They’re much more willing to, to follow you when they need to, like when it matters, when leadership is most important. Communicating your accomplishments every day is also a way to build trust. I mean, I could go on for another half an hour, man about how doing that, like all the benefits of doing that. It, and it’s not sales at a bare minimum, it focuses your mind and allows the people that you’re communicating to, to appreciate what you’re doing for them.

Steven Shaer:

I was in a training session with Steven Covey one time, and he, oh my, he made the comment that the most important skill a leader to have is good communication skills. And I’ve always kept that with me, but I’ve never thought about it from this aspect. So thank you so much for, for sharing how important that is. And I, I really like that concept.

Scott:

Right on. My pleasure.

Steven Shaer:

One of the things I really like to promote is the idea of, as leaders, we should be building new leaders. And I’ve seen in your bio you have this why you should turn followers into leaders in your organization. Could you expand on that for us a little bit?

Scott:

So let’s go all the way back to what leadership is. And I’d say, you know, in my earlier description, I probably skipped where it all starts. And that’s leaders see what’s next so they can help others make what’s new. Anybody in your organization that sees a challenge that can be solved to improve customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction or profitability, or sees an opportunity to generate additional customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction or profitability, whether they have any authority or not. If they bring it to a group of people, they share it, that group of people sees that they have a see that they have a vision that solves a problem that they think that they have or solves for an opportunity that’s, that’s actually available. Those people will get on board and they’ll follow at the very basic, do we need people’s hands? Sure. How could they type without hands?

Scott:

I mean, they, that’s possible. I guess more importantly, I think we need their hearts in their mind. Like people say that, but I, I really, I don’t hire anybody at 120VC just to do, I need them all to be thinking because the organization can’t only be as smart as I am and accomplishing anything. Great. Nothing worth accomplishing was ever accomplished by one mind. Agreed. Or one individual. Okay. So when I ask, when I ask people to lead, what I’m asking them to do is be aware of what’s going on around them and to, to solve, come up with ideas, to solve problems, identify problems, identify opportunities. Don’t just sit and wait for me to go, oh, hey, we should do this or we should do this. I mean, you can, but that’s not that valuable to me. Right. I’d, i’d, I’d rather have 10 people thinking, coming up with ways to solve for customer satisfaction, team member satisfaction and profitability than a hundred people just doing what I told them to do.

Steven Shaer:

Yeah. And they’ll learn more that way too than you telling them what to do all the time.

Scott:

Right. Because you’re developing. Right. You’re helping them. The more you can encourage them to solve problems, and instead of telling them how to solve a problem, ask them questions, challenge them, present them with what ifs, tell them stories so they can come up with their own solution to a shared goal. Back to your point, you’re investing in them, you’re developing them, and the stronger they are at coming up with the solutions to these problems, the less you have to do it. And that’s pretty wonderful.

Steven Shaer:

Yeah, it is. I would do that quite frequently. Somebody would come in and we have a problem with this piece of software expecting me to maybe give them, and I could have given them a solution, but instead I say, well, back to your desk. Come back with three possible solutions. And then they would come back and, well, we could do this and this. Okay, gimme the pros and cons of each. And they’d do that. I say, okay, what would you choose? And they say, well, option two. Okay, go do it. And that may not have been the best option, but again, they’ll learn more from that. And then me telling ’em what to do all the time, and it worked well. It got to the point where they wouldn’t even bring it to me. They’d go ahead and figure it out, do a solution, then say, okay, here’s what happened, here’s what we did. It’s huge. It really builds their confidence.

Scott:

Right on.

Steven Shaer:

Yeah. What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

Scott:

Oh man. <laugh>. I don’t know. I’m hot on a topic right now. We can dive into that. How much, how much more time do you wanna spend?

Steven Shaer:

We have a few more minutes left, so go for it.

Scott:

Okay. So as you’d pointed out, I wrote a book called It’s Never Just Business. It’s about people. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, as I pointed out, I ascribe to servant leadership is one of the tools in my transformational leadership toolkit. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. And so people have a tendency to think of servant leadership as it’s always gonna be collaborative. We’re always gonna talk about it as opposed to, Hey, I just need you guys to follow. So I’ve, I’ve had it said, when I shift between those two modes, the collaborative leadership mode Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and the, I need you to follow mode that I’ve, I’ve shifted from servant leadership to, nobody’s said command and control, but I think that’s kind of, they, people think in terms of there’s either servant leadership or command and control. Yeah. But the thing that I’m, I really want people to understand is servant leadership isn’t just about being nice, and it’s not just about being a collaborative leader. Servant leadership is leadership in service of your stakeholders. So if in your collaboration, your team members are coming to conclusions that are not enabling the necessary and expected results, meaning they’re not succeeding and you keep collaborating and they’re not succeeding and you keep collaborating and they’re not succeeding, am I still serving them if I just continue in that collaborative leadership style that’s not working?

Steven Shaer:

Yeah. Not at all.

Scott:

Not at all. Not at all. So I, I say it’s funny ’cause it’s from a movie called Idiocracy, which is just tickles me. It’s a <laugh>, it’s so great and so dumb. But there’s a line in the movie where somebody’s talking to another person in the military and he says, the general always says lead, follow or get out of the way. So I just get out of the way, <laugh>. And the other guy says, that’s meant to embarrass you, <laugh>. The idea is he wants you to lead or follow, not get out of the way. Right. In taking that though, there’s some real to it. When I look at the human beings that I’m responsible for, I need them to lead, meaning see what’s next to make what’s new. I’m there to support that. Right? Mm-Hmm. I’m there to also lead. Hey, I see what’s next.

Scott:

Let me help you figure out how to make what’s new or you see what’s next. I’m still gonna help you figure out how to wait, make what’s new collaborative, not me telling you, but me using active listening to challenge you to what if, to get to the point where you’ve come up with a roadmap to accomplish the thing that you think will work, but also I think will work. So that’s the collaborative approach, right? The collaborative approach isn’t, you have an idea that I’m not clear on how it’ll work, so I let you go do it anyway and fail. Again, that’s not servant leadership. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, right. The collaborative approach using active listening is working through a problem with somebody and helping them ideate until they come up with a strategy that they think will work and you think will work just by challenging. When they present something and you’re like, I don’t understand how that’ll work.

Scott:

Can you explain a little more and asking questions and challenging, right? And when they, when they come up with something through this active asking and listening exercise that you both think will work well, there’s a high degree of likelihood that it will ’cause you both think that it will. Right? So you’ve set them up for success, it’s collaborative. So that’s what I call leadership mode, right? Like in the lead follow, get out of the way. And I’m using collaborative servant leadership and again, keeping focused on the outcomes. Because at the end of the day, if we’re not transforming, getting the outcomes, we’re not winning. And if we’re not winning, I’m still not serving them. I’m failing as a servant leader. Sure. So what, what I need the whole world to understand is that if you’re doing that, that collaborative thing, like the letting them lead and you leading and you and your team are not getting the expected outcomes, you’re not serving them by continuing with that style, you have to shift to, Hey guys, now it’s time to follow.

Scott:

Okay. I was, I was trying to just lead and be collaborative. It’s not working and we’re not succeeding. Okay, I’m gonna be a little bit more directive in my style. Hey, we need to do these things. I’m still not gonna tell you how to do your job, but I, I’m gonna be very, very clear on what the objectives are, what the outcomes are, right? I’m gonna get us across the finish line, right? I’m gonna get us through the war, right? I’m gonna get us through the cold winter. We’re all gonna learn along the way. And when we get to the other side, I’m gonna step back a little bit. That approach is also very important when it comes to leading change in a company. Because if you just go to them and say, Hey, we’re gonna change this thing, and everybody’s like, rah rah, get on board, it won’t happen.

Scott:

What I’ll often do is I’ll put controls in place, meaning, hey, we’re gonna do these things. I wanna have these meetings, right? Once a week for a little while where we’re going over these things, we’re inculcating these things and I’m approving these things. Once it’s a habit and you guys are nailing this and we’re getting the results that we need, I’m gonna delegate that approval down, right? So I’m gonna go from being the approver to passing the approver down into the organization to like basically giving them back the trust here. You take it, now you lead. I think the most important thing for any new leader or anybody that’s responsible for a team is treat your people with compassion and stay focused on the outcomes. Stay focused on the outcomes. And if your team can successfully get the outcomes in a collaborative style, hey, then you’re, you’re being a great servant leader because you’re serving them, they’re getting the outcomes. If your team’s struggling to get the outcomes, you have to shift your style to a more directive style only temporarily. If you have to fall into that directive style forever, you don’t have the right team. Yes.

Scott:

Right? Yep.

Steven Shaer:

I agree.

Scott:

But when it’s not working, you have to, you can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over. And we all know what Einstein said, right?

Steven Shaer:

Yes. We do. <laugh> I’ve read a lot on, on servant leadership. I even wrote a book on servant leadership and, but I like the way you’re, you’re, you’re defining this here. I really liked your thoughts here. They make a lot of sense. Thank you. Now your website is Jason Scott leadership.com and information about your books and all your services are there, is that the best way for people to reach out to you?

Scott:

Oh, absolutely. And you know, anybody that’s got, uh, a large transformational project that’s struggling to get across the finish line, they can reach me there. Or at 120vc.com. We offer 60 minute complimentary consultations to help people create roadmaps, to get projects like that across the finish line.

Steven Shaer:

All right. Excellent. Thank you so much for being a guest here today. I really enjoyed listening to your ideas and your way of looking at transformational leadership. I’ve learned some things and I know our listeners will learn a few things from you as well.

Scott:

Right on. I appreciate it. Be awesome,

Steven Shaer:

<laugh>. Absolutely. And for you and for all of our listeners, everyone, have an awesome day.

Stephen Shaner:

Thanks for joining us today. For more information about our podcasts and speakers and for additional educational resources, connect with us at awesomeattitude.net. Until next time, be you and be awesome.