Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award-winning financial services, and business advisory podcast, that challenges your old school business practices, and their traditional business suit culture. Our guests are industry professionals and experts, who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie, while offering you meaningful, modern solutions, to help enhance your company’s growth. I’m your host, Dave Cane.
As one year closes, and another begins, it’s not uncommon to set a few personal, and professional goals. After all, when you want to start something new, it’s always a good idea to begin at the beginning. But instead of resolving to lose a few pounds, or to become a regular member of that new athletic or country club, in the hopes of landing some leads, today’s guest has a better, more realistic idea. Simply focus on you. Maureen Metcalf, CEO of Metcalf & Associates, located in Columbus, Ohio, is a national, renowned advisor, speaker, coach, and consultant. She is with us today, to talk about resiliency, and what leaders can do today, to bounce back when then things aren’t going so well. This is sure to be an interesting discussion. Let’s jump right in. Welcome to unsuitable, Maureen.
Maureen Metcalf: Thank you Dave. It’s a delight to be here. I’m honored to be your guest, to wrap up, and kick off 2018.
Dave: Great, fantastic. Start with some accolades for you. I understand that you are an author, and have a couple books. Can you share those with us?
Maureen: Oh, thank you. Yes-
Dave: Little self-promotion here.
Maureen: Our theme is innovating how you lead, and transforming organizations. Really thinking about building leaders, and organizations for the future. The foundation book is the Innovative Leaders Fieldbook. It really talks about what is innovative leadership. Not innovation leadership, but how do I update myself as a leader, just like I update my mobile device. The second is, as an innovative leader, how do I transform my organization? They really go in lockstep, that we’ve all seen people who have tried to change their organizations, and it mainly looks like, “You people change, and let me know when it’s done.” Rather than, “I kind of have to do things a little differently, as we transform.”
Dave: These are award-winning books. I should’ve said that in the beginning. By these Grammy awards? Or-
Maureen: I wish they were Grammy awards. International book award winners-
Dave: Fantastic-
Maureen: … in the category of best business reference book, so probably not beach reading. We tried to do some-
Dave: Not at the beach-
Maureen: … case studies. I have never walked on the beach and been mistaken for … or humor.
Dave: If our listeners jump on your webpage, or even contact Rea & Associates, we can get them copies, and get them on board.
Maureen: Absolutely, either Google Innovative Leadership Fieldbook, we have a website, Amazon, we count on Amazon for everything-
Dave: And I can get it in two days.
Maureen: On Prime, yeah, or a drone will drop it tomorrow.
Dave: Perfect. We had started the intro at … You travel around the country speaking on leadership topics. Before we get into the topic, can you give us a couple travel tips? How do you pack? Do you take 10 pairs of shoes?
Maureen: Oh yeah, do I look like I take 10 pairs of shoes? I came back from Belgium earlier this year. Vacation and business travel, and it was all in a roll aboard, and backpack. Unfortunately, I forgot the one critical element, the blazer.
Dave: Whoops, so there you go-
Maureen: This dress I have on now on, I bought at the conference, so I would have something to wear.
Dave: Pack light, and keep on moving. But one of the things that I read regarding today’s topic was kind of compared to the safety speech. When you’re on an airplane, and the stewardess comes on, and tells where stuff is, and what happens when the oxygen mask drops from the ceiling. Can you share that concept with us, about what the stewardess says, and how that pertains to leadership?
Maureen: I could probably recite with the steward, or stewardess says. How it pertains to leadership is, if I am not resilient … When things go wrong, people look to us. We may not think they do, and we may not think they should, until we tell them what to do, but they do. Our mood is contagious. If we are panicked, which we have all been on occasion, they notice. Our ability to respond to unexpected shocks … In engineering terms, it would be almost, if there’s an earthquake or something, how does a building stay situated? For humans, it’s something happens, how quickly can I return to center, flexible and focused? The quicker I can, even if I don’t feel like it, the quicker people perceive me as back on track, the more comfortable they are following me.
Dave: A couple of things we want to talk about today in this, being a resilient leader. Let me start with, are leaders allowed to have a bad day?
Maureen: We all do, so whether or not we’re allowed to … The question is, how do we balance authenticity with professional composure? Nobody wants to know … They want me to be authentic, I can say, “I’m tired. My dog whined all night last night,” but what you don’t want to know on the podcast is all about my dog’s problems. You want me to do my job. What I just said is about all people need to know. I’m not saying be lacking authenticity, but when I show up, I’m paid to be present, and do my best. That means I need to manage myself, so that my problems logo spilling all over the table.
Dave: When you manage yourself, is it the same as taking care of your physical well-being? Eating right, sleeping right, those are parts of, I guess, the leadership DNA.
Maureen: In our culture, we don’t talk about that, other than the Snickers commercials, where they show people looking really scary. But we reward people who try to be superheroes, and they show up exhausted, and fuzzy thinking. We know that exhaustion is akin to being drunk. What we don’t lie, is our leaders to be working such long hours, that they might’ve as well have just done sets on the way to work. It may be more fun-
Dave: It is …
Maureen: … with shots-
Dave: … physical well-being is, and You’re right, we don’t think about that.
Maureen: In fact, a lot of people still brag about how hard they were. I should be rewarded for being the latest one here at night, the one doing email all night. I’m guilty of not balancing as well as I would like, but I really make an effort to manage sleep at least, and healthy food.
Dave: Are we talking about stress management, in a bit of a way here?
Maureen: In part, yeah. Think about a time when you were exhausted. You had to work long hours, because you had a deadline. Or you had a personal issue, someone in your family was ill, and you were trying to navigate work and be at the hospital, or whatever. We all have these things, and they’re unplanned. So how do we manage our physical well-being as well as possible, with a focus that if I’m not attending to my physical health, I’m not going to be able to show up the way that people want me to.
Dave: That’s part of the resiliency you’re referring to.
Maureen: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dave: Let’s talk about managing your thinking. That’s part of, I guess, the resiliency that I hear you talk about and read about. Are we talking about managing negative thinking, as well as positive thinking?
Maureen: Most people need to manage their negative thinking more than their positive thinking. I can’t always control, someone got sick, something broke, we’re running late on a deliverable. I can manage how I think. Five minutes of negative thinking causes six hours of physiological impact. Think about stress management. The cortisol goes running through our body. Think about a time when you’re driving on the road, and had a near miss in hitting someone, and your body gets that rush of adrenaline as you try to navigate. Do I turn either way? Do I slam on the brakes? A mattresses just fallen off, or Christmas tree has fallen off in front of you, and you want to not hit somebody. You want to be not dead, so your body floods with hormones. Immediately, your prefrontal cortex shuts down, and the older parts of the brain can again. Nothing enters your brain at that moment other than, “Do I swerved right, left, or breaks?”
If we are constantly in that state of heightened awareness, as leaders, we are not navigating the complexity. We’re always in fight, flight, and freeze, so I need to … This is the one thing I think leaders can do really well. They can build the skill. Again, I can’t always manage sleep. I can’t always manage food. But I can manage how I think, so I have to be aware of my thinking. I have to have a process to let go of the negative thoughts, and reshape them to positive.
Dave: Okay. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Let’s say that as were going to this podcast, and it’s not going well-
Maureen: You going to throw me out?
Dave: … the production crew. That’s certainly negative thinking there. It’s always their fault.
Maureen: We can blame that guy over there, not you.
Dave: Yeah, that’s true. It’s always his fault. But once I’m in that negative thinking mode, and I realize that, are there are some tips that you can suggest to get me out of that negative thinking?
Maureen: The first question is … Most of us, something goes wrong, and we move into this catastrophic. I’m five minutes late. These guys are never going to let me come back to do another podcast. I’m an idiot. They know it. The first question is, is it true? Should I be going down this path? Is it likely? The answer is, if I’m five minutes late, you guys have probably been five minutes late, and I can get over myself. But for me, I can go down a pretty dark slope over something small. Then I pile on all kinds of other stuff, that’s not true either. Is it true? How do I reframe? Because what you don’t want me to walk in, is totally stressed, and a basket case. So one, I drove faster. I didn’t run over anyone. I focused on being grateful. I’m delighted that I have the opportunity to be here. I’m delighted I didn’t run over anyone on the way.
So often, that ability to reframe and be grateful can shift enough, that we can show up again with a kind of presence. Sometimes it’s take a deep breath. Our body is not able to handle too much complexity at one point, so if I’m breathing and thinking positive thoughts, the negative stuff goes away. This flight and fight hormones start to dissipate.
Dave: You also referred to another concept of leadership, and being a resilient later is look at developing emotional intelligence, and a sense of purpose. Let’s talk about that a little bit. Can you give me some examples of emotional intelligence, and what should I be looking for? What should I be thinking about?
Maureen: This is connected to a been talking about. I need to be aware of my thoughts, and my emotions, and I need to manage them. Again, what you don’t want me to do is come in hair on fire, chattering about whatever went wrong this morning. You want me to be present, which means I’ve got to know what’s going on inside, and I’ve got to manage it. My face forward is positive. Then I need to attend to the people around me. Understand what their stresses are, and navigate such that I can connect with them, and lead them effectively. I need to know who they are, what they need. I need to bring myself to be present, in a way that’s constructive.
Dave: This emotional intelligence, is that ingrained? Or is that something that I need to learn from a consultant like yourself?
Maureen: I’d love …
Dave: Hey, there you go. I’ll buy the book.
Maureen: I was certainly not taught this. Maybe kids are now, but as an adult, what I was taught is you walk in the front door, you leave everything personal behind you. You show up. You do your work. We didn’t attend to emotions. I didn’t even start thinking about emotions until I had a therapist that asked me about them, and I just started twitching. I didn’t even have words. She’d say, “How do you feel?” And I’d say, “Hungry.” She’s like, “Not an emotion.” Mad, happy, sad, glad, angry, whatever she said. Then she gave me a list that I could pick from, and I was still twitchy. I was not taught, and if I cannot even identify them, then I can’t manage them. For people who think this is the soft stuff, managing my insides, not soft, especially when I had decades of not doing it. There’s a whole bunch of closet cleaning that needs to happen.
Dave: As we talk, you’ve worked really hard, it’s quite obvious, to hone your leadership skills. Constantly studying, adjusting, looking at other leaders. I think that’s a resilient leader. I mean, it has to be.
Maureen: Thank you. Yeah, there is a constant growth, and with that is the acknowledgement, it’s kind of a curiosity, but also an awareness that no matter how good I think I am, there’s a whole lot more for me to do. That’s back the innovative. As the world is accelerating, I need to continue to change.
Dave: You also refer to build a strong support system. As I kind of looked at the notes there, I wasn’t quite sure what you wanted to emphasize there, so let’s talk about building a strong support system. What are your thoughts, as you can share with myself and the listeners, what are your thoughts about building a strong support system?
Maureen: This really sizable personal, and the culture of the organization. Gallup talks about having a best friend at work. I use another framework from a Harvard researcher, that looks at organizational vibrancy. It quantifies what is best friend at work mean, because I don’t talk about hobbies. I want to know that when something comes up, if I’m doing something that puts me at risk, my colleagues will tell me, help me course correct. If I’m working on something new, and I know it’s a little tentative, I’m not sure it’s going to work, I’m doing an experiment, I need colleagues who I trust, who will say, “This is working. This isn’t working.” They give me honest feedback. I can show up and be who I am, genuine, and I trust them. I actually have a story of walking around Lowe’s with my dress tucked in my undergarments after using the restroom.
Dave: Let’s talk about that story. That always-
Maureen: Nobody said anything until I was in the parking lot, loading my car. There may have been some tweets. There may have been ladies of Walmart pictures.
Dave: It’s in one of their ads I think.
Maureen: Oh yeah, what not to do. Don’t shop here. I was wearing a business suit that day, so this was really a bad look. Do I have colleagues, who if I am doing literally, or metaphorically, the skirt tucked in my undergarments, will they tell me? Or will they … They’ll probably still make fun of me, but will they do it’s in my best interest, and in the best interest of the organization, so that we all succeed? Rather than saying, “You know what, this is an awfully competitive place, and you look bad. It makes me look good. Man, I’m gonna push you under the bus, and back it up over you.”
Dave: Well, speaking of the support system, I wanted to tell you, you have a piece pf spinach in your teeth.
Maureen: Thank you-
Maureen: Since I didn’t eat spinach today, I’m of the hook.
Dave: As a leader, is it okay to show your emotions?
Maureen: I think you have to, but not over show. We talk about authenticity, and I am a big fan of it. But I also manage it. If I’m having a bad time, again, I … We put my mom and assisted living a couple of years ago. There was no way to hide the challenge to me personally, for going through that. People who know me, and see me showing up discombobulated, they’re going to pick up on that, and they want to know we’re safe, I’m okay, because they care about me. So I think as we create work environments that are supportive and caring, folks want to know what’s going on. But I also didn’t need to tell everyone every detail about what was going on.
Dave: You were able to manage that, and that sounds like a good piece of advice. Again, I like the topic of the resilient leader. That says a lot of things to a lot of different people, in a lot of different ways. I want to go back and kind of recap, four of the key things that you’re sharing with us. One is, certainly take care of your physical well-being, manage your thinking, develop emotional intelligence, and a sense of purpose, and build a strong support system. Is there a favorite one in there? Is there one that’s maybe the foundation that we should study, or I should study?
Maureen: Any of them missing means I’m not resilient. The one I often focus on is the managing your thinking, because I can’t always manage what’s going on around me with sleep, and that. I do the best I can, but sometimes it’s not very good. I can always manage my thinking. That’s what’s going on inside me. I would add to that, then the emotional intelligence, because I think they’re interconnected. Just being aware of what’s going on. How am I feeling? Often, my body will tell me, if I pay attention. But again, I pay attention to my body like I pay attention to my emotions. I don’t even know something hurts, until I get home from work, and I realize that I’m kind of looking like the hunchback from stress. Paying attention to the physical symptoms often gives us insight into the more complex inner symptoms.
Dave: How often, or how many times a year do you speak on leadership to various groups and companies, any idea? You’re all over the place.
Maureen: Well, I do a radio show, so I am talking about leadership at least weekly. That I speak at conferences. That’s probably monthly or quarterly.
Dave: Are there any specific industries that you work in, or specialize in? Or is it all over the board?
Maureen: It tends to be all over the board. I work with hospitals and physicians. I work with manufacturing. I work with a lot of technology firms. The people I work best with are the ones who recognize that their industries are changing, and in some cases, changing dramatically. They want to get ahead of that change.
Dave: Our production team keeps handing us questions, and I can’t read their writing. You’re not getting this question from the audience, that they’re out there, hey, ask her this, ask her this. That might’ve been a call in, maybe someone who was calling in. As we might have the podcast here, can you give us two, maybe three tips to be a better leader, a resilient leader? We talked about many, but some of your favorites?
Maureen: I think we’ve hit on these … Being self aware. First, I think managing the idea that being the hardest worker, and the most exhausted, wins me no points. It leaves me less productive, and less resilient. I have to make a counter cultural shift in many cases. As a leader, I need to be personally resilient, because that enables me to meet my obligations as a leader. Yet many of us, as leaders, put ourselves last. Consequently, this is back to the mask. If I put myself last, I am not going to do the self-care required to be present and effective. Then third, we need create cultures in our organizations, that promote this. Not just for the leader, but for everyone in the organization.
Dave: Perfect. Our guest today has been Maureen Metcalf. I encourage our listeners to look her up. Look at the website. Call Rea. I think you’ll be Very impressed with what Maureen can bring to your organization.
Maureen: Why don’t we put a link to the free resilience assessment on your website, so people can reach out to you as well as to me?
Dave: Consider it done.
Maureen: Thank you.
Dave: How about that? Good idea. That’s positive thinking. Thanks again for joining us on unsuitable today Maureen, great presentation. We’re really glad to have so many great guests join us on unsuitable. We hope you are enjoying what you’re hearing as well. As we begin a new year programming for our podcast, we want to remind you that you are always happy to take listener suggestions and feedback. Give us your opinion. Send them to podcast@reacpa.com, and we’ll do our best to provide you with even more valuable content in the year ahead. If you’re new to unsuitable on Rea Radio, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Or you can watch the magic unfold on our YouTube channel. While you’re there, like us, rate us, or leave a comment. We always love to hear from our listeners. Until next time, I’m Dave Cane, encouraging you to loosen up your tie, and think outside the box.
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