Lisa Virtue [00:00:01]:

Brandon, thank you so much for being here today. I'm just thrilled to have you. I love that you have Mickey in the background because, of course, I'm sure your Disney experience is a big, hot topic for a lot of people, but more so you work with leaders, and I just can't wait to dive in and learn from you and hear all your stories. So why don't you introduce yourself to the audience and what you're doing now?

Brandon Smith [00:00:23]:

Yeah. Lisa, thank you for having me on the show. I'm really excited about our conversation. So my name is Brandon Smith. My handle is the workplace therapist. I come by that pretty honestly. I have a clinical therapy background as well as an mba. So it's kind of my version of a Reese's Peanut butter cup.

Brandon Smith [00:00:40]:

It kind of works. And my work in the world very much mirrors that. So my entire purpose and passion in life is one singular thing, and that's to eliminate all workplace dysfunction everywhere, forever. So you're looking at a guy with a. A lot of job security, because all you have to do is put a group of people together and say, go achieve something, and someone's going to step on someone's toes, someone's going to throw an elbow and bloody someone's nose. We don't necessarily mean to do that, but we are people. We are a messy bunch. And so my vocational journey and purpose in life is all about helping people get through the daily wonders of work a little more productively, a little more purposefully, and feel a little more fulfillment along the way.

Lisa Virtue [00:01:25]:

Oh, gosh. The daily wonder. Wonderments of work. That's like a tongue twister. I love that so much. I also love your clinical background. In therapy, there's so many times that people are like, oh, you, are you a therapist? You sound like a therapist to me. And I am not a therapist.

Lisa Virtue [00:01:39]:

I'm a coach, which we know is very different. However, therapy has such a great place within everything we're talking about. And I also know talk therapy doesn't work for everyone. So I'm sure you've learned along the way in the workplace setting how to adapt what you understand, what you know, your inquisitive questions, and how to make it palatable for people, especially leaders, right. Who are running a mile a minute and they are in positions of authority. And who are you to tell me what to think or do?

Brandon Smith [00:02:11]:

Well, and you make a good point. It's. Talk therapy is not necessarily for everyone. It may not be right for everyone, may not be right for everyone in that particular season that they're in. So, just like you, I start at a coaching level first, and it's very behavioral. Here's the things you need to go from here to here. It's kind of like when we talk about coaching in the world, it's not so much a light switch activity, it's a dimmer switch. We're looking for those little things.

Brandon Smith [00:02:35]:

We're going to turn the dial a little to the right, little left, help you become more effective, help you move forward, folks a little more. More efficiently and effectively, maybe get you a little more time. Now, there are occasions when I'll make that super simple for folks, and they just can't seem to do it. And that's when I get to put on my therapy hat say, let's talk a little bit about why. So I had a client a few years ago, and she was the CFO of a technology company. And I said, all right, all you need to do based on the feedback is I want you to practice this one thing this month. Give someone on your team a piece of positive feedback. It could be as simple as, you did a great job here, or it could be more broad, like.

Brandon Smith [00:03:13]:

Like, I'm really proud of you or I trust you, but you just need to give one of those this month.

Lisa Virtue [00:03:19]:

Wow. One in a month?

Brandon Smith [00:03:21]:

Just one. Just one. Just one. I mean, think about that. Right now, in our own lives, most of us could probably grab our phone and quickly text someone in our life and give one of those. So the month passed and. And I had my call with her, and I said, how'd it go? She said, I couldn't do it.

Lisa Virtue [00:03:36]:

Wow.

Brandon Smith [00:03:37]:

Her bar for receiving positive feedback is so high. Basically, you need to broker a peace deal in the Middle east to get any kind of positive recognition from her. So then, of course, that triggered some more deeper questions. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that. So there are occasions when that deeper work can really help unlock things. But most of the time, just like you, I'm staying at that behavioral level because that's ultimately what we're. What we're trying to move.

Lisa Virtue [00:04:07]:

Absolutely. And definitely, you know, coach like me and like you, at any point where you know that there. These are things that people should be able to try or, you know, I say should loosely, but that seem like a lift that is possible. Clearly there's something deeper going on. So there's obviously this time and place as well to suggest therapy or digging deeper. And like, coaching will be stuck until you address this. Right, sure.

Brandon Smith [00:04:33]:

Absolutely. Yeah. And we're really trying to bring out the best human that we can, both at work, but sometimes outside of work. And many of those things are very synonymous and equal. So if you can't give positive kudos to folks at work, you're probably having a hard time giving positive kudos to folks outside of work. So it's probably not bifurcated anyway. It's probably very similar. So if we can get the good work happening, it can help change folks life both personally and professionally, which is also exciting.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:05]:

100%. I love it. Okay, so we're going to get into even more stories. That was a really good one. Thank you for that. What an example. Of course, I would love to hear a little bit more about compassion, accountability, how we balance this in a leadership tempo, because we know that the speed of how things are changing right now and how we manage people, tried and true methods remain. But it seems like the speed at which we're being expected as leaders to do these things just is like a rocket ship trying to take off.

Lisa Virtue [00:05:36]:

And I'm curious what you're seeing as some of the pain points right now in leadership.

Brandon Smith [00:05:42]:

Well, the, the number one adversary for everyone listening to this podcast and just. And, and, and regardless of what they're experiencing in life, they all have the same adversary. And the adversary's time. Time is our number one threat. And there's so much pressure to go fast both at work and even outside of work. I mean, the urgency, artificial urgency that we see in all aspects of life just creates this harried environment. And why that's such a problem is it prevents us from sitting down and really thinking about what we want to do, moving with intention, and then thinking about what we need to say to folks to set them up for success. So we're skipping a lot of that.

Brandon Smith [00:06:24]:

We're just, we're just giving stuff to people and go do it, you know, then get mad when they don't do it quite right. So when, when we're operating at our very best, our healthiest as humans. And so this is obviously us at work as managers and leaders, but it can be us as parents, it can be us as significant others. It has the same elements. We're balancing two things. We're balancing compassion and empathy on one side, and we're balancing accountability and expectations on the other. And you have to have both. So when we're compassionate and empathetic, that's where we feel connected and supported with the people around us.

Brandon Smith [00:06:58]:

And obviously we want that. And those are the benefits of that connection and support. And that's where it begins and ends. Accountability and expectations. That's when we have growth and performance. That's what happens on that side and that's where that begins and ends. So you need both. We want people to grow and perform and feel connected and supported.

Brandon Smith [00:07:18]:

And sometimes depending upon the industry, you'll see certain industries and leaders over index on one side or the other. Not for profit work will tend to over index on empathy and compassion, which is great. But then folks don't get feedback, they don't perform well, they get a sense of entitlement. You can see that often in not for profit environments or private equity backed companies. They're all about accountability and expectations. But people don't feel like they're even valued as a human. I could go tomorrow and let's replace me with another warm or cold body. They don't really care.

Brandon Smith [00:07:49]:

So it's the balance of the two now where I think it matters for us as leaders, we kind of bring it home for us as leaders. You start with accountability and expectations first. The first starting point is making sure you're clear on your expectations of others because you can't be empathetic and support them and give them feedback if you haven't first been fair enough to say, and here's what I expected in the first place. You know, imagine a three year old or four year old and you go and say, you know what, it's time. You need to start learning to clean your room. Clean your room and you leave and you come back and the room is magically clean. But then when you open the closet, everything's just shoved in the closet.

Lisa Virtue [00:08:34]:

Yes.

Brandon Smith [00:08:35]:

That's not what I meant when I said clean your room. Well, they don't know that there are three or four. And did you ever actually explain what it means to clean your room? So I think having that first starting point is really, really important. Most people will step up to that. Most people want to please their manager and leader. They want to do a good job, they take pride in their work, they want to do a good job and they want to be seen as a good team member. So that really helps eliminate a lot of your coaching opportunities. And then the second part is when you just get to keep that flywheel going, you get to check in every week and say, well, what are your priorities for the week and how can I support you? There's been a lot of research done on the most effective managers and they found the most effective managers ask those two questions beginning of every week.

Brandon Smith [00:09:17]:

What are your priorities and how can I Support you. That's it. You're not micromanaging. You're not, you're not hitting them with a hammer. You're not yelling and screaming. You're just asking two questions. What are your priorities? How can I help you? And if their priorities aren't aligned with your priorities, that's not, that's a, that's a, it's a conversation that you can have, but just creates that alignment and support. So I think if we can, if we can keep those things in balance and put them in the right order, it makes such a difference.

Brandon Smith [00:09:41]:

But time is our, is our challenge.

Lisa Virtue [00:09:43]:

Yeah, I was going to say it seems so simple, right? All of our tips seem so simple and they usually are. And it's. How do you make sure you insert that into your calendar? You make that time and space. And another guest I had on to the podcast. We were talking about how those one on one checkpoints with people are so important. And I said, and I see leaders think that they're giving their team members a gift when they cancel them, they're like, oh, we don't have anything to check in on. You take. You can have that time back.

Lisa Virtue [00:10:11]:

When in reality even just having you available for them is so important. Right. Because of that power dynamic, they're not going to go out of their way and ask you for a meeting unless it's super urgent and needed 100%.

Brandon Smith [00:10:24]:

So you're so right. I'm so glad you mentioned calendar because that's, that's really it. Our lives are ruled by our calendar. If we can manage it, better, master it, it'll help us. And preserving those one on ones with our team members really makes a difference in trying not to cancel those. So few years ago, I was asked to coach a chief marketing officer for a healthcare technology company. And the marketing function had the lowest employee engagement scores in the company. Normally that doesn't happen.

Brandon Smith [00:10:52]:

I've done a lot of work like this. It's normally not marketing. They're like, no one's happy in marketing. Marketing typically a little, a little happier place. So I'm naturally really curious. So I start doing these interviews. Well, to the person everyone said, you know, there's one thing my leader does really consistently when we're about to have our one on one, he cancels it. And he says, sorry, I just got pulled into a senior team meeting.

Brandon Smith [00:11:14]:

We can't meet every time, every time, every time. Sending the signal to his team, you're not important. Yeah. So those, those one on ones are so important. I did a I had a client of mine do a little experiment a few years ago. He was so anti meetings, he actually told his team, he said, look, no more meetings at all. We are, we are meeting free. And of course, the team plotted.

Brandon Smith [00:11:42]:

They were like, what a claim. First month, hooray, this is great. Second month, they were like, this is great by month three.

Lisa Virtue [00:11:50]:

And they're like, what is happening?

Brandon Smith [00:11:53]:

Where is everybody? What am I doing? Like, I have no idea how what I'm doing is connecting to what she's doing. And what are we supposed to be focusing on? Are we even doing well? And they actually went back to him and said, can, can, can we have, can we have some more meetings?

Lisa Virtue [00:12:06]:

Love it.

Brandon Smith [00:12:07]:

How often have you heard that? Right, right. Speaks to the important point that while we don't want to overdo on meetings, and meetings need to be efficient and effective, they create alignment, they create focus. That's where you will build that team connection. So there's, there's, there's, there's space and time for that too. That needs to be there.

Lisa Virtue [00:12:24]:

Absolutely. Another one of those paradoxes where we need it, love, hate. Right. We need it and we want it on our room to work. And the death by meetings is for sure a thing, but also to your point, like clarity, expectations, even feeling connected to people. And all of it, meetings are there for a reason as well.

Brandon Smith [00:12:46]:

Yeah. We've evolved this way and done well with intention. You know, you move the needle. Like things happen in that meeting. Things get decided, action items get sent out, people commit to stuff, and then the next meeting builds on that prior meeting, but it goes back to what we've been talking about. Time is the number one challenge. If you don't spend just a little bit of time thinking about how you want to use that meeting and having a clear agenda and driving it, you're going to end up like Bill Murray and Groundhog Day and you're going to have the same meeting over and over and over. And for those of seeing Groundhog Day, like Sunny and Cher wakes me up every day.

Brandon Smith [00:13:21]:

Get sunny and share in the background as you do the same same meeting over and over again. So that little bit of planning up front makes such a big difference.

Lisa Virtue [00:13:29]:

100%. Yeah. Can you tell me a story about when a leader shifted from author to editor? Because I know these, these coin terms by you. You write about this where instead of being the author as a leader, you're now an editor, what that means. And then a story about how it helped empower their team, of course.

Brandon Smith [00:13:49]:

So author, editor, that concept comes from the book I published in 2022, the Author vs Editor D& the idea behind super simple that whenever there's a leader in a direct report, in that dynamic, someone sits in the author seat and someone sits in the editor seat. And the key is knowing what seat to sit in when. So to cut to the chase, as a leader, we should be in the editor seat 80% of the time with our team and the Author seat only 20. And that makes perfect sense. When people think about their all time best direct report, they're kind of rock star. When there's a problem or issue, they say, hey, there's a problem or issue. Here's what I think we should do about it. I'd love to get your thoughts.

Brandon Smith [00:14:24]:

They author a solution for us to edit and are not so effective. Team members say, hey, there's a problem or issue. What do you want me to do about it? Throw their hands up in the air. When they do that, they're reeling us into the author seat, which takes a lot more time. Why this has become such a big issue is because everything is urgent all the time. And time is our most precious resource. Leaders doesn't matter what industry or vocation. I mean they are moving into that author seat corporate quick.

Brandon Smith [00:14:51]:

And they're just doing stuff. They're either telling their team what to do or they're saying don't worry about it, I'll just do it myself. And when they do that, it becomes very difficult for them to do the things that only they can be doing. And this isn't meant to be mean when I say this, but we want to honor our hourly rate. We're paid a certain amount of money by the organization or institution to do certain things that only we can do. But if we're doing the work of our team, we're not, we're not doing those things. So I client like this of mine some years ago and great, great. Just a great human and.

Brandon Smith [00:15:26]:

But having a hard time letting go of stuff. And he worked for a large Fortune 500 company and they have quarterly business reviews. So you got lots of PowerPoints. You know, PowerPoints communicate everything through PowerPoints. So he's got to present his findings, right. And he's a senior vice president. Okay. His, his kind of groups, groups work now they've got plenty of folks that can help with PowerPoints but he insisted on doing them, doing those himself.

Brandon Smith [00:15:50]:

So he would stay up until 2am doing his own PowerPoints, authoring those rather than editing. Okay. And so he lives in Atlanta, which is where I live. And two things I found to be true about him. First, given his hourly rate, he's the highest paid graphic designer in the city

Lisa Virtue [00:16:09]:

of Atlanta for sure.

Brandon Smith [00:16:12]:

Second, he's the worst graphic designer in the city of Atlanta. So it's a good reminder for us we don't want to be the highest paid and the worst. So just learning how to let go of things and, you know, letting, letting the folks around us that are talented trust them to do, do the good work is a big step. And we can absolutely talk more about author and editor. But that's a, that's a good kind of example that I'm sure a lot of people listening can, can relate to. I'm sure we've all been in the place. You've been the highest paid and the

Lisa Virtue [00:16:44]:

worst at something 100%. And what you just talked about with trust, love to hone in there. Because when you trust others and you put your heart out that way, then it tends to come back to you. Right. And so when we're a leader like that, holding it all in, being the author constantly, well then if you don't trust me to do my job, why should I trust you in your leadership role? Right? Goes both ways. Yeah.

Brandon Smith [00:17:11]:

A hundred percent. 100%.

Lisa Virtue [00:17:13]:

Where are you seeing? Because you also have this therapist lens. I'm curious, on the blockage of where you're seeing leaders bring in, you know, personal challenges, maybe threats, something deep down. Are you seeing any themes right now with your work on where leaders tend to be blocked before they can move forward with building trust, psychological safety with their teams, these things, any, any kind of themes or patterns you're seeing with leaders? Right.

Brandon Smith [00:17:42]:

I would say there's a couple if we're just, if I'm just looking at through the therapist lens. So some years ago when I was teaching more actively at Emory University, which is here in my hometown in Atlanta, I'm an adjunct faculty member there and I was teaching full time MBAs, and I was trying to figure out a way to come up with how to teach them trust. And they ultimately settled on this mathematical equation. Okay, so, so I promise not to, not to break our brains here on a podcast, talking about mathematical equations, ready to take notes. Yeah, but, but it's, it's, it's in parentheses. All right, so I'm already starting with parentheses in parentheses. It's authenticity plus vulnerability improvements. And the sum of that multiply times credibility gets us trust.

Brandon Smith [00:18:25]:

So the authenticity plus vulnerability in parentheses multiplied times credibility gets us trust. The reason why it's structured that way is either side of that equation the credibility or the authenticity and vulnerability. If either of those goes to zero, trust goes to zero. Okay? Credibility. Stuff like past performance, consistency, reliability, responsiveness, that's all credibility. But then authenticity and vulnerability is more of the kind of the edge for a lot of leaders. So you talk about some of those things that they've got to work through to be a truly effective leader today. We've got to be able to lean into that in the right amounts.

Brandon Smith [00:19:04]:

Because you can overdo on either of those.

Lisa Virtue [00:19:06]:

Absolutely. It's definitely a scale and like a pendulum, right?

Brandon Smith [00:19:10]:

Yeah. It's like, well, let's take vulnerability. Let's say, Lisa, you hired me to be on your team. Probably a really bad decision, but let's say you did. And the first time, first day I come on your team and I say, hey, I'm just here to learn. I'm taking lots of notes. I kind of want to soak up how the team operates, team culture, and I just want to learn. And you'd be like, oh, that's great.

Brandon Smith [00:19:30]:

He's coming in a humble attitude and vulnerable. This is good. Now let's. So my credibility goes up when I do that. Let's say for three months. I start every meeting that way. I'm just here to learn. I know nothing.

Brandon Smith [00:19:42]:

I'm just here to take notes. You're like, why did I hire this guy? Right. So too much vulnerability, and it cuts into credibility. And so helping leaders learn how to do that. So if we want practical ways, authenticity is just sharing a little bit more about your thinking. So that balance of transparency and honesty, that's really important today that we expect from leaders. Sometimes leaders can't be transparent, but they can be honest. We're still working through the details.

Brandon Smith [00:20:10]:

It's not ready for kind of public release, but you'll be the first to know. Team, like, that's an honest reaction or honest statement.

Lisa Virtue [00:20:17]:

Yeah, honest about where you can be transparent. Right. Want to know, can we know, are you holding something back from us and why?

Brandon Smith [00:20:26]:

And even sharing things about our personal life we like to know about leaders. What are their values? What's. We don't need to know. We don't need to go to the deep end of the pool, but the shallow end of the pool. We want to know those things. It matters. I had a lot of leaders that. That was feedback they got from their 360s, so.

Brandon Smith [00:20:43]:

So being able to do that and vulnerability. Examples of vulnerability are things like asking for help or saying, I don't know. Or even sharing some of our personal elements of our life. Those are big needle movers as leaders. So when you ask about some of the personal growth areas and how it translates to leadership, I think that's one. The second area that I would say, wearing my therapist hat, that's true for all of us is learning when and how to set boundaries. Boundaries naturally are a mantra of any good therapist. Let's talk about your boundaries.

Brandon Smith [00:21:19]:

Let's talk about life. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. And today we live in such a boundaryless world because our technology kind of rules the roost that we have to set our own boundaries. And learning how to do that effectively is also a kind of a human growth edge for us. So I would offer up a couple of those as examples.

Lisa Virtue [00:21:40]:

Beautiful. This idea of vulnerability, I know I've been doing a lot of research on psychological safety and how to build that. And the Aristotle project at Google was a big one where they uncovered that vulnerability and authenticity, both from the leader and then also the team members feeling like they can open up. And like you said, not, you're not telling everybody everything about your life, but you're sharing where maybe you have a hardship or where you are having a challenge. And then it allows others to open up. We know that that is what makes the teams effective more than anything else. Right? Anything else that we see. So, yeah, everything you're saying is so powerful.

Lisa Virtue [00:22:19]:

So how do you recommend or if you have a story, please share it. But how does someone start first evaluating, like, okay, I feel like I'm authentic. I feel like I'm vulnerable. I said that thing last week, like, do others see me that way? How do you recommend that leaders start kind of assessing this for themselves and where they need to do the work?

Brandon Smith [00:22:43]:

So I would. So there's a couple, couple places to move as you want to do a self assessment. So one is, do you spend time either in one on ones or with the team just having some general personal check in? How was your weekend? That's pretty commonplace, right? Whether we work virtually or work in person. How was your weekend? But then are you reciprocating? I think that's an important piece. A lot of leaders will just do the question and then nod and say, oh, that sounds great, let's talk about the agenda item. But they're not reciprocating. So you don't need to say, well, you know, I was in the hospital all weekend with my aging father or I got in a big screaming match with my spouse. You don't have to do that.

Brandon Smith [00:23:25]:

But just Being able to share some things about what's going on in your life helps people feel a little more connection to you, makes you a little more real. I think that's one. The second one's a little more of a less obvious place, but it's an important one. Your office, so your environment in which you communicate from. So whether it's an in person office or it's even a virtual office, being able to just have enough personal items in there to reflect who you are. So I had a client a few years ago, worked for a large Fortune 500 company. And when I did the 360 interviews, all the people said, look, look, this person could be the next CEO. He's amazing.

Brandon Smith [00:24:07]:

People line up to go work for him at some point. And every business he touched, he would turn it around. But he would only be in that business for about three years. He would turn it around, they move him to another business. So he never really had to build deeper relationships. Well, then he moved into corporate and he was there more than three years. And people started asking things like, I don't really know anything about this guy. Think about his family.

Brandon Smith [00:24:29]:

I know nothing about him personally. Like, he could, he could be an axe murderer. We don't really know. We don't know. And I went into his office and there's a term for an office like his. It's often described as a consultant's office. Because there was nothing in his office. Nothing.

Brandon Smith [00:24:46]:

Not a thing. Not even a plant. It was like he could pick up his bag and leave and no one would know he was ever there.

Lisa Virtue [00:24:52]:

Oh, wow.

Brandon Smith [00:24:53]:

There wasn't a picture of his family. There wasn't a little trinket from a recent vacation. Nothing. So what was interesting was just giving him that feedback. He realized, oh, maybe I need to, to add a little more personal touch. Because even if you don't want to talk a lot about your personal life, just showing some personal elements in your space makes a big difference. So the leaders during kind of a Covid era that were the most successful, they're working virtually. They did a lot of their communications from their kitchen because it just felt more personal.

Brandon Smith [00:25:29]:

It felt like they were inviting people into their kitchen. And it just, it had more of a homey, connected feel versus the ones that, you know, did a. Had a, you know, the faux kind of backdrop with the company logo on it, you know, behind us. It's like, that's not, it's not really. That's really not. Not as near as effective as being in the person's kitchen. So just aware of your space and our. Am I.

Brandon Smith [00:25:54]:

Is that a way that's communicating a little bit more about. About who I am? Again, we don't have to go the deep end of the pool, but this. But shallow end of the pool is important. People want to know who they're working for. It helps them understand your values and expectations and it helps lower their guard so that psychological safety can occur.

Lisa Virtue [00:26:14]:

Yeah. Oh, this balance of transparency again is coming up for me where it's so important to share but not overshare. And I'll give an example of the overshare. Love everything you're saying about the environment too. Like just bringing a picture of your family in. I mean this can be really simple. It doesn't have to be extravagant in the overshare. I've also seen where a leader will share something that to everyone else is like, oof, you're going through such a hardship.

Lisa Virtue [00:26:44]:

Especially if you have a team that's really caring and cares. Mission driven organizations, we see this a lot, right? Where they're like, oh, I need to leave that person alone now they're going through something. I don't want to give them feedback. Oh, they're going through something, I don't want it. And then that leader's like, what's. Why am I not being told what's going on with the team? Why are people not opening up on their end? So I see that obviously honor, like if you are going through grief and you need to take some time, like again, those boundaries so important. But I have seen it where leaders will over share, but they don't want to talk about it or they don't want it to affect the work. It's like, but you just shared.

Lisa Virtue [00:27:22]:

It's gonna affect the work, right?

Brandon Smith [00:27:24]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's a challenge too, because if we start sharing a lot of challenges that we have, it can start to creep, have doubt creep into the minds of our team. Like, oh, are they, are they going to be able to effectively lead us through this? Effectively lead me? And after all, my, my family, my livelihood is kind of resting on their shoulders. So it's a challenging balance of being able to share but also communicate. I've kind of got this and that's

Lisa Virtue [00:27:56]:

what's tricky for sure. And this is why talking to someone and having an outside perspective to help you kind of choose those things. Right. And be able to talk about all of it so that they can filter down like, okay, I got that off my chest. What is appropriate to share with the team. I see A lot of power in that. I'm sure you do because you talk to people all the time, every single day. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:28:19]:

Love it. So we've talked about author versus editor, we've talked about the prioritization of meetings, where to start as a leader for authenticity, transparency, where to share anything else on the compassion versus accountability side that you've seen or an example you'd like to share?

Brandon Smith [00:28:40]:

Yeah. I think the only other thing I would add in this that's important is often we think about accountability immediately. Everyone kind of gets a little tight like ah, it's going to be like hard, harsh feedback. Right. Or someone's going to hurt someone's feelings or they're going to hurt my feelings. And I really want to invite everyone to reframe it differently and I want to reframe it because it really is about growth when we talk about performance and growth in that category. So when you've got feedback for someone that you want to give them a really good best practice is come to them and say, hey, you know, I noticed a couple things I think could really help you both in the short term and maybe even long term in your career. Would you be open to that conversation if they say yes and say, well, you tell me when will be a good time for us to have that?

Lisa Virtue [00:29:27]:

Yeah.

Brandon Smith [00:29:28]:

And you let them set the time so there's. So they have a little more agency and control and it doesn't feel like it's just kind of being dropped on them or that it's so scary. And again, it's not really the spirit of feedback really is those two things. I want to help your short term performance and ultimately your long term performance. And who doesn't want that? So I think the way we can kind of go into that conversation and enter into it can make it much more comfortable for us and much more comfortable for the other party. And that's a much better way of doing it than the feedback sandwich. Just the toasty bun of happiness. Love your attitude.

Brandon Smith [00:30:05]:

You come up with a big smile every day. It's great. The team loves you. The unpleasant meaty middle. But if you make this mistake again, you're fired. Another toasty bun of goodness. But your attitude is great. Just keep on smiling.

Brandon Smith [00:30:17]:

You don't really know what they heard when you do that. And it's a very confusing message and not a very, it's kind of a disingenuous message. So I think if we can, if we can carve it out and make it a separate conversation with the spirit of helping that person grow, it's more likely to be heard and be more impactful. So that would be my one kind of add on to our conversation around balancing that compassion and accountability.

Lisa Virtue [00:30:44]:

I have so much of that I can relate to in so many ways. But I have multiple clients that will come to me and complain about their excellent review. Right. I got a performance evaluation and didn't get any feedback or anything. Wanting to work on. I know what I need to work on. There's five things. And you know, and so having that conversation about how to kind of manage up and have instigate those conversations if your leader is weak at that is something I've definitely helped people with.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:11]:

But to your point, they want feedback like people want, want to know where they can grow, even if it's not a you're doing something wrong or I need to hold your feet to the fire. It's not that conversation I'm really talking about right now. That's more like a disciplinary piece we're talking about. Yeah. How do you help expand people? Help them grow? For sure, because everybody wants that. And that's why people leave organizations. They're not growing anymore.

Brandon Smith [00:31:37]:

I think you're right. But I'll add one little caveat. The people we want to work on, our teams and work with us want that, but not everybody wants that.

Lisa Virtue [00:31:48]:

Good point.

Brandon Smith [00:31:50]:

So we think about the traits of the author, because in a perfect world, we author up and we edit down. So we all need to be authoring. If we've got a leader above us or a board or whoever we need to be kind of reporting to, we offer up and we edit down. And the traits of the author is three things. They take ownership, they show initiative, and then they display critical thinking. I mean, who wouldn't want to hire that person? Right. That's great. But not, not everybody wants to take ownership.

Brandon Smith [00:32:15]:

Not everybody wants to take initiative. Not everybody wants to put themselves out there. And so those folks don't want that feedback because that feedback is. That means I have to do something with it.

Lisa Virtue [00:32:27]:

Yeah, you're right.

Brandon Smith [00:32:28]:

And they'd rather use smoke screens and such to kind of disguise their performance and kind of hide out a little longer. And so again, that's not a huge percentage, but those, those, those folks are out there.

Lisa Virtue [00:32:42]:

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And they're not my clients.

Brandon Smith [00:32:46]:

Right, right. But we all, we all encounter them in different ways.

Lisa Virtue [00:32:50]:

No, you're right. Yeah.

Brandon Smith [00:32:51]:

In certain kind of organizations, particularly not for profits, a little more predisposed to that archetype. So you'll have a little more. That's a little more common in those environments. And those can be tricky folks to manage because they've developed sophisticated ways to avoid accountability.

Lisa Virtue [00:33:08]:

Oh, yeah, that is so interesting. And to your point, there's, I believe, you know, 99, sometimes 0.9%, but it depends on where you're at. 99% of people, they show up to work to do a good job. And so sometimes it's in that chapter of life that they're in or whatever they're dealing with on the personal side, they just want to show up to work, they want to get those good marks, get their paycheck so they can go back and deal with the heavy stuff which might be at home. Right.

Brandon Smith [00:33:37]:

100%. 100%. We talk about in the often HR uses terms like solid citizens and high potentials, and those are two different kind of folks. Solid citizens are. They're just, they are, you can rely on them. They come in on time, they leave on time. They always get their work. Work done.

Brandon Smith [00:33:52]:

And if you ask them if they want a promotion, they say, no, thank you.

Lisa Virtue [00:33:55]:

Right.

Brandon Smith [00:33:56]:

Because. Because like you said, maybe they could be, they don't believe in themselves, but it could also be they've got a bunch of other stuff going on outside of life and more responsibility just means it's going to be more stress and strain and they've got enough that they can handle. Right. So this is, this is actually their, their stability. Yeah, that's that job that they know how to do and do really well. And then our high potentials are constantly knocking on the door, hey, when's my promotion? When's my promotion?

Lisa Virtue [00:34:24]:

Yeah, yeah. Or even just, can I go learn something? I see that sometimes people don't even want to go in the promotional route, but they're like, am I learning?

Brandon Smith [00:34:34]:

It's funny because often managers initially dream like, oh, I want a team of all high potentials. No, you don't. No, you don't, because they're going to be pinging you all the time. I want to learn. I want more feedback. Do you have feedback for me? I gave you feedback yesterday. How about today?

Lisa Virtue [00:34:49]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brandon Smith [00:34:50]:

You know, you want some of those, but you don't want a whole team of those. You want some solid citizens that you know are, are steady and reliable because hypos don't stay with you long. They. They move on to the next big thing, which is what they're supposed to do. So there's places for everybody in those cases.

Lisa Virtue [00:35:08]:

I love it. So I, I want to Pick your brain on one more con concept, one more topic, I guess, and that is 360 reviews. So when a leader, or maybe either they choose to go through a 360 feedback loop or they're told they're going to. They're fallen told. I. I've seen these go well with getting that feedback that we're talking about and getting some insights. And I've also seen it go really poorly when it's supposed to be anonymous and then people pick things apart. I have some thoughts on the anonymity side of it all, but I would love to hear maybe a story or two from you of when it's gone well, when it doesn't go very well, and when you recommend they use a tool like that.

Brandon Smith [00:35:57]:

So for my clients, I always do 360 feedback and I always do it personally. So I do all the interviews myself and I interview 18 to 20 folks. Because if you've ever gotten 360 feedback electronically, it's Korn, Ferry or other folks put it out and. And they're going to score you on competencies, right? So you get, you get some range of scores and you don't understand why someone gave you a three or two. Do they not understand the scoring? You don't know. And then there's comments at the very end, which is about a page and a half of comments. And that tends to be where the gold is in the electronics, right. When you do the interviews, it's 16 pages of all verbatims.

Brandon Smith [00:36:33]:

So you. So the benefit of that is you cannot run away from it. It's very, very clear. It's not. There's no why did they give me that? No, no, there's. Here's a quote of why they believe this about you. So I think there's power in that. Where 360s become the most powerful is when there's a readiness from the client.

Brandon Smith [00:36:52]:

So they want to get that feedback either because they want to grow or because they recognize change is important for them to stay in their current role. Both of those are healthy senses of urgency. I want to grow and this is important. Or this. If I don't make this adjust adjustments, it's not going to work. So I think, I think that piece is really important. And I've seen clients make some big changes when they've seen those things and really dedicate a lot of effort and lean into some hard things. Clients have gotten feedback where their peers don't trust them, which is a really hard thing to hear.

Brandon Smith [00:37:29]:

I've had clients lean into that. Now, when I've seen the 360s not go well, it's very, very small percentage. It's come up almost like you said, like 99%. It's like that 1%. When it doesn't go well, folks just don't want to hear it. I had someone some years ago who was going through it and he argued with all the comments and finally I just had to put my hand down on the report and said, okay, the bottom line is you have a trust problem.

Lisa Virtue [00:37:57]:

Right.

Brandon Smith [00:37:58]:

No one trusts you.

Lisa Virtue [00:37:59]:

Clear.

Brandon Smith [00:38:00]:

So you need to either work on this or not. And the way you can tell if someone is actually committed is usually when I'm working with a client. After the 360 reviews, I'll do the first draft of the action plan. But if I'm not quite sure the person's committed, I'll actually assign the action plan to them first. So I'll say, why don't you take the first pass at coming up with some action items you think you need to work on and then set the date on when you want to get it to me. So I had a client that I thought was kind of playing this like it was a political game, like it wasn't serious. And I did that with him and he picked the date and time. He missed it by two weeks.

Brandon Smith [00:38:40]:

I asked him a few times. Finally he sent me an email and it just had one line. I want to work on my listening. That was it. That was his entire response to the 16 pages of feedback. And so I called up the CEO and chief people officer and said go ahead and stop. We're going to stop the meter right now. This, this is not going to be useful for the organization, it's not going to be useful for this client.

Brandon Smith [00:39:03]:

They're not, they're not really bought into the process. So, so those are just some, some things I look for when I'm, when I'm doing it.

Lisa Virtue [00:39:10]:

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I, yeah, that kind of looping that along with my comment about anonymity and then also your comment earlier about non profit folks and certain people that kind of have this aversion to feedback conversations, I'll say right where it can be really challenging. I have found, and I'm some curious your work in this space too. I have found that just having a conversation where it is to the person's benefit, it's not about the organization's goals, it's not about your goals as a leader. It's literally just opening a dialogue of like, hey, I'd Love to know where you're at and where you would like to see growth and being more of a coach as a leader. Right. I've seen them open up more and then a lot of leaders when they start doing that, they get surprised at all the beautiful insight they get from their team members of what they already know about themselves, their strengths and weaknesses and leaders thinking they have to tell them no.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:05]:

Maybe you just have to have a conversation about it. Right. So I'm curious your experience with everything I just said.

Brandon Smith [00:40:13]:

No, I agree and I think so. Here's a nice little quick pro tip that is really helpful. So let's say you want to get some feedback from your team. Okay. You know, you've been supporting them and asking questions, but you're not really sure. Like my leadership style clicking, Is it connecting? Do I need to make an adjustment? So what I recommend is maybe once a year, not too close to the performance review cycle. You don't want to make it look like you're doing and tying it to that.

Lisa Virtue [00:40:38]:

Right.

Brandon Smith [00:40:39]:

But I would ask them to stop, start, continue question. So let each of one of your direct reports know in the end of our next one on one, I'm going to ask this question. You we're going to spend five extra minutes at the end and I'm going to ask you what can I start doing more of to support you better? What can I stop doing that maybe I'm doing but it's inadvertently getting in your way and I don't realize it? Or what can I continue doing that's working well for you that you want to see me keep doing? Now again, you want to ask them, you want to prep them so they know that's coming. If you decide to spring it on them like we talk about time, if you didn't have time to prepare, you spring it on them, they're going to go, you're fine, everything's fine, you're fine.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:19]:

Right?

Brandon Smith [00:41:20]:

I'm fine. They're not going to want to put themselves out there because that feedback is vulnerable. So it goes. Everything we're talking about is connected. So that goes back to psychological safety. If I feel safe, I'm going to give you that feedback. I know you're not going to punish me for doing it. I don't feel safe.

Brandon Smith [00:41:35]:

I am not going to tell you that. I'm going to tell you everything is fine. You want them to feel comfortable, safe, but also haven't had time to think about that a little bit.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:44]:

Absolutely.

Brandon Smith [00:41:45]:

And what you'll find is you'll Have a direct report that says, oh, I want more time with you. Okay. Give another direct report to say, oh, I want a lot less time with you.

Lisa Virtue [00:41:53]:

Yeah, exactly.

Brandon Smith [00:41:56]:

Performing. Well, you know, maybe that's okay. Yeah, sure. It's great. We'll go to every other week instead of every week and, you know, just ping me if you need something in between. Totally fine. You know, so you can kind of modulate based on the needs of your team.

Lisa Virtue [00:42:10]:

Yeah. Oh, love that tip so much. And it's so important to compartmentalize it away from whatever else is going on in that one on one. Right. So that prep, not only just to help them prepare and think through it, it's also because you don't want it to feel like when you spring something on someone, they always bring it back to something else you were talking about, or they're going to think there's some kind of hidden agenda in that question. And why are you asking me at this moment? What did we just say that made you want to ask me that? Right.

Brandon Smith [00:42:38]:

I totally.

Lisa Virtue [00:42:39]:

Yeah. People infer a lot. So compartmentalizing, also being consistent. Right. With making sure everyone that you meet with has that same opportunity. Because if one person, they talk. Right. We know that everyone talks.

Lisa Virtue [00:42:51]:

They're going to hear about it. Someone else is like, they didn't ask me to do that. What does that mean?

Brandon Smith [00:42:56]:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:01]:

Brandon, thank you so much for your time today. This has been amazing. I love picking your brain. So thank you for letting me do that.

Brandon Smith [00:43:08]:

This was. This was a fun. It feels like we're on the playground today. The workplace playground.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:13]:

Love it.

Brandon Smith [00:43:14]:

You were bouncing around from.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:15]:

Did I should put in my office.

Brandon Smith [00:43:18]:

It's fun.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:20]:

I've got my. My flow board back here. Oh, I see it blocking it, but that. You know, those flow riders, those artificial waves. I was part of an inaugural team that was experimenting a lot with all of that. So that's my signed copy when I left as a leader. But, yeah, pretty fun. Extreme sports, whole different world.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:40]:

Although what we do now sometimes is very extreme. So I guess I'd probably say there's

Brandon Smith [00:43:46]:

a lot more similarities than differences these days.

Lisa Virtue [00:43:49]:

Absolutely. Well, before we go and wrap up, Brandon, anything else you want to share with the audience today?

Brandon Smith [00:43:57]:

No. If. If they want to learn more, I've got a couple sites they can go to. They can just Google the Workplace Therapist. That's a free resource site. It's got podcasts and articles and TED Talks and all the things I put out there to just make workplaces healthier if they're more interested in books and resources they're also on that on that site but they can just go to Amazon for or any other place you buy your books author editor is available on the on that site author versus editor dilemma also the book I wrote previously the Hot Sauce Principle how to live and lead in a world where everything's urgent all the time and they're available on Audible if you'd rather listen so that's also also there's an option too and now you have to listen to me read it but if that's okay with folks then you know not gonna put them to sleep then they could they can do it do do it that way too I love it

Lisa Virtue [00:44:42]:

highly recommend all of that and we'll make sure it's in the show notes as well so yeah thank you again Brandon and just can't wait for our next conversation yeah me too me too Lisa than.