Classics: How Well Are You Practicing Vigilant Leadership? Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, if you are working IN your business more than ON your business, this is the episode to help you dig yourself out of the weeds. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

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Classics: How Well Are You Practicing Vigilant Leadership?

Leading from afar is a position we will most likely be finding ourselves in for a while. Over the past couple of years, you may have found yourself in the “doer” role more often than you’d like. If you are working IN your business more than ON your business, this is the episode to help you dig yourself out of the weeds. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• How well are you living your personal brand?
• Are you creating space for growth?
• Anne and April’s on demand approach
• How do you go about defining your philosophy for success?
• How to get your team to hold you accountable as the leader

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• Classics: How Well Are You Practicing Vigilant Leadership? Show Notes & Transcript
  • [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [2:31] Have you established a philosophy for success?
  • [7:50] Anne and April’s on-demand approach
  • [11:14] Are you creating space for growth?
  • [17:10] Are you working too much IN your business instead of ON your business?
  • [19:35] Don’t be afraid to hire short-term or part-time
  • [22:35] Hire a project manager
  • [23:32] Extend deadlines
  • [26:24] How self-aware are you? How well are you living your personal brand?
  • [31:01] Rethink what the scope of “getting it done” means and be open about HOW it happens
  • [34:49] You can’t do it all at one time
  • In The Trenches
  • [37:01] How do I go about defining my philosophy for success? Isn’t this my vision?
  • [43:08] How to suggest opportunities for growth when your company is using outdated methods?
  • [49:10] I’m a control freak, and am often right. Why should I let go?
  • [53:54] How to get the team to hold me accountable since I’m the leader?
  • Marketing Smarts Moment
  • [59:33] Cincinnati Bengals
  • [1:04:11] Summary of practicing Vigilant Leadership
  • [1:05:08] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • [1:05:23] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast.  If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead  and operate in business,  you are in the right place.  In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking  to reveal a fresh perspective.  This unlocks opportunity for you, your team  and your business. Now let’s get to it.  Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast.

 

00:30

I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And for those of you that listen to us regularly, we talk often about vigilant leadership and are in fact in the middle of recording a four part series  all around the principles of vigilant leadership through a business leadership lens. So we thought why not bring back one of the classic episodes to evaluate how you as a leader and individual are practicing your vigilant leadership. In this episode, you will learn or be reminded if it isn’t your first listen.

 

00:58

how to pull out of working in your business to on your business in order to cover off on things like establishing a philosophy for success, creating space for growth, and also some personal evaluation of your own self-awareness.  All complimentary and very timely with the four part series we have going on. So whether you’re hearing all of this for the first time or need to brush up on your skills in this area, let’s get to it. Vigilant Leadership is one of our most popular episodes of 2021.

 

01:24

As people are adjusting to remote work environments during COVID, that makes a ton of sense. But now a year later, many of us are still finding a large part of our workforce very remote. And managing this hybrid work environment is still continuing to be a challenge, which means it’s time to reassess how well we are operating as Vigint leaders as we may continue like this for a while. Yeah, this is especially important for those who were just grinding it out, kind of waiting for what seemed like the inevitable end.

 

01:52

So in the spirit of going into 2022 with a refreshed attitude, this episode is all about a bit of reflection on our vigilant leadership proficiency and then how to make ourselves even better vigilant leaders this year in 2022. Yep. And for those who want a deeper assessment, we have a virtual consultancy module for you. And you just have to go to our shop page on our website, forthright-people.com. And you can download that for just the cost of a buck.

 

02:20

All right, and with that, let’s get to how well are you practicing vigilant leadership? The first question, have you established a philosophy for success? And this is super critical because it teaches people how you want them to do the work or how you want them to behave in getting the work done. So most of us are very laser focused on our numbers, which of course is really, really important because it indicates how healthy the business is. But.

 

02:45

If you’ve been listening to  any of our podcasts, we talk a lot about another key factor of business success, and that is developing emotional connections with your clients, customers, and consumers. And in defining your emotional connection, you’re really, really defining how you want your clients, customers, consumers to feel as a result of the way that you’re engaging with them.  And this helps your business grow in credibility and reputation, and it is the key driver of word of mouth.

 

03:13

Right, and this is what helps you really differentiate in your industry and really getting more people to choose you more often. It is also the way that you establish culture. It is the foundation of your culture because you need to hire people who feel comfortable operating in your philosophy for success. So it’s important that you’re establishing this philosophy and we say that you need to do it through a really succinct statement and then you obviously have a lot of doctrine that kind of supports that. We call those operating principles.

 

03:42

But you also need to launch it and live it. And most importantly, as the leader, you have to model it. So what does this look like? So I’m going to pull an example that we’ve used before early on because it really, really fits here. And that’s John Mackey, who is the founder of Whole Foods.  He wrote this book called Conscious Capitalism, which April’s read cover to cover. I’ve heard enough of a podcast episode. I feel like I read it cover to cover. He talks about his philosophy for success in there.

 

04:11

being win, win, win, win. Right now, that might sound very cliche to a lot of you. mean, P &G, we had a win-win philosophy. Everybody seems to have a win-win philosophy of some number of wins, but  he actually lives it. And let me give you a little story that really exemplifies that. Now, when he talks about his four wins, his win, win, win, win, he’s talking about company, employees, customer, and vendor. So the whole string of impact that his business is really engaged in.

 

04:40

And so one story that he tells is a while ago, one of the stores was their point of sale system just totally went down, right? Now within this win, win, win philosophy, the store manager had a couple of choices, right? So if he’s thinking about everybody within this philosophy,  he had to think about the solution that was gonna best suit them. So most store managers would say, we’re just gonna shut the store down. Like we don’t know what to do, we’re gonna shut the store down.

 

05:08

I’m sorry everybody, you’re gonna have to leave, right? Now this store manager trying to embrace a win-win-win-win philosophy decides, well,  like how do I make this work for everybody? And what he did was like, you know what? Just let everybody just pack up their groceries as they come through the line and just give them away for free. Crazy. Yeah, now most people would like a cringe and like most,  like his bosses like in  many, many businesses would been like, what are you doing? You’re letting money walk out the door.

 

05:36

Now in grand total, he probably let several thousand dollars go out the door, right? Because they got the point of sale system back up. He didn’t know how long it was going to take to get that system back up though.  And so he wanted to make sure he was doing what was best for the store’s reputation, for the customers who come into the store, and making sure that he established and lived through that win, win, win, win philosophy. And actually,  he was commended for  it. So he was  exemplified. He served as an example of how this philosophy really comes to life.

 

06:05

And in so doing, got really good press from the local media and was able to really drive a lot of immediate  benefit for  Whole Foods. Now, in all that, there’s another story within that. When we talk about your philosophy of success and how do you manifest that is that you need to hire, like we said, the right people in order to bring that to life. And John Mackey believes that. He only hires nice people. If this guy had been a jerk,

 

06:33

that never would have worked, right? He would have been like, I’m just gonna do what I’m gonna do  and probably would have defaulted to like shutting the whole store down. Yeah, I love that example so much because it’s a good reminder, first of all, of how to take care of your clients and your customers. And I think instilling that culture within the organization, the pressure tests always come when you’re in those moments where you’re like, oh, what do we do?

 

06:58

Right? so I think that not only did he get the press, from local news and all that kind of stuff, but I can only imagine those people that got free groceries that day, what they went and told other people. Exactly.  so it just  increases. mean, you know, Whole Foods has a cult following anyway. And so the people that shop there shop there consistently. Well, now you have advocates on top of advocates because  those people got free groceries for the day.

 

07:25

And then on the other side, I will give an example from our perspective, which always helps.  And that is to talk about our philosophy at Forthright People,  which is really around this idea of being  on demand. And that really is the foundation of everything we do, how we serve our customers, how we make business decisions, how we decide to bring people on, very similar actually to John Mackie’s  philosophy, not to pat us on the back too much, but like we said, everybody has their win-win-win.

 

07:55

So when we think about this on-demand nature,  it really does a couple of things. One, it embraces our forthright approach, which is our name,  and the idea that we don’t pull any punches, we don’t ever sugarcoat, we tell you what needs to be done, how we want to do it,  and what that is going to cost, take from a timing perspective, that sort of thing for you.

 

08:20

but we only do it from this on-demand space, which is making sure that we are making the best use of your time and money and all of those things,  and only giving you what you need when you need it on a consistent basis.  And it took us a while, quite honestly, to really get to  the ability to describe it  and  really think through what is that right balance of doing the right thing for the clients, but then also realizing when we started our business, was COVID,  it just hit.

 

08:49

And so we know people are being conservative and they don’t have a lot of money, but they can’t just stop marketing and branding, right? And so this on-demand approach has helped us build really strong relationships  and has really become our philosophy for success, one, because it works,  but also because it’s really a quick get for people to say, okay, I’m going to spend this money and you might have to do some  upfront strategy and whatever, but it’s going to be quick and timely and we’re going to get you right into market. Two really good points. One,

 

09:17

in the fact that it’s a differentiating factor, right? And really identifying what that differentiating factor is really helps you to  really tap into how you’re gonna do business and what your philosophy for success is. So  as you mentioned, for us, we knew that small and mid-sized businesses,  even before COVID, were struggling to get really top talent to do marketing. They felt like they were getting the bottom of the barrel. They felt like  they were getting screwed. And so we were like, our whole philosophy was bringing that

 

09:46

top talent, 2D small and mid-sized businesses in a budget that they could afford because they deserve really high quality work as well. So our own Namie was like, that’s the way we do it. That is what’s going to be able to make it a, we’ll just use the win-win for both our clients and ourselves. And similarly, know, with John Mackie, like you said, you know, all these people walking around.

 

10:09

or got to walk out with free groceries, which was just fantastic, but what they felt was cared for.  They felt like they weren’t just subject to whatever was going on in the store. They were like, oh, they’re prioritizing me. They’re prioritizing my time, so I don’t have to come back from my groceries, right?  And they’re respecting the fact that  I am a patron of the store.  So as you’re thinking about your own business, you’re thinking about your philosophy for success in your own business, think about what those differentiating factors are. Think about how you do business that’s different than everybody else.

 

10:37

so that you can figure out what your philosophy for success  is in a way that’s differentiated from everybody else.  Yeah, and I mean, I have to think that because this is so ingrained in all the employees of Whole Foods and comes from the very top, the decision was fast,  although it may not have been easy, but I’m sure he got to the point, like, well, what do I do? Well, also, can I do? option. Yeah, this is all I can do if I’m living this philosophy, right? Yep. Yep.

 

11:03

All right, the second question to ask yourself about how well you’re practicing Vigilant Leadership is are you creating space for growth? April, you want to take this one? Yeah, I love this one. So yes, I will take this one.  Because, know, we talk a lot on this show about growing employees, how to properly do it, how to  allow space for yourself, which then allows space for them. And then, you know, everybody kind of rises from there and how that’s so important. So.

 

11:31

I would just start by saying here, of course everyone has to have a growth and development plan, right? So it helps your employees prioritize their work.  They know what’s expected of them in order to move up. And it also should, it doesn’t always, but it should help them understand how their role plays into the bigger picture of the organization  beyond just what they do every day. And this is especially important for young or new employees in the workforce  because it’s hard to see that when you’re just starting out. But it’s also more than that.

 

12:00

So when we talk about vigilant leadership  and the whole art of leading afar, it really boils down to being able to trust your teams and your team members.  And this trust then allows, well, more to get done.  It allows them to make better decisions. It allows them to deliver quality work. And the whole time, you don’t have to be micromanaging. So let’s go back to that John Mackey example, right?

 

12:26

If it had relied on him being in that store at that moment in time for that manager to feel empowered to make the decision, that decision would have never been made. Right? And so that’s a little bit of a frivolous example.  But I mean, it is true. And then on the other side of that, making sure that that trust is there and that the  space is really ingrained in them from an allowance perspective.  Because if you think about the very worst things that can happen, right? And we used to use this analogy a lot in the agency of

 

12:56

if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, could things continue?  And I think that some people feel like, oh no, well of course not, you know, that important. But we’ve talked a lot on the show about the fact that everyone is dispensable, right?  And so that’s one thing, but then on the other side, if people  aren’t preparing their teams properly,  one shame on them, but then also that team really wouldn’t know what to do in the absence of that manager.

 

13:25

And now really more than ever, this is super important. One, of course, because we’re not actually  with our team members and that can still cause concern. I mean, we talked,  like Anne said, in the previous episode about vigilant leadership, we did talk a lot about what do we do right now because we’re in the space and we  aren’t seeing our people face to face and what does it look like?  And now I think there’s a few things going on. We’ve talked about some people going back to work and some people not.

 

13:51

Some people have moved away from where their companies are and so they won’t be in person anymore if you make the allowance for them to still work for you.  And I think we’re also settling into this idea that the working world may never look like it did before again.  And so all of those things are now making it a permanent requirement really to make sure that

 

14:14

You’re keeping an eye on your people. know what they’re supposed to do, but they also feel trusted and like they have the power to do the things they need to do to make decisions, especially when you aren’t sitting at the desk next to them.  And then the last thing I will say about this  is making sure that you check yourself  and remember what  has changed, quite frankly,  then also how you are looking.

 

14:42

at the things your employees are choosing to do now. Because if you really have this trusted relationship and they aren’t in the office anymore, you have to trust that, for example, if they decide to go for a run at 2.30 in the afternoon, it’s okay for their schedule. And then things like you don’t need to make up the time from your commute and work eight to six instead of nine to five because you’re not commuting anymore.

 

15:06

All of these types of things. mean, we’ve seen  great examples and not so great examples throughout everything that has played out with COVID. And it really comes back to this point about creating space, trusting your team and allowing them to feel like they have the right to choose and the power to choose what’s best in any given situation. Yeah, I think those are all really good points. And I think that the key to that, as you said, is making sure the expectations are set. Yes.

 

15:33

And that’s what we would tell everybody, because everybody’s like, I can’t see them. I don’t still know. And then deadlines, with deadlines getting missed and stuff, well, then you need to set clear expectations that these deadlines are important, these deadlines are clear. I expect you to be on these calls. You set the parameters and guidelines. You’re not just like, hey,  like washing your hands of everything and letting them do whatever they want to do. You still need to be there in order to set the structure, set the expectations.

 

15:58

and then be able to give the feedback about whether or not they’re meeting expectations, but then how they deliver upon that, you should be like, well, all right, whatever. If they want to work all night in order to deliver that, then they work all night to deliver it. As long as they deliver quality work when they’re supposed to deliver it, you kind of have to let some of that stuff go. And that’s how you get to  creating the space to allow your team to make good decisions and let their life work for them so they can balance the work-life piece and make sure that it facilitates and

 

16:27

an environment that’s conducive to both  work and life. mean, so this is right now some people’s like best thing that could have happened because they get that flexibility. Let them  have it.  if you can’t, like if you see things starting to slip, then pull it back. I mean, that’s totally fine. You don’t have to be hands off if the person is not being responsible enough to be able to deliver on the expectations, but you do have to take the onus for setting the expectations. Exactly.  All right.

 

16:58

The third question to ask yourself about how well you’re practicing vigilant leadership is are you working too much in your business versus  on your business? Now we talk about this a lot because as leaders, we should be spending most of our time working  on our business. But as the workforce has gotten a little lean,  either due to the lack of workforce or people being sick or people caring for people who sick or managing virtual school, mean,

 

17:27

You probably have had to accommodate for a lot of  unusual circumstances, right? And that might have caused you to have to jump into your business and being in your business more than you probably should. And sometimes you just have to do that out of necessity. And from a short-term standpoint, yes, you just, got to make your business go. But then what happens sometimes when we start feeling a little bit too comfortable, it kind of starts triggering these times of yore where…

 

17:52

You know, you were doing the things and you’re like, oh, I forgot how much I like doing the things or I forgot how much I like to check the boxes of  actually doing tangible things. And we might get a little too comfortable. And the bad thing is, is if we’re also the leader, sometimes we don’t have anybody to kind of pull us back out of those weeds, right? We kind of lose ourself in that a little bit. So you got to ask yourself, all right, is it time to get out of the weeds?  Probably thinking it probably is if you’re still in it.

 

18:22

which means you might have to ask yourself too, then do I need to rethink my structure?  Is it time to give control back to my team a little bit more and reset my expectations, reset the guidelines? And then also, mean,  just as a reality check, if you’re not working on your business, who  is? Right, so I know sometimes it’s really hard when there’s so many fires and there’s so much deficiencies and you’re compensating for all that.

 

18:48

to think long-term about your business. You’re just kind of dealing with the very  urgent short-term stuff. But  that is going to  totally debilitate your business. You have to be thinking long-term. You have to think, okay, what does my business look like months from now, years from now? Because  this  is gonna be how you’re gonna be able to elevate yourself out. And stop thinking again, like…

 

19:13

like April said, that this is  going to be something that you’re just going to grind through and then all of sudden it’s going to go back to the way it was. You should just assume that this is going to be the way it is for a very long time. So you might be asking yourself, okay, I get it, but how do I do this? So let us give you three ways that we’re seeing leaders extricate themselves from the weeds. And hopefully you’ll be able to apply these to your businesses as well. So the first is hire some part-time help.

 

19:40

So sometimes we get bogged down in thinking we really need to hire everyone as a full-time employee when really all we need is some part-time assistance. This is  really, really  popular for administrative tasks, right? Me and April do this, where you just need somebody who can come in, maybe can manage your schedule or maybe do some light administrative work, whatever that looks like for you.  And then this is helpful because then you don’t have to worry about indoctrinating them into the full business, making sure they have the right onboarding, making sure

 

20:10

They have all the right paperwork, doing all the HR thing. You can hire them as a freelancer or a short-term temp, have them come in, you train them for what they need to go do, and then you just let them go do that. So this could work really, really well  for short-term hires or freelancers. Yeah, and I think this is something that people really underestimate the value of,  both from how little time you actually need for the help  and also how much time it will save you on the other side.

 

20:38

And so I think the tendency, especially now, because things are more lean,  is I’ll just do it myself and it’ll be easier.  But what Anne and I have seen really specifically  is that when we aren’t planning, for example, 15 one-on-one interviews on our own without help and assistance from people and then rescheduling, which inevitably happens for at least probably half of those, and then they happen again,  I mean, the amount of hours that goes into that,  it…

 

21:05

feels like, that should be pretty simple and it’ll be like an hour of my time and it’ll be no big deal. Well, actually it turns into more like five hours of your time and then all of a sudden it happens in one week and now you’ve missed something on the other side that really did require your attention. So we have seen tremendous value in this  and finding the right person I will say is also really important because you need people that can pick it up and go.

 

21:31

But this type of support, think people just assume, I don’t need the help when really it can just be a huge lifesaver. Yeah, I totally agree. I people are really shocked that they didn’t do it sooner. And actually what we hear for almost every person is like, I wish I had done that sooner. Right? Because you want to wait, wait, wait, especially if you don’t feel like you can afford it. But what we say is like, if you can hire somebody to do something cheaper than you would be making for your business and you doing it, you should try to do that.

 

21:59

Right? So even if for a little bit you’re investing too, which was hard for me to swallow, but  we did do that for a period of time. And now, I mean, I’m just so thankful we’re so busy that  neither one of us would have time to even do that work anymore. Exactly. Or go and pitch for the work or go close the work or develop the networking that  was conducive in order to get the work.  All that stuff. The second  way that leaders are really  working to try to extricate themselves from the weeds.

 

22:28

is by hiring a project manager, similar to what April was saying about facilitating order at a chaos, like project managers, that’s what they do. Again, you can hire them on a part-time basis, but they are going to help you kind of figure out how to prioritize. They’re gonna help you to figure out your team to figure out what you need to go do next. This takes like a lot of mind space off of your plate that you’re sitting there kind of figuring out, okay,

 

22:57

I did this thing, do I need to do this first or do I to that first? Like which project do need to prioritize? Which one? I’m like, it takes a lot of my space to do this. Let a PM do it for you. Let them orchestrate the priorities so that you can actually focus on being on your business. The next one is extend deadlines. I know everybody is like listening to this is probably gonna be like, oh, for the love, and I’m like, you know we can’t do that. I’m like, yes.

 

23:26

Yes, you can.  And you have to. Because you have no other choice if you want to maintain the integrity and credibility of your business. right. Everybody is struggling to get things done. This is not just isolated to just you. And especially if you’re asking your people who, again, if you’re in this lean workforce, to stretch, to do other people’s work, to work more hours, to get all these things done, you’re going to burn them out.

 

23:51

This is a really important thing to consider is that, yeah, everybody can be all hands on deck for a very short period of time. They can’t be all hands on deck for long periods of time. The quality of work diminishes, the energy diminishes, everything just diminishes. And when you’re not taking care of your people, you’re not taking care of your business. So extend the deadlines, give your people some space, let them bring forth the best  work. Maybe you have to like not take on.

 

24:19

a piece of work from a client. That’s really hard to say too. Or maybe you have to try to push it off. But you have to focus on being able to deliver what you can really, really well. Or it’s just going to all implode around you. Yeah.  And it’s such a funny thing. And especially for me coming from the agency side to say extend deadlines, I I feel like I have PTSD. Like,  we can’t do that.  But I feel like…

 

24:47

One of the other good things that has come out of the situation we’ve all been in is in positive instances, we’re seeing a lot more of humanity, right? And people respecting  their employees and understanding that burnout’s a real thing. mean, Anne and I just had a conversation with a client the other day who I respected so much before the conversation, but respected her so much more after when  she said, you know, I love what you put in front of us because you’re pushing us.  But at the same time,

 

25:15

I just put my employees through two months of craziness.  I felt the effects myself. We can’t do this on an ongoing basis given where we are with Aline’s staff and all the things that  Anne just mentioned. And I think a couple of things, one, kudos to her for recognizing that and caring so much about her team that she felt like  she had to prioritize that over the business or  revenue or whatever those other things are. But then,

 

25:43

Also, this is a prime example  of staying on top of her business and not being too in it. And I mean, to be fair, she volunteered for a whole lot of things. She was in it.  But she, you know, in this instance was really able to pull back out and take a look overall and say, this is what we can do right now with what we have. And so that’s what we’re going to do. Yeah. I think that’s a really good example. All right. The fourth question.  How self-aware are you?

 

26:14

April.  Okay, or we would say maybe how well are you living your personal brand, which is our other big topic outside of vigilant leadership that we talk about all the time. So as a reminder, this is about understanding how your characteristics and your appearance are manifesting themselves into behaviors and actions that may or may not be moving you toward your goals. And like I said, we talk about this a lot. So  there’s lots of podcasts, episodes, blogs, worksheets on personal brand, if you need a refresher on this. So I’m not going to go super deep.

 

26:44

into this point or this question.  But the point I do want to make is that in times of stress and anxiety, which I feel like it’s an understatement to say we’ve all been dealing with this, right? I mean, it’s been overwhelming, right?  And so when you’re going through that, especially on an ongoing day after day, year after year,  given where we are basis, sometimes your characteristics  can manifest themselves into behaviors and actions that are not actually aligned.

 

27:11

with your personal brand. So I will talk about a very specific example for me. And I know Anne has some  thoughts on this one as well, but to get really, really specific. So  I’ve said on previous episodes, 2020  was the year of COVID for the whole world. 2021 was the year of trying times for April.  And so I really  just, mean,

 

27:34

I can’t tell you how many times I just looked up at the sky and was like, seriously, what are you trying to teach me? Because clearly I’m not getting it. But what that led to is one, I had to acknowledge one of my personal brand characteristics that was actually getting in the way and not allowing me to tackle things at the speed with which they were being thrown at me. I like…

 

28:02

to have it all under control. Or at the very least, I like people to perceive that I have it all under control.  And I’ve been, you know,  fed the shit sandwich, I guess, many times  over the years where people are like,  well, if you needed help, didn’t you just ask? Or, well, I mean, you always seem to have it so together, so why would I offer to help you? You know, I’ve been told those things many, many times. But this past year,  I literally got to the point where

 

28:32

I could only do the very next thing that was in front of me. And sometimes that was like,  set an alarm and get Sam from school on time.  Or  sometimes it was, sit your butt in the chair and write the podcast episode and don’t move for one hour because you have to record it tomorrow.  I mean, it was really at that level. And so as someone that tries to plan out the next week on the Friday before and…

 

28:58

tries to think through all the possibilities of what could go wrong the next week before you get into it. That was completely taken away from me and I was so stressed. I couldn’t focus. And finally, I just had to reframe it in my head of these are the things that I can get done feasibly in this day. I have to focus on that and stop worrying about what’s going to come next  so that I can tackle this and then I can move on to the next one. And it was a really trying thing for someone who’s a little bit of a control freak.

 

29:28

Yes, and I think there’s probably a lot of people out there that are nodding their heads, both male and female, for sure,  especially if  you are practicing vigilant leadership. But I think what you said is a really big characteristic of strong women leaders anyway.  it’s also the other side of the coin where it’s like, if I admit I need help, then am I admitting I’m not as good as I  thought I was? Or people are going to perceive me as weak, or people are not going to

 

29:57

have the respect for me, you’re not gonna have faith in me then that I can actually manage all this stuff and deliver it. And then it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy all the way down. So I will recognize the fact that you did start asking for help. I did.  And you gave everybody their assignments and everybody their roles as any good vigilante leader would, and you gave them their expectations. Yeah, I did. But you also had to let go a little bit about how it was gonna get done. Like, I mean, I remember like, we’ll just throw like Bryson underneath the  bus for a second about like when the laundry was supposed to be done, right?

 

30:27

I was like, we do laundry on Tuesday. Well, if I get done on Sunday, is it a big deal? Well, I guess not. guess like if it’s done on Sunday, it’s done on Sunday, right? You know, so sometimes you have to kind of let go of the actual like framework for how it’s done. Like we’ve come and we said, if somebody wants to go take a run at 230, but they’re still getting it done, really like start to think about like what your scope of getting it done means or whatever that that framework is for you because what your expectations are may or may not be

 

30:56

what is actually necessary for the overall success. It may just be what you prefer. So kind of try to make that distinction in your mind. Well, and I had to also let go full disclosure on how the laundry gets folded. Yes.  Because taking socks out that are one’s inside out and one’s not, I still cringe, but I don’t say anything.  And sometimes it’s just a little thing, Zayful. It’s just a little thing.

 

31:23

So I’ll let you pick on me too, because I know you’ll have comments about this one. So I am a very action-oriented person. I’ve said this a lot. It’s just been my tendency. I’m a go, go, go kind of girl. And I can generally back off the gas a little bit. If I’m working in a really good state,  I can generally back off the gas a little bit and make sure I’m enrolling everyone in the process. So something I had to learn really early on in order to manage my personal brand, because I knew if I didn’t, then I would not be able to achieve my goals and dreams. But when I’m under stress,  I get

 

31:52

a little bit more direct.  I get a little less patient and I get way more inflexible.  And I tend to make decisions and I want to make decisions quickly. And I  get dyslexic. like, well, I don’t really, I try to justify my mind. like, I really don’t need to check in with that. I’m like, we’ve done this before. I’m like, why do I really need to? I just want to go. I want to get it off my plate. I want to just be done with it. I want to move on, right? This a lot of times ends very badly.  So either like I make a decision that’s not informed to the extent that

 

32:21

it should be,  or I leave people out who feel like they have,  in the past they’ve had a say. So now I’m being inconsistent in my behavior, but like, why was I able to say something before? Now you’re not giving me the opportunity to say anything now, like what happened here? So they’re disappointed or they feel let down or, know, so  it starts to kind of create like a bad cultural vibe as well as  sometimes I make the wrong decisions  as a result. So.

 

32:49

I’ve had to learn that I still have to catch myself in these times of anxiety. Take a big deep breath. Again, use our own philosophies of like, okay, do I need to extend the deadlines because I didn’t appropriately plan to allow for that feedback to happen?  Do I have to hire some administrative help so I could take some of these other things off my plate so that I can really process on this and  focus more fully on it?

 

33:15

so that I can then allow other people to contribute. So I’m not feeling like, okay, I have to get it done, I have to get it off my plate. So I’ve had to  really assess that in these times  to make sure that I’m not reverting  to a  bad  tendency of my action-oriented characteristic. Well, and  I look at this a little bit differently.  So  yes, you’re very action-oriented, but I actually think

 

33:45

that the discipline goes a little bit out the window  when you get bored. so…  Okay, that tended to see that play too. So it’s like…  Ann loves to create things. She loves to create content, which is great because I would much rather be leading the business and the clients and that side of things.  again, another reason why it works out really well.

 

34:11

but sometimes when left to her own devices without enough assignments, gets a little bit  overly excited about many things she wants to do to work on our business. And so  we get a little bit fragmented.  Now, I think with that said, we’ve gotten a lot better at then prioritizing, because I think the thing is a lot of it is really good ideas, but you can’t do it all at one time. And that’s the other side of working.

 

34:39

on your business instead of in it is  if you swing too far the other way, you might have a great business model and then wake up and have no clients one day.  And so we have gotten  in a cadence of  making sure we note all the things that we want to do, but being realistic about what can happen today, what can happen with those today things all at one time and what we have to wait on a little bit  to  make sure that we have the right infrastructure in place to be able to do the longer vision things.

 

35:09

Yeah, I think that’s fair.  How long have you been waiting to say that?

 

35:15

I mean, I feel like we managed it. jumped right on that one, As you were talking, I was like, oh, actually, I’m starting to think about some situations that, yes, but they don’t match up exactly. Yeah, that’s true. Thank you for bringing that to my attention, which actually rounds out this point really nicely, is that at the end of the day, you need to be the model for the behavior you want to see in your teams. We said that about the success philosophy. This is the same here.

 

35:44

you have to make sure that you have somebody to hold you accountable, just like April did for me. Point made. Thank you.  All right, so just to summarize, how well are you practicing vigilant leadership? Have you established a philosophy for success? Like we said, this is critical because it teaches people how you want them to do the work. And this helps to make sure that you’re clear about how you want people to feel as a result of you engaging with them. Are you creating a space for growth?

 

36:10

Beyond just growth and development plans, do you trust your team or team members to grow in their capacity to make good decisions and deliver quality work that you don’t have to micromanage? Third, are you working too much in your business versus on your business? Necessity may have required us to be more in our business for a short term, but if you aren’t working on your business, who is? And then fourth, how self-aware are you? Or how well are you living your personal brand?

 

36:37

This is about understanding how your characteristics and appearance are manifesting themselves into behaviors and actions that may or may not be moving you towards your goals. And with that, we’ll move into our next segment, which is the in the trenches segment, where we give real world examples specific to industries and situations, but with broad implications so anybody in any business should be able to digest and put into action. Our first in the trenches question. How do I go about defining my philosophy for success? Isn’t this my vision?

 

37:06

All right, we get this question a lot. So let me just take a second to kind of tease out the differences here. Your vision should be a statement that exemplifies what you hope to achieve for your business. So it’s a big goal that no one person can do on their own. We’ve talked about this a lot, the big goal, right? It’s meant to be inspiring and it does signify what success looks like. So for us in this podcast, we say we want marketing spurs to be the highest rated podcast in the marketing category. Big goal.

 

37:33

Or maybe even through a different lens, we want marketing smarts to positively impact a million people. So that would be a vision statement. Now your philosophy for success is how you’ll behave in getting there and ultimately how do you want people to feel as a result. So sometimes it’s easier to start there, right? How you want people to feel. So for example, in coaching someone recently on their philosophy for success,

 

37:57

they were kind of talking about what their business was and how they operate and their clients and this and that and the other. And after about like a 10 minute conversation, I could pull out one specific statement they said, and they said that they wanted to be very easy to work with them. That was like a big differentiating point that they felt was clearly an industry value for them. So their philosophy became make it easy, right? Then that’s how they filtered.

 

38:25

every decision they made. Like April had said, this is how you operate. This is how you communicate. This is how you deliver. And it becomes a criteria for success as well. So you would ask yourself, well, if we did this, is this going to be easy for them? Right? So it becomes like your filter for how you actually decide what you’re to go do and how you’re to go do it. So for us, for like the podcast, when we talked about, how do we impact a million people?

 

38:51

We want people to feel like they’re savvy or marketers. We say that in the intro. So for us, our philosophy for success around that became, we want this MBA-esque rich content that’s inspired by experiences. We believe when we put those two things together, we have something novel and unique that we can offer that nobody else can offer. Yeah, and I just want to emphasize the point that the philosophy becomes your how. You’re going to get your vision done, which is the what.

 

39:19

And I think Anne made a good point about your vision might be really big, right? It might be something that you’re going to reach for for several years.  Whereas the philosophy is how you kind of like chip away at getting there and building consistency in what it is like to experience you. So I’ll give another example. We’ve had tons of coaching calls lately.  mine is also from a recent client coaching call. what  I

 

39:45

was dealing with on that call was one, clarification about this exact difference. So it’s important that we do put that out there about the difference of philosophy being how and vision being what.  And so when I talked to her, I talked about,  the team vision is what you and your team are gonna do to contribute to the bigger vision of the company. So what is your role within that?  When you look at the expectations from that standpoint, how is what your team does across every player contributing to that?

 

40:15

But on the other side,  the philosophy for her became how she was going to run her team.  And so one of the things that the organization was doing was hiring more staff to better service their customers and being ranked as  one of the best in the field. And so what that boils down to is a really people-centered approach  that she could then embrace on her team.

 

40:43

and say, okay, if that is the bigger vision of our organization to always be looking for ways to better serve our customers,  and now I’m seeing that we are paying that off by hiring more folks to be able to deliver better to our customers,  how can I make my philosophy  and how I run my team more  in line with that? And so  we talked a lot about weekly one-on-one, she had a lot of new staff, so it was really important.

 

41:11

to be able to get those people not only on board for the  to-dos and the things they were doing with their job,  but then also for the first month we set the goal of having a one-on-one meeting for 30 minutes with each of the four of them  so that she could talk about how they were doing, how they were adjusting,  was the role what they thought it should be, all of those types of things to stay in touch and build that relationship.  And then…

 

41:34

Outside of that, it was okay, and then slowly you can pull those back, and then the other people that have been on the team  make theirs monthly so they don’t feel forgotten about. I we kind of worked out this whole  process, but what it boiled down to from  a philosophy perspective was give our internal folks the same treatment as our clients.  And that became her filter for the decisions that she was making, and also really helped her reprioritize, because until we got to this point,

 

42:03

she was struggling with how much to do the work versus empower the team and she wasn’t gonna be able to do as much of the work and have all these meetings if she didn’t empower the team. Yeah, that’s a really good one. And I think in all these examples, I wanted to point out that the philosophy for success is a very short succinct statement. Yes. Because you need to be able to articulate it. The people that are part of your team or your business, they need to be able to articulate it and everybody needs to be able to internalize it. Now, you may have…

 

42:30

another piece of doctrine that kind of outlines what that means and what that looks like and what exactly are the behaviors and what exactly are the expectations, that’s fine. But everybody, when you ask them, what’s our philosophy for success should be able to articulate, we’re gonna give our internal folks the same treatment as our clients, right?  We create MBA-esque, richer content inspired by experiences. Like that is what they should be able to articulate because then that starts creating the culture, like we said, creates that how you kind of go about doing things.

 

43:00

That’s also what attracts talent.  That’s when people are like, I wanna go work there because they have this velocity for success and  I can align with that. All right, our second inattentive question. I’m in a company that has very clear way of doing things that can be a bit outdated.  Who’s not, right?  How can I generally suggest some opportunities for growth? April. Yeah, this is a great.

 

43:24

question because it does look at the opportunity for growth from the other side of the coin. So  what we mean by that is sometimes the non-leaders are the ones who have to actually create the growth because they have the fresher perspective from those that have been in the organization for a long time. So first we would say you should as those non-leaders, you should really  take the opportunity, especially if you’re seeing stuff that just literally makes no sense because it’s dated.

 

43:52

If you can save time, money, resources, all of those things, I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that met with resistance when you can prove it out.  And so  it might, first of all, I would say take some time. Sometimes the powers that be aren’t receptive because they get worried that if you know the technology better, for example, that’s a big one all the time, that they might look dumb or something, or they might not be able to keep up, or quite frankly, they’re on their way out the door and…

 

44:18

they don’t really feel like learning something new that they have gotten by without for the past 40 years, right? And so  this does get a little bit sensitive.  so  the way we think about it is making it as objective as possible. So number one,  being very clear and very succinct in whatever you are recommending,  then giving the payoff for how it will impact the business. So I kind of set that up  before.

 

44:48

And then  showing your conviction for why you think it will work, but also making an allowance to go backward if it doesn’t work. And then sticking to it. So while you’re going through the process of working on it, not copying out too quickly and saying, oh, well, that didn’t work. And, you know, giving up and going back to the old way, making sure that  you work out all the kinks and you give it its fair chance. So I will give an example from our business, which.

 

45:15

Anne put this in here and I know it’s to give a little bit of a dig at me, but that’s fine. It’s fine.  Then I gave you the question. Yeah, exactly. whammy.  So  the very clear and succinct recommendation based on the problem to be solved. So I recommended to Anne that we start using Slack for our business once we started getting multiple clients. And then also, like we’ve been talking about throughout this episode,  the projects that we wanted to do internally for our business and then what we wanted to do with the clients  and

 

45:44

Funnily enough, when  one of my clients actually presented Slack to me, I got like really salty about it and I did not want to use it  at  all.  And I should have listened to him because he was an engineer by background. So, oh, there you go, There you go, yeah.  But like, he was making the process easier is the summary of that. So we set up Slack and then it became my go-to mandate for all the other teams and clients that I worked with. And I worked out having like

 

46:13

internal channels and external channels and it just became the way to go  and really it pretty much a limited email for my life for a period of time. And so  I liked that because I felt like I could go back to different feeds or different channels and find stuff more readily than searching through an inbox that might have at that point had like 150,000 emails because I had stopped  putting them all in folders because I ran out of time to do that.  So, and that was the story you told me and that was the story I told Ann. So.

 

46:40

You can hear my passion. I told her how I thought it was gonna impact the business and how it was gonna help us be less overloaded and we wouldn’t miss things as much. And it also allowed us to  hand things off to each other, I think more easily, and then say who was gonna own stuff. So just naturally, like certain of the clients and the things,  might be copied on the email, but she knows she doesn’t even have to acknowledge it unless in Slack I say, I need you to take a look at this. And so  it really has facilitated a lot of that. But I did tell her,

 

47:09

just please give it a try. If you really hate it or we think it’s not working for whatever reason,  we can totally go back the other way. We can try something else. I mean, at that point, I feel like there were so many of these types of softwares coming out and I knew  which ones like Basecamp that I hated and I never wanted to use again, but there were a lot of other options out there, right? So it’s just like, okay, fine.  And then, you know,  it did take some time. mean, there are some just…

 

47:35

weird things even now within the software that we find trips us up. Like if something picks up as a thread instead of as part of a channel, sometimes you can miss that. Or  if you have it open sometimes,  but you don’t have it like active, you can miss messages that look like you read them and you didn’t.

 

47:53

We have gotten into the practice and this is where Anne likes to tease me. She’ll be like, did you get this? Did you get this? And sometimes I want to be like, listen, I will get there. And sometimes I have genuinely missed it. So not saying that it’s perfect, but I think what we learned is that, again, bringing something forward, email was not working for us at the time, or it wasn’t working for me. It just was becoming a mess.

 

48:18

to organize thoughts against, yeah. And then we weren’t, it really, like email doesn’t facilitate the ability for Ann and me to work back and forth on stuff because again, then that just creates more email. And so long story short, we still use it. So I won,  but it was a little bit of a process and it’s not perfect,  but we stuck with it long enough to say, okay, is this better than what we were doing before? Absolutely. If something new comes up, we can shift again, but this is where we are right now.

 

48:44

Yeah, as I say, I gave him pretty easy, but yeah, I do get my dings in. like,  sometimes you’re asked, are you gonna take some persistence and patience?  So  you may have to keep coming back. You might have to keep coming back a little bit differently with different data or new or refreshed  information or hey, know, like a little bit of like, I did it your way, but here I did it my way too. What do you think? You know, and so those are all ways of trying to be able to sell  the way that you want to do it.

 

49:10

in order to try to get some of these outdated practices a little bit more relevant. Our third endotrenches question, I will admit it, I am a control freak. He probably should given you this one. And honestly- Man, oh man. You’re still stinging from me telling you that when you get bored. Yeah, well, mean, sometimes those things take a little bit to get over. No, I’m just kidding. That was totally honest. Okay, so I will admit it, I am a control freak.

 

49:39

And honestly, my batting average is pretty good when it comes to having the right answers and ways to get things done. So why should I let go? And this is a question I think I would say, ask every PNGer ever. So that’s probably why I got this question. All right. And I will speak from experience here. You create a very monolithic culture when you do this, all right? If you’re going to just be, hey, it’s my way or the highway. And when I say monolithic, mean,

 

50:08

like the actual big stone,  everyone’s gonna beat themselves up  on trying to contribute.  And  that’s what you want to do, then  that’s what you wanna do. But I can tell you that eventually people are gonna stop trying to contribute. If they think that that’s the only way to get things done, if they think that it’s just, you’re just searching for somebody to tell you the answer that you already have, you’re gonna lose that diversity of thought that’s so critically important.

 

50:38

in order to make really, really good decisions. And in essence, you lose the entire reason why you hired these people to begin with. I you hire people for their brains, you hire people for their energy. Sometimes you also hire doers and that’s the case as well. But  when you’re asking for people to kind of consult with and help you to make good decisions, if you try to break their spirit, their brains are gonna turn off, their energy wanes. It’s just inevitable.

 

51:06

And ultimately, these people will go someplace else. They will.  And doesn’t matter how much money you give them,  they still will go. And maybe you might be able to buy them back, but their whole desire to help one to contribute  is going to be gone. So they’re just going to kind of go through the motions. And then as your reputation gets out there, you’re going to have a hard time pulling in talent. We saw this even internally in PNG with the different levels of how the managers operated. Some managers were able to attract a lot of people.

 

51:35

based on the way that they were able to collaborate and some managers were not able to get any talent at all or had to take people who didn’t have any choices but to go there. And that is not the decision space that you want to have. So like I said, you know,  if you want to go do it this way, then go do it this way. But my guess is your batting average is only good in the paradigm for which you made a decision. Now,  the question you can ask yourself in order to kind of break out of this paradigm a little bit is,

 

52:05

How do you know your decision would have been better  if you had sought out expertise or if you had considered other points of view or if you had listened to others who are experts in the field? You’ll never know because you made your decision within your paradigm. And I like to say here, there’s like, there’s no right way to in business. There’s just no right way. And everybody was trying to always  do everything right, quote unquote right. It was just different degrees of that worked. I mean, and that’s what we all, that’s why we.

 

52:33

We totally  support the test and learn mentality  because you’re trying to get at what works  more often.  That’s what actually leads you to success. And there’s really no possible way you can achieve the highest degree of like what works or  what that worked if you’re just  you making those decisions. Yeah. And I mean, we joke about the control freak thing.  And having good instincts is part of, you know, having that good track record. But

 

53:00

I do think that tunnel vision is a very real thing. And I think, unfortunately, when people are moving really fast  and they have a lot on their plate and they have a point of reference for what they did before  that worked. I action-oriented people. just keep going down that path. But I do think that,  one, to Anne’s point, you won’t bring anybody with you. They’ll all leave.  But also, you won’t get any better beyond that.

 

53:29

Yeah, and that’s really, really important because that’s  about growth and being able to pull in that external  perspective that only those people have helps you be better. So I think that’s a really good point.  All right. The fourth in the trenches question. As a leader, it can be hard to find someone to hold me accountable. Everyone is afraid of repercussions. Who should I look to? April.

 

53:56

All right, so number one, they shouldn’t be afraid of repercussions unless you have taught them to be afraid of repercussions.  If that’s the case, then you need to take a real hard look at yourself and reframe the culture for your team in a very big and real way. But if you have taught a culture of accountability, with that comes a sense of trust.  And this has to start with you, but it has to be authentically.

 

54:22

felt and true within your organization or within your team. So  if you have this type of culture, it creates what we would call flatness to the team, which means that from an accountability standpoint,  anyone should be able to call out anyone else  when they’re not doing what they said they would do or holding to a deadline or treating someone with the culture of the team, any of those types of things. So that is the very best solution.

 

54:52

if you’re in this situation. You can also look outside your team to someone who is more of a peer to hold you personally accountable if you’re the manager in this situation,  because the maturity of your team or the time spent or whatever may not be there yet,  that they can truly hold you as the manager accountable.  You might be doing everything right. It just might be,  well, we hired a bunch of new people or we traded people on teams or we got a new account. I mean, there’s lots of different things that can happen.

 

55:22

So what we say is, first of all, make sure you have someone that you truly trust to hold you accountable, that can be your sounding board, that can watch your behavior,  that can give you that honest and true reaction.  And then also,  what you can do on your end  is pay attention to the cues and what’s happening in the situations, because if you’re asking people to hold you accountable, but then, like we said, you’re training them to be fearful of doing that, then…

 

55:51

It is a self-fulfilling prophecy and you’re never gonna get them over that hump because they’re too scared that you’re gonna yell at them or embarrass them in front of the team or call them out inappropriately, all of those types of things. Career limiting. Yes, exactly. So  one of the things you can do is  help your team get to know you and your personal brand and your behaviors better.

 

56:16

You should always be working to control them and be at your very best all the time and all of that. But we’re human and that doesn’t happen in situations or eyes at work.  I know that for me, and it’s the same for Ann, when we get really passionate about stuff, our voice goes up, we get louder, we get more enthusiastic. For me, it’s I talk really fast.  And so people  automatically are put, if not on the defensive, then a little bit like, oh, I’m not really sure how to engage  in this situation where we are right now.

 

56:44

When you’re not in those situations, educate people on your tendencies so that they can feel comfortable being able to speak up or speak out or call you in those situations. Even if it’s just to say stuff like, sorry,  you’re going too fast. We need to slow down, back up,  make sure we’re all on board with what you’re asking, know, all of those types of things. You have to make sure that you have those checks and balances in place and doing so outside of situational things allows people to

 

57:13

C,  ah, this is happening again, so therefore I have the authority to step in and make the call. And then you have to be receptive of it. Yes. But the other side of this that we will say is don’t lose the fact that you’re the manager, which means you’re the boss, which means you have the final call.  So don’t go so far to asking for feedback and letting it become a free for all  or letting your team think that they have more control than they do.

 

57:39

you’re still the boss and the manager. And that means when it comes to making decisions on behalf of the team, you are the one at the head of the table.  This is more, okay, if we’re gonna have a team that’s built  on trust and the ability to hold each other accountable, then that’s where you want the feedback from your people. Yeah, I think that’s all really well said. And I would just add the point about being receptive.  Yeah.

 

58:05

Emphasize it. Yeah, because that’s really, really important because lot of especially when we kind of get going, going, going, going, and somebody kind of like, hold on, we tend to get defensive. Yep. We tend to get a little put off, right? And we’re just like, then that becomes about you. And that’s why people are going to feel fearful of giving you feedback where the feedback was actually probably really well intended in order for you to be able to get to whatever goal you’re trying to get with these people for them to tell you,

 

58:34

listen, you’re talking too fast or  we need some time to process or whatever it is, then  you need to be really respectful of that and see, oh,  somebody is telling me how I need to act in order to be able to get to my goal. That is extremely valuable. But a lot of times we overlook it, we feel insulted.  Don’t do that. Or you’re just moving so fast that you don’t even realize what’s going on. Yeah, you’re just not aware of what’s going on. So I think that’s a really, really good point is that you had to be like, oh.

 

59:02

Okay, got it, thank you. Okay, let me try this again or let me give you guys a few minutes. Take it as rolling sun intervention of somebody giving you the playbook  in order to get to your goal.  All right, and our third and final segment is a marketing smarts moment. It’s the fun one. Yes, so I’m alert.

 

59:23

So this is a business or person we’ve experienced recently using or not using their marketing smarts and it may or may not be related to the topic. And this is kind of ancillary to it. You know, it has some elements, but it’s a little bit outside. So we would be remiss if we didn’t celebrate a little bit of what our Cincinnati Bengals have done. And as of today, they are going to the Super Bowl. we never would have thought that at the beginning of the season. I’m still not.

 

59:52

I still feel in shock. it’s any given Sunday, any given Sunday. But when I was writing this episode, they had just won their first playoff game, which was the first playoff game they’d won in 31 years. All right. So really, really like the city has been waiting and they’ve just been still kind of like providing their support. They still show up at games. They’re still tailgating.

 

01:00:21

all of this, just to like try to bring, you know, the bangles and keep them, um, the spirit there within the city. So I’m going to give a tremendous amount of props to the Cincinnati bangles and their organization because what they did to recognize the city for all this support that they’ve given for years and years and years is they awarded three game balls to three local establishments who have been huge supporters in the city. And not only did they award them, they actually

 

01:00:52

took them and hand took them to there, presented it to them and did it in a way that was  very much like, hey, you are part of this win.  I mean, the game ball is like the biggest symbol of that, right? Like you helped us win.  was  your support, your way,  you being able to continue to rally these fans, you doing the tailgates, you kind of creating this vibe and the spirit that allowed us to have this like mojo or this vibe that continued to like…

 

01:01:21

just persevere despite all of these things and all of the naysayers and all of that. And we had somebody  on the podcast a couple weeks ago, Mike Brown from Rebel Metal. Ironic,  as the owner of the bangle, same name. Yeah, it is kind of ironic, but not the same Mike Brown, okay? Not the same.  And he was talking about how important community is to building a brand. And I think this exemplifies it in spades, right?

 

01:01:47

I ask you guys too within your business, when was the last time you really rewarded your community for the support that they have given you? Like we all go through tough times. We all have like had some good times. You’ve had people undoubtedly that have stood by you when times are tough, when times are good. When was the last time you really showed your appreciation? When was the last time that you really were able to convey to them how important they have been to you into the growth of your business?

 

01:02:17

Think about what is your  symbol of presenting a game ball to somebody. I mean, that is what people remember.  mean, it is such a huge momento. I mean, that is what people remember. And when they’re trying to figure out what service that they want to get or what restaurant they want to go to or whatever your business represents, and it doesn’t matter what the business is, they’re going to think about how you made them feel, which is the connection back to the vigilant leadership. See how I did that? And you did. Yeah. So they’re going to think about how you made them feel.

 

01:02:46

And this is a really, really important point of that. And then it extends, right? So  just the other day, friends of ours who are huge Bangles fans happened to be in one of these establishments and they took a picture on Facebook holding that game ball, right?  And so that then spread. you could see how it kind of  just blooms from this groundswell of appreciation. So my moral of the story here is people remember, right? So think about your community, think about what you can do.

 

01:03:14

in order to show your appreciation for your community, whatever your community looks like.  Yeah, and I will just say one final thing, which is being a Bengals fan is hard. We talk about it all the time, right? But I have so enjoyed just seeing the city rally around. And so I’m so thankful that the Bengals reciprocated in kind because the amount of businesses that have  changed the lights on their building to Bengals colors or purchased billboards or

 

01:03:41

went to LinkedIn and promoted the Bangles, which is usually a business channel. I mean, it’s just been amazing to see. So I think, number one, they’ve done something right in keeping all of us on board for so many years. there have been a lot of those businesses that done that for years and years and years years. Yeah. So anyway, lots to celebrate. I think, yes, absolutely kudos to them for finding meaningful connections and remembering the people that have been there behind the scenes. Yeah, absolutely. And hootay. Yeah, hootay.

 

01:04:11

All right, so just to summarize, how well are you practicing vigilant leadership? First, have you established a philosophy for success? This is critical because it teaches people how you want them to do the work, which leads to how they feel, which creates value in that exchange. Are you creating space for growth? So beyond just growth and development plans, do you trust your team or your team members to grow in their capacity to make good decisions and deliver quality work that you don’t have to micromanage?

 

01:04:40

Third, are you working too much in your business versus on your business? Necessity may have required us to be more in our business, but if you aren’t working on your business, who is? How self-aware are you? Or how are you living your personal brand? This is about understanding how your characteristics and appearance are manifesting themselves into behaviors and actions that may or may not be moving you towards your goals.  Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further?  Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com

 

01:05:08

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