Our culture is built on the Greek model, one of adversity that if you
Rob:challenge and you fight ideas out the best one will live, but I think
Rob:we've come to a stage where it's not about being gladiatorial anymore.
Rob:We have to look at the real problem is a lack of acceptance.
Rob:We need to move instead of being adversarial to work
Rob:from a basis of acceptance.
Rachel:I agree with you a hundred percent.
Rachel:And I've been thinking about that a lot.
Rachel:My facilitation style comes out of learning acceptance and commitment
Rachel:training and the organizational development arm of pro social.
Rachel:That's the group format of acceptance and commitment training.
Rachel:That was, developed by Paul Atkins and a lot of that is about acceptance in
Rachel:how can we be with challenging feelings, challenging thoughts, and then notice.
Rachel:I can tolerate these and be with them because we all have a goal together.
Rachel:We have a goal to accomplish a mission, we have a goal to change
Rachel:something or impact something.
Rachel:Can we together see what behaviors are causing us to not achieve that
Rachel:goal, where they come from, and then make group choices to say, I can
Rachel:tolerate a little bit of discomfort.
Rachel:Or maybe not total agreement in honor of moving towards
Rachel:this bigger mission or goal.
Rachel:There has to be an element of willingness.
Rachel:I think about how do we build that willingness as facilitators?
Rachel:How do we create the space?
Rachel:I also, have found, and I don't know if you found this.
Rachel:I think this is part of that mediation component, that
Rachel:skill that you have learned.
Rachel:It's sometimes about the how.
Rachel:People are arguing about, how do we get it done?
Rachel:How do we get it To happen and I think that's this Greek system
Rachel:that you're talking about.
Rachel:I have the right way instead of can we have the right way?
Rachel:We're not as communal as I believe other, I'm not really sure totally how other
Rachel:cultures are fully communal because I'm in all honesty, versed in very few cultures.
Rachel:But we're not as communal as thinking altruistically, like if we all go
Rachel:for what the group wants, we will have our needs met as well, which
Rachel:is what pro social facilitation and organizational development is built upon.
Rachel:It's built upon the evolutionary biology that if we work towards what the
Rachel:species need or what the group needs we do get our individual needs met.
Rachel:But that acceptance is huge.
Rob:I've heard of acceptance and commitment, but can you
Rob:just break that down and just give us a quick summary of that?
Rachel:Yeah.
Rachel:Acceptance and commitment training is a personal approach.
Rachel:a third wave cognitive behavioral therapy that has you begin to notice that you are
Rachel:always present, you are always here, and there are parts of you that can witness
Rachel:other things going on inside of you.
Rachel:So the goal is to develop psychological flexibility so that you can become
Rachel:more dialectical inside so that you can say, Yes, this is occurring
Rachel:and this is occurring and that's occurring in me at the same time.
Rachel:I might have challenges that come up in my life And sometimes,
Rachel:we get taken up in them.
Rachel:So if you have a relationship that goes in a negative direction, right?
Rachel:We easily can start to say I'm not worthy.
Rachel:I'm not lovable.
Rachel:I'm pick bad people.
Rachel:But we try to train people to say there's a part of me that feels this
Rachel:way, or I'm noticing that right now, this relationship didn't work out,
Rachel:and I'm still all these other things.
Rachel:This person did find attractive you also look at what makes your life meaningful
Rachel:and you look at valued behaviors.
Rachel:So not Family values or religious values, but I really value being kind
Rachel:or I really value having integrity.
Rachel:I really value living in a adventurous lifestyle so that as you go along, you're
Rachel:looking through the lens of life towards honesty or integrity or adventure.
Rachel:So when choices come up for you, you can say, here's a challenging situation.
Rachel:How will I address this in the most honest way that I can?
Rachel:And sometimes it's can I be honest with myself?
Rachel:And that's the challenge.
Rachel:That's the direction you're moving in.
Rachel:Sometimes it's, I'm going to be honest with this individual or I'm going to
Rachel:sit back and see it in an honest manner.
Rachel:Now that grew into an organizational development model called Pro
Rachel:Social and Pro Social is based off of Ellen Ohlstrom's work.
Rachel:She got a Pulitzer Prize in economics, and she looked at how do
Rachel:groups protect or use the commons?
Rachel:Common grazing areas, common water rights and what are the stages that
Rachel:the group has to go through or what are the rules that the group has to have
Rachel:or qualities and it's multiple groups.
Rachel:So she studied an area where people were using general
Rachel:lands for grazing and saw, wow.
Rachel:They really can do this well, and she discovered eight principles and then David
Rachel:Wilson, who's an evolutionary biologist, worked with her to make those principles
Rachel:a little bit more understandable and generalize able, can't say that word and
Rachel:I'll tell you what those principles are.
Rachel:And then Paul Atkins said those are great, but now we have to actually
Rachel:put behavioral rules in place.
Rachel:Components so people could actually do them and learn how to do them.
Rachel:And that is The realm that we work in.
Rachel:So they're very basic and simple, right?
Rachel:i'm not denigrating anybody's hard work, but this is us as humans
Rachel:Sometimes it's right there in front of us, but it's really hard to do.
Rachel:So groups need shared purpose and identity and really have real conversations
Rachel:about what is it that we have in common and that we're doing together.
Rachel:And how do we hold to that so that we don't start to splinter off and come back
Rachel:to have fast and fair conflict resolution.
Rachel:To be able to have equitable benefits so that everybody in the group feels
Rachel:that there's fairness across who puts the efforts in and and even if somebody
Rachel:puts more effort in and someone puts less efforts in, as long as the benefits
Rachel:that they receive are equal, that's okay.
Rachel:There's an agreement on help, what are helpful behaviors.
Rachel:for the group and what are unhelpful behaviors.
Rachel:Both are recognized.
Rachel:So helpful behaviors are not just praised, but they're models
Rachel:and mentored and unhelpful behaviors aren't just sanctioned.
Rachel:You have a discussion about it and talk about why did that happen?
Rachel:So you just don't get thrown out of the group.
Rachel:You say, hey, what was going on for you and try to help somebody
Rachel:begin to have helpful behaviors.
Rachel:But also we all know hey, that's not a great behavior for the group.
Rachel:And then there's also the ability for you to feel like you're a tight component of a
Rachel:group so that you can interact with other groups well and you know how to do that,
Rachel:the ability so that you can self govern.
Rachel:And then the other one that's really important that and I would love
Rachel:to hear what your perspective is on this and the team's works that
Rachel:you do, but it's about transparency and being able to be transparent so
Rachel:that we can see What is happening?
Rachel:Why is it happening?
Rachel:And they call it monitoring of behaviors and actions.
Rachel:But really, it's about transparency and not monitoring like a negative way.
Rachel:But transparency so that we can understand.
Rachel:Also how do we really understand clear decision making?
Rachel:Groups have really believed consensus Is the way or consent is the way and
Rachel:sometimes not everybody wants that.
Rachel:Not all human people like that.
Rachel:Sometimes people like somebody makes a decision for me and I get to do it.
Rachel:And so this is where that complexity lies right of do we like decisions made
Rachel:and who wants to be a part of it and who wants to understand why it's made.
Rachel:How do you get your voice in there?
Rachel:So having those eight elements being really clearly defined and talked about
Rachel:is, as I said, sometimes they seem very simple, but they're very hard to do.
Rachel:And when you have a group that's been established for a long time
Rachel:then it has to do, how do you bring people into that culture?
Rachel:And with what they're bringing into the culture.
Rachel:And this is where that complexity that started our conversation happens, right?
Rachel:If generations are changing, how do we bring their needs and wants and
Rachel:viewpoints into a team, into the culture, so that it feels like a good
Rachel:fit or that they're being seen or heard?
Rachel:Their needs are met that it's an adaptable organization, but a lot
Rachel:about willingness and about acceptance.
Rachel:Not like I accept it and take it, but I know that I need that.
Rachel:I'm going to have some discomfort here as well as comfort.
Rachel:And sometimes you just have to ride that out.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:That's quite a similar.
Rob:basis to my model which is basically that relationships have a purpose.
Rob:And the purpose that they have defines the context of the relationship.
Rob:It's getting to that core of it.
Rob:For me, the core of it is people are naturally bad at conflict.
Rob:They're naturally afraid, naturally stresses them.
Rob:If you can change the context so that they can cope with the conflict,
Rob:then that develops the relationship because normally relationships lose
Rob:connection at the point of conflict.
Rob:That's where they splinter their purpose.
Rob:It's about being able to share a purpose is about a higher level
Rob:of communication, which depends on an honesty and a transparency.
Rob:When you don't have the transparency, it's normally because someone has a
Rob:separate agenda who doesn't want to share their purpose transparently.
Rob:When you don't share transparently, what we don't know creates rumors
Rob:and gossip and that's where you get division and in the same way,
Rob:having clear decision making.
Rob:I don't think people necessarily need the decision to go their
Rob:way, but they need to feel that there was a logic and a fairness.
Rob:I find fairness really interesting because it's probably one of
Rob:the deepest human assumptions.
Rob:It's where so much conflict comes from because people feel something
Rob:isn't fair and yet life isn't fair.
Rob:You only have to look at life.
Rob:Some child is born now in Africa in poverty, maybe with AIDS in
Rob:some conditions that they're going to really struggle for life.
Rob:Someone else is born with a silver spoon in the perfect environment.
Rob:So nothing in life in nature is fair.
Rob:And I often ask where does that belief in fairness come from?
Rob:I
Rachel:think it's a great question.
Rachel:I do.
Rachel:I think it's a great question.
Rachel:I, sometimes wonder if it comes from a biological drive as a species to,
Rachel:to want to be comfortable, to want to write the situation that they're in.
Rachel:But I very much have an ecological framework the way that I view life.
Rachel:I seem to always go back to what's the purpose?
Rachel:As a species and as an animal.
Rachel:Oh, that's not fair.
Rachel:I didn't get that.
Rachel:If I had that, then I'd survive more or I'd feel more comfortable.
Rachel:In compaction focused therapy, they talk about three different zones.
Rachel:There's the soothe zone, the drive zone, and then the threat zone.
Rachel:And we're really always wanting to be in the soothe zone.
Rachel:But most of the time we're bouncing back and forth between
Rachel:the threat zone and the drive zone.
Rachel:The drive zone is when we're functioning really well, like
Rachel:we're just living and doing things.
Rachel:I guess I always resort to that's not fair is I didn't get that and if I had
Rachel:that would make me feel better and I'd survive more or I'd feel more soothed.
Rachel:But you're absolutely correct.
Rachel:It is always about fairness.
Rachel:I'm curious.
Rachel:I want to go with you mind going back to talking about the context.
Rachel:You had said that if you can change the context, is it of the relationship
Rachel:or of the conflict that so could you talk about that component?
Rachel:Because I'm very
Rob:At the core of relationships is conflict.
Rob:They break down when we're not speaking.
Rob:And I think is biologically or at least socially evolved in us
Rob:that difference equals danger.
Rob:Because if you look back like evolution takes 200, 000 years to change anything.
Rob:So back then different meant a different tribe or it meant a different species.
Rob:Both were life threatening.
Rob:So I think when we have a difference over what strategy we're going to
Rob:use or what our priorities are in the next quarter, the biology that's
Rob:linked with that is the same as there's a tribe coming to invade us.
Rob:There's a saber toothed tiger that's coming in.
Rob:So immediately in our makeup of the brain.
Rob:It's conflict.
Rob:And that conflict is life or death but conflict now isn't life or death,
Rob:conflict is just a misunderstanding, it's working on different assumptions
Rob:that we're unconscious of, really.
Rob:We've talked about the cultural context of huge problems in
Rob:nations, huge problems in society.
Rob:And within all that people are every day going to work and trying to make their
Rob:organizations function as effectively and to do the best that they can.
Rob:And that's your work isn't it, helping people work within organizations.
Rob:So can you give us a an insight into what you actually do?
Rachel:Sure.
Rachel:From the bigger picture, I work on culture because I do believe that if
Rachel:we have a culture that people feel comfortable in, that individuals
Rachel:thrive and the mission thrives.
Rachel:I mostly work with mission driven organizations.
Rachel:That could be nonprofit organizations businesses that are mission driven,
Rachel:not necessarily financially driven, but more mission driven and then
Rachel:government agencies, whether that's state, local, or federal agencies.
Rachel:And I work on three different levels cause this is how I see culture.
Rachel:Culture is comprised of the individuals that are in there.
Rachel:So I do coaching with individuals and to me, we have this term leadership, but I
Rachel:really call it peopleship because anyone in an organization can be a leader.
Rachel:I don't see it just as a title.
Rachel:So peopleship, then there's the team that's, that you're working with in
Rachel:larger places, we have multiple teams.
Rachel:But so I do work with teams to help them communicate better to help them
Rachel:be effective in what they're doing.
Rachel:Sometimes that's a strategy element.
Rachel:Sometimes it's communication.
Rachel:Sometimes it's learning about each other so that they can function well.
Rachel:And then there's the larger organization, which in nonprofits is made up of a
Rachel:staff and a board, and I consider the staff and the board, the organization,
Rachel:and so like to work with both of them at the same time to create this culture.
Rachel:Often I see groups that will do the board will determine the
Rachel:culture and do strategic planning.
Rachel:And then there's the staff that just doesn't fit in with that.
Rachel:So I really want to work with the whole entire group.
Rachel:So with the individuals, I have individual programming where I do executive
Rachel:coaching and leadership development.
Rachel:I run a course called the engaged leader series.
Rachel:Then I have teamwork where I do a program called engaged communication
Rachel:called epic teams, which is basically building engaged teams that are based
Rachel:on their engagement level purpose.
Rachel:What's their impact?
Rachel:And then how do they communicate that back to each other?
Rachel:And now to the larger group in larger organizations, I do staff
Rachel:and board retreats, strategic planning, things of that nature.
Rachel:And I do a lot of coalition work, which is multiple players from
Rachel:different organization types whether it's nonprofits, community groups.
Rachel:agencies, federal, state, or local agencies, and they're coming together
Rachel:around an issue, whether it is.
Rachel:I've done a lot of work with migratory songbird coalitions in the past few
Rachel:years, to substance use coalitions local land trust coalitions where
Rachel:they're trying to save public lands food coalitions where they're looking
Rachel:at farm to table or local agriculture.
Rachel:Those are more straight facilitation that I bring in design of the process so that
Rachel:kind of going back to what you and I've been talking about so that relationships,
Rachel:which I agree are primary, we're building good relationships and that's what
Rachel:that engagement component is to me that word of, can we engage with each other?
Rachel:Can we make a commitment to each other to let us take that moment
Rachel:to get to really know each other?
Rachel:And to build trust, to build understanding with each other, and that for them
Rachel:from there, we do the discussions that they want, but I'm always basing it
Rachel:on everything that we've been talking about, relationship building, safety,
Rachel:understanding, the mitigation component, how can we learn to make decisions.
Rachel:Do you ever use the gradients of agreement, Rob?
Rachel:It's called the gradients of agreement.
Rachel:It's a neat tool that I use a lot with coalitions in particular.
Rachel:Where basically you learn that you don't have to 100 percent
Rachel:fully agree with something.
Rachel:You can have small gradients agreements to the point where no, I just can't
Rachel:work with you like to a veto, but it's on a scale of zero to 10.
Rachel:That is what I do.
Rachel:And I do think at the heart of it all, it is that what we've been talking
Rachel:about, can we shift to a new way of being where we can see that we are
Rachel:one and we need, we are different and have diversity and yet can benefit
Rachel:from learning how to have diversity.
Rachel:relationships where conflict is not seen as a negative or something to
Rachel:be afraid of, but as a growth point and to learn from, and that we can
Rachel:still be friends after conflict.
Rob:So what I see in larger organizations, it's about
Rob:facilitation and conversation.
Rob:and getting people talking so that they can find points of agreement
Rob:and gradients of agreement so they can move forward to make a decision.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:So there was something I got sidetracked and, but I wanted to
Rob:bring up because you talked about it.
Rob:And I think it's relevant to that talking about the larger organizations.
Rob:Is you talked about the commons.
Rob:I think it was.
Rob:When you were talking about the eight laws from pro social facilitation.
Rob:I often come back to the tragedy of the commons.
Rob:Are you familiar with the tragedy of the commons?
Rob:A hundred percent.
Rob:Often what we're dealing with is the problem of human frailty is that
Rob:People won't live up to what they say.
Rob:People will be selfish.
Rob:People will look out for their own interests.
Rob:And where everything breaks down is where people don't keep their word,
Rob:where people aren't transparent, they aren't honest because they
Rob:think they're going to gain more.
Rob:And I guess that's the premise of the pro social facilitation is you can gain more.
Rob:Like I always think, how ridiculously expensive war is.
Rachel:Yeah I believe that, you definitely picked up on what pro social
Rachel:is the basis of it is, which is what David Sloan Wilson in his evolutionary,
Rachel:perspective he's a professor at SUNY Binghamton, and that is his specialty.
Rachel:What he studies is, and has proven, is that altruistic groups can
Rachel:have selfish individuals in it.
Rachel:And still be okay.
Rachel:But a selfish individual cannot really rule a bunch of altruistic people,
Rachel:it just doesn't happen because of who they are, their narcissism, their need.
Rachel:Pro social also is very much based on self determination theory,
Rachel:which is People want to belong.
Rachel:They want to feel competent and they want to be valued.
Rachel:They want to be valued and seen right there.
Rachel:There's these three components and teams or leaders can
Rachel:Really take advantage of that.
Rachel:I think this is that component of pro social facilitation where acceptance
Rachel:and commitment training comes in to play because and it's why I say I work with the
Rachel:individual, the team and the organization, because we have to teach people, both.
Rachel:Something that goes against the way that we're raised goes against the
Rachel:way that our human mind is built.
Rachel:And you talked about that, right?
Rachel:You talked about that part of us that is always trying to
Rachel:survive and feels threatened.
Rachel:So we go through a training process where we help people begin to go against the
Rachel:negativity bias and start to say yes, I can see that negative thing happened.
Rachel:And can I also see the 80 percent of the good that's going on?
Rachel:Or can I see the other components?
Rachel:How we do this in organizations is to begin to slow down and to break down.
Rachel:Really, it's a cultural shift in organizations where the
Rachel:person is at work, right?
Rachel:It used to be there's the work and then there's your personal life.
Rachel:We bring ourselves to work and this is what Brene Brown talks about.
Rachel:This is what, Sheryl Sandberg talks about leaning in.
Rachel:We can go on and on of lots of different people who've started
Rachel:to say We bring our whole selves.
Rachel:Patrick Lencioni talks about it in the Five Behaviors of a Dysfunctional Team.
Rachel:So what pro social does and in this process is we first start
Rachel:with the individual to say can you begin to start noticing?
Rachel:And then can we begin to speak up to step in and I talk a lot about intention.
Rachel:People don't see your intentions, they see your behaviors and
Rachel:intention is I'm going to be scared.
Rachel:I'm going to be a little vulnerable.
Rachel:I talk about a different kind of vulnerability than Brene Brown does.
Rachel:I talk about vulnerability within.
Rachel:You're going to be vulnerable to yourself and you're going to try to push
Rachel:yourself and feel that uncomfortableness.
Rachel:If I say in this meeting, my idea, or that right now, this isn't
Rachel:feeling incredibly comfortable in here is why I'm exposing myself.
Rachel:I'm doing that.
Rachel:Potentially setting up a conflict, but I'm also building a relationship.
Rachel:I'm letting people know who I am.
Rachel:And if we don't do that, then we do get these individuals say,
Rachel:like they don't necessarily always have the best relational skills.
Rachel:And I think this is a little bit why organizations blow up
Rachel:because we need this balance.
Rachel:We need someone who knows how to do that.
Rachel:And that's why I talk about peopleship and not leadership because it's
Rachel:every single one of us in the group.
Rachel:I just worked with a group going on for 35 years, and they have had a lot
Rachel:of transition in the past four years.
Rachel:The only way I basically said that you're gonna get through this, is for
Rachel:each and every one of you to step up and to step out in intention to say,
Rachel:this is how I'm going to help you.
Rachel:This is how we are going to do this together.
Rachel:This is the culture that I want.
Rachel:And that's the culture they named what they want.
Rachel:And it is a culture of relationship and support and what it looks like.
Rob:A lot of the times, the problem of societies is that we have a
Rob:minority and it's a small minority.
Rob:So when you look at, there's certain people that, just aren't capable of
Rob:being pro social, just aren't capable of being healthy members of society.
Rob:When you look at 1 percent of the population are psychopaths,
Rob:2 percent are sociopathic, and 4 7 percent are narcissistic.
Rob:And these are people that are broken and unable to maintain
Rob:and sustain relationships.
Rob:We've had a history where those people have over indexed.
Rob:When you look at when we've been a conquering society, we wanted
Rob:Psychopaths, we wanted, those people that were so driven for glory, that so
Rob:driven for attention and needing to be adulated, they have been, they've over
Rob:indexed in leadership, in politics.
Rob:So we have a culture that's been damaged because of that.
Rob:Often the problem Of working in groups is that we have good people, but they
Rob:don't know how to navigate around that because good people treat everyone.
Rob:Bad people treat people badly and so there's an unfairness
Rob:in the way that they work.
Rob:A lot of organizations and a lot of things that we put in place don't work when
Rob:they meet that, because the, those people won't be transparent because they don't
Rob:want everyone to see the machinations that are going on underneath the surface.
Rob:And so I think what you're doing is teaching people how to
Rob:navigate Around those people.
Rob:So those people aren't the ones dictating because often the unfairness of the
Rob:group means that those people get to dictate and they know how to manipulate.
Rob:A lot of the problems currently in that we can't have an honest conversation because
Rob:you'll get cancelled and that way silences people from having that conversation.
Rob:What we need in organizations and in society is to have that conversation.
Rob:So yeah that's my read on what you're doing.
Rachel:Oh, Rob, I really love how you say and it's true that these
Rachel:individuals who don't necessarily follow the social norms or have good
Rachel:in their well that have the social skills that the rest of us see as good.
Rachel:They don't.
Rachel:I agree with you.
Rachel:And it's interesting because it's like they don't see the bounds.
Rachel:They see ways around things.
Rachel:They don't even see the normal rules of what Feels right or wrong.
Rachel:And it's very true.
Rachel:That people who feel sensitivity to others.
Rachel:Don't want to be seen also as rude by putting that person in their
Rachel:quote unquote place and most likely it's because that person is very
Rachel:unmanageable in the conversation.
Rachel:They will go in lots of different ways that feels harsh, that feels painful,
Rachel:and really, it is a challenging thing and that's why, I don't know if you get this,
Rachel:there's always the request Of how do I deal with difficult conversations or how
Rachel:do we, how do you pull someone in that's unruly or that won't, that keeps going.
Rachel:I get that request as a facilitator often.
Rob:It also comes in like the Dunning Kruger principle and imposter
Rob:syndrome where people the people who know the least will shout the most.
Rachel:I think also Rob, that has to do with what we were,
Rachel:started this conversation.
Rachel:About I think where my mind has been really digesting into the
Rachel:different levels of culture.
Rob:I think people in organizations feel like that, they've had
Rob:leader after leader and broken promise after broken promise.
Rob:And that is the context in which we're operating in.
Rob:I think in organizations that we see it in how resistant people are to new changes.
Rob:There's constantly some new change.
Rob:And people are like, Oh, I've heard it all before and I don't want to change.
Rob:And so that's the context that all that leaders are operating within.
Rob:So I'm interested in how do you help leaders navigate into that?
Rob:Is it for new leaders or is it existing leaders?
Rachel:It is for new leaders, existing leaders.
Rachel:People that want to become a leader many of the people take it who are the way that
Rachel:I define leader is that you're out there helping to organize a group of people.
Rachel:So sometimes there's individuals who are running a program that are going
Rachel:out into the community speaking.
Rachel:So anyone who's taking action on something.
Rachel:working to gather people to have an impact and to move.
Rachel:The majority of people that take it, I noticed were people that are in middle
Rachel:management that are not necessarily the executive director or the top
Rachel:leader, but I do have, seems like there's always two or three in a cohort.
Rachel:I try to keep the cohorts small and run them often so that we really can
Rachel:have good intimate conversations.
Rachel:I do a lot of skill building.
Rob:What are the skills that you focus mostly?
Rachel:The skills that we focus on are really about how to have conversations
Rachel:that are meaningful and that are deep or that deal with the Conflictual
Rachel:area that you're talking about.
Rachel:I use a lot of Adam Grant's work and Adam Grant talks about
Rachel:different kinds of conflict and there's task conflict, relationship
Rachel:conflicts and values conflicts.
Rachel:We learn how to bring the conversations at work away from a relationship
Rachel:conflict to a task conflict, so that people, instead of saying, you did this
Rachel:to me, or you did not do X, Y, and Z.
Rachel:It's more about, we're looking to get this product or this Message out
Rachel:and I noticed that we're having some challenges meeting those deadlines.
Rachel:Let's sit down and talk about what do we need to do in our team or in
Rachel:our organization to make sure we have everything set up to move that forward.
Rachel:Rather than you're not meeting your deadline, what's happening with you.
Rachel:You're taking too much time off.
Rachel:And really bringing it up to this higher level of kind of what
Rachel:you talked about that context.
Rachel:How can we look at the context and say, Hey, what's happening here?
Rachel:And a lot of that is really training on how do we have these conversations?
Rachel:How do we look at as an individual every day?
Rachel:We have our emotion, we have our logic, and how can we put those
Rachel:together to use the wise mind?
Rachel:Where I can balance my emotional response of, Oh my God, if we don't get that done,
Rachel:the board is going to come down on me.
Rachel:Or if we don't get that done, we're not going to get this money.
Rachel:And if we don't get that done, then here are all the other problems.
Rachel:That's the emotion that can come up or the frustration.
Rachel:Why does this person always have to blah, blah, blah.
Rachel:So can I notice that emotion and why I'm getting that emotion?
Rachel:What's the value?
Rachel:What was it?
Rachel:What's the meaning?
Rachel:What is not happening that I feel needs to happen?
Rachel:And what's that reflection on me if it doesn't happen or that team?
Rachel:And then the logic component, which is often we say you just have
Rachel:to do it this way, which doesn't give that person agency right?
Rachel:We want to mentor individuals to grow.
Rachel:It doesn't give that person agency to grow.
Rachel:So can we put those two together and speak from the wise mind, which is about putting
Rachel:in the values of here's the importance.
Rachel:Can I hear from you?
Rachel:What's happening?
Rachel:Can we look at the context and fix the context?
Rachel:Because sometimes the person needs training or more support or the
Rachel:freedom to say I needed help.
Rachel:So we learn skills like that.
Rachel:In this and talk about as a group, some of the challenges and scenarios that come up.
Rachel:And so every week we focus on something different, whether it's first
Rachel:identifying what kind of leader are you?
Rachel:What comes up for you that has given you in your life strength to be this
Rachel:individual or what barriers have come up?
Rachel:What are your values like?
Rachel:How do you want to behaviorally lead?
Rachel:What do you want to lead with?
Rachel:And values are always shifting and changing.
Rachel:And so we I talk about that and teach people how we play with those.
Rachel:We look at the role of emotional intelligence, the role of mindset, and
Rachel:how mindset is very important for you internally to set that with your group.
Rachel:We look at the art of mentoring, and what is mentoring nowadays.
Rachel:How can you be a mentor?
Rachel:And we also create a map of your engaged leader style.
Rachel:And you start with what's your driving purpose in the center?
Rachel:And then begin to look at a variety of different components.
Rachel:What is your best self?
Rachel:We all have our yin yang, our light dark, and what is our dark side telling
Rachel:us what's our light side telling us?
Rachel:So really creating a whole person perspective as a leader with the goal
Rachel:of also creating a culture that reflects the organization that you're in.
Rachel:It's interesting when I ask people why do you want to take this?
Rachel:I like to learn how to start non judgmental conversations.
Rachel:I want to gain confidence in my communication skills to guide my team.
Rachel:This one is interesting.
Rachel:I want to learn how to be comfortable with taking credit for what I
Rachel:do or say and that one, I think, speaks to what you're talking.
Rachel:You mentioned before the imposter syndrome.
Rob:There's so many people that are underselling themselves.
Rachel:Yes.
Rachel:So there's people that are coming and saying, I want to learn how to navigate
Rachel:communication and relationships.
Rachel:They want to be on a team, like a Ted lasso team.
Rachel:I love Ted Lasso as a person that works on teams and training.
Rachel:There's just so many components of that that are really helpful to seeing models
Rachel:of how people can learn to get through difficulty and stay together with a
Rachel:shared purpose and shared identity.
Rachel:They have it easy.
Rachel:Football is life, so they have a lot of confines that help build teams, right?
Rachel:They have a uniform.
Rachel:They have a game that they get to play.
Rachel:They each know their roles clearly.
Rachel:They have a communication.
Rachel:It's just interesting.
Rachel:I think sports teams sometimes can have an easier time than our organizational teams.
Rob:It's interesting because have a football group.
Rob:Thomas is working in Saudi Arabia now, so he hasn't been
Rob:able to join us for a while.
Rob:But Thomas and Tony were football coaches.
Rob:So they've grown up footballers and then football coaches.
Rob:But it's interesting that they're, Talking about the same things.
Rob:I know soccer isn't huge in the States, but the best manager Pep Guardiola he
Rob:said it like it's 90 percent of his work is relationships is the human element.
Rob:And it's still the same same issue.
Rob:I haven't seen a lot of Ted Lasso.
Rob:I've watched a couple of episodes.
Rob:Yeah lot of people have spoken about The lessons and it's basically he's
Rob:a nice person and he bumbles along, but then he makes it work what
Rachel:he does.
Rachel:And I've thought about this a lot, especially, when we go into teams, there's
Rachel:so many different kinds of formations and different ways to pull a team together.
Rachel:I think this is what I've thought about with sports teams.
Rachel:So they have the skill.
Rachel:They know what their roles are.
Rachel:They know have clear rules.
Rachel:They have their shared purpose on what he does is he rallies them around
Rachel:the idea of believing in themselves, believing that they can do it.
Rachel:And that is another way to organize and create a shared purpose.
Rachel:Our shared purpose is to believe in ourselves and to believe that we can
Rachel:be a winning team, which is different than if you're working for a group
Rachel:that is working for climate change or migratory bird coalitions, or,
Rachel:substance use prevention or domestic violence, or a bit, I mostly work in.
Rachel:I call it healthy people, healthy planets, because, I work in those realms.
Rachel:And that's different because you're usually fighting towards
Rachel:something to fix something.
Rachel:And no one focuses the way that he did on the believe.
Rachel:And when they start to believe in themselves and believe in
Rachel:each other, they are successful.
Rachel:And he is a master at Being humble.
Rachel:I don't know if you ever watched it is it's called The Last
Rachel:Dance and it's Michael Jordan.
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:I haven't seen it.
Rachel:There are parts of it and components of it that Phil Jackson,
Rachel:the coach, I think I got his name correctly when he became coach, what
Rachel:he started to do with the team and how he started building the relationships.
Rachel:He's actually from Montana, which I didn't know.
Rachel:There's a part where he talks about learning from the Native Americans in the
Rachel:influence that he had from them helped him think about how to build this team.
Rachel:Of course, Michael Jordan is a huge influence on what he did.
Rob:Now I'm just going to give you another my, like
Rob:my poster boy for a unifier.
Rob:My soccer team is Liverpool.
Rob:And they were like the best when I was growing up.
Rob:And then we've had 30 years of being a poor team.
Rob:Being an also ran.
Rob:Not having the money, not having the big players and all of that kind of thing.
Rob:And this coach came in nine years ago.
Rob:He's just left last season.
Rob:And Jurgen Klopp.
Rob:And he came in and he said, my job is to turn you from doubters to believers.
Rob:Basically what he did and there was the humility because there was another
Rob:coach that he'd won the European cup and he came into this team and he
Rob:said, in his first press conference, he said, I am not one out of any.
Rob:I am the special one.
Rob:And he did well and then, but he only lasted like two or three years at every
Rob:club and every club he's been sacked at.
Rob:He creates such animosity and he leaves them like in a state of disarray.
Rob:Whereas Jurgen Klopp came in and his first thing, he said, I am the normal one.
Rob:I am not the special one.
Rob:I am just one.
Rob:He said, it doesn't matter what you say about me now is what
Rob:you say about me when I leave.
Rob:The players didn't believe, the players didn't think they were good enough to play
Rob:for the reputation that Liverpool had.
Rob:They didn't have confidence in themselves.
Rob:He came in and they thought, Oh, this is it.
Rob:We're going to get rid of us and find better players.
Rob:He said no, I want you.
Rob:And he built the players.
Rob:He made the players better.
Rob:And he made everyone in the back room work together.
Rob:One of the things that led to their success was in their transfers
Rob:in bringing in new players.
Rob:The previous manager was like I bring in who I want and they were fighting and they
Rob:were bringing in halfway people that waste their money, whereas they now brought
Rob:in the best players, they made them better and he brought the fans together.
Rob:So they all came as one.
Rob:And that's what turned them in.
Rob:Okay.
Rob:So for someone who's looking being a leader what would they be like?
Rob:What would they expect?
Rob:And how might they find out more about your course?
Rachel:Like I said as far as an individual who wants to be a part of
Rachel:the engaged leader series is really someone who has willingness to go to
Rachel:places that might be a little hard.
Rachel:Who really wants to learn the skills, not just read about things.
Rachel:You get paired up with another individual in the group and you
Rachel:practice in between each meeting.
Rachel:You're someone who wants to grow, wants to strive.
Rachel:They can learn about and sign up by going to rachelgooen.Com and you click
Rachel:on engaged leaders and on there, there's an application and it says apply.
Rachel:And the only reason I have you apply is because I want to, there are questions
Rachel:that I have so that you can make sure this is the right time for you to take this.
Rachel:That you have the amount of time to make the commitment and also to see
Rachel:what is it that you're looking to grow?
Rachel:I put different cohorts together so that they can be matched appropriately.
Rachel:And it's really, I've had people in it from Italy, like across the world.
Rachel:And that's also a nice richness of diverse organizations, diverse places
Rachel:that people live and it just seems to be a real growth experience for everyone.
Rachel:Six weeks long 90 minute sessions.
Rachel:And then you also get one on one coaching with me.
Rachel:And in between I'm also available.
Rachel:I've had people write to me and say, I just had this
Rachel:interaction with a supervisee.
Rachel:I'm not quite sure how to handle it.
Rachel:And then I'll just, hop on a call and we'll discuss it and pull on
Rachel:skills that we're learning in class to help you navigate that situation.
Rachel:And so that's a nice thing too.
Rachel:It's like for six weeks, I'm there for you.
Rob:Once people have been through it, what typically is the result
Rob:that they get the outcome for them?
Rachel:Yeah, the result and the outcome.
Rachel:They said, yeah, I have these right here.
Rachel:Actually, they said that they learned how to be more resilient.
Rachel:They learned how to build a work atmosphere that's based on trust.
Rachel:They learned how to give really good feedback and develop growth mindsets
Rachel:in their team, how to avoid burnout.
Rachel:They have learned how just a lot about themselves as a
Rachel:leader and their work style.
Rachel:To
Rob:be more confident.
Rachel:Yeah, they learned confidence, they learned how to, as I said before, how
Rachel:to really raise the level of conversation so that it was more about tasks.
Rachel:And not like a person to person negative conversation and
Rachel:that really helped Transform.
Rachel:Okay team was working.
Rob:It sounds great.
Rob:Okay, so i'll put the links in for that but thank you for this.
Rachel:Thank you rob.
Rachel:It's so wonderful.