I've known in my career, as well as my own experiences as a human being, what it feels like to have a voice and to be voiceless, either because of a speech impediment or lack of confidence or because of organizational culture. So I've become obsessed with how leaders can create environments in which people feel safe using their voice, even if it's imperfect.
Hello, everybody, whether you've been listening for a while or whether this is your first time here, we are happy to have you. Before we jump into the episode, it would be awesome. If you could write a review for this show, especially on apple podcasts. So it takes less than a minute or two. It's pretty straightforward. So you click on the show, you scroll all the way down to the bottom. And there's a little button that says, write a review.
And as always, if there's an episode, you really like send it over to your friends They'll probably like it too. Thank you so much. And let's get back to the show. So welcome back to Success Engineering. I'm your host, Michael Bauman. And I have the pleasure of having Stephen Shedletsky on or Shed as his friends call him. He helps leaders listen to, and really nurture the voice of others, people in the organization, the people around them.
He's a thought leader on psychological safety in the workplace, creating healthy cultures. He's a sought after speaker leadership, coach advisor, and then actually as a forthcoming author of Speak-up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up and he was the fourth person to join Simon Sinek and his team, and has worked with them for over a decade now. So excited for the wealth of insight. He has wealth of experience. Welcome to the show, Shed.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here with you.
Absolutely. So I want to start, and there's been a lot of things that you've overcome. You've led global keynotes and global presentations and things like that, but actually growing up you had a stutter and I wanted to start talking with that about how that made you feel at that point, in terms of not feeling like you have a voice. And also, how did you work to overcome that in terms of developing the confidence to be able to present and speak in front of people?
Yeah. The biggest thing with a stutter is you never quite completely overcome it. I stuttered in a presentation last week and it was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome, because it didn't detract from my effectiveness and it kept me, humble and real. But yeah, I remember, very distinctively, there was some particular timestamp moments that I remember with my stutter. I'd come from a long line of stutterers it's in the family genes.
I remember in grade two going to a speech language pathologist and they actually gave me a clicker. And the thought was to count the number of stutters that I was doing in a day which is not the best therapy
highlighted every single time
that I highlighted it. Yeah. And it was a strategy I've actually gone on later in life to marry a speech language pathologist. And I told her about this and she was like, what? And she was aware that this was a strategy. And the thought was, if you become more aware of it, maybe you'll slow down. But it didn't work. For a couple of reasons, one, I was counting the negative behavior. B it wasn't the most popular thing having to explain to people in the school yard or classroom.
When I was in grade two, why I was holding a a clicker, like I was a bouncer at a bar counting how many people were inside. And so that, that strategy lasted for a total of two hours and 15 minutes solid. I remember my mum drove carpool that morning. I remember having the clicker being like, what is going on? And then as soon as somebody asked me What is that? It just, it disappeared. My stutter was never like it wasn't the most severe of stutters that are around there.
I really learned that when I wanted to go get some therapy as part of a group program, some summers later, but I remember in grade six, I'm Canadian. So French is mandatory up until I think grade nine. And I remember stuttering on the word "tres" which is like "tres bien" "tres" is cause like the third word you learn in French. And I couldn't say it in class I felt very embarrassed.
I was skipped over as a turn and as I was reading in front of the entire class and it was at that moment, I knew I needed to get some help. And then it was just sort of exposure therapy is I did go and get some help at an amazing organization called the Speech and Stuttering Institute in Toronto, which is still around today and they do amazing work. And I learned some tips and tools and strategies of how to better cope with it.
The first time I went to this group stuttering program and I was the youngest there. I was 13. There was one other person from Ottawa who was 14. And then everyone else was a young adult who is, much further down their path. And I saw, there was like a mid 20, 20 year old, 25, 26 year old, who couldn't get a job because he couldn't conduct themselves in an interview. Engineer highly educated and was having a ton of trouble.
And I had formed a nice friendship with this guy and ended up helping him. There was another person who was Sri Lankan. His first name was George and his last name was very complicated because it's a Sri Lankan last name. He literally couldn't say his own last name.
And so it was through this exposure of just putting myself in situations where I would public speak or take a little risk or make a phone call, just do these things that would help, that would give me both the skills, the tools and the confidence to try and keep going. And even as I have stuttered or do stutter, usually people don't notice or it doesn't really matter. And I just keep going. I can still communicate effectively.
The biggest thing for me, Michael, now later in life, as I found her big passion in speak up culture and psychological safety is I've known in my own experiences in my career, as well as my own experiences as a human being, what it feels like to have a voice and to be voiceless, either because of a speech impediment or lack of confidence or because of organizational culture. I don't like that feeling. It's not optimal, for you, me and anyone else.
And so I've become obsessed with how leaders can create environments in which people feel safe using their voice, even if it's imperfect.
Yeah, absolutely. So, we'll jump around here. Oh, I do want to get back to some of your background, but now that we're on that, let's talk about that topic. I am curious, what does that look like? Culture is everything for you. So what does a healthy culture look like and how do you go about creating that safe spot?
There's no such thing as a uniform healthy culture, because there are subcultures and there are different cultures and differences across organizations, regions, countries. That's normal and that's good.
But what we do know is that if you, as a leader or an organization are cultivating a culture in which people are repeatedly ignored or punished for speaking up for sharing their ideas, for sharing concerns and even disagreeing, all of a sudden you will have a culture of silence, which can be very dangerous. So there's a great quote from Andy Stanley, which says, "Leaders who do not listen, will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say."
Silence and nodding heads in a room or on zoom is not consensus. It usually means fear. The more junior you are in an organization, typically the closer you are to the problems and the opportunity, the closer you are to the end product, the closer you are to the end user or consumer. And so great organizations will create environments in which people can share their truth, share their feelings, share their ideas, share facts. There's an issue here. I have an idea to make this better.
Even if half baked, I don't agree with this strategy. I think we could be doing something better or explained to me what you're seeing. And when those challenges and those ideas and opportunities are met with encouragement and even reward. Doesn't mean you got a promotion or reward means, tell me more. It was a risk to share that. Thank you. Keep going. We're not implementing your idea, but it's a great one and keep coming.
Here's why we're not implementing your idea, but that thinking is going to help us, please keep it going. Those are all rewards. And when you get that type of behavior you tend to have a better operating organization and you tend to have an organization where where we're innovation, where improvement, where cooperation and trust is.
Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about these as the critical truths of leadership and one that you mentioned, the more senior you are in the organization, the further you typically get away from the truth. The other is there whispers a shout and everybody is listening and talk to us about that a little bit, because a lot of times this can be, you even have a definition of culture equals values times behavior, and then weighted by authority. So talk to us about that weight of authority.
So it sounds great, but when you have these leaders, how does it go about changing? How does that go about shifting?
Yeah. So I've even updated the equation. It's now culture equals values, multiplied by behavior to the power of influence, Because sometimes you can have authority, but you may not be a leader. And people may do as you say, out of fear or necessity, but I've also been in organizations where I have very little authority, but I do have influence. And I have the ear of those who do have the authority to make decisions. And my behavior matters as well because, or anyone's behavior who has influence.
You do not need a title to be a leader. You need the behavior to be a leader and if you have followers, you're a leader. We are still a hierarchical species. And so if someone does have authority over you or someone is a quote unquote leader, either by behavior or by title, we often offer them deference, which means that it becomes harder to share the truth.
There are tons of leaders who have authority and title, who we do not like, or do not respect, but as soon as they walk in, the room changes and we sit up straighter and we become, subservient to them. We become, yes, people. It is a lot harder, especially with people who delve into authoritative and narcissistic tendencies. It's very hard to challenge those people largely out of fear.
And so leaders must be aware that the more influence they have in an organization, the louder they're whisper becomes a whispers of shout and everyone's listening. And if they say it, but don't do it mean. If you've articulated values inside of an organization and your most senior people don't live it, the culture that our organization is going to be weak.
Someone who has authority and seniority, their behavior matters more than someone who's more junior, And just the fact that we are authoritative species and we very naturally offer people who have authority deference. Leaders have to work especially hard at unearthing and rewarding the truth, especially if it's things that they don't want to hear, because as soon as they punish people for sharing their truth, and it's like, I don't want to hear that... you will successfully silence everyone.
I just heard of an example last week on an oil rig where there was there was a safety issue, there was a significant issue with a piece of equipment. The captain of the ship said, I need to know who did this and what happens so that we can improve and learn from it. Whoever did this, please come forward. And someone in a pretty short amount of time came forward and said, it was me and they went, "Thank you. You're fired." Which is like, no, like you can't do that.
You could say, we need to fire the person who's responsible for this, please come forward. But now what you've done is you've now created a culture in which no one can make a mistake. And if you do, you sure as hell bet that you're going to hide it, right, right. Or at least try. More likely to try. Yeah.
So how can a leader go about you talked about one, there's a fear it's that indicator. And then two, developing that awareness around that. How can a leader go about developing that awareness of, oh, there is actually this fear here. There is this silence. What does that look like?
So the two reasons that I'm exploring as to why people don't speak up in organizations: one is fear and the other is apathy and they're not mutually exclusive. I think sometimes you can have a wonderful soup of both fear and apathy mixed together, which is just lovely. Right? Fear is it's not worth the risk for me to speak up due to the risk to my career or the risk of my relationships, the risk to my job, the risk to my reputation.
Apathy, is it simply isn't worth me speaking up because it's not going to do anything. Like why bother? It's a waste of my breath. Now, sometimes people can bring baggage in from other relationships, whether it's professional or not, that will inhibit them from speaking up, but the culture, the environment really does matter.
And so I think a couple things here is leaders have to work especially hard to ask good questions, to stay curious, to unearth truth, and then they also have to teach other leaders in their organization, at their level and more junior to them as well, to help with that.
The only way to scale culture in an organization is one leader in one team at a time, you can have an organization with the best leader who is at the most senior levels, but if you don't create conditions in an environment for other leaders more junior to them to work on their practice of leadership, you're only going to be so effective. I'm writing three chapters in a row right now, which is like, if you put Beatles tracks together, like on one of their albums, it's these three, three chapters.
The chapters are leadership defined is we need to define what we mean by leadership. I don't believe leadership is title and authority. I believe leadership is service. As one of my dear friends, Rich Devinny, who's a retired US Navy seal says "Leaders aren't born. Leaders aren't even made. Leaders are chosen based upon the way they behave." Leadership is a behavior. It's about serving and caring for others. That's leadership.
So we need to have a an agreed upon definition of leadership in our culture so that we even know what it is. And I believe leadership should tilt more toward trust than it does performance. Because when you have trust and you have the inputs, you tend to get the outputs over the long run. Then we need to select better leaders.
We need to offer people promotion and put people into opportunities to lead who actually display the behaviors of leadership, not just the ones who are the highest performers, right? If you only find people who are top individual contributors who are driven and responsible and high performers, you are more at risk of hitting an organization of toxic high-performance, of drivers as opposed to leadership and service. Then that third chapter in the trifecta is support leaders better.
There's on average, this comes from Harvard business review, there's a 12 year gap between when someone gets their first formal role of leadership, and when they get their first formal management training. 12 years, right? The average age of your first promotion is about 29 or 30 and 41 or 42 for that first formal management training. Wow. And it doesn't need to be sophisticated, multi hundred thousand dollar trainings. It can be, here's a great book. Let's read it as a team and discuss it.
Let's connect you with some peers. Like it need not be expensive or hard to create. So yeah, I think we need to define leadership select leaders against that definition and then support them better when they are in that role. Or if they aspire to be in that role.
Yeah. And one question I have around that and this is something we talk about a lot on the podcast is one that like loneliness of entrepreneurship or loneliness of leadership. So it can be really difficult. You do have to look at the numbers, there is definitely like you're running a business, you want to be profitable, and you're responsible the buck stops with you.
And so that aspect of like, that can be a very lonely position first off, and then it can be very difficult to take care of yourself and then also be trying to like pay attention to all the cues of everybody else. And so what does that, what are your thoughts around how leaders can navigate that loneliness so that they can do a good job of taking care of themselves and their team and, the organization as a whole,
I just went for a walk with a friend last night who's an entrepreneur and CEO security tech business, about a hundred, 150 people. So like not just a solo preneur, I'm an entrepreneur. I have one person on my team and a couple of vendors, like I'm not running a hundred, 150 person organization. But he has a leadership team. He has a board and just recently he's joined a CEO group. Like a group that is facilitated and led by an executive coach.
Who's been there, done that in terms of entrepreneurship. And he's now connected into a group of, I don't know how many, but, 10 or so, who is part of this community, part of this pod? He was just a month into it, but he's like, it's amazing. Because we cannot go it alone. Leadership is hard. Leadership is lonely, leadership can be lonely. I don't think it has to be lonely. It can be lonely.
What we know about us as human beings the two most powerful forces that are available to us, one is hope and the other is each other. So. As long as we can see the future, even if we can't see it, but we know that there's a light in the tunnel, even if we can't see that light yet, like I think entrepreneurs need that need everyone needs that. Not just entrepreneurs, but everyone needs to know things can get better. And I have agency to help myself and others get there.
If you lose that feeling, I encourage you to phone a friend to help you find that feeling again. And then each other. As human beings. We're junk as individuals like we each have strengths, but we each have blind spots severe blind spots, things that we cannot see in ourselves. It's just come to my attention recently that I'm a high achiever. Didn't know it. I mentioned it to my coach.
I said I think I might be a high achiever and he's like, you think, and he laughed at me and I've shared this with a few friends. I'm like, apparently I'm a high achiever. It's like, you didn't know that. And I'd look at the patterns of my past. And I looked at, when I feel on my game and when I feel off and how I punish myself, if I'm not being as productive and positive as I want to be like, oh, I guess so. So we cannot read the label on the jar when we're inside the jar. It's hard.
And so I think for all of us, we are designed to live and operate in community. We are designed to live and operate in teams. As individuals, we are only capable of so much, but together we're remarkable and together we are more holistic and more diverse and have different skills and experiences that we can bring to the table to make one another stronger. So I think for entrepreneurs and anyone in any leaders, it can be lonely, but it need not be the case.
And I think we ought to surround ourselves with people that we look around us and we're like, wow, I guess be part of this group. Cool. And you get to level up.
Yeah, I've heard a very similar thread from a lot of people they're saying like get around people that are doing a similar thing. So you have like this vertical loneliness and you have a horizontal loneliness. So you have like, there's nobody above me that I can talk to. Or you can surround yourself with people like that. Or like you said, the other key is going to get that coach. Right. Like get somebody that like you can actually be real and honest and stuff with as well to talk about that.
I want to dive on, you talked about that hyper achiever aspect, and I'm curious for you, this is huge for entrepreneurs, right? We typically are doing a ton of stuff because we don't feel like we're enough inside. And how have you navigated that? Personally, like, and maybe you haven't thought about it. I'm just curious to what your thoughts are on that.
So does that mean navigating being enough on the inside or outside or ask me again?
No, I'm curious for you, like a lot of times we have that hyper achiever and it might be for something else. Right. But a lot of times the people I talked to, they find it's like, because something happened and I just always feel like I need to perform. I feel like I need to be doing better, making more impact, and a lot of times it comes back to, cause I don't feel enough inside. And I'm curious if you've found out about that or if you've unpacked where that hyper achiever came from for you?
I'm not exactly sure. And maybe we can hire a therapist to join us and help me find that one out. I know for me, I'm not motivated my, my aspirations aren't around status or fame or money. I want enough money. I want to provide for my family. But, I am not interested in multi-multi whatever's like, like billions or like, I don't care about that. I want to have enough. I'm delighted when people, know of me through friends or through LinkedIn or whatever, and say, I'm a fan of your work.
That's the utmost amazing compliment. For me, the antidote has been service, which is, I'm very committed to the work that I'm doing because it's personal. I've had moments in my life and career where I've felt awful, depressed, worthless, uninspired, unmotivated, disengaged, not safe.
And so for me, for better or for worse, I've equated a lot of my enoughness to being of help and of service to others, which sometimes can get me in trouble because I want to be of helping of service so much that if I'm in a relationship that isn't as healthy as it could be, or I don't feel I'm serving or helping as much as I could. For me, little things when I'm not feeling great, I will call up somebody and check on them and all of a sudden I'll feel better.
And so for me, a big antidote to the feeling of enoughness has been showing up in serving others and proving to myself that perhaps I'm something, because I'm a value to other people. It could be slippery, but that's been something for me that's been really helpful. Is I'm very, much like you, I'm very clear on my why, and I'm very clear on, who I am when I'm at my best, both values and beliefs and what I'm contributing toward.
And so anytime I don't feel enough, I try to focus on all right, what can I do to help and serve others? And I get rewarded by doing that both internally and externally.
Yeah, I really appreciate, I appreciate you sharing that. And that's another thing that I've heard, I was talking with Peter Sage, is a world renowned motivational speaker, and he was talking about, one of the biggest things in our life, the biggest shifts that can happen in our life is when we shift from it being a comfort centric thing, we're just trying to accumulate and preserve and control basically as much comfort as we possibly can, and we shift to it being a growth centric.
Life is actually here for us to produce growth inside of us, and then so that we can contribute to others, so that instead of focusing on all the stuff that I need, we can go, well, what about the value that I'm providing for other people? And I love how you talked about that. So you talked about, you talked about the why, and of course I gotta jump in there and here, talk to us about how you started on the road of discovering, Simon Sinek and his organization and partnering with him.
Yeah. So my first day on my first corporate job ever out of school a thousand people were let go in the organization. I joined a company that was post-merger. And my first day, I think it was September 7th 2009, a thousand people were let go on a 13,000 person organization. And so I was entering into a tumultuous time at a company. And this in many ways is where Speak Up was also, a huge, origin or birthplace for me as well.
I remember distinctly seeing Brenda, who is a 37 year vet of the organization sitting in her cubicle, freaked out, like waiting for her pink slip to come next. And not only did that impact her productivity, it impacted her health and wellbeing. And so that was the rude welcome to the corporate world, for me. Welcome. Any more people are walking out as you're walking in.
It's like the princess bride would take, if you see
that movie, I'll probably kill you in the morning. But yeah, said with was a really nice tone. I started my career at a company that was going through a lot of change and I saw, leaders who weren't bad or evil people, but they didn't know what the future held for the organization let alone for them. I saw a lot of the strategy for sharing future and change was silence. As opposed to, we don't know yet, or here's what we do know, or, it wasn't the most transparent.
And again, I saw the impact of that on culture. It took me, a couple of handfuls of months to realize I'm not sure I want to grow my career here for a number of reasons. But I really struggled. It was in my twenties. It was the first time in my life that I made a choice and things weren't working out. And the first person I made wrong was me. Like, why am I not motivated? But I didn't really examine the environment.
And the more I looked to mentors and found people whose careers I'm like, Ooh, I want me some of that. The more I realized this is wasn't the best place for me personally, to grow my career. One such mentor introduced me to Simon Sinek's work, sent me his Ted talk. It was in June of 2010 that he sent me his Ted talk and I successfully procrastinated for two months and didn't watch it until August. And I watched it and I went, wow, this is fantastic. I hadn't thought about it in that way.
With the language is so accessible. This has many people's experience listening to Simon stuff. And I totally got lucky, like right time. Right, right place. I went to go to an event here in Toronto called the art of management in November, 2010 to go hear Malcolm Gladwell speak. And unbeknownst to me, Simon spoke just before him and I was already drawing, golden circles on napkins. And it's explaining the why to anyone who would listen.
And I went with some friends and like, Simon's faces on the cover of the brochure. It's like, it's your boy, and I heard him speak, the passion and the love for his message that I felt watching on the screen, was amplified in a room. His passion was just palpable. And I felt as though I found my order, like I found someone who was describing a world and a future that I'm like, yes, I want that.
And probably because I'm human in that service thing again, I realized that the best way to help create a more inspired, safe and fulfilled world for myself, was to do it for others. And if I did it for others, I would was more likely to feel it myself and more likely to spread the very thing that I want. And so right time, right place, met Simon forged relationships with his team, which was a small team at that time.
And yeah fast forward a little bit, I was invited to join the team and do the start with my podcast, which we did for a number of years. My co-host David Mead and I, we had a lot of fun with that. And then David became the first person to share SImon's message and speak and facilitate, that wasn't Simon. And so I filled David shoes.
And it's been, as you said over a decade, many roles, I still do speak and facilitate and coach with Simon and on Simon's material, which is a joy and an honor to share his ideas and content, which I love. So yeah, that's that's a short version of that story. Yeah,
good. That's in a couple of minutes, I think that's, I think that's really awesome. And, as longtime listeners of the podcast know too, like he played a role in terms of me really clarifying my ideas around success too. Like I was in the lowest darkest point of my life. My family was on food stamps. Just my wife was struggling with depression. Like it was just really rough. And I picked up, Start with Why.
And then there's that part in there, the Gathering the Titans at MIT, and this speaker asked this room of multimillionaires. How many of you achieved your financial goals and 80% of the room. Like, they're like, yup. Probably don't have to work another day in my life. And then he follows it up. How many of you feel like a success? And 80% of them put their hands down. And that was like that light bulb for me. I went okay.
From then on, I've just been studying like what really is success, like, what does it look like? What does it mean behind the curtain of the appearance? I feel like there's an appearance of it. And then underneath you actually have the feeling and you can apply that in any area, but then you have the stories that you tell, like the narratives around it that contribute to this is what I feel like, the identities, the narratives. And then you have can I actually just be present here? Right.
Like, is this moment enough? And so just unpacking that. I love that story, for you as well. And then how you're looking at making an impact. I'm curious for you, like, let's say just like 50 years, or this might be an interesting question, but 50 years after you're gone from this world, what impacts would you have want to have left in the world?
Oh, interesting. It's funny. I, the first place I thought you were going to go to was in 50 years from now because I actually, when I was sitting in my cubicle. I was all of gosh, it's 2009, 10. So I was 23. And I had a very clear moment where I was particularly pissed off and salty and not enjoying my work. And I thought of two things. One, I thought of my grandfather who was a huge influence of mine. And I thought, where was he in his life at this time?
The other thing is I thought of who do I want to be when I'm his age at the time in 2009, he would have been 93. And so the answer to the first question was he was hiding and Polish countryside from Nazis and leading eight other people in. In hiding. And I went, wow. Okay. And I went for all that he sacrificed to give my family a chance of life and quality life. I said, I, I can't toil here. I've got to do something that honors his legacy.
I've got to do something that I'm not feeling that I'm spoiling and wasting away. I have to do something where I feel as though I'm contributing and I have this one life. I have this one career which can be long and change, but I need to do something of value to myself and others because of all that he sacrificed to get me here. What's funny is.
I was fired from my first job, because I was mentoring a number of interns, a disproportionate number of which turned down full-time job opportunities, citing conversations with me, I was I was a rebel with a cause. Yeah. I was toxic inside of a toxic culture, but I think any negative multiplied by negative as a positive. So. So, but then I got another quick job doing consulting doing change management consulting.
And I quit that job after eight months to pursue coaching and speaking and facilitating full time to which my grandfather, who at the time then was probably 95 called me. And he's like, what are you doing? You're wasting your life. You're wasting your career. How could you, do you know how much I've had to sacrifice to give you and your dad and your uncle and your siblings and this family a shot at a good life in this country. And I said we call him Zady.
I said, Zady I'm doing this because of you. I'm like he, he was a butcher. I said you work for somebody else in your life for six months of your life. Like you were an entrepreneur, like I'm following in your footsteps, I'm doing this because of the example that you've showed me and he went fine, just don't sell drugs. On it. So that, that's what I know. I'm not answering your question of 50 years from now, but a little bit. But then the other was I saw who ha who he had become.
And I went like, who do I want to be when I'm, if I'm so lucky to get to this age and be healthy and coherent 85 90, in 50 years I will be 85 knock on wood. And for me, I had this vision of being in nature, like at some sorta place where there's lots of green space and seeing my kids and their kids running around and playing and being together. That's what I want.
And so, 50 years after my death I hope that people will say that I'm a better person because I knew him and part of the reason that I'm writing a book, that I hope the message of it is timeless and helpful and creating speak-up cultures is I hope that people will say, his work made me a better leader. His work helped to make this organization better, healthier, stronger, more successful. So can't control it, but those are the inputs that are trying to do.
In the end though, we all have finite lives. If we live it right, we can live on through legacy. And legacy doesn't mean that statues need to be made in your name. Legacy simply means that you left people in the world better around you because you existed.
I really appreciate that, that answer. And like, it's interesting to see that you have given it a lot of thought at different intervals. So I think that's, I think that's really interesting. So right along with that, the impact and stuff that you're leaving, the legacy and stuff that you're leaving behind.
Can you talk about, you're in the process of writing this book, can you talk about that book and we've been touching on, some of the things that are contained in it as well, but talk about that book, talk about the Speak Up culture and how you go about creating psychological safety in an organization.
Yeah. I'm now what close to 15 years into a career there have been moments where people have said, you should write a book. When are you going to write your book? And I'm like, I don't know, like when I, if, and if I ever feel as though there's something to write about and, through the experiences Michael, that we've spoken about, overcoming a stutter seeing a thousand people laid off on the first day of a job and seeing the impact of that.
And also, in the work that I've been able to do with and on Simon's team, with our clients, the leadership roles that I've had internally at that organization as well, I've seen the impact of having a speak-up culture, and I've seen the impact of not having to speak of culture, both to people's wellbeing, as well as the results of a, of an organization. And so, I describe a speak-up culture as an output. So good old Zig Ziglar quote, people don't buy drills, they buy holes.
The drill, the input is psychological safety. And when you do have psychological safety, the output is a speak-up culture. And psychological safety, a body of work made very popular by a Harvard professor, Amy Edmondson, psychological safety is around creating an environment in which people can be their authentic selves. They can show up in an organization in an environment with respect but share who they are, share what they think without fear of retribution, without fear of punishment.
And it's the ability those environments where we can share ideas, can share concerns and even disagree. And when we have that, we do have a speak-up culture. That's the output and a speak-up culture is one in which we can have candor with care. We can have real conversations about the uncomfortable stuff.
Whether it's internal staff or even what's going on out in the world with racial inequity or gender and equity or climate change or all these big issues that are impacting all of us, whether we're aware of it or not. And we've seen organizations say, you can't talk about politics at work, and there's a mass Exodus of people who are like, screw you, like I'm out. I do think it's our responsibility as leaders to set the tone and set the culture.
And if you don't want to have a culture where people talk about some of society's most pressing issues, people will vote with their feet. They may not want to be part of that organization, And that's up to them. But I do think we should have organizations where, you know, a big, hot topic right now in the U S assistant for awhile is abortion. And if you're like, we don't talk about that here. It's like, well, good luck with that.
I do think we need to find responsible ways that if you have people who are operating in your organization, who also are human and live in the world, they're thinking about these things and how might you be able to create safe spaces to actually talk about it. And then when you do, you have people who are showing up giving their full and whole selves to you at work, and that's good for business.
And so, yeah I've become obsessed and fascinated with SpeakUp cultures and leaders capacity to have the emotional intelligence to care and create the space and hold the space to have these hard conversations. And even if it isn't about work, it impacts how people show up at work. So it isn't about work.
And we know from many studies with Gallup and the national Institute of health, that our relationship with our direct boss has more of an impact on our health and that of our relationship with our family doctor and our relationship with our boss matters not just to our productivity, but our wellbeing. And so I'm obsessed with how can we create a better experience for our people. And when we create a better experience for our people that always gets to the end user and the customer,
What would you say? Like if you were to break it down and I'm sure, I sure you have, but what would you say are the top components of a speak-up culture? If you could go this is the perfect culture, this represents, the utopia, so to speak, what would be the top, pillars that hold that up.
So, so I don't believe in utopia, perfection, and that's the point, which is there's a myth that a lot of people think, speak up cultures and cultures with psychological safety, everyone just gets along all the time. That's not the case. You actually disagree. The telltale sign of a psychologically safe environment and a speak-up culture is one in which you disagree well.
One in which you argue well and you don't make it about the person, you make it about the improvement and the process, and you can actually disagree. I have this with my wife. We don't see eye to eye on things all the time we trigger each other, like we're great matches. And yet we don't, we're not perfect. So I think the telltale sign of a perfect culture is one that embraces imperfection and sees it as an opportunity for improvement. That's the biggest thing.
And then the two components of a speak-up culture that I've been working with, I call it encourage and reward, which I mentioned previously a little bit, but it's this cyclical nature of encourage and reward, which means leaders show up in a way, and the culture is experienced and designed such that people are encouraged to, they feel as though it's worth the risk to share an idea, even of half-baked to share a concern. This isn't going as well as it could.
And I think we should talk about it because this could become a bigger issue or even disagree, senior leader. I don't agree with your perspective and take there. Can you share more of how you got to that conclusion and can we unpack it and it's not met with how dare you it's met with, thank you. Let's hop in, let's unpack this. Right. And I've seen so many cultures where it's, how dare you, challenge authority, come on. Like really, I'm asking you to prove your work.
You asked me to prove my work all the time, prove your work. If it's great sound work, you should have no issue with it. So one is encouraged and then the other is reward. And the biggest thing is it ripples. So, let's say you and I and Michael report to the same person, let's call them Sally. And I have an idea, a concern, or even a disagreement, and I'm like I'm going to bring it to Sally, whether I do it on one-on-one or a group meeting or whatever it might be.
And I'm like, I think it's worth it. I think this is going to lead to improvement. And then I finally speak up again, whether it's one-on-one in group setting, multiple ways. And then how has it met? Is it ignored? Is it ignored repeatedly? Is it punished or is it rewarded? And again, rewarded doesn't mean Bravo Steven, you get a promotion reward means, wow. That must've been hard to share. Thank you. Oh, good work. We haven't thought about that. Let's dive in more.
Actually that's not the right way to look at it and here's why. Can I explain, why that make sense? Any further debate or any further thoughts there, but we actually thank you acknowledge, dive in and do something. When people do speak up, if we repeatedly ignore or punish, now the entire team sees it, or if it's on one-on-one and I'll go back to you and I'm like, don't ever bring your feedback to Sally. It's just not worth it.
You'll get punished or you'll just be ignored or whatever it might be. So the two components are encourage and reward. It's both cyclical and it ripples, if that makes sense.
No, absolutely. Can you talk about the statistics? In my research and stuff around Gallup, in terms of like the direct reporting and then the percentage of people disengaged, if you ignore it or, basically, negate it.
Yeah. So there's a brilliant study from Gallup that shares that if you, as a boss completely ignore your direct report their likelihood of active disengagement increases by 40%. If you only point out the things they're bad at doing their likelihood of active disengagement is 22%. It nearly improves by half or double or whatever, just because you acknowledged that. I've been there where I receive constructive criticism and it actually is motivated. It's like, thank you.
Like here's something that I can do to work and improve upon now. It's still active engagement at 22% because you're ignoring strengths. The key stat here is that if you go out of your way to share with one of your direct reports, one thing they're good at doing. Hey, you're really good at this. Keep doing it. Their likelihood of active disengagement is about 1%. And there's no perk or bean bag or free lunch or, gift card.
It's just acknowledging that they're good at this, that it makes an impact and keep going.
Yeah, I think, that's just like those statistics that lay it out so clearly. And like you said, it's not, we think of these incentives and we think of external rewards and whatever. It's like, no people just want to feel like they belong. Like they matter, and you just said tribute, right? You just say you do those things. And like people it's so great that people will just grind away. Well in super toxic work environments, they still keep working, which is incredible.
They have tremendous amounts of resilience, but then you're just like do one nice thing. And it's just extraordinary how much farther, that can go and how much, benefit it can help with everybody involved. Can you talk about feedback? So, along this lines, like how do leaders go about giving feedback well?
So, a few things I'm learning about feedback. So when there's a great formula that my friend, Kristen Hadeed who's the author of Permission to Screw Up and as well, the fine folks at the Chapman leadership Institute have taught me is FBI, which is just fun to say, cause who doesn't like to say FBI. But it stands for something Feeling Behavior Impact. And then I'll share more about what I've learned about feedback. Cause it's a dish best shared, not just served.
So. There's this great formula, FBI for both positive feedback, as well as constructive. So let's make up a couple of scenarios here. So, I could say this is totally made up, but I could say Michael, you're irresponsible. Well, that doesn't get me much further. But I could say, Hey, I feel really let down and unsupported. That's the feeling.
Behavior: when last week we had three client meetings and you were late to all three of them and the impact is, I'm not sure if I can trust you with what's on your plate right now, what's going on this isn't like you. And then you can say, well, you've had a sick child or the side of the other, and you hadn't shared it with me yet. And I'm like, please do share it with me. Like I need to know, so I can better accommodate, right. Or I could say great job. Thanks.
Anytime someone like I'm the type of guy that when someone says, great job, I go, can you tell me what I did to earn that accolade so I can keep doing it more? And if it's, I feel so engaged and I want to do the best job that I can on this podcast, because you've done your research, the questions are thought out and the impact is. I just want to be as effective as I possibly can to help you and your audience. Thanks. Great job. That's like, oh, okay. Like the inputs, the research it's worth it.
Amazing. Right? That's the difference between saying good job and FBI. And the other thing that I think leaders have to be aware and remember whisper as a shout, the more senior you are the further away from the truth. Those two critical truths about leadership is your feedback is not fact. It is opinion. And the intention of feedback is to start dialogue. I've worked with and had leaders who think delivering feedback is sharing The Truth...nah uh. Ah, it is their truth.
And leaders must realize that the people that they're giving feedback to, they also have a version of the truth. And so a guiding principle for me, one of the best leaders I've ever had has taught me that the equation of your truth, plus their truth equals higher truth. And so I think the vehicle of feedback is to FBI, but then to say, this is my truth and experience what's yours. And I've had a leader as well that gave me feedback and invited for me to share my feedback with them.
And the end of it was well there's things that we can both take responsibility for here. Which is code for me saying you don't want to take any responsibility, but you want me to. That's a cop out. And so, yeah I think the vehicle of feedback is to open dialogue and to unravel. Truths and leaders own their impact on others, whether it's intended or not. And so leaders need to be obsessed of what was the impact I had on someone, even if it wasn't my intention.
And if it was still that impact, I still need to own that impact and course correct. Some behavior to shift it. So yeah. Those are a few things that I've learned about feedback and guide me in those conversations and how I advise others to do that as well.
Yeah. That's really interesting. I have a very kind of similar thing. Well, I'm going to...I'm sure you've probably read Crucial Conversations Kerry Patterson
yeah, I haven't read it, but I'm familiar with it and I know it's great work.
Super great work. But there's a part of there and I had developed it. Well, I just like, not developed it, but I have a saying that basically around that like feeling facts and flip. It is a similar thing. I felt like this when these facts happen, like you were late three times to the meeting, like that is a fact you can't dispute it. It's not my opinion. It's just like, this happens. Right.
And then flipping it around and they talk about it in that group, the limit to the amount that you can share is only limited by your ability to be able to flip it around to that other person and then create a safe space for them to share their opinion. So you're going like help me understand where you're coming from, which is exactly what you're talking about. And the other thing too, that I just heard recently is talking about.
What, if you went into those conversations going that the other person is a least always 10%, right? So it's like, I'm never 100%, right? So even if they have like a crazy idea or whatever you go, what's the 10% that could be true about that. And that's, you're talking about your truth. My truth equals a higher truth. And you go, I love this about that. Have we thought about this? And I, yeah. I just love how you, I love how you lay that out.
Well, the other thing that I love with FBI is the one who's delivering feedback owns their feeling and experience. And as long as you're being honest and genuine, like you, I've also had leaders where I've shared how I feel and they've instructed me that my feelings are incorrect and I'm like no. That's gaslighting. Right. If I take the time to give you an FBI and you're like, you're wrong, it's like, well, you can't tell me my feelings wrong.
This is the behavior and the facts that led me to feel this way. We each need to honor and get curious and acknowledge somebody else's truth and experience and feeling to make any progress. Otherwise it's just two people banging and arguing and not seeing eye to eye.
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about gaslighting? It's a big problem in a variety of areas, but what can you do to navigate it through.
Yeah. So there's two, one is a more subtle second cousin of gaslighting called toxic positivity, which Susan David whose the author of Emotional Agility has turned me on to. Toxic positivity or these cultures where we can only talk about the future and only talk about good stuff, which denies us having access to a good chunk of our negative emotions and that's not healthy.
And so I've seen teams where, good old, we don't talk about Bruno, if you and your kids are fans of Encanto, it's like, and we've all heard of, or potentially been part of teams or families or dynamics or, oh, we just don't talk about that. And it's like, well, the telltale sign of a good, healthy speak-up culture is you can talk about it. And so, if we can't talk about the fact that we've laid off 40% of our workforce and those are my friends. If we can't talk about the fact that I'm grieving.
You're just denying your people a good chunk of their human experience. And they're going somewhere with it. And if it's not to you, you're losing a good chunk of an awareness of what's going on for them, which means that the likelihood that your people will give you their discretionary effort and engagement is lower. Gas lighting is far more aggressive. It can still be subtle, passive, seemingly nice and manipulative.
But you could raise a concern to a senior leader or to anyone and say, this is my feeling. And gaslighting is essentially saying your feeling is wrong. Oh. And by the way, You are the problem. And so inside of those relationships the best thing to do when you are being psychologically manipulated is to detach yourself from that relationship. If you can you cannot change others, you can only change yourself. And if after attempts to say, Hey, that really hurt me.
And I'm having a hard time operating in this relationship. And if it's not met with real good, genuine, emotional, intelligent, fair and equal conversation, the best thing to do is to get away from that relationship. I'm never in the boat of providing people with counsel to say, quit your job, because you don't know what people's circumstances are. But I think you need to seek out people where there is trusting relationship share with them in a healthy way. See what support you can get.
And if someone who's, leading with toxic positivity or is gaslighting, if they aren't willing to own their part of the equation and see if you can go work for someone else. But yeah, we can't change them, but we can call upon them to step up and behave as a better leader. But we can't transform leaders for themselves. They have to choose that.
Yeah. And I think that's an important aspect of, I know that's an important aspect. It goes along with I think it's Dr. Henry cloud, did you wrote Boundaries but that idea of essentially, like, if you have a bull, you're not going to put it in the china shop. These things are very precious to me, right? These are my values, whatever it is. You're not going to be like, I'm going to let you into this super close, tight space in my heart. You're like, no, that's just not what we would do. Right.
And you have these boundaries where you go, if you are unable to acknowledge that these values are important and this asset is important, I might put you a little bit farther out from right here. Right. And then people fall somewhere on that spectrum. And that's not a bad thing necessarily. There's good and bad things to boundaries that we do.
But it's also a healthy way to be like you, like, you have not earned the ability to be in here because you don't, you have shown repeatedly that you don't value these things that are really important.
And we're at a moment in time, with the great resignation and great talent swap and, great insert word here is there's far more power to the employee than there has been in a long time. There's a, there's like a collective unionization of employees right now, which means, we haven't evolved. So when we don't feel safe at work, we feel as though there's a saber tooth tiger, that's about to kill us, but that's not the case.
And so I think, it's been quite cathartic for me when I've been in situations where it hasn't been optimal or healthy, just to remind myself. There are other options. And I don't need this. Which gives us a little bit more courage for what we'll stand up for and what we won't. And so if you have a boss or a leader where there is toxic positivity or gaslighting, you can set those boundaries and say, I will do my job, but that is it.
And if you don't like it, you can either choose to change and transform as a leader or I'll find another job. And you're welcome to offer me severance. Thanks. So, so yeah I think, the biggest thing with the great resignation is it's a public outcry and indictment of toxic corporate culture. People want greater flexibility. They want to be treated as a human beings they are. They want to be paid fairly. And that's what's driving this change. Which is all healthy. It's all healthy.
Yeah. The organism that can't evolve essentially dies. So that idea you have to be able to change. You have to be able to adapt. So I'm curious for you, as we wrap up here, I'm curious for you, how would you define success personally?
So the biggest thing about, I love the question because it is personal. I think every one of us, I think there's sort of this thing that happens. Or we come of age in this society where there are external pressures, whether it's parents or peers or media or whatever, it might be on what success is. And it's often the most tangible stuff, like job, money, house, car, whatever. And that's not what it is.
I think each of us needs to go in and to your point, look to our past of the times we felt at our best and the times that we felt most challenged and figure out what is it that I do value? What is it that I do appreciate and love about being me and about being in relationship with others. And then how might I design life that brings that to life. And so for me, I'm very clear on my purpose.
My why it's to engage with people in meaningful ways so that we can connect with depth and live in a more fulfilled world. And I have a set of values. I care about transparency and communication. I love being in relationships where the implicit is made explicit. I love variety. I care more about long-term trends than short-term results. So that's the bit of the of the makeup for me. I like to feed the hungry. Like I don't want to try to help people who don't really want to be helped.
There are other people who are really good at that work. Not me. I don't have the patience for that. And I'm very clear, I'm working very closely with someone that I've just brought onto my team and a head of operations role. And we're very clear on that with each other, that we can help set one another up into the greatest conditions for each one of us to be successful.
So that's for me, and it's why I'm so enthused to have this conversation because I get to do it with you, I guess, engage with you. And hopefully this is met well with your listeners on the other side, to help them have better relationship with themselves, others around them, the world around them, and that they're more likely to be fulfilled, to use their strengths, to contribute to towards something bigger than themselves that they care about and bigger than profit. So that's it for me.
And I'm just pumped to see what more fun and meaning I can get up to in these next 50 years. Absolutely.
Yeah. Where can people to go to participate in the fun and meaning that you are contributing to the world?
Oh, thank you. So I'm very active on LinkedIn and if you search my name, I believe I'm the only Stephen Shedletsky, in the entire 8 billion population. So is out there. So you can find me there and shed inspires is my website www.shedinspires.com
Cool. And I'll put the links to all that in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for the impact you're having and thank you for taking the time. Appreciate it.
Total pleasure. Likewise to you and a joy to, to join you and hope the conversation helpful for your listeners.
Before you go, I would love it. If you actually just shared this episode with a friend, I'm sure. While you were listening, you know, someone just popped into your head and you're like, oh, they would probably like this as well. So it's really easy. You just click the share button on either the website or whatever podcast platform you're on and send it over to them. And chances are, they'll probably like it, too until next time, keep engineering your success.