Episode 10 - Meaghan Sullivan-Moore

It's a very stressful world out there. And so I think it's more important than ever for leaders to be paying attention to that and to keep a pulse on what's happening with their employees. I mean, in simplest terms, where do you start? Are there three mantras to this in Meaghan's world, if I'm trying to make all this happen, what are the three things that you have to deal with that would help you make your team successful? I guess that's really where I'm driving.

Well, I think, number one, first and foremost, I always like to start at 50,000 foot level, at a strategic level, and we set the tone as leaders. Our organization, very similar to our CEO, set the tone as an example for our company. So it's super important that the mood and the temperament is going to start with us, right?

So really taking care of ourselves, or myself as an example, making sure I'm healthy, making sure I'm taking care of myself, making sure I'm being vulnerable and being honest about where I am in my life, I think is very important. Because if the team sees there's a bit of vulnerability and nothing's perfect and we're all in this together as an example, I think that makes people feel better. And it's okay to not be okay kind of scenario.

So I think it starts at the top and what kind of tone we want to set. So I always like to say we can wake up with a headache every day, or we can wake up feeling great and that we're going to have a great day and push through it and make it great. And I really do think it's all in your head. I can't believe I'm going to actually quote Buddha on this, but I think Buddha said, "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional".

But I actually saw that the other day, because what you're talking about, and I think that cuts across every leader. Actually, it's not even just if you're leader a team. If you're in a team and you're dealing with other people, what choices do you make on what that day is like, then that sounds so much easier than it is to do, because we all wake up today with lots of things on our minds. I don't know if it's that hard, though. Of course, I live in a glass half full world.

I can find the silver lining in anything. It's just kind of how I roll. But I really do think that if we can look up to our leaders and say, you know what, to your point, they have a lot of pain in their life, but they have chosen to keep the glass half full. They've chosen to see the silver lining. I think that kind of bleeds into everyone. That kind of incents them to look the same way in some cases. Not everyone can do it.

But I do think that we have to stay positive and motivate and yet at the same time be vulnerable about, yeah, I'm having a bad day, things kind of suck. But having said that, I'm going to choose to wake up on the right side of the bed and choose to look at the light rather than the dark. Okay. I think that goes back to some basic principles of life, right? For instance, how much do you listen versus how much do you talk? And are you truly listening? Do you choose to, as you say, be positive?

I mean, there's so many things out there. No one wants to listen to someone complain. I think that's just like the simplest things in life, right? Whether you have with your friendships or with your spouse or with your partner or whoever, I think those life lessons can be really drawn on from the business lessons. And sometimes, I don't know. You think it's easy? Look, I'm an optimist too, but I don't know, I don't think it's that easy for some people.

I think one easy thing to do that I do since January 1, I've done this every single day, is just find one thing to say. Today I'm grateful for X and my 23 year old daughter and I exchange a text message every day. She's now just graduated from college. Every single day. We have not missed yet of I'm grateful for and name it, whatever it is, it could be the sunshine. Today she said, I'm grateful for Zoom calls, which was great because she didn't have, her dressy pants on that day. Okay.

I was going to wonder where that was going to go. Sure. Okay, look, we'll call those optimism hackers. Optimism hackers. Good. Yeah. Just be optimistic. My second thing is how to lead in times of great turmoil, I believe, is really sharing context of kind of why you're asking your team to do something for them. So, for example, I think so often we'll get a fire drill or something from our manager saying, I need this, or fill out this template, we got X amount of time, or do this or whatever.

I think it's really important to share the context of the strategy coming down from above on why you're asking people to do things rather than just kind of ask for a point in time project. Because if they understand the context behind what's going on and why the ask is covering, we hire very intelligent people. They're going to have some great innovative and creative ideas that have come out that we didn't think about. That's why we pilot these people is because they're experts in their field.

And so the more context we can give them, I think the greater productivity and innovation will come out. Once again, I completely agree with you, but I think that that's good at any time. But I also think that gets harder when you have less resources, when you're working on a smaller team and your work is more and now on your smaller team, you got more deliverables. I think it's almost human nature. It is for me, to go, I just need to get this done. And I don't think that's right.

I think you're absolutely right. But I think people have to take that first thing that you said about taking care of themselves and kind of get centered on that so they can remember to be patient and to ask questions and to realize that others have great ideas. But I have to force myself look, I have to wrote down you can't see it up there is to be patient. I understand my strength and my weaknesses and I literally every day have to have this up there to remember.

I've got same thing super intelligent people. And I think today I'm agreeing with you even more that people want to be a part of that big picture the solutions and you got to listen and you got to be patient. I have a note behind me this is slow down. So in order to know okay, patient, slow down. About the same thing, I'm sure everyone has that.

But I think it's really critical because I know some people who are looking at in this time and there's optimism, but also there's people, I believe that see us as an opportunity to shine and to do well and to get their ideas and to be successful. So I think there's also a lot of that but as a leader or a coworker, it doesn't really matter whether it's sideways or up or down. I do think we have to slow down a little bit. I'm not so sure the world is sending that message right now.

No, it's go faster, faster, faster, immediate, I want instantaneous results, all that kind of stuff. But I do think no matter what level you're at, if you're asking somebody to do something for you, you can slow down. I need to slow down, right. Give them the context of why you're asking for it and why you need it done and what needs to be done, and brainstorm a little bit on kind of here's my challenge, what I'm trying to figure out. It doesn't take very long to do that.

And I'm telling you, the results you'll get from the other side and them lending their ideas and some context that they have, it's going to be better if you take a little bit of time or prep just to kind of set the tone. I think it makes a huge difference. One thing I've done, we're talking about hacks, right, is I've had meetings where I've had them very free flow in the past right here's, an hour meeting there's four of us together.

I've actually worked and created more context or broken out in those meetings. I've done more of an agenda setting not to tap it down but to make sure that everyone has their chance to do this. I should get more organized right next to be patient and slow down because we can't waste our time as much but we still want to give as much input. So I'm trying to figure out maybe this help. I'm trying to figure out how I talk less and I listen more.

And the way for me to do it was to put more structure into my meetings, but not to tap things down, but so I could get be more prepared. I'm preparing more for meetings now than I ever had before so that I don't have to do some of those things and let other people shine. Yeah, I love that. I think, too, there's a beauty to simplification and stop doing things. I think especially in bigger companies.

In smaller companies, not so much, but in bigger companies, we tend to have things that we've done for years, and they're just kind of innate, and we do them. When we do that, we do them. But so much of it is necessary. Right. So really taking the time to your point of kind of set the agenda, get ready for the meeting, what are we really working on? Like, do we really need to run this report anymore? We've been running it for six years. Is anybody even looking at it?

I've had so many instances where we kind of do this with the team and we really scrub down and we stop doing something. Nobody says anything about it. It's like, okay, well, that was great. I mean, sometimes one person might care, but I think we really need to simplify in this day and age as well. There's too much noise. There's too much going on. Right. And I think that all goes back to your point of letting people know the context, why you're doing those things.

I had a meeting the other day, and I've got in the habit of sending the agenda and writing some of the pieces around it. It's so funny. One of the persons sent me back and said, well, I guess we don't need to have the meeting. We had an hour, and we actually handled it all through email. And it's not that we don't want to be together or spend time, but we just basically growth hacked that thing out of there, right?

And I'm like, okay, that's a pretty cool way to look that I mean, I have an employee that before every one on one, she will send me her kind of bi weekly one on one. She'll send me her list of, here's everything I want to cover. And it's literally like bullet points, sub sub bullet points. And it's so thorough that by the time I get on the call, we're super efficient because I can say, okay, we don't need to cover one, three, and seven. I just want to hit two and five right now.

And it's fantastic. I think we both feel more efficient for it, and I think that's a great way to empower people, too. I'm not telling we don't need to have this meeting. They're telling me that they can do this and we don't need, which I think we're all like, that's great. We'll do it every other week. And I think in context and going back to it, that's a great way to ask it in this times. Right? Okay, we need to do this. How can we be more efficient? What works for you?

And you find people that are talented like, that can make things work offline just as they can do it online. And then for number three. Are we ready for three? Well, I think number three plays very well into all that. We're ready for number three. Yeah. So I think there's nothing more important than empathy right now. And let's go back to you. Listen. That listen, that's the second thing I have written down. I had to slow down and listen.

Second, they're interrelated, but our employees are going through so much externally in their personal lives that we don't understand. And because we are at work so many hours of the day, unfortunately they bring that to work because our lives are so intertwined right now between personal, so really taking the time to understand where people are, what challenges are they facing, and how can we help them through those difficult times, be empathetic towards their situation?

Because I think when you do that again, it's that vulnerability thing. When you open up a little bit, when you get empathetic, our employees are going to be way more productive, which is amazing, but they're also going to feel like they're respected and they're included and that they have a seat at the table with you, which I think is super important. So what do you think about the difference between sympathetic and empathetic? It's the classic term, right?

Sympathetic would just be like, oh, I'm so sorry you're going through that. Empathetic is really digging into it and feeling their feelings. Or like, if I had an experience in my life that were similar to that, I'm going to feel that empathy of what they're going through. There are many times where I can't be empathetic. Right. What they're going through, some of it is unimaginable because we've been together for a long team, large team. We've been through a lot of life together.

And some of it, it just breaks my heart. But I can't be empathetic. But I can sympathize with them and understand they need space or time or more support or whatever that could be. Yeah. Look, I think it all goes back to everything you've tied in the context, the asking the questions and listening. I think the only way to be empathetic is to listen and to figure out, especially when we're in this world where people are in different areas, they're doing Zoom meetings.

You don't have as much of the personal side for us. We're still remote, right. Most of us are still working remotely. And I think you have to listen and you have to ask those questions. And I think the biggest thing is when you ask those questions, actually listen. Yes, I think so. And I think by giving them that empathy or sympathy or whatever, whichever side of it, I'm down with empathy. I think empathy is way better.

I think people both in sympathy all the time, and I think they should be empathetic. I completely but again, I think by doing that, though, your employees will be more productive and more loyal, and they'll be able to be better employees because of it if you just give them a little bit of love. Right. I just think in today's day and age, there are a lot of stresses going on for everyone at every level. Yeah. So why don't we wrap it up with this, right?

So what do you think about genuine and not genuine? Because everything we talked about, people are very perceptive. I think people have gotten well, curious what you think. I think people have learned to even figure out and are perceptive about genuineness, even on remote. I think it's almost impossible to hide that these days. And I'm not so sure everyone's I'm not sure everyone's great at being genuine yet. Well, you got people people and you got non people people. Right.

Not everyone is going to be skilled in leading with the heart. Right. There's a lot of people that will lead with data or lead with mind, and that's awesome too. Right. They're completely two different skill sets. But I think if you can be authentic to who you are, that's going to show whether you're genuine or not genuine. I mean, I lead with my heart, right? What I aspire to be is very authentic. I am who I am at work as I am who I am personally. I'm not two different people.

If you're someone who leads with your mind and leads with data and not so much in touch with the heart, that's okay, too. If you listen to your point, listen to your employees, try and understand. Let them know that I really would like to understand what's going on so that I can help you. You don't have to kind of lean in and cry and have a hug out, but I think as long as you're really listening and really trying to hear them, that helps a lot in the genuine side.

Okay, so any last thoughts? Here, I'll ask you this. What do you think it looks like for the next we'll just wrap it up. What do you think it looks like for the rest of the year? What does 2023 look like from Meaghan Sullivan's perspective? Well, the optimistic side in me now, the realist in me, says it's going to be a tough year. Even the collapse of some of the banks last week. I think that we're at the tip of the iceberg.

I think there's a lot more coming on that that's going to have ramifications on businesses throughout. I think the recession is going to continue to get deeper with so many layoffs and people looking for jobs. I think we've got that stressor in the market. I think 2023 is going to be a very stressful year and is exactly why I am expressing gratitude every day to find the positive and to remember to keep myself kind of in that stay positive.

Because I do believe in you, and I have talked about this before. I believe what you put out in the universe will come back to you. So if I personally can be positive and grateful and know that there's goodness out there, I think the universe will serve up what I need this year. Well, Megan, thanks for joining us. I greatly appreciate listeners. Thank you for joining us. And we do hope that the rest of the year is good for everyone, as good as it could be.

And I do agree with if you're genuine about it and you're positive about it, it's amazing the impact and the change that you can make with people every day. But for me, I got to do it every day. I have to remind myself every day because I know my weaknesses. And, Steven, today, I'm grateful for you. Thank you. Okay. I'm grateful. All right. Every and have a great day.