Andy Standy - The Unexpected Performance Multiplier x Charles Duhigg

0:00Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free. At zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. Free. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.

1:05Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free. At zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. At zippercrooter.com slash zip. That zippercrooter.com slash zip zippercrooter.com slash zip. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley leadership podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go

2:05further faster. I'm Andy. And before we jump into today's content, I want to tell you about an offer from our friends at the lay. Just like my days, your days are packed. The executive level work just keeps getting pushed aside and you're not seeing the same results and you end up exhausted. And the truth is that's more than dedication. That's actually, well, that starts to feel like burnout, right? Thankfully, there is a solution. Belay has helped over 10,000 leaders reclaim hours every week to focus on what matters most. And that's one of our biggest challenges as leaders being able to focus on the things that we know make the biggest difference. These assistance and financial experts are vetted, US-based and personally matched to your unique needs, whether that's administrative support, marketing help, or even financial strategy. Belay has the right hire for you. And to help you out, Belay is offering free downloads of their resource, the ultimate guide to stopping executive burnout.

3:07Inside you'll learn how to identify the cause of your burnout, where your time is really going and what actions you can take to alleviate your workload. So, don't miss this offer. To get your free guide, just text andyindy255123, that's A-N-D-Y to 55123 to start delegating and free up your time with Belay. And now, here's today's podcast episode. Today, we're talking about what is often a neglected, a facet of leadership. And I'll be honest, when the phrase we're going to talk about in just a few minutes, the first time I heard it, I thought, oh, brother. This is so important. And when it's neglected, we pay and our staffs pay. And it's actually one of the best predictors of performance, which was surprising to me. Today, we're going to talk about, don't roll your eyes, psychological safety. And here's what I know about you. I know we have it met. But at some point in your career, psychological safety was extremely important to you.

4:11And depending on where you are in your organization, in terms of org chart, perhaps it is still very important to you. But perhaps you didn't have this language for it. I know that I didn't. So psychological safety determines whether or not you spoke up in a meeting, it determines whether or not you came to associate, an associate's defense, maybe in a meeting, it determines how honest you are with the people you work with and the people you work for. And psychological safety creates an environment where people are free. This is why it's so important for leaders. Psychological safety creates an environment where people are free to share their initial thoughts and ideas without fear of retribution, which is so important to me, but maybe most importantly, and this is kind of another topic for another day, where there is psychological safety, people feel free to bring their intuition to the table. Because as we've talked about before, intuition is rarely defensible initially because of the nature of intuition and where there's no psychological safety, no one's about to share ideas.

5:12They fear they might be pressured to defend. And the primary way leaders create that kind of safety is through how we communicate. And today, I'm joined by my friend and author Charles DuHig to talk about this important topic. Charles, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Andy. This is such a treat. Every time I get to talk to you, thank you again for having me on. Well, every time I talk to you, I find myself wanting to take notes while you talk, and then I lose track of my script. Anyway, so for those of you who don't know, Charles is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and New York Times bestselling author, multiple books, including The Power of Habit, which is when I was introduced to his work, and it spent over three years on the New York Times bestsellers list. On last time we were together, we discussed this latest book, Super Communicators, Subtitle, Outta Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, and Charles has been with us for a couple of live events as well, and he's the real deal, and I'm so excited to have him back.

6:12So back in 2000, I guess, 24, we unpack bits and pieces of your book, Super Communicators, which challenge the way that so many leaders think about communication. But there was a lot we didn't get into. So today, I want to pull on one specific thread from your work in that area that has, as I said up front, has massive implications for performance and leadership. Again, as we mentioned at the top, you found in your research that one of the most powerful drivers of performance is psychological safety, which is such a soft thing. You know, I think it's one of those things that for some people, leaders, they just roll their eyes. But you talk about the relationship between that and leadership. And I know, again, I'm doubling down on this, psychological safety sounds a bit like an HR initiative rather than a performance strategy, but you suggest that is not the case. So let's just start there. How do you define psychological safety and relate that to the importance of leadership? It's a great question.

7:12And honestly, this topic is so important, not only to business leaders, but to family leaders, to unity leaders, right? So in psychological safety, it's a cumbersome phrase, right? It sounds like we're trying to make something that should be a 50 cent idea into a 10 dollar phrase, but and it comes from academics. But what it really means is that when I feel psychological safety, I feel like I can bring my full self to work, right? I can show up and I can go to a meeting and I can be who I am. And when I feel like I can bring my full self to work, you're exactly right. What it unlocks is not only my intuition and my great ideas, it unlocks me being able to bring my values to that table, being able to hear you better because I'm not worrying about what you might think if I say something in response. It allows ideas to generate more quickly. Psychological safety is what we all felt when we belonged to a team and we just actually looked forward to the meetings, right? We've all belonged to one team where we were, we saw it on our calendar and we were like,

8:13oh, I don't want to show up for that. And then we've all belonged to a team where we see it on our calendar and we think, oh, I can't wait. This is going to be great. Yeah. It's life giving. Exactly. Yeah. It's something for us, rather than some tracks. That is psychological safety. And when you as a leader can create that among your team members, among your employees, among your community, you are giving them a gift and you're getting the best work from them. And the best ideas. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. The thought that somebody's sitting in a meeting with me that I'm leading and they have an idea and they're sitting there trying to figure out how do I say this perfectly or how do I get this out the right way or what are people going to think, uh, that's, that's a loss to the team. But as the leader, as the leader is, we're about to talk about, it's really up to me to create a sense where people feel safe and again, to be clear, we're not talking about insecure. Warning. The following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with

9:15F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Make your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine, fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So, whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.

10:17Sure, you can post your job to some job board. But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. Zippercruder doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zippercruder, find you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. ZY4 out of five employers who post a job on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercruder, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free. That's right. Free at zippercruder.com slash zip. That zippercruder.com slash zip zippercruder.com slash zip. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board.

11:19But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. Zippercruder doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zippercruder, find you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day, Zippercruder, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free. That's right. Free at zippercruder.com slash zip. That zippercruder.com slash zip zippercruder.com slash zip. For people, we're just talking about all of us, nobody wants to look down, nobody wants to sound stupid, but the last thing we want, or for us not to give permission or create an environment where those ideas surface.

12:20So in the book, and we might have talked about this a little bit, but I want to go back to it, even if we did, in super communicators, you talk about the matching principle than in every conversation. Every conversation is either practical, emotional, or somewhat about identity. And if we fail to match, we disconnect and we miss each other completely. And I do remember is talking about this a little bit because I thought about my kids. So talk just a little bit about that principle. Is it related? Yes. No, absolutely. And there's a great demonstration of this because there are a handful of things that leaders can do to create psychological safety. And one of them, as you pointed out, is this matching, right? If you go into a meeting, and you know, it's going to be tough meeting because you guys are talking about budgets. And someone on your team starts the meeting by saying, look, you know, I want to go over the numbers because I'm just, I'm really anxious because if we don't get this right, we're going to have to do layoffs. And I do not want to lay off any of my people like these are people who are important to me. Now in a situation like that, you might be thinking, oh, we should have a practical

13:20conversation, right? We're talking about the budget. We're talking about numbers. But if you listen closely, what that employee just told you is that they're feeling anxious. That for them, this is at first an emotional conversation. They need to know that you hear their anxiety. You hear their emotions. And until you actually match that and show them that you are hearing that, you're not going to be able to talk about the practicalities. You're not going to be able to talk about the numbers because every time you bring up a number, they're going to respond with something emotional. And so in a situation like that, and we've all been in situations like this as a leader, where it seems like it should be a practical conversation, but our employee is clearly reacting emotionally. What we have to do is we have to acknowledge those emotions. We have to say, look, I hear what you're saying that you're concerned. And I want you to know, I am also concerned. Like I care about these people. I hear you saying that your values are stronger than your desire just to make profits. But we also have to do the right thing for the company. And I want you to know, I'm shoulder to shoulder with you in the emotions that we're going

14:21to have to go through to get the right budget. Now if you don't mind, let's dive into the numbers to see what they say. Right? In other words, do I have your permission to move from an emotional conversation to a practical conversation? When you do that, it changes everything. Because that employee says to themselves, oh, I know, I know that my boss is listening to me. And I know that even if we're talking about the numbers that they understand, and there's an emotional aspect of this for me that we have to discuss. So some of us are naturally good at that. And some of us, it never crosses our mind because I have an agenda in front of me. And that is ticketing. And I don't think anybody that would hear what you just said would say that's not important. But it is so hard sometimes in a professional environment to take a deep breath and allow that to be expressed and then to pause and value it before just moving on. So I'm absolutely talk a little bit at my notes.

15:21I wrote the question. So psychological safety is created through the way we communicate. The next question, of course, is what kind of communication actually signals safety? You just gave us an illustration. And part of that is an illustration of vulnerability, vulnerability in the sense of, oh, yeah, I feel that as well. What else? What else do we do? So there's two main things that a leader can do that are very, very tactical to create psychological safety and to remind themselves to have that kind of conversation. Because you're right. Most business leaders got to be business leaders because they are good at following the agenda, right? They're good again, stuff done, executing. So the first thing that we know creates psychological safety, particularly in a team or in a meeting, is what's known as equality in conversational turn taking. Can I say that again? Equality in conversational turn taking. And again, that's a fancy phrase. What it basically means is everyone in the room is speaking up. Now that doesn't mean people have to speak up and equal measure, right? It's not saying the same number of words, right?

16:22But it doesn't mean if you're in a meeting and you see someone and they haven't said anything for the last 10 minutes and they haven't said anything in the whole meeting, and you stop and you say, Jim, I'm just curious. Like, I know that you probably have some strong thoughts on this. Can you, can you share with us what you're thinking? When you draw them out and you get everyone to speak up, what you're going to hear is that first of all, they feel like they're present and that they're being listened to, right? But secondly, when you do that, you're going to start hearing those code words. You're going to start hearing someone say, I'm anxious. I'm worried. Or the thing that would make me really, really happy is, or I'm really excited about that. When we start hearing those words that are emotional words, it should be a little trigger in our head to say, okay, take a second and just dive into that a little bit more. It doesn't have to be more than 30 seconds that we're spending on it. But let's just dive in to show them that we're hearing what they're actually saying, that there's some emotion here that's as important to them as the agenda. The second tactic that we know creates psychological safety is what's known as ostentatious listening.

17:29And ostentatious listening is great because what it means is that as a leader, if I prove to you that I'm listening, if I say, okay, Andy, here's what I heard you just say, tell me if I'm getting this right. Or I say, you know, Andy, you brought up this really interesting idea just a couple of minutes ago and it made me think of something. As a leader, if I prove that I'm listening, everyone in the room will start imitating me and we'll start listening to each other more closely. And the reason why this is so powerful is because it is a reminding function. If you say, you know, I'm really anxious about having to do layoffs and I ostentatiously listen to you and I say, you know what I hear you saying is that this is causing you some anxiety that you're worried about what's going to happen. I don't even have to understand your emotions. I'm just repeating back what I heard you say to prove that I'm listening and it has the same effect. Yeah, if I feel like you understand me, I'm just going to be more open in general. And I think I do a good job at this. You'd have to ask the other people listening into this conversation.

18:30But one of the things I'm just sensitive to is in a, you know, if they're seven or eight or nine people in around the table, there are people who are not listening, they're just waiting to have their turn to say something. And when I sense that somebody finishes and the next person just jumps in immediately and moves on, that intuitively bothers me. And I often, I don't know if it's a good habit or not. And I have to be careful with my body language. Warning. The following Zipper Cruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zipper Cruder know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. F***. Fortunately, Zipper Cruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zipper Cruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zipper Cruder, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word.

19:32In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire 4, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zipper Cruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board. But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try Zipper Cruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. Zipper Cruder doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zipper Cruder, find you what you're looking for.

20:32The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Zipper Cruder, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zipper Cruder for free. That's right. Free at zippercruder.com slash zip. That zippercruder.com slash zip zippercruder.com slash zip. Warning, the following Zipper Cruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zipper Cruder know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. F***. Fortunately, Zipper Cruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zipper Cruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zipper Cruder, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zipper Cruder get a quality candidate

21:35within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40, or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zipper Cruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. Can I do this? But sometimes I'll kind of wave them off and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, just a minute. And I will go back to the person that just finished because I feel like they're what they just said is about to be discounted because instead of somebody building on or acknowledging it, they're just moving on to the next thing they want to say. And so I think intuitively, I'm pretty good at, again, hitting the pause and say, wait, wait, before you go on. So Bill, what you're saying is to your point, kind of reiterating to let him know, okay? I know the next person is ready to move this on, but I want you to know, I heard you. Now let's take this on to the next person. So there's just some of those skills over time that I think is part of what you're talking about.

22:36That's absolutely absolutely. Absolutely. And we've all been on the other side of that, right? Yes. Yes. We say something and we thought about it a lot and someone says, okay, but here's my idea. They jump right in. Exactly. And someone stops. You don't know if you were heard. Yeah. Exactly. And then Bob says, actually, before we move on, let's just, let's just make sure we're hearing what Bill is saying here, because this seems important. It feels wonderful, which, which actually, can I ask you a question? So I imagine a bunch of people come in to your organization and this might be the first time that they're working in a faith-based organization. They might have come from the professional world, and, and they might be wondering like what the culture is. How do you create psychological safety? How do you transmit the culture of the church that creates the psychological safety for new employees? So here's what I wrote down, because you did ask me this question ahead of time. We do a new staff orientation, like a lot of companies do.

23:38And in my part of the new staff orientation, I talk specifically about the value of their fresh eyes and their fresh ears and our organization, and I say to them, the longer you're in a climate or a culture, the less aware you are of it. And I've been in our culture for 30 years. I'm completely unaware of our culture, because I've adjusted. But as new employees, you bring fresh eyes and fresh ears, and we want to know what you see and we want to know what you hear. So then they get a list of questions from our office after they're with us three months where they are evaluating their experience with us. Oh, interesting. And then a year after they've been with us a year, they get another list of questions. And then after a year, they're part of the problem, right? They've become part of the problem, but they're part of the culture. So and because I emphasize that, it's my way of saying, hey, and then I say this, I say, nobody is more concerned about the success of this organization, in this organization, other than me.

24:38I mean, I was part of the team that started it. So and then I say, when you hear the little voice whispering to you, they don't care. They don't want to know that they're never going to change. I need you to ignore that voice because I'm telling you, we want to know and we do care. And change may not happen as quickly as you think it should, but I promise you we want to hear. And so these questions that we're going to send you, it's your opportunity to tell us what you see in here so we can make the organization better. And it's so important to me that new staff hear that from me that basically don't try to read our minds and don't take what happened in your last job or the last marketplace situation you had. Don't bring that here. We really do care. And then we do, and again, a lot of companies do this. We do staff surveys every year. And one of the things I say is we really would love for you to put your name on the survey because we want to be able to follow up. We're not going to get in trouble. And we're looking for trends.

25:39And this is your way to help us make the organization better. So, and again, everybody's different. Everybody has different level of personal security and past hurt and previous job experience. But to the degree that I can convince people, we really do want this to be a great place to work. And consequently, we can't make it better without your input. There's no bad information and there's no bad perspectives we sincerely want to know. I think the more we can go back to that over and over, and then actually reward it, respond, answer those questions. And on multiple occasions through the years, I'll get one of those three month evaluations. Somebody will, my assistant will say, Andy, I think you need to read this one. And I will say, hey, I'm not sure who this person is. You know, they're at a different campus or, you know, I don't remember them. There were 20 people in the room and I'll ask them to come in. Of course, they think they're in the principal's office and I'm like, no, no, no, you're not in trouble.

26:40I think we're in trouble. And I want, I want you to help me understand what you meant when you wrote this because I think you're on to something and we want to make it better. And here's what I discovered years ago. That individual is going to share that conversation. They're going to go back because they've already told somebody, hey, I'm going to Andy's office, you know, pray for me. And I don't know if it's, yeah. And so people are going to say, well, what happened and it'll be like, well, he read my evaluation and wanted to know more about it. So, you know, there's a bit of symbolic leadership in that, but we really do want to care. And I think this at least leans toward creating some psychological safety. So absolutely. Absolutely. And what I loved about what you just said, and I think it's worth noting symbolic leadership is leadership. Right. When we do things because we want other people to notice it, if that's what a leader does, a leader transmits through their actions, what our values are and what our beliefs are and what our culture is. And we must, I think it's okay and people take this wrong way.

27:41We must be seen doing good. It's not just yet. We need to do good, but there's a sense in which for the right reason, we need to be seen doing good because to the point of this conversation, it communicates, hey, this is a safe place. They're listening. Nobody gets in trouble for telling the truth or pointing out something that, you know, they're concerned about. And I think you used a really important word, which is we reward, right? We reward the people who bring us the bad news or the disappointing news, right? As humans, and we know this from the power of habit, right? As humans, we do what brings us rewards. It's just our brain is literally programmed that when we get in a reward from a behavior we, that behavior gets easier and easier and easier. And it's hard. It's hard to criticize your boss, right? It's hard to say, hey, look, I love working here, but here's this thing that, like, I don't think we're doing right. It's driving me crazy. You're worried you're going to offend someone. When we do something hard, our brain is saying, ah, this doesn't, I'm worried about getting punished.

28:42I'm not even thinking of a reward. And when you step in and you say to that person, thank you for bringing this to me. This is one of the most important things you could have said to me. And then you say to the whole organization, I want you to know, I, you know, this person was brave enough to bring this to me. Warning. The following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you are hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. F***. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations. Because we find the right people for your roles fast. Which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent.

29:46Go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. Warning. The following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you are hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. F***. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations. Because we find the right people for your roles fast. Which is our absolute favorite effort. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent.

30:46Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board. But then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. Zippercruder doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zippercruder, find you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. ZY4 out of five employers who post a job on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercruder, the smartest way to hire and right now you can try Zippercruder for free. That's right.

31:47Free at zippercruder.com slash zip that zippercruder.com slash zip zippercruder.com slash zip. And it really helped what you're doing at that moment is you are building the culture. Right? Because the words don't matter. You should do the real matters. That's the goal. That's why when you said you wanted to talk about this, again, years ago I may have discounted this as again, like an HR thing or it's just too soft, you know, but it is extremely important. So yeah. How often when you do those surveys, how often are you getting surprised by what people are saying three months in? Well, the good thing about it is we have a director of staff culture here who that's their full time job and he meets every single new employee, every single intern. And so we're able to take this information and because we have eight churches on the north side of the city, we're looking for trends. If something shows up two or three times at eight campus, we know we have a campus problem. If it shows up two or three times across the organization, we know we have a central

32:50problem. So this really does help us really monitor our staff culture. So we pay very close attention to those things. And generally speaking, it's kind of the same thing. It's communication. We wish we don't feel like we're communicated with enough. And we think this is a good thing. People are looking for advancement. They want to know how do I advance in this organization and then to be able to go back and say we heard you were working on that. Here's an answer or we don't have an answer. The other, I don't know if this fits or not, but the church I came out of 30 years ago, I had no place to take my frustration. So I took them home. And at some point, Sandra's like, I can't help you with that. I'm like, yeah, but I don't want to gossip. So one of the first things we did, and we started the organization, we just had our 30th anniversary, is we set up a system. We call them staff coaches back then. We call them staff advisors now. And this is another thing we talked to our new employees about.

33:50We're like, look, we don't want you to take your frustrations home. So here is a list of staff advisors that are at multiple campuses. These are super mature people and whatever you say to them will be kept in confidence. And they'll either coach you through how to approach your manager or somebody else in the organization. They may go with you to approach somebody. This is the way I say it. When you find yourself driving home day after day, having the same imaginary conversations with the same person, let us help defuse there because sometimes you just don't know what to do. Sometimes people don't feel safe approaching somebody or they have information and they're like, oh, wow, I think I see something nobody else sees what do I do with this? So we have built into our culture, the staff advisors, and it is 100% confidential. And then again, we track what are the type, not the people or the details, but what are the types of things that our staff advisors are helping people walk through again, circle back around.

34:50And if we can address those things systematically, we do. So those are just some of the things that's really, really smart and what I particularly like about that is there's a bunch of research and I'm going to use this word gossip because you're right, most gossip is bad, but there's a bunch of research looking at office gossip and what they mean by office gossip is they mean the things you say to each other outside of the meeting, right? When I'm when we're when we're having lunch together, when we're on the water cooler, when we're carpooling together, the things we say to each other, it turns out to be those are more influential on a company's culture than what the CEO says about the culture, which makes sense, right? Because it does. Yeah. It's the trickle down. It's the trickle down. And there's a bunch of unwritten rules when someone says like, can you believe that so and so did such and such? You start to learn to your think to yourself, oh, like the culture of this place where I work is that we don't do that thing. And when gossip, when when this kind of information sharing becomes gossip, it can be really, really damaging, but when it has channels, because we all have that instinct, we all sometimes

35:55are going a little bit crazy, sometimes we just need to just vent to someone when we have channels to do that where that person is trained and mature enough and ready and they have us infrastructure around them where they say like, I can absorb some of your angst right now and I can help you offset it. And if there's a problem, I can help you solve it. That means that we get all the benefits of office gossip without the gossip. Right. And so we have created a safe pathway for that. Now there are people who just feel like, oh, that means, you know, to ask a staff advisor means I'm weak, there's something wrong with me and we try to reiterate, no, I'm trying to save your spouse from having to help you solve a problem. They can't, I've been there, I get that. So we encourage people to take advantage of that. The other thing that years ago, I did a talk for our staff that has become something we go back to over and over where I talk about the importance of trust and I set it up as the contrast between trust and suspicion, basically when there's a gap between what

36:57a person expects and what a person experiences, we choose what to put in that gap. We don't think we do, but we have a choice. I can choose to trust, I can choose to assume the best or I can choose to assume the worst. And so one of the other things I talked to new staff about is look, trust is the currency of relationship and we are asking you to stretch as far as you can to trust the people that you work with. And when you can't trust anymore, then we talk about that. But this whole idea of choosing to give people a generous explanation, you know, she's late. Well, that doesn't mean she's irresponsible. If we can get in the habit of creating a generous explanation for people, you know, a culture of trust is a culture where people, again, feel safe. That principle is so central. In fact, when I do new employee orientations, Billy Phoenix, who's our director of culture, his question oftentimes is Andy, what's the one thing you want new staff to know?

37:57And that's what I talk about. I said, I want you to get in the habit of trusting the people you work with and trusting us. And here's what to do when you can't, but if you can imagine how much better this culture will be, if we choose to trust, to give each other a generous explanation, I agree. 100%. And it's, and it gets to the fact that sometimes we misunderstand what trust is because we think trust means, oh, that person's going to agree with me. That person has my back. That person's going to back me up. That's not trust. Trust means if you disagree with me, if you think I'm on the wrong path, that you are going to take the time to explain to me why you believe what you believe, and you're going to convey to me that you have my best interest at heart, that you're, you're trying to make me more successful. And that, so if, to trust someone does not mean that we agree with them all the time, it doesn't mean that we avoid saying the hard things. To trust means that we say, I'm going to say the hard thing, but I want you to know, at the end of the day, I am rooting for you. I'm telling you this because I want you to succeed.

38:58Yeah. It's incredibly important. Yeah, I, I need to ask you about this because I find myself doubting you and I don't want to doubt you. So explain, explain this behavior to me. You know, I'm just going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I, I'm at a point where I need an explanation and that's a better approach even if the person proves to be untrustworthy. So yeah, no, absolutely. All right. So do you want to talk about looping for understanding? Sure. Yeah. So when we talk about this ostentatious listening, it can be hard sometimes, right? It can feel very unnatural, right, particularly when we're in the hardest conversations. Like when you and I disagree about something, when we're having a fight, when it's a really high stakes conversation, because like, you know, if someone might win, someone might lose and it could have real consequences, at that moment, this ostentatious listening, proving we're listening, becomes even more important, but it also becomes harder. And so there's this technique that people have worked out called looping for understanding.

39:58It's just something you can fall back on really easily. It has three steps. Step one is, I'm going to ask you a question. Instead of starting by telling you what I think, I'm going to start by asking you a question. And hopefully it's going to be a question that is open ended that gives you a chance to talk about your values or your beliefs or your experiences, why this thing is so important to you. And I'm just going to let you talk. I'm just going to let. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free. Add zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack.

40:59See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day, Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. Free. Add zippercrooter.com slash zip. That zippercrooter.com slash zip zippercrooter.com slash zip. Warning, the following Zippercrooter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercrooter know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercrooter figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free at zippercrooter.com slash zip. With Zippercrooter, you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate

42:01within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercrooter.com slash zip to try Zippercrooter for free. Don't forget that zippercrooter.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercrooter.com slash zip. Warning. The following Zippercrooter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words. When you're hiring, we at Zippercrooter know you can feel frustrated for Lauren even. Like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercrooter figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free at zippercrooter.com slash zip. As Zippercrooter, you can forget your frustrations. Because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate

43:01within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercrooter.com slash zip to try Zippercrooter for free. Don't forget that zippercrooter.com slash zip. But finally, that zippercrooter.com slash zip. Listen, then when you answer the question, here's what I'm going to do. This is step two, I'm going to repeat back in my own words, what I heard you say. And the key here is I'm not trying to mimic you, right? I'm not trying to say the same words that you said what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to prove to you that not only I heard about, I heard what you said, but I've been thinking about it. So I'm going to say Andy, what I heard you say was this thing. And it sounds like one of the issues that for you is that you really care about your employees and you want them to feel, to feel like they belong. If I'm getting this right, you tell them that you want them to assume the best of all of their co-workers, assume the best intent, right?

44:03What I've done right there is I've proven to you not only in my listening, but I'm paying attention on processing it. That's step two. Then step three is before I say anything else, I say, let me just ask you, did I get that right? Do I understand you? Because what I'm doing in that moment is I'm asking you for permission to acknowledge that I was listening. And one of the things that we know about human psychology and how our brains are set up is that if you acknowledge that I was listening to you, you become more likely to listen to me in return. It's a basic instinct of social reciprocity that all of us have. So these three steps, ask a question, repeat back what you heard the person say, ask them if you got it right. This loop for understanding is the thing that makes the other person feel listened to, particularly in the hardest conversation. And that's, I'm telling you, I've got three adult kids who are all married and this is so important for parenting for sure, right?

45:04Yeah. There's no equality, parent, child, you know, it's two different relationships. It's just so easy to power up in those relationships. Oh, absolutely. And my kids, I'm, your kids are a little bit older than mine. So I'm curious if you have any tips on this. My kids come to me. They're both teenagers and they bring up something that's bothering them. And my instinct is to try and solve it for them. Exactly. Oh, here's what you should do. Like, here's, here's the answer. And that's not the right thing to do, but I'm there dad, right? I want to, I want to save them agony. But the right thing to do is to ask a question. You know, when, when he said that to you, how did that make you feel, right? Because then what, not only am I, what I'm doing is I'm showing them that I'm actually paying attention, I'm also training them how to solve problems on the road, which is of course, as parents are most important. That is the most important job. So this kind of sets us over this next question and super communicators. You made this statement and we did talk about this a little bit that super communicators

46:04ask 10 to 20 times more questions than the average person. And we just kind of cover that a little bit. But you say that's in an effort to uncover values, beliefs, motivations, what's really going on. You know, that's a lot of questions. It's a lot of questions. It's a lot of questions. But now that you look for it, you'll notice that your favorite communicators do it. And some of those questions that they ask are things like, they're just invitations. They're like, oh, what'd you think about that? Or did you see that movie, did you see that show on TV last night? They're just inviting you into the conversation, got you. But there's these other questions that are more powerful, which are known with it again within psychology as deep questions. And a deep question, as I mentioned, is something that asks us to discuss our values or beliefs or our experiences. And that can sound kind of intimidating to people, right? Like if I just met you on my party and I'm making a small talk with you, am I going to ask you about your values, beliefs and experiences. But it's as simple as if you meet someone at a party and you say, oh, what do you do for living? And they say, oh, my doctor, you could ask them, oh, really, what hospital do you work

47:05at? Or you could ask them, oh, really, what made you decide to become a doctor, right? That's second question. That second question is an invitation to talk about values or beliefs or experiences. Because I guarantee that person is going to say something like, you know, when I was a kid, I saw my dad get sick and I always wanted to be a healer. Or, you know, like, I just love the job because when I go in every day, I get to help people. Now they're telling us something about who they really are. And those questions, those deep questions, what's powerful about them is that not only have I allowed someone to bring their whole self to this conversation, not only am I creating that psychological safety we talked about, but it also allows me to reciprocate because the most natural thing on earth is to say, oh, really, that's why you became a doctor. You know, when I was young, I saw my uncle get arrested. And that's why I became a lawyer. I wanted to be someone who fought, fought for the little guy. Now, suddenly, we're having a real conversation. And it's not because either of us asked something really personal or really deep, but we

48:07asked a question that invited the other person to say something real. And this is what super communicators do is they ask deep questions. And one of the things I've noticed from spending time with you is that you very naturally and casually asked deep questions, which I think as a man of faith, there's probably some training there vocationally to be prepared to ask those questions. But it just feels so good. It makes the other person feel like you're someone who cares about them. So let me tell you a quick story about that. I'll tell you the first time I remember encountering this and it had a profound impact on me. There's a pastor in Texas, his name is Chuck Swindall, I don't know if you've heard of Chuck. Chuck had just retired. I think he's 90. And I was in seminary 40 something years ago, I guess. Chuck Swindall who wrote a gazillion books, you know, he's a hero came to speak at our seminary and he spoke in our chapel. When he finished, he stepped down at the front and students all, we lined up, we just, you know, he's a hero.

49:08And my dad is also was also a famous pastor. So I grew up with this, you know, front row seat for this dynamic when people would meet someone famous. They don't know what to say and they're nervous. So I got literally, I got in the back of the lines, probably 45 guys that lined up to shake Chuck Swindall's hand. So I waited to the very end and just watched and listened and listened and listened. So I set now I get up there with my buddy, bettering your business takes working with the best with the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking and support from the number one brand of siding in North America, achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are built to keep going blending rugged muscle with precision engineering all supported by Toyota's time tested legacy of dependability. Step into a Tundra and feel the unyielding capability with the available I force max engine Tundra puts out impressive power torque and towing performance and the roomy high tech cabin keeps you connected on the go or take a look at Tacoma made for drivers who push

50:11past the path agile tough and relentless with available features like crawl control, portable JBL speaker, a power lift gate, so gear goes in fast and the adventure keeps moving. The Tacoma and Tundra are engineered to endure season after season, mile after mile. So drive one home today, visit toyota.com or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more Toyota. Let's go places. Larry, we're the last two, literally the last two. I know he's tired. He's just spoke for 40 minutes. He just spoke to, you know, have her many men and women in line. And Chuck Swindall asked us where are we from? Why did we come to this school? He did exactly what you're talking about. And here's a famous person asking me questions about me. And before I knew it, I'm doing too much of the talking, which I had decided I wouldn't do because I'd seen people do that with my dad. But he's so, I believe he was so sincere, I've never forgotten that. It is not intuitive for me. But that conversation, 40 something years ago, had a profound impact on me as I think

51:14about when we're, and all of us have people in our lives who, you know, they have to look up to us either because we're their boss, their manager, we're the older, we're the grand dad, you know, whatever that is. But when a person who we view that has an elevated status expresses personal interest than us, it is so powerful. It is. And you find yourself saying things or confessing things or acknowledging things that surprise you. I'll never forget that conversation in so many times when I'm in a hurry or somebody interrupts me or comes up to me with one of my kids and I'm at a retail outlet somewhere. I just remember the power of those few short minutes with Chuck Swindall and I, it profoundly impacted me. So that's, that's where it began. It's like someone turns on the sun and shines it up, shines, that's a great analogy. Yes. And what I love is that now that you're on the other side of that equation, you know that Chuck probably was so thankful that you answered those questions because he says the same

52:18thing over and over and over again, right? Like it's not fun to tell my story of my ideas 40 different times. What's fun is to hear about you, to learn about why you're at the seminary. What brought you here? It's inspiring. Yeah. And going back to the point of the conversation, here I am in front of somebody who's very intimidating, who I want to impress, who I really want not to say something dumb. And I immediately felt so safe, because he did exactly what you said. He asked those deeper questions and then he let Larry and I talk and, okay, so can I ask you something on this, which is because we've been talking a lot about safety. I imagine that there are times with your employees that you have to have conversations that are hard conversations. Maybe you have to tell someone like this position isn't working out. You're not doing the job that I was at the quality I was hoping. When you're in those tough conversations and you know that it's going to, it's going to feel unsafe to some degree, because it's just tough.

53:20What do you do in that conversation to make it as easy for yourself and for the other person and make it as safe as possible? I've gotten in the habit of assuming and it kind of goes back to what we teach, assuming that everything everybody does makes perfect sense to them. So if it doesn't make sense to me, there's something I don't know. So I just try to start there. I mean, you've done this or you've done it four times or so help me, you know, you're a smart person, you're a rational person. So help me understand why you do this, because there may be something I'm missing. Because this doesn't make sense to me, but I know it makes sense to you. So I'm going to, again, I'm just assuming the best, but there's something I don't understand. So if it's a situation where I can begin that way to acknowledge, I don't think you're bad, I don't think you're crazy, I don't think you're incompetent, I just don't understand this behavior. That's an on ramp. And again, sometimes people explain it and you're like, oh, actually, maybe you're doing

54:22the right thing. I mean, seriously, I mean, sometimes I just don't know. But beyond that, to the degree that culturally, we have over and over and over expressed and created an environment where we do want to hear from you, we do want you to succeed. We do want you to be here long term. As I say to our new employees, I want this to be the best job you ever have. When you retire from whatever you do, I want you to look back at your time in our organization to say, you know what? I did a lot of things in my life. That was the best organization I ever worked with. That was the best culture I ever worked in. And then I say to them because of what we do. And I said, I'm not talking about Sunday morning, that part. I'm talking about the Monday through Friday part. I want this to be the best place you've ever worked. Help us create that. So I think to the degree that we reiterate those things over and over and over the staff surveys, you know, all the stuff, when it comes time for me in particular, or us to have a hard conversation with somebody, hopefully we have laid the groundwork for them to

55:24know, we really do care. We care about you. We want you to succeed here, but we've got to talk about stuff. And you can appreciate this, even if you have to imagine it. In our world, when we confront somebody and their job is at stake, not only is their job at stake, oftentimes where they attend church is at stake. Oh, yeah. It is very difficult to let somebody go on Friday. And the average person then shows up at church on Sunday to get some comfort. And all of a sudden, they're facing the weekend. And they have to decide, can I go back to the very place? Even though church service is different than maybe their job during the week, it is very complicated for someone to lose a job at their church. It is so difficult. So we definitely factor that into how we do things, our approach to things. And in many cases, people work through it. They show back up in a few weeks and, hey, that was my job. But this is my church for other people.

56:24It's more difficult. So it's never fun. You know that. What I really appreciate that is what I hear you saying. And tell me if I'm going in this right is that when you go into these conversations, you acknowledge to yourself and the Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are built to keep going, ending rugged muscle with precision engineering, all supported by Toyota's time-tested legacy of dependability. Step into a Tundra and feel the unyielding capability with the available I-Force Max engine. Tundra puts out impressive power, torque, and towing performance and the roomy high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the go. Or take a look at Tacoma made for drivers who push past the path, agile, tough and relentless with available features like crawl control, portable JBL speaker, a power lift gate, no gear goes in fast and the adventure keeps moving. The Tacoma and Tundra are engineered to endure season after season, mile after mile. So drive one home today, visit toyota.com or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more Toyota. Let's go places. Kind of to the other person that there is this power differential that you want to move

57:26beyond. Because the truth of the matter is exactly what you just said, you're the head of the church. You're the guy who controls, controls not only my job, but controls where I feel closest to God. Yeah. And my children and my wife or my husband, it's a whole family dynamic, yeah. And I think when you acknowledge that and say, look, I understand that we're not talking from the same place here. I want us to bring us onto the same plane as much as I can. So I'm going to say to you, look, help me understand how you see the world. You are the expert on this. You're the expert on yourself. I am not. You're the one with the power to explain to me how you see the world. The reason why I think this is so powerful is, I think about this all the time with my kids. Your kids are older than mine, as I mentioned, minor teenagers. And I think a lot about how do we make this transition from being their parent to being their friend? And I don't want to be their best friend, right? I want them to, but I do want to have a relationship with both my boys as we get older

58:28where we are more on an equal plane. Because I think that that's just really healthy. That's something that I want for myself, selfishly. And I think that part of that is that you have to acknowledge you can't, you can't just will it into being by pretending that the problem doesn't exist. You have to say, look, you are the expert on yourself. I'm not. So help me learn. Yeah. And the earlier you can do that and create that space, the better. And I know we're not talking about parenting, but here's just one, one, one, yeah, one parent. I'll take it all. This is something I found parents have a hard time remembering. You have a relationship with your, you have two sons, right? Yep. Two sons. You have, you have a relationship with your sons. It is not the same relationship. And they are very aware of that. And as dads, we become less and less aware of it. It's two completely different relationships.

59:29They have a relationship with somebody who's holding all the cards. You have a relationship with someone of whose cards you're holding. And of course, the goal is to one day to have a healthy adult relationship with your sons. And what I tell parents all the time is, look, especially during middle school and high school, you have to stay in the parent seat. Don't let your teenagers bait you out of the parent seat. Because when you get out of the parent seat, things get confusing. The best preparation for that healthy adult relationship is to remember, we have a relationship. It's not the same relationship. But one day, there's going to be far more equity. And now we're in that season. Our kids are 30 years old, 32, 33 years old. But wow, I had to remind myself of that so often because the goal is exactly what you just said. I want to have a healthy adult relationship with my kids someday. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. That's really helpful. Thank you. Knock on the door.

1:00:29No. No, but this conversation of psychological safety, I mean, and you know this, there are so many kids who are in homes where there's no psychological safety with their parents. So they hide everything. They lie. They feel like I've got to lie and hide in order to survive what's happening with my family. And that's a terrible burden to put on kids. So everything we've talked about, I think, translates to what's happening in marriage and with our kids. I absolutely agree. Because the truth of the matter is, we are talking about business leadership, but the type of leader that we are at work is also the type of leader we are at home. It's the type of leader that we have with our relationship with our spouse and in our community. And I think that sometimes we do a disservice to how important work is to say, oh, there's a work me and there's a non-work me because the truth of the matter is some of the most important things that I do are at work. And if I can take those lessons and I can bring them home, I'm becoming a better person. That's the same me, no matter where I am.

1:01:29I tell parents, I say, look, your greatest contribution to the world may not be something you do. It may be someone you raise. So keep that in mind whenever. Okay. So, unfortunately, we're out of time, but I just love talking to you. I wish we lived a closer, it'd be so fun to hang out. Enjoy this conversation. So to all of our listeners, I want to thank you for joining us and invite you to check out Charles' latest book, Super Communicators, How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection We've touched on some of it. We touched on some of it last time, but there is so much there. And again, I communicate for a living and I think this is one of the best books, maybe the best book I've ever read on communication because what he talks about in terms of interpersonal relationships and communication, it works in public communication as well. And be sure to check out the AndyStanley.com website where you can download the Leadership Podcast application guide that includes a summary of our discussion, plus some questions for reflection, either for you personally or for your entire work group. And join us next week for our Reverb episode.

1:02:31This is where Susie and I dig a little bit deeper into this topic and we talk about Charles without him in the room. You're not going to want to miss that. Thanks once again for joining us on the AndyStanley Leadership Podcast.