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, we get VULNERABLE about the struggles & triggers we’ve been called out for in our careers. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Marketing Smarts Summary
• Transcript

The Very Real Struggle of High Performers

Let’s face it: every high performer has an area where they struggle. And, it is almost always a soft skill. What can we do about this? Use your soft-skill struggle as a superpower by naming it & owning it, modulating your Appearance & Behaviors + Actions accordingly, being intentional & consistent with your Appearance & Behaviors + Actions, and letting your Big Thing be your compass. You’re in for a real treat in this one, as we get VULNERABLE about the struggles & triggers we’ve been called out for in our careers. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• Not wanting to admit weakness
• 3 strategies for dealing with soft skill struggles
• Why you can’t just turn off a soft skill
• You cannot achieve your big thing alone
• Let you big thing be your compass

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

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

Show Notes

• The Very Real Struggle of High Performers
  • [0:29] What is the struggle of high performers?
  • [0:54] Soft skills: how you show up and relate to the world
  • [1:22] “4 Strategies for Dealing with Soft Skill Struggles”
  • [2:20] Why you can’t just turn off a soft skill challenge
  • [3:36] Name the soft skill challenge and own it
  • [4:05] “It shouldn’t be an issue”
  • [5:01] Not wanting to admit weakness
  • [5:29] Being blind to it
  • [7:50] Anne’s example: being seen as non-collaborative
  • [10:15] April’s example: leaving people in the dust
  • [12:24] Your soft skill challenge could look many different ways
  • [13:51] A journaling exercise to reveal your soft skill pattern
  • [14:18] Understand what characteristic it stems from
  • [15:13] At the root of every soft skill challenge is a well-intended characteristic
  • [16:13] What triggers Anne’s collaborativeness issue
  • [18:31] April’s achievement characteristic and the Enneagram 3
  • [21:09] Fear of being let down as a trigger
  • [26:19] What got you here won’t get you there
  • [27:45] Be aware, be intentional, and be consistent
  • [28:13] When soft skill feedback gets in the system, everything becomes the hammer
  • [33:52] Let your big thing be your compass
  • [34:22] You cannot achieve your big thing alone
  • [37:10] Choosing to do the work is what sets you apart
  • [38:36] Maturity, personal growth, and the role of ego
  • [40:28] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts

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 transcript not 100% accurate

00:01

Welcome to the Strategic Council 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.

00:29

Welcome to the Strategic Council podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about the struggle of high performers. All right. I know this is early in the episode, but I’m going to get on my tie box for a second. Here we go. Setting the context. Yes, because I’ve been having this conversation with a lot of people because every high performer has an area where they struggle. Right. And it’s

00:54

almost always a soft skill or in other words, the way me and April define soft skills is the way somebody shows up and relates and engages with the world around them. So  this is a reality even for high performers. And we’re going to get into why this creates a struggle for them. But in many cases, this is a huge obstacle in their journey to achieving their big thing.  And when this struggle starts to present itself, this challenge starts to present themselves.

01:22

there’s a lot of feelings that start to brew.  So the external feelings of frustration, anger, resentment, and then it always turns internal. And when it turns internal, it becomes feelings like inadequacy, imposter syndrome, loss of confidence and joy. And for many seriously, it presents itself as shame. Yeah, it’s a real bummer.  It is, it is. And so let me be the first to say, mean, high performers  facing struggle.

01:50

There’s nothing wrong with you. This is part of the journey. And you’re going to hear a lot from April and I later as we share our journey in this  same kind of vein. And secondly,  as you’re going to also hear from us, when you admit that there is a struggle, you can start to address it. And believe me,  I know how hard it can be to accept and acknowledge that there is a struggle, especially when you’re killing it and delivering your business goals. But also believe me when I say, if you don’t take responsibility for the way you’re showing up,

02:20

It can be  a deal breaker. Yes. And let me say that despite what all these well-meaning bosses, coaches, mentors, you name it, say, you don’t solve for this soft skill struggle just by trying to turn them  off because this comes across as inauthentic and actually in the long run distances you from your goals and your progress and your big thing. You have

02:48

to take the time to understand where it’s coming from as well as why and when there are triggers that are causing this to show up and then do something about it. A thousand percent. So today we’re going to talk about those four strategies for dealing with soft skill struggles. And again, I’m just going to reiterate this to make you feel better about yourselves.  the reason why April and I can talk and speak to this with such depth

03:15

is because we have endured it. We went through it. And if we’re not enough, we watch colleagues go through it. We can pull all their stories. And then on top of it now, we coach  people through it, right? So  this is universal. So  we’re just going to put that on the table and we’re going to get vulnerable.

03:36

The word that everybody loves.  So hopefully if people are still listening after I said the big V word, we’re going to jump into  those strategies. Okay. So first, the most important one is to name the soft skill challenge and own it. And it seems so simple, but this is actually the hardest part. And what makes it hard generally falls into one of three camps. So first of all, and this was mine,  it shouldn’t be an issue, right?

04:05

So if you’re killing it as a high performer, you’re delivering  everything and you’re exceeding expectations, the way  I did the work, and I’m gonna say  I, because I’m going to take some responsibility for this,  I believe it shouldn’t have mattered, right? If I accidentally pissed somebody off, if I accidentally am short in a meeting, if I accidentally make somebody cry, if only did that a couple of times, April does that way more than I do.

04:31

I mean, if I did that in the course of delivering  my big goals, okay, it happens. I’m sorry, but not sorry, right? And so I, lot of times didn’t take responsibility for it. I just thought people should get over it.  And on the other side of this, I was almost kind of proud about it. Like I was almost kind of proud that I had a little bit of an intimidation factor that people were like really wanting to please me in these meetings because they were afraid of how I was going to react. And I had a kind of a laissez faire. That is  not.

05:01

Healthy guys, I’m just going to tell you right that  again, we said we’ve been through it and we’ve made the mistake. So here you’re hearing them here. You’re hearing it right the big V word.  The other camp that this could fall into is we don’t want to admit that we have a challenge because this makes us feel bad about ourselves, right? And that is  so human and I get it because  especially for killing. We’re a high performer. We want to make we have any weaknesses. It feels and it puts makes us vulnerable.

05:29

to all kinds of attacks and makes us vulnerable to what our whole overall image and reputation looks like. So we just decide we’re not going to admit it, right? And then the third one is we’re actually blind to it because as April and I talk about all the time, soft skill feedback is rarely given. And if it’s given, it’s given in a very obscure way that is really hard to make it tangible. So you’re going to have to really  be aware and especially in your, in your surroundings, in your environment.

05:58

that you have some of these soft skills challenges and you  get to those by really analyzing how people are reacting to you. How are people engaging with you? Are you being effective in your communications? Are you able to influence? How do people stand? How do people,  do they actually look you in the eye when you’re talking to them?  All these things that you can kind of get some clues as to,  hey, um I’m being effective or not. Now, regardless of the camp we fit into, a lot of time,

06:27

Again, if we actually use that V word for a whole hot second, we actually know. I mean, we kind of know it is something that we kind of innately know, but we again,  we’re just not tuning into it. So April, what’s your perspective on this? And then I’m going to give a little example about how this showed up for me in the second, but I’ll let you chime in first. Yeah. I mean,  I think it’s all of these symptoms, but what I would just emphasize  is the fact that

06:57

It’s not worth wasting the time ignoring it. Because the thing about high performers  is there are varying levels of self-awareness, but  I will make the statement that I feel like there’s always enough self-awareness to recognize when something’s not going your way.  And all the things, Anne, you said are exactly right.

07:21

you know, little squishier, I’ll say. It’s not fun to have to deal with it. It’s not fun to have to turn the mirror on yourself. You know, you,  it’s much easier to do the work and do it well and keep moving forward and kind of say, I’m going to put this over here and worry about it later.  But to the comment I made at the beginning, when you do that,  you just set yourself up for failure in the long run. And the longer you do it, the worse it’ll get. Yeah. A thousand percent.  And that’s

07:50

a super good segue into sharing a soft skill that we had to  acknowledge because that’ll set us up for the rest of the episode as we continue to come back to it  and people will notice a threat. So I’ll start and then I’m going to ask you to give your example to April. Oh goody. So you can think about and prepare for that.  So the one that  was the hardest for me to acknowledge, especially because I didn’t believe it was true. Mind you, you guys know what camp I’m in, okay.

08:19

um was  people didn’t think I was very collaborative. Now,  I thought I was extremely collaborative. I liked working in teams. I liked being with people.  I mean, I didn’t think I was uncollaborative. But then when you kind of lock into the fact that I was also kind of a bit of a control freak,  I was very, had very strong points of view.  I had a strong sense of ownership.

08:48

when you kind of put all those things together and they started all kind of coming together at once, then yeah, they could present themselves as not being collaborative. An example I’ll give is when I was in R &D pretty young into my career, I was responsible for the single cup coffee brewer. is before they were extremely popular and I was working with the team in France on that and I brought the coffee brewer back and my team and I were supposed to analyze this machine.

09:18

Well, when I showed up, I was the only one who showed up. And I was like, where is everybody else?  And I asked my boss, was like, where is everybody? And he said, well, you kind of made it pretty clear that you didn’t need their help or nor did you want their help. And I was like, I don’t understand how that could be true. You know, and he again, you know, would speak to the fact of like, you know, it’s a symbol of not being collaborative. But for me, it was just like,  I had a certain way I wanted to run through it. I had a certain process. I had

09:46

you know, all my ideas and I didn’t really create any room or space for other people to express their ideas or thoughts or how they wanted to proceed. And so I basically kind of told them they were irrelevant to my process. That was my first time I had to admit that maybe how I was presenting myself could come off as being non-collaborative. And I’m going to have more to talk about that on a little bit later. But April, how about yours? is a little bit.

10:15

Um, yes. So as all of you know by now, Anne and I share some tendencies before we even knew each other. So mine’s going to follow kind of a similar idea. Although as we get into the stories and things, it’s a different experience, but

10:34

The big thing for me was I was always known as being a hard charger. And when I was young in my career, I had the unfortunate experience of having a boss that really fueled the fire of that. And so at an age where I was, let’s say, very impressionable, he saw in me the desire to just go, go, go, climb the ladder, finish work.

10:59

learn as fast as I could, complete as many things as possible, and always with excellence to a level of kind of perfection at that point in my career. I had not learned the 80 for the 20 rule ah and was kind of working myself to death.  And  similar to Anne, I didn’t see anything wrong with being a hard charger because at that point  I was doing all the things, checking all the boxes, growing really fast,  learning, cutting my teeth on all different kinds of experiences until

11:27

I was at the point where I wanted to start moving up and building this into a career. And so I was lucky enough, and I won’t get too much into the story, because I know we’ll contextualize more of this later, but to have two mentors who are still really good friends that sat me down and talked to me about bringing people along. So where Anne’s was more collaboration, mine was leaving people in the dust, which makes me cringe, because the irony is that

11:55

All I wanna do all day is bring people along and help them in their careers. But at that point,  I wanted to be a one man show. And I did hold the belief at that point in time that I could do it better than anybody else.  And sharing the control freak with Ann,  I didn’t even give people a chance to show me that they could take on any of it. Because in my mind, I was gonna do it, like I said before, better,  faster, and to perfection. Yep. Yeah, okay.

12:24

That was a really good first step.  I’m starting to sweat guys. oh It is a bit like therapy. It is a bit like therapy. We’re going, we’re going really deep here.  I mean, I wanted to make the point too, is that, you know, when me and April talk about collaborativeness and hard charging, it  kind of feels like it goes hand in hand with being a high performer, but know that your soft skill challenge could be a multitude of different things.

12:52

And it actually could be something that maybe flies a little bit below the radar. So maybe you are a high performer, but you don’t like conflict, you know? And so you don’t want to have like the tough conversations. So this could take like multiple different forms and it doesn’t have to be something that is as strong as what me and April are talking about. That just happens to be ours. So  don’t try to like say, well, you know, think about it from the context of like, well, where am I really showing up and being a really abrasive or like

13:21

it might not, you might not be showing up as being abrasive at all. Maybe yours is you’re not showing up, right? So just think about it in that context. I just want to just to caveat that,  is cause me and April have very similar  ways about which we approach  things.  And so you kind of get a little bit of that. So we’re trying not to feed off of each other. Well, and I think to just, if I put on my coaching hat for a minute, an exercise that I assigned to all of our clients at various points in our journeys together,

13:51

is if you don’t know what it is, take a look at over the course of,  call it three or four weeks,  jot down places where you didn’t show up like you wanted to,  and don’t think about them much beyond that. Just do that. And then at the end of that three or four weeks, and you know, do it, it a couple times a week or, you know, at the end of every day, two or three minutes, just reflect. Look for patterns. And usually  that will reveal where your soft skill adage is.

14:18

Yep. And that’s going to be a good one to kind of bring back in a little bit here too, when we talk about triggers. Oh, yeah. That’s a great one. All right. So the second strategy is understand what characteristic it stems from, the soft skill challenge, and modulate your appearance and your behaviors and actions accordingly. All right. You guys, at the root of every soft skill challenge is a well-intended characteristic that is misfiring.

14:45

Uh huh. All right. I’m going to say it one more time because this is really important to understand at the root of every soft skill challenge is a well intended characteristic that is misfiring. Now remember what me and April say, characteristics are neither good nor bad. They just have the power to move us towards our big thing or away. So when they’re moving us away, we need to ask ourselves why we feel the need to show up like this. And like I said, I’m going to get back to this and I’m getting it back to it sooner rather than later.

15:13

it’s likely that you’re being triggered. All right. So triggers, uh, and we have a really great episode coming up on,  uh, triggers here,  I think in a couple of weeks. So  be on a, on the lookout for that. But for now,  when we talk about triggers, we’re talking about people, places and things that cause us to show up in certain ways. And a lot of times they’re like knee jerk reactions, right? We see it, we feel it, we’re there and we have this immediate visceral reaction to whatever we’re experiencing. So.

15:44

All right, let’s go back to my collaborativeness so that we  can put this in perspective.  Thanks April, thanks for that side of the coin. Okay, so if I really was going to consider  what was going on here for me and the collaborativeness  and this progresses across multiple different moments and I’m going to get to that in the next point,  is that it’s really my Italian-ness, so the fact that I’m Italian, misfiring.

16:13

Okay, this is what really like  is the response to a lot of these triggers. And it stems from like two really specific triggers. And this is not going to surprise you guys at all based on what I already shared is that I  believe  whatever prevailing opinion  that I’m experiencing at that moment is wrong. And usually I feel like I’m right.

16:36

or someone or said or did something that didn’t meet my expectations, right? So those are usually the two triggers that happen that  really my Italian-ness starts to come out. Now,  what I want to say is I have every right to share my point of view. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t share your point of view, but when I’m triggered, I go full blown Italian. My voice elevates, I get really direct,  I get very animated.

17:04

I mean, I get very, very big and I already show up in the room and I am a big presence in the room anyway. And I recognize that about myself. But when I’m Italian, it goes like super bore. Right. And the people in the room,  they can’t hear me. Like it totally shuts them down. That style and tone by which I’m communicating it.  A lot of times it scares people.  I mean, it literally I’ve been told that I’m a little bit scary at the best case scenarios. I turn them off and that’s still not like on a great side of the spectrum.

17:34

And so when I  realized that these things are going to trigger me, I have to take the responsibility to realize that that is going to happen. And I have to change my appearance and my behaviors and actions so that I can show up in a way that I’m going to be hurt because I’m still going to share my point of view. Like that’s not going to change. I’m not saying, you know, you’re, you should sit and you should sit on your hands. You shouldn’t say anything,  but  have to be responsible for the way that I’m communicating.  And on top of that,

18:03

I don’t want to continue to get that feedback that I’m not collaborative, right? And I’m going to get to why that’s important a little bit later. But in the meantime, April, why don’t you share how this is presenting for you? Yep. So, okay. So here we go again. I cooled down. Now the sweat will start again, but we’re here. So I already said I’m a hard charger and I like to move fast. And in working with my coach, I’ve learned that I’m an Enneagram three, not an eight as previously thought.

18:31

And so for me, what that means is action and progress is everything. And so the characteristic at work here is pure achievement.  And  as my coach, Denny, the wonderful Denny has taught me, I need to constantly remind myself that I am a human being, not a human doing. But there was this time in my  career, like I said before, where I was running. I mean, you couldn’t give me enough stuff to do. I wanted to learn it all. I wanted to drink it in.

19:01

I had some of that imposter syndrome of being the youngest one in the room, all of those things were at work. And so that achievement was what I was constantly  fueling. However,  finally my two friends decided to sit me down and tell me that I could run all day and then leave everyone behind. And they knew that they could kind of put my words back to me, right? So I would…

19:27

Talk about wanting a promotion. In fact, I probably talked about it so much that they were like, oh my gosh, you young little, what is the word, whippersnappers, sit down and calm down. You’ve been here a whole hot minute. And explain to me the value  of bringing people along. And like Anne said, part of that idea of…

19:45

not meaning it or not seeing it as bad or ill intention when she set things up. It really doesn’t matter, right? Because we also say that people’s perceptions are their reality. And so that’s why this point is so important about  modulating those characteristics so they show up in a way that can help you.  And so  my job, which was  painful, and I know we’ll get into this more as we go along, but the advice was that I had to learn to be patient, listen first.

20:12

teach where I could get people in my corner and give them things to do so that we could work together as a team and ultimately do more together. So what triggered your achievement characteristic? Oh gosh, are we going all the way back to childhood? I mean, if we have to, but I’m just curious because I know like you told me in the past, like when people want to like

20:39

go slow, which is also kind of funny because you’re a processor.  So how do you rectify those things in your mind? what? So maybe I should stop asking you like a gazillion questions that goes gazillion different directions, because I’m just I’m curious about like what triggers you and your achievement mindset. Yeah. So ah I mean, if we do go back all the way to like being the oldest of five children and a perfectionist, that’s where that achievement, I think the root cause of that achievement comes from. And we say what? Like by the time you’re seven or whatever, all your characteristics are baked.

21:09

So  if we go all the way back, I joked, but that’s  like really quite serious. But I think that for me,  I felt,  and this was my perception,  that there were too many times where I was let down when I tried to work with other people. And so I had just kind of built up this screw it, I’ll do it myself.  And then that’s where my…

21:35

control freak comes in, right?  And that sort of inner voice started around, I can do it better than anyone else. I can do it better than anyone else. And so  it just felt like a complete waste of time, which I, you know, I’m sure people are listening to this and being like, is this the same person that coaches me? Because it doesn’t sound like it.  I have learned people recovering people. I really do think that at that point in my career, because I wasn’t

22:02

you know, I was fueled along by the agency environment, a boss who wasn’t helpful in helping me manage this and myself,  plenty of hours to work, wanting to just be really good and learn really fast. So I just kept taking things on. And it was like, the bigger, the better, the bigger, the better, the bigger, the better, until I reached the point where it was like, I was getting up at 3am to talk to China when we were working on a merger and acquisition and  working all weekend to make sure that every employee was listed in the yearbook, right? Like it was ridiculous.

22:32

That’s a really good example. like that one. I don’t know that I answered the achievement thing, but I think you did the story. Well, you see that you said the trigger was, I mean,  the fear of being let down. And so, I mean, that kind of triggers your achievement mentality is when you look at people and you think that they’re going to let you down, the achievement like thing kicks in and off you go.  Well, and I wanted to go back to the other question because now I’m curious about that, too, which is how do you manage your hard charging and your need to process?

23:02

Cause I think that’s an also a struggle that money people focus  on when we hear, you know, high performing, you need to make decisions in the minute.  You need to be like quick on your feet, but you, mean, I’m not saying you’re not April. mean, if you have to come down and you need to make a decision, you can make a decision, but you, you’re a processor. You rather process through it, but you are still a hard charger. So how do you put those things together  in, because that, know that was a struggle for you.

23:28

And it continues to be one and kind of maintaining those expectations. Well, I think that part of my recovery is where the quote unquote is where the processing piece came out or became more developed or I don’t know, light was shed on it because the other side of the story is when I did these things and I took the advice to slow down and bring people along, I was able to pull things from other people, right? And put it together.

23:56

but you naturally have to slow down when you do that.  And so I think that was part of it. And then two,  in the beginning, right, when you start your career, you’re doing things. So you can get a lot of fulfillment and achievement and whatever and race through things and learn really fast because it’s more tactics. So as I got older and I was working with teams, but then also like the sheer volume of stuff we would collect  in order to build

24:24

brand strategy or bring a new product to market or build a persona or whatever, right? Like I worked for some of those agencies that we went deep on everything. And so that was also part of the processing was like spending time in and with and alongside others with this data to figure out which parts we were going to pull forward and really be considerate about it and choiceful about it. And that’s where I learned the best strategists come out, right? Because

24:54

you can  race, race, race, race, race. But if you want to get to the levels where you’re making business decisions  and you’re  working on Fortune 100 brands in a lot of cases, and you’re with executives again that in a lot of cases were a lot older than me, I think that’s where that kind of processing nature came out. And now I think I do it.  I mean, you brought it to my attention early on.

25:20

I don’t know that I would have called it that exactly, but I think now for me, it’s processing and also sitting with things and not having to check things off my list  in recent years. It’s like, that doesn’t need to be done right now. Again, it goes back to the human being human doing, right? And I think processing is kind of like, maybe it’s a defense mechanism as I’m hearing myself talk to not be like,  there’s 85 things on this list and I got three hours until the kids come home,  let’s go, right?  Instead it’s like,

25:50

know that that answer is that answer. It’s the answer because you want to check it off. I don’t know that it’s the right thing though. so, and I do in the processing phase kind of wait for my gut to like reveal the answer. And then I feel quite comfortable with whatever the decision is because it just becomes, it’s almost like it’s obvious if I let it sit long enough. There you go. It’s long.  no,  I think that was great because I think it really sets up a very fundamental understanding that is super important when it comes to

26:19

the quote unquote struggle. And the reason why we’re talking about this guys, like if I go back to the tide box a second is because it’s okay to struggle. I mean, where we’re taught now, you know, in this day and age that, you know, everything needs to kind of be repositioned to something positive, right? And so when we struggle, we feel like there’s something wrong with us. Again, there’s nothing wrong with us. We’re just going through a growth spurt, if you will. And usually as April,

26:46

I mean, really articulately stated in her her recount of her experiences, that almost always happens when you realize that what got you here is not going to get you there. Oh, yes. Right. So you can ignore some of these things for a very long time. And you can be in that second camp where you’d be like, I just don’t want to acknowledge that. You can kind of go on your merry way. And that’ll work to a certain point until it does not work anymore. And that’s usually not going to work when you’re a big thing.

27:16

it on the path of your big thing, comes into a question mark from people who have to evaluate you about whether or not you’re ready for that big thing. Leadership position, promotion, bigger team,  expanded role, whatever that looks like for you in your career. When they’re re-evaluating you and say, oh yeah, they’ve done everything that they need to do, but it’s this thing over here. We’re just not sure they’re ready for that next level. We’re not sure if they’re ready to manage people because of this. We’re not sure if they’re ready to take on  extended responsibilities because of this.

27:45

So this is usually when the point of like that struggle starts to become very, very present and omnipresent, frankly.  So what we’re trying to do is give you some perspective so you can acknowledge it now. So it doesn’t become that because the third strategy here guys is you need to be aware,  be intentional and be consistent with your appearance and behaviors and actions, especially when you’re trying to change perception. Cause remember what April said, people’s perceptions are the realities. So

28:13

What you probably notice,  and this is where I’m going to get back to my collaborative  issue here, is when there’s soft skill feedback, that when that soft skill feedback gets into system, if that is the nail, then everything else becomes the hammer. Okay? So  I mentioned before that, you know, my collaborativeness was a soft skill challenge I had to deal with. That became the nail for everybody else’s hammer. Okay? So

28:40

If I was trying to get alignment support on a RECO and I tried to do this like, and try to align people ahead of time. And this was even a specific example. I remember to this day, I was trying to get a brand manager approval on a RECO. And so I wanted to get my alignment ahead of time with people on the team and my management. So they would support me in this. When I went to her, she found out about it ahead of time. And all of a sudden I wasn’t collaborative because I was quote unquote going behind her back. Right.

29:08

I express my frustration in my agency. I’d let a lot of agencies, which  April had a lot of conversation  about, um, in my communications role,  I’d have to express my frustration for things that they just did not do well enough or the expectations they didn’t meet or the fact that they come unprepared. I remember a specific example where eight of them came to  a meeting  and I had an agenda and they didn’t even come prepared to talk to the agenda. They had their own agenda and I was like, bad, bad.

29:38

What’s coming going on here? So of course I was frustrated. I was a little upset in the meeting, not collaborative. Okay. Every time I presented a contradictory opinion in a meeting, it didn’t matter how big or small, not collaborative. So you can see, and you’re probably experiencing it too, is that every time you show up in a certain situation, people give you that hammer of like, okay, you know, whatever your soft scale challenges, it becomes the prevailing  reason why

30:07

you are not going to be listened to or why you’re not going to influence effectively  or how you’re showing up in, you know,  in building your reputation. People just start to keep on hammering you with that. I share all this just to know one, first of all, that we get it. But a second, just keep in mind that these tapes can be very hard to disrupt. All So you have to be very intentional  of  putting yourself in a position to disrupt them. That means

30:35

being aware, as we talked about before, of when these situations are likely to occur or how they occur and how you show up in these situations, being intentional for how you’re going to now show up in your behaviors and actions and your parents to counteract what people believe to be true about you already. And then to consistently do that time and time and time and time again until people  see you in a different light. And that can take a while and it may not be easy. So

31:03

I just want you guys to recognize that,  that we get it,  but you have to do the hard work to change the tape. Yep.  And I will say too, that it is an ongoing thing that you always have to stay on top of. Yes. So  I made the joke before  about people listening that I coach or know me as a coach, probably being like, Holy cow, did she have like a lobotomy? What happened? um

31:34

But the truth of the matter is, is that even now,  when I’m  coaching people or leading teams through organizational development work,  I have to pay very close attention to the cues that are being given to me in order to make sure that people are coming along with me.  And  it took me  a while, right? Like, so I always say I had those two women who were amazing, who were

32:02

cared enough about me to give me the feedback, but they weren’t always in the rooms with me.  And then, you you all know by this point that I love to jump around from company to company, there’s that achievement thing again.  And so a lot of times it relied on me to  manage  and assess how I was being received to make sure that people were tracking and were gonna come along with me.

32:29

And now in the work that we do, it’s the most important thing because if people can’t hear what I’m saying or understand what I’m saying or I’m moving too quickly for them, then we make no progress. And my whole job in those rooms is to bring people along, which is very ironic.  But it is  something that you have to continue to stay on top of. And we use the word struggle and we debated this, right? Because of that whole, we want people to be inspired and feel positive.

32:57

But the truth of the matter is,  that there are struggles and you don’t have to internalize them as negative, but you do have to make sure that you’re honoring yourself and the people that are around you by being aware, intentional and consistent in how you’re behaving and acting and ultimately showing up. Yeah, because what that does is it leads to trust, right? So you can’t have trust without consistency. So that trust can be

33:24

can see in a couple of different formats, you know, so you could be consistent on a negative side, which then they trust that you’re going to continue to behave like that, or you can be consistent on a more positive side. And then you can showcase that you’re going to,  you can be trusted to behave like that too. And again,  it’s what’s going to move you towards your goals,  what’s going to move you towards your big thing, you know, and that’s why I want to emphasize that because that’s the fourth strategy.

33:52

is you let your big thing be your compass, right? Because as April and I have talked about, I mean, you’re going to ask yourself why so many times.  am I doing this? Why do I even care? What’s the point of this?  Why can’t these people just get over it? Why is this so important? Why does it matter? mean, you’re going to ask yourself why or what in so many different contexts. And here is when we say the reason why is because you need others to achieve your big thing.

34:22

you can’t achieve your big thing on your own. Even April talked about that  when very young at her career, she thought she could be the lone ranger going out and doing all this on her own. And she realized that that was not going to get her  to that other level. Right. And so I also wasn’t going to have any friends. You weren’t going to have any friends and you’re not going to have a relationship and work wasn’t going to be fun. So there’s lots of other things in other reasons why this is so important and why it’s so important to build the relationships.

34:48

Right. And make sure that your reputation in your image are reflective of the personal brand that you want people to  see about you. And that is the authentic personal brand, as April said, that’s exuding from the way that you’re showing up. Because again, when people’s perceptions are reality, they both start to believe those things about you,  regardless if they are true or not, regardless if you intended for them or not. But always remember it is totally your choice.  I know we like to sit and we like to say, well,

35:18

I don’t act like this and I’m not going to get promoted. That is a choice. Right. And when you say act like this, I want you guys to take responsibility for what that actually means because it’s not selling out. Right. And a of people will say that it’s like, well, I can’t, you know, act like that because that’s not,  who I am at my core. It is absolutely who you are at your core. How you’re presenting yourself is can be seen on a wide spectrum. Even like

35:47

things that we traditionally perceive as being negative, like directness and as we said, like hard charging or conflict or, all those sorts of things that we kind of might believe about ourselves or  become intrinsic in our characteristics or points of view that we have  or beliefs that we have. Those are all, we’re not asking you to change those. What we’re trying to ask you guys to do is look at those and see how they should present themselves.

36:14

in a way that’s going to move myself towards my goals. And sometimes it’s turning them down. Sometimes it’s acknowledging, well, this isn’t going to work. This characteristic isn’t going to work in this situation. I need to turn this characteristic down. I need to dial up other characteristics.  We’re not saying that if you are one way that you have said should act like another. And actually we said that you shouldn’t do that because at least in authentic behavior, it’s going to be very hard to continue to show up that way. If it’s not coming from

36:42

the place of your personal brand and place of authenticity.  But if you don’t acknowledge the fact that you are in control of this, that it is your choice, that it’s not other people who are forcing you to be a certain way in order for you to achieve your goals. And you realize that your big thing is more important than being right.  You will get over this. You will persevere. You will move forward. And so  let your big thing be your compass. Let that be your why. Yeah.

37:10

I mean, I think that was well said and sums up all the points we tried to make during this episode. But I think that the case for enduring the struggles  is something that you should look at as positive because not everybody will choose to do it.  And so like Anne said, it is your choice.  If you decide that you’d rather be right than  achieve whatever it is you’re setting out to do, that’s fine. I mean, I’m a Taurus. I am stubborn through and through.

37:40

I love to be correct. And if you ask Bryce, he’ll say, I think that I always am and I never say sorry, but there we go. That’s a different therapy for a different day. But I mean, there are people who will just say, no, the work should speak for itself. I’m not gonna go out of my way to do that. I feel like I’m selling out, right? We hear all of those excuses. But I think if you’re willing to take an objective look and learn more about yourself,

38:06

and realize that if you address these things, you will only get better, which will then lead to the achievement of all your big things in life. That lens is a much more fulfilling lens. And again, Anne and I have said, we’ve been through all of it. You heard it today, right?  I find it so much more fulfilling to take feedback, even if sometimes I have to swallow really hard, and then go and internalize it and process through it and decide what I’m taking from it. And then,

38:36

become better for it than spending time swirling in my brain and being indignant because I want to pretend that’s not true. Yes. And I mean, that is called maturity and personal growth. And a lot of times what’s holding that back is ego. 100%. I was just listening to Jay Shetty this morning and ego was the chapter. And it’s, know, again, ego can be good in certain ways and certain circumstances and certain moments.

39:05

and it can hold you back in others. So being honest about when it’s doing its work and for the positive and when it’s doing its work for the negative  is a really important thing to  keep an eye on and realize that it’s okay to evolve and change.  And that’s also a hard thing because again, we  become so identified with some of these ways that we show up and it becomes a badge of honor that we wear.

39:31

that it’s hard to shift from that because then we wonder what other people think.  That is the name of the game here is if  you’re shifting in order to improve perception of who you are so you could trade your big thing. That is for your own benefit. And then at the end of the day, who cares what other people think as to why, as long as it’s an authentic way that you’re showing up. If it’s inauthentic and you’re just trying to  manipulate people, they’ll pick up on that very, very quickly. That’s not what we’re saying here.

40:01

But I mean, April is totally right in that, you know, the shift is so critically important to embrace the struggle.  When you’re feeling that struggle, that tension, it usually means it’s time to shift. Yep, absolutely. So that’s personal growth people and that growth mindset that a lot of people talk about.  All right. Well,  therapy session is over for now.

40:27

So hopefully you’ve gotten some good insight backed by some very  vulnerable examples that come from April and I’s personal history, as well as sprinkled in with some others.  But just to recap these four strategies, first, you want to name the soft skill challenge and own it. Second, you want to understand what characteristic it stems from and modulate your appearance and behaviors and actions accordingly. Third, you want to be aware, be intentional, and be consistent with your appearance and behaviors and actions.

40:57

And fourth, you want to let your big thing be your compass. And with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put it into practice, embrace those struggles, embrace some high performers. Cause remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.  Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further?  Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com.  We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business.

41:23

and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Council on your favorite podcast platform.

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 Council podcast.

00:31
I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And by now you know that as we often do, we’re bringing back a previously recorded classics episode. So many of our conversations lately surround AI and all of the new avenues and tools that exist for doing things that historically would rely on a person to do. The tension lies with what these tools are capable of versus what we truly need human beings for. Enter the skill of problem solving.

00:58
In this episode, we tackle four ways to become a better problem solver, ensuring that a key differentiator in the computer versus human battle is intact and always getting better. And the more you practice, the better you become. So with that, let’s get to it. So the first one we have here is investigate possible solutions with a time limit. You’ve heard us talk on various episodes about just going and doing the first thing to get started, and that definitely applies here.

01:27
The first thing though is to start to dig into the information you have at hand or researching what might be missing so you can feel like you’re informed enough to start to frame up what the options are for potential solutions. The reason the time limit comes into play and is so important is that one of the places that’s easy to get stuck is in thinking you need every single ounce of information out there before you can possibly start to go down the path of making a decision.

01:56
This is simply not true. And in most cases, it’s not even possible with the sheer amount of information that is out there. mean, you Google something, right? Just as a simple example, and what you get back is pages and pages and pages of potential options. So in defining the time, think about the magnitude or the impact of the problem and the subsequent solution. So I’ll give a couple of…

02:22
recent examples for me. If it is finding a restaurant for Mother’s Day for your entire family, yes, I was on the hook for that. Quickly list out the parameters, number of people, location of town that’s convenient for everybody, time of day, will they be open? And then just run a quick search. Pick a few to share with the group and then done, you’re finished with it, right? So this is a relatively simple thing that is on your list as a task that you’re going and trying to go and figure out a solution for.

02:52
It’s not worth belaboring, thinking of every restaurant, for example, in your area. None of those things should come into play. It should be pretty simple. Here are the options. Here’s what we’re going with and move forward. However, if you’re figuring out how to save a client relationship that’s failing fast, that’s on the other side, right? That’s in a place where you need to spend some more time. So that might require…

03:17
call it a few hours, go and meet with the people that are on the ground with the relationship, talk to even maybe the client, enlist leadership so that they have some say and they have visibility to what’s going on, build a cross-functional team of folks to quickly come together and think about what you could potentially do. Again, this is not like a week-long process. I said a relationship that is failing fast, that means you need to get in front of it quickly.

03:44
But the point here is to say it requires more due diligence than something that is more simply task oriented. So really think about the timeline that you need to make the decision and that you feel like in your gut, you’re gonna have enough to go and process what those potential solutions are. You’re not solving it necessarily, especially in the client example, but you’re pulling together relevant information in a timely manner.

04:11
Yeah, this is a really hard one for a lot of people because they just don’t know how much information they really need. I know. It’s a little bit more of an art. It is definitely more of an art. I’ll give you a couple of cues. They’re going to help you understand when you’re done processing so that you can move on because a lot of people will tend to process forever because they don’t want to miss anything. They don’t want to get to a point where they are on the hook for something and then something kind of out of the blue comes out. mean, so there’s a lot of pressure to

04:39
get all the information that’s possible before making any kind of a decision. So if you kind of know that yourself to be one of these like processors, listen up here because I’m gonna give you a couple of things to think about. One is you need to think about the risk versus reward. Yes. Right? So if you get to a point where your risk is a lot lower than the reward or to the point where if you tried it, it’s not gonna be detrimental or if you were going to like take some action,

05:06
You might learn more than having a hypothetical discussion all the time. That’s when you’re likely done processing. You’re never going to know everything there is to know. the big risk here is making sure you don’t go down into a rabbit hole because that tends to happen is that people will tend to go off on these angles and they go down the rabbit holes and they just spend a lot of time processing and can never get to the point where they feel comfortable enough to make a decision.

05:30
The other cue is if you feel like you can’t take it all on yourself, you need to share the risk. You need to share the responsibility. You need to get other people. We’re gonna talk about that in a second, so I’m not going to belabor the point, but you need to get other people who can share the risk with you so that you can make this decision together. Yeah, I think those are really good points. And I think your point about knowing when, it is tricky. I said it’s a little bit more of an art and some of us have

05:59
really learned that we have strong gut instinct and we can roll with that and we’re comfortable there. Others of us don’t have that. And again, it’s another thing where it’s everything in between, but it’s really around arming yourself with enough that you can go and do to your point so that you’re not just sitting there paralyzed. And as a processor, quite frankly, it’s interesting for me, I think the agency, uh

06:26
quickfire situations sort of trained me out of my processing in certain instances where it was like, okay, I have to get to make faster decisions or I’m gonna be here all night every night until three o’clock in the morning. But being able to really hone in and then lean in as part of this process to know, one, you can’t just sit and process forever, but then two, like you said, the risk associated with it to be able to feel like, okay, I can move on or like you said, go ask someone else, et cetera.

06:55
All right, and so we’ll get into the next point here, which kind of steps off of the idea of making sure that you have enough information in a timely manner, and that is to analyze the options you have against the goals. So I just said in the previous point that what you’re trying to do is loosely frame up what the potential solutions are. At this phase, you’re going into analysis, and this is where you should try to get as objective as possible.

07:22
We talked in the previous point about how people can get stuck in processing. I think in this point, what people get stuck in is their emotions. really what you want to do is do your best to turn that off so that you can counter the emotions and get crystal clear. And that’s where those goals come in. So Ann talked about the risk associated, right? If you can start to frame up your options through the lens of

07:51
This problem came up and what we are trying to achieve is X. That starts to give you a filter for which solutions may be pushing you in the right direction. So what is an example of this? right, and in April, yes, in third person, make a revenue goal. They look at their current funnel and most of what feeds their current funnel is word of mouth. So what did we quickly realize? That we were not gonna be able to deliver the growth number that we had listed out

08:21
within the limitations that a lot of our business comes from word of mouth, which by the way is amazing. I’m not saying we want to turn off love you guys, thank you. Yes, yes. It’s just that we gave ourselves a pretty audacious goal from where we were last year. And looking in that, we said, okay, we are growing every year. That’s amazing. To make this leap, we’re going to have to figure out another way. So what could we do? We could figure it out ourselves with all the other things we have going on in our plate. We could hire someone.

08:50
to help us figure out, in fact, someone who may potentially be an expert in funnels. And then we had to figure out who would those people be and what are the pros and cons or the risks and rewards of investing the time ourselves versus hiring someone else to meet our goals, which was X amount of revenue in 2023 calendar year. Right.

09:17
When we got super focused through the lens of the goals, it helped to really show us what the answer was. And that was to bring someone onto our team to help fuel the process of building our funnel and leaning in with us on our business so that we could continue to do all the other things that we do day to day with another partner who could help expedite that process for us. And when I say it sort of showed itself to us,

09:47
you put things out into the universe. I mean, we got connected to someone on the podcast actually, Alicia Collin-Hird who came on the podcast and we liked what she had to say. And because we were kind of in this sort of problem solution mindset, it became clear that based on the options we were looking at, she was the person that we ultimately needed. But going back to the beginning of this one, if we had leaned into our emotions, it would have prolonged.

10:13
the analysis, we probably would have gone back and forth about whether we should do it on behalf of our business or- Make the investment. Yeah, make the investment to hire someone. There are so many places you can invest. mean, you can see how it gets very muddy, very fast. So just an example to exemplify this point of if you’re clear on your goals and you use them with discipline as a filter, you get far better at problem solving way faster.

10:42
Yeah, I think that’s a really good example and I’ll bring up a personal one too from my days at P &G and people might be sitting here listening to this episode going, wow, this sounds a lot like decision making. Well, ironically, a lot of people’s problems is making decisions. So it’s a very intertwined conversation. So if that’s what you’re hearing, that’s totally by design. So what I think this point really does nicely is it sets people up to be a credible resource. m

11:10
Right, especially if you don’t feel like you have a seat at the table or a voice in the room. So for example, when we were doing creative reviews at P &G, I was in PR, I was in public relations. I was invited to the table. I had a seat at the table. I didn’t necessarily have a voice in the room until I could define what my point of view was going to contribute to the overall goal of the work, which was not directly attributed to the actual creative

11:40
itself, but more about what the impact of the creative was going to have. So my criteria was, are people going to talk about it? Can I get people to write about it? Can we develop social around it that’s going to make it bigger than just this one piece? So that criteria became my voice. It became my POV that became valued in the room. So I’m not sitting there saying, well, then I like the creative. That’s actually irrelevant. Even though we’d like to have a vote and that would be like nice if people cared if I liked it or not.

12:09
to the point you were making before, that’s not my objective POV that added value. So there from that, when people started realizing, oh, I see where she’s coming from, that perspective will be valuable, I started getting invited to a whole lot more other things. And my point of view about things beyond my scope specifically became valued as well. So then people did care what I thought about the creative, because they’re like, hey Anne, is this creative going to be good enough for these things that we want?

12:36
So you can see how this all starts to work and it helps to, your problem is reputation, credibility, growth, a voice in the room, those sorts of things, this could really, really help. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point because, I mean, the personal lens and what you’re trying to achieve is also part of this, right? Because you start to see it as a self-reflection of who you are as a person as well. And that can be where some of that

13:04
paralysis starts to happen. So I’m not gonna go into our whole spiel on personal brand. We have plenty of assets for that. But I do think it’s another important piece to bring into this conversation because if you are actively managing your personal brand, you should have your personal goals for what you’re trying to achieve spelled out to yourself and kind of on a recurring loop in your mind. So as you’re going to solve problems,

13:30
you know what your criteria and agenda, not in a negative way, but what you’re trying to achieve is so that you can go and do that with intention. And that’s a great point. And also, I was very clear. I would say, I’m looking at this from knees for points. And I even had the VP go, that was very helpful to understand what lens you’re looking at it through. Everybody should come with a lens. So then the whole meeting became a whole lot more productive because then everybody was structuring it based on what they thought their criteria was versus

14:00
having a very subjective conversation about what people liked and didn’t like, which is really irrelevant because the only matter is what the people we were making it for were gonna like. Yes, I think that’s a great point. All right, and Anne preempted this one a little bit before, but it’s definitely worth its own point. And so number three in the four ways to become a better problem solver is enlist the help of the right others, capital R-I-G-H-T. So another place we tend to get stuck

14:26
is one, in whether to enlist other people, period. And then two, deciding who we want to enlist. We are not fans at fourth rate people of decision by committee because this is another huge holdup in solving problems. Sometimes this holdup comes from a good place. I’m gonna be on my soapbox for a hot minute here.

14:51
in that we want to make sure everybody feels heard or included and we want to make sure that everybody feels good and the culture feels good and the temperature check is right. Other times we do it because we’re not confident in making the decisions ourselves. Again, this is where you want to take into account the magnitude of the problem to decide whether one, anybody else needs to be involved and then two, who

15:15
and what role are they going to play or what are they going to bring to the table that is supplementing your ability to solve the problem on your own. If you do decide others are needed, you need to think about it through the lens of people that either have experience that’s gonna round out your thinking, different experience from you, have differing point of views. So that could be through the lens of experience, but a lot of times it shows up as this is someone who usually takes the opposite

15:45
approach that I do and so therefore they’re a good person to bring to the table. They need to be involved because the decision that’s going to be made is going to directly impact them, meaning they have to own some of the solution that you’re coming to, not necessarily that they’re just a part of the team. That’s where you would get back into decision by committee again, which is what we’re trying to avoid.

16:06
So in other words, you’re giving yourself and this person an objective reason that they are important to getting to a solution. And then you owe it to them and to you to define that role. And be clear if you’re asking for input that’s going to help supplement what you already know and what you’re trying to solve for, or if you’re asking them to help you decide. These are two different things.

16:33
You may go and solicit input from someone who is an expert, but that actually has no bearing on this situation, the problem, or the solution that you’re trying to get to. You may go and ask someone to solve alongside you because like Ann set up a couple points ago, they have to own some of the risk as well. So for example, if this is a problem with some serious magnitude, like you could lose this client,

17:00
then of course your boss needs to be included in that whole conversation and what you’re gonna go and do about it, right? You may present possible solutions and ask for thoughts or opinions, or you might be asking them to help you choose. No matter what, you have to be very clear on the ask and why you’re making this ask. And I’ll give an example and then I’m sure Anne will have some thoughts on this one too. So when I had a team and I was trying to get out of solving it for them,

17:29
I flipped the script and would ask them what role they wanted me to play in order to be clear. So it didn’t just become a knee jerk. April should always be involved in the decision making, right? This helped in a few ways. One, I stopped getting so many requests because a lot of times I didn’t need to be part of the discussion. I I want you to come in at the last minute either and screw it all up. Oh, okay. Wow, it’s gonna be one of those episodes. I’m just saying, isn’t that right? No, it’s totally true. Just come in and flip the script completely. Yeah.

17:59
it helped them get clearer on the previous points that we’ve made here about doing some of that homework themselves. So going and seeking out information, not coming to me again and saying, well, what would you do? Well, what would you do as the knee jerk default? It was they would go and do their research and they would go and start to frame up what the potential solutions were. And then when they would come to me, I would ask for clarity of my role. So like I just outlined, are you asking me for input as someone who has sat in the seat before?

18:28
Are you asking me to help you come to a decision? And so once that started coming back, and the purpose of this episode, right, is to make everybody better problem solvers, they started to be able to step away from any involvement with me at all, quite frankly, and make decisions on their own. Or if they were coming to me and they really did need help, more often than not, nine times out of by the time I had left that organization, it was stuff that I should have been involved in.

18:57
Yeah, I mean, think that’s a really good example. And I’m going to speak to the insecure overachievers here for a second. I love that term. I know. And you know who you are. There’s two sitting here. At various points in At various points in our career, right? And I speak to you because as you’re hearing this point, I know that there’s a lot of anxiety associated with this because one, there is this feeling that, God, if I reveal that I don’t know what I’m doing or that I’m having this problem that everybody kind of knows.

19:26
my dirty secrets. And I have to admit that maybe I wasn’t as smart as I, you know, they thought I was, or I don’t have it all together, like they thought I did, and there’s somehow I’m going to be found out. And I can tell you that this is one of the hardest things to get over for sure, but can be done very elegantly in being able to ask for help in making the problem bigger than it was something that you just had to solve on your own. Yes. So for example,

19:56
If the problem is that the business is not growing and you know that there’s something related to what you are doing, a way to be able to engage others in that conversation without it making it sound like it was your fault that the business isn’t growing is to say, how can I help you do your job better? So you ask and solicit input.

20:19
which is basically like, know that there’s something going on in your group that’s just not working quite right. But instead of like asking somebody or revealing that oh that’s the case, you can kind of like stylistically be able to outreach to people in a way that is seeking input without it having to be like airing your dirty laundry.

20:40
So if you feeling like that, that that’s an inks point, because it does take some vulnerability in that. And I’m not saying that you should cover up something that is a major issue. don’t please don’t hear me when I say that. If there is a major issue and it has like traumatic and catastrophic impact, you should be like telling everybody because the best thing that you can do is to bring everybody together in the smartest minds in the smartest brains in order to kind of help solve your problem holistically.

21:07
But if it’s something that’s more of that, you know, more isolated, if you will, you can use that. The other thing to consider as well, and the thing that kind of sneaks its uh ugly head is ego. When we talk about this, it’s like, I don’t want to have to ask for anybody’s help.

21:24
because I want to do it on my own. I want to do it my way and I want to get it done now. If I have to go ask for somebody’s help, then that means I need to get these people involved and I need to listen to what they actually have to say. And then I have to maybe consider it. And then I’m like, what if they actually do have some good thoughts and then have to redo everything that I’m doing? And the only reason why I can like rattle this off really quickly is because it’s exactly the way I used to think. You’ve done that with me before.

21:50
It is a little hard sometimes. I’m like, gosh dang it, if I sent it to her, she’s going to blow it up after we tell on yourself all the time. You tell on yourself on this podcast all the time. I know. I do. do. It is a hard thing. recovering. Well, I’m not even recovering and I’m still in the acknowledgement and not in the ill side of it. If that’s you, that’s fine. Know that it’s me as well. I think the reason why I have overcome it, especially in the situation with April and I, is because I know she’s going to make it better.

22:20
So to finding the right people, capital R-I-G-H-T, find people that are gonna help make it better and you trust they’re gonna make it better, but it’s okay to set up the parameters like, listen, I’m looking for you to provide input on these things. I’m not giving you this like full carte blanche like opportunity to like blow this whole thing up, right? I need you to do these things. If they provide you other input outside of that, great. And then give them a timeline for providing that input.

22:45
I need it by whatever thoughts you have by close a business today. Make sure it’s reasonable people, but like you can qualify how you wanna receive feedback. You can qualify the people that you want to engage with it. And that helps you to help manage the anxiety and the emotion of it all. Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I just wanna put a fine point on the R-A-G-H-T all caps. I think the reason that it works now between us is because

23:13
we’re aligned to those same goals. So the idea is that we are always making things better. That is our desire. Not that we’re gonna blow things up for each other. Because I think sometimes where that PTSD comes in is that, listeners, I’m sure you all have these people where you would be like, oh, I have to show it with so-and-so, but their MO is to blow it up. And so I’m gonna have to gear up for that. And then how am gonna handle that? And we’re already so far down the path.

23:43
all of those types of things. Finding the right people is really important so that you can feel confident that they’re gonna give you the feedback through the lens of making whatever the situation is better instead of fill in the blank, their ego, self-serving, playing into that MO, being the one to blow it up. You’ve gotta look for those people who are really going to assist and play their roles in the proper way.

24:07
Yeah, I totally agree. I think the other side of the coin that people need to really watch out for too is the full deferment of everything. Yeah. Right. If I deferred the whole thing, then I only take responsibility for anything. Right. So you get like a brainstorming session together or a whole group together. Everybody would get in and they’d throughout all their their thoughts about how to solve this problem. And you being the leader of the whole thing would just be like, I’m looking for somebody to take responsibility for it in the room. That’s not you. Right.

24:37
You can’t defer problems that are on your plate. This is where you have to find the right people to share their risk with. But the other side of that coin and watch out that that’s you is to defer the whole decision of solving the problem because you are afraid of taking on that responsibility. Amen to that one. All right. And number four here should be no surprise if you listen to the show regularly. But the fourth way to become a better problem solver is to test and learn to optimize the solution.

25:07
And Anne said this early on in this episode around going and trying something out or doing something. We are big fans of that. Stepping into it, seeing how things go, testing the waters. It is actually the one caveat to the feedback about processing or taking your time or setting a timer, all those things, is if you are actively doing things to chip away at the solution, that can be a really good approach to take.

25:37
Once we make and implement a decision, it’s also important to analyze those outcomes because at the very least we should be learning from every decision we make. That is one of the top ways to become a better problem solver because many times there’s potential for optimizations, builds, other solutions. If the first one didn’t work out quite right, even if that situation is put to bed, you have new tools to try the next time. It can be really hard to pull the trigger for fear of being wrong.

26:06
We’ve talked about that throughout this episode. But if you take the test and learn philosophy, allows some of the pressure to be taken off. It allows for some grace. And really it allows for you to have some breathing room to know that you don’t have to get every single solution 100 % right all the time. This goes back to that insecure overachiever mindset, I think, very much. So leaning into my past experience as well. It can be tough.

26:35
But if you just think about it as test and learn instead of this is the be all end all and everything rides on this one decision, yes, there are some big ones out there, right? There are huge problems. You should be able to identify those on your own. So you don’t need to go down that rabbit hole. But generally speaking, everyday problems kind of are sort of a blip on the radar. And that really leads me to my example or some advice that I was given because I was one of those insecure overachievers early on.

27:05
And someone told me once that I needed to stop worrying about quote unquote failing because the way I’m built and the way I work and the amount of personal integrity I put into my work, not to mention OCD, perfectionist, all of those things, that my quote unquote fail and the magnitude of it in my head would be a blip on most people’s radar. And that was some of the best advice I could have ever gotten, especially as a young person.

27:34
because it allowed me to lean into this test and learn mindset and to be able to fail gracefully and to feel like there was some flexibility where I didn’t have to be 100 % perfect all of the time. And also to know that I wasn’t gonna be penalized if things didn’t go 100 % the right perfect way. And so I think that’s just another contextualization or example of

28:02
how testing and learning can help you make a start on getting to a solution and also then how to get better over time in that sort of optimization feedback loop that we should all be doing every time we’re making decisions and solving problems. Yeah, and I think the other side of that coin of dramatizing the failure and having that be like so debilitating is that there’s an argument

28:30
about who’s right and always wanting to be right. so if you’re not wrong, you’re right. And if you’re right, you’re right. then who else ever wants to be wrong? And so it becomes this like hypothetical discussion a lot as you think about where people’s filters are coming from again, which is why it’s so important to understand that so that you can see where everybody’s kind of positioning themselves. And when they position themselves in certain instances, it is

29:00
in order to serve themselves. And that’s not, I’m not saying that to be like that everybody’s narcissistic and just looking out for themselves, but they are going to serve themselves first in the context of whatever this problem is being solved for. If you’re not constantly putting in front of them the greater problem that is whatever is impacting the business, right? So you have to always ladder it up to a bigger,

29:26
problem, like I said before, so people can see that they need to consider more than just whatever is their issue in this. And you can hopefully then put some of these hypothetical discussions to bed by actually then in going to test out some of these hypothesis that people have. that’s what I’m

29:47
really wanted to get out here. The test and learn is like, it’s action oriented and you need that in order to move forward with your business. Otherwise you’re going to sit there in these hypothetical discussions forever and everybody’s going to profess to be right. And we all know that not everybody can be right all the time, but because people don’t want to be wrong, then you have to kind of make sure that that human quality, the natural nature of people is recognized in your problem solving. Yeah, I think it’s a great point. And I also think that

30:15
On the other side of the theoretical, if you are making enough decisions and solving enough problems on a regular basis, there is a lot of muscle memory associated with it. And so we talked about objectivity throughout this some as well. The magnitude comes into play here as well, but it’s like if it’s day-to-day stuff, like smaller stuff, you just get really good at churning through those things, right? So you don’t even have to get to the like, and your point is well taken.

30:44
ask everybody, bring everybody together and it’s like, what kind of pizza should we have for Fridays, whatever? That’s an important conversation. That should be group things. You see where we’re going, joking aside here. I think that the testing and learning, if you can think about it as a practice, it does start to develop that muscle memory because there is nothing worse than sitting in that theoretical.

31:11
I’m sitting here when I was listening to Ann talk, I felt like my skin was starting to itch for how many times I was in those meetings and conversations where I was like, we’re never gonna decide. We’re just gonna sit here. We’re gonna sit here and the problem’s gonna exist and guess what? It’s gonna get bigger and we’re still gonna keep coming back and having these theoretical conversations. Meanwhile, something’s on fire and nothing’s being done. Yeah, and I think two more points to that one. One is that’s when people start deferring again the discussion and they’re like, well, let’s go off and think about it and come back tomorrow.

31:41
You can’t delay these things sometimes, people. You have to decide in the room and somebody needs to take the responsibility. the way that you do that is you assign those roles before you even have these discussions, right? So you need to know who is the decision maker so that we are very clear about how this is going to process itself through. And then once you find stuff that starts working, start establishing those as whatever you want to call it, best practices,

32:07
processes for decision making, you like, race, see charts, whatever. I mean, find something that starts documenting how this worked well before, so that you have something to go back to. That doesn’t mean it’s going to work well every single time and for every single problem, but at least you have something to say, hey, this worked before, is this going to work this time? Or we tried this before and it worked like this before, is this now the time to bring it back? So it starts to kind of create some…

32:33
legacy of some of the decisions that were made, some of the problems that were being solved. Now, don’t take that out the window and being like that guy who sits there 30 years later saying, well, we tried that 25 years ago and it didn’t work, right? So you still have have it with some level of rationalization and modernization, if you will, but it does help to start establish a legacy of decision-making, problem-solving that you can then refer to. Yes, I think that’s a great-

33:01
All right, and our next segment is a brand that is or is not using its marketing smarts based on our observations and experiences. And so the one I’m gonna talk about today is the Filson. I’m bringing it full circle like Anne often tries to do with her link through the episode. I mentioned the Mother’s Day restaurant decision. So this is the answer to that. We went to the Filson. However, full disclosure,

33:29
I did not come up with this option. was my brother, Braden, who came up with this option. And so I will give credit where credit is due. So you brought in the right people to I brought in the right people to solve the problem because we were having trouble finding a place where you could accommodate, what did we have, 14 people. And I think it was an excellent opportunity to defer all the risk too. I did. I deferred it all. Actually, we were driving down there and Bryce goes, you know what I think is the best thing about this?

33:56
For once you didn’t plan it, which means if it goes to shit, no one’s gonna look at you. I know, exactly. And I know based on some of the conversations that were happening early on about whether or there was gonna be Quirrellite or not. It could have could have gone either way. So anyway, all of that aside, the reason I wanna talk about the Filson is because not only was it a great experience, it was, but…

34:22
One of the things that we’ve talked about that is suffering tremendously right now is customer service. And we’ve given some not so great examples and I think the restaurant space is where it’s real dicey right now. So we went there and I will tell you this server is probably in my top 10 servers of all time for a group, for a group like that. I mean, we are a big group, right? So there were…

34:49
10 adults, my sister is in Atlanta for work, so she wasn’t there, and four little kids. That’s a lot. It was Mother’s Day weekend, which means there were a whole lot of parties like us in that restaurant. This server was masterful in her management of us as a group and just understanding how to add value on top of just…

35:14
providing us with our food, which I think is a lot of what’s happened lately. So some examples of that are, one of my biggest pet peeves is when I serve or see small kids and bring glasses full to the top for those kids, right? I know that’s a really silly thing, but come on, right? It’s like reading the room. So she came and they had plastic cups, but they didn’t have any lids left. So she filled them like a third of the way for all the kids at the table, points. She brought out proactively

35:43
all of the condiments and things and kept them away from where the children were sitting. And this is not all about the kids. We’ll get to other things. Quickly identified to the point of the course lights, this was a drinking table. Nobody’s drinks went empty or just keeping her eye to make sure that we’re all taken care of as the food took a little bit of time, which was fine. There were 14 of us. And then the thing that really got me was my sister and her fiance were gonna be late.

36:13
And so I said out loud, I have their order, so we’ll just go ahead and place it. I didn’t say that to her. So she goes all around the table and she comes back and she said, ma’am, did you mention you wanted to order for the people that are gonna be at the end? I was like, you gotta be kidding me. But what I’m trying to exemplify here is she was very, very tuned in. I think in a time where customer service is lacking a lot kind of across the board, this was a situation where I felt like,

36:39
this person, but also the restaurant. mean, in watching the others, she was the best of the experience. But I mean, it was very well choreographed. This is a young restaurant. It’s been around for less than a year. It’s sitting in a highly competitive part of downtown Cincinnati on the banks where there’s lots of different choices. And I am a quick one to say there aren’t very many of them down there that I really love. That’s one that I will definitely be returning to. And the other final point I wanna make is,

37:05
It wasn’t like it has to be that hard, right? It was just a matter of her assessing her customers and then thinking through the lens of what she was assessing, what she was going to provide to make our experience something that is worth talking about, especially for people that are out eating out all the time. So there you go. I love that one because, know, at the surface, it looks very much like she is just trying to be of service to everybody there, but she’s trying to be of service to herself.

37:35
as well. So if she would bring full glasses and they get spilled everywhere, then she’s spending her time cleaning stuff up. If she didn’t take that order, wasn’t listening for that, then she’s running back and forth and then she has to coordinate that with the kitchen. So there’s a level of anticipation and savviness there that I feel like is a big differentiator when you’re talking about customer service. So for me, that one was like the

38:00
prime story that if you are looking for a differentiator in your business and you are using customer service right now as a differentiator, you better get very clear about what your element of differentiation is within customer service. And I think where people can start to really excel there is an anticipation of people’s needs. And that could be used across the board. You need to see what that looks like for your own business. But if you think about how can we better anticipate people’s needs or give them what they need and not necessarily what they asked for.

38:29
That’s gonna be a huge differentiating factor. I totally agree. All right, so just to recap four ways to become a better problem solver. Number one, investigate possible solutions with a time limit. Dig up enough info that you feel confident you can reach a solution within the allotted amount of time. Number two, analyze the options against the goals. Get clear and objective about which options make the most sense as it relates to what you are trying to achieve.

38:56
Number three, enlist the help of the right, capital R-I-G-H-T, others. This is not decision by committee. Enlist the people that have related experience and or those that can help you with the decision. Be clear in defining each person’s role in the solution. And that includes whether they’re part of making that decision or not. Number four, test and learn to optimize the solution. Humans make mistakes, which means sometimes we choose the wrong solutions. Learning from our mistakes is more powerful.

39:24
than always being right as long as we learn from each of them. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform.