Speaking and Communicating Podcast

One of the other deadly sins is as a leader, you have your hand into everything. You don't think you're micromanaging, but you kind of are. It's a different form of micromanaging because no one can do anything without your permission.
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00:10
Welcome back to the speaking and communicating podcast. I am your host, Roberta and Leila. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communicate and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify. Leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this show. Now let's get communicating. Now let's get communicating with my guest today, Juan Alvarado Jr. Who is a keynote speaker and a leadership coach. He is here to talk to us about, wait for it, the seven deadly sins of leadership, how to be a courageous leader, and many more other valuable insights. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show.
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01:12
Hi, Juan.
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01:13
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
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01:16
Thank you for being here. Welcome. Please tell us a little bit about yourself before we get to the meaty part.
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01:23
Yeah. I grew up in Southern California, and right after high school, I joined the military. And so that's where a lot of my leadership skills come from. So ten years in the United States army, was deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and became a police officer. So my leadership changed a little bit, but added to that, and then I left to become a director of programs where I oversaw over 200 staff. And then I had to personally mentor 30 to 35 managers. Where I failed many times and where I grew many times. And that was huge for my growth, and I can get more into that later. But I left that because I wanted to do more. And I felt like I was handcuffed a little bit with the organization that I was with because I wanted to do more.
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02:12
I felt like we didn't make a change, that were going to kind of get left behind. And so I started to make these changes on my own and doing stuff online and other people were having me speak. And when I started to help them grow, I realized I can be a vessel for other people outside of the nonprofit that I was working for. And so I decided to leave that organization so that I could help more people than just the altogether 235 people that I was helping. I was like, I can have a bigger impact on the world, and the world can have a bigger impact on me if I was to leave this place. And so I did. And so that's where we are today.
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02:52
Here's the interesting part about the military, and this is purely based from what we see on tv and the movies, when we talk about leadership nowadays and how it's more people focused and you should have empathy and listen to your team. It seems like the opposite of that.
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03:11
We joke around. There's a saying in the, I think all the branches of the military hurry up and wait, right? They want you to hurry, hurry, get things done, get things done. And then you wait around and they're like, well, we're not ready yet. So a lot of waiting, a lot of hurrying up, a lot of do. But in the military, compared to the workplace, even though there's some similarities, there is a hierarchy, right? You have ranks, right? You have a private first class, a specialist, a sergeant, a staff sergeant first class, sergeant major. You have all these different officers by the emblem, right? By the symbol, you know who you need to respect and where you have authority. I see somebody that's lower ranking than me. I know that I have the authority.
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03:53
In the workplace, you can pass somebody in a high rise building and not know who they are. And that's where the empathy part comes in. Maybe more questions come in because you might not know who that is, but in the military, you know who it is automatically, do I stand and salute you? Do I stand attention? Do I shut up and listen? Or do I give direction? And so it's a little bit of the opposite. I think it's the opposite because outsiders don't fully understand. But I think in the military, you have to, again, shut up and listen because people have maybe more experience than you. They know what's going on because a lot of it is a need to know basis, right? So a little bit different than the workplace. And that is why.
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04:35
One of the reasons why some people, not all people, but some people that come out of the military have a really either tough time getting into work because their mind, the way they think is different. The ones that do succeed, understand I need to make a change, or they understand their position on the totem pole where they are, I'm just going to shut my mouth, listen and do work. Which is why you have organizations here in the United States, like Home Depot or Lowe's, that is high demand, physical wise, that hire military veterans because they know, hey, you're my boss. You tell me what to do, I'm just going to work.
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05:12
I'm just going to do it. Yeah.
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05:14
Right.
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05:14
Because like I said, yeah, it looks like the opposite. And then it becomes interesting when we meet someone like you who says, hey, of all the things I could have chosen when I left the military, I want to be a leadership coach.
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05:27
Yeah. I think a lot of it had to do with being under leaders that don't fully understand leadership. And this will be kind of like the first nugget that I give you. I feel that some leaders, especially in the military and in the workplace, for that matter, lead off of their authority when true leadership leads off of their influence. Some leaders lead with their authority when better leadership will lead with their influence. And so I lead you because you see me doing something, you understand my heart, you understand my passion, you understand that I want best for the organization. I want the best for you. Then I want the best for me in that order. So I put myself last, where people who use their authority, use their title to make their decisions and not their personality or their character to make those decisions.
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06:17
And so I tell people, if you want to use your authority, use it for decision making. Right. We need to make a vote. Do we do this event or do we add this to our policies and procedures? It's a tie score. Right on voting. Hey, as the boss, I'm going to use my authority and I'm going to vote this way or that way. That's what you use your authority for. Authority has never made people jump out of their seat and say, oh, I want to follow him or her because they're really mean and they use their power and aggression to get things done.
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06:46
I would hope not.
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06:47
Yeah, right. Nobody jumps at that. But when you see, like, dang, this guy has hired ten people and those ten people have gone on to bigger and better things. I want to follow that guy or that woman that she'll sit down and listen to you. There's another saying that says you should go somewhere where you are appreciated and not tolerated. I want to go somewhere where somebody appreciates me. And so I think that was one of the bigger things that I found, that if you want to level up in leadership, you need to work on your influence and not necessarily your authority.
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07:19
Influence and not the authority. So what would you say are the seven deadly sins of leadership?
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07:28
Yeah, those are, to me, constantly changing, or should I say changing, depending on who I speak to. What I like to do when I go into organizations is I like to talk to the leadership and then I talk to the staff, because when I do that, I find that leadership thinks one thing and the organization or the staff think something completely different. And so there's miscommunication. I went into one organization where they said, oh, we just did a survey. We had really good communication and we got scored really well. But then when you talk to them, they're like, no, I'm afraid that if I say anything negative on these surveys, there's going to be repercussions.
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08:08
Yes.
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08:08
So there's miscommunication. So when I gave them my survey, they felt better to talk about to an outsider than it was to their own people. So when I go into organizations, usually three or four of those deadly sins are true across the board. Some of them I switch out because it's like, why are you doing this? Right. So one of them that comes on and off of that list, because some organizations are different, is that we feel that yearly evaluations are enough. Right. When do you do evaluations? Once a year. And those yearly evaluations usually happen at the end of the year. Well, then what happens is it says pretty much in a nutshell, this is what you do really well. So thank you, thank you. Keep on doing this and this.
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08:50
You've met these numbers, you've met these standards, but this is where you can improve. Well, why would you tell that to somebody at the end? Why would you wait eleven months, twelve months to tell somebody, this is what you need to change one of those deadly sins are thinking that a yearly evaluation is enough. When in schools for our kids, they do progress report card. Progress report card. There's a report about your progress, which is why when there's new hires, there are 30, 60, 90 day evaluations. And then they say, okay, you're good enough, you get the job. If not, you didn't meet it, we're going to let you go because it's not a good fit. So you do a really good job at that.
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09:30
But then after you don't do it until a year later and a year after that, and there are some people that even their management doesn't get any evaluations. So there's other organizations that do it really well, which is why that comes off and on the list, depending on who it is. So definitely do my research first before I teach this one. Another one is the statement of, this is how we've always done it. A lot of people, a lot of organizations don't understand why they do it. I find this a lot in budget departments, in HR departments, where people will ask, well, why do we do that? Well, that's just the way it is. And then you look at the policies and procedures, and you're like, that's not even a rule. That's not even a policy. Why are we doing this?
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10:15
And you find out that funny is.
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10:18
That I usually hear that when we talk. I'm south african. I'm from the Zulu culture. There's things in my culture that I absolutely love, majority of them. But there are things where I'm like, who started this? And why? It doesn't make sense. Oh, no. This is how we've always done it in ancient culture. I mean, maybe that could work in my culture because it's an individual thing. But in the workplace, where there's so many people affected, how do they get stuck in that mentality of, this is how we've always done it?
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10:47
Yeah, I think it goes back to the authority piece. S. I am in HR, or I'm the director. I'm in charge. Maybe I don't want to deal with it right now. Maybe I have a chip on my shoulder and there's somebody that maybe I don't get along with. I don't like. They were snotty with me, so I'm going to be snotty right back. And, no, you can't do that. And so then somebody says that, and, well, how come they got to do it and I can't? Well, it's a policy. And they're just talking through their back end, and they're trying to prove a point to be that power trip, and then all of a sudden it becomes policy or procedure. And somebody needs to ask the question and actually answer the question, why do we continuously do this? Why?
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11:23
I've learned, my CEO taught me this, and it was very humbling. Your ideas are not always the best ideas, which is perfectly fine. I got a mentor that said, every idea is a good idea until we find the best one. And then that's a continuous process. There might be a better one than the better one. So now there's a best one, a better one. Right. And so you have to be open to that. But there's a lot of systems that people have. People ask, there's got to be a better way. And when they ask, well, this is how we've always done it. Well, why? Nobody can answer. There's a story that I heard, and I don't know if it's true.
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11:59
It's kind of just like a fable, but that there's a little girl who asks her, mom, can you teach me how to make this dinner? This meatloaf right and it's meat in a pan. So they go, and they start to make it. And so the mom goes, and she puts it in the container. It comes out of the oven. She takes it out, and then she cuts both ends off of it. Like the butt ends, the front end and the back end. And then she puts it on a serving platter, and they pour the dressing stuff over it, the sauce stuff on it. And the little girl asks, mom, why did you cut those ends off? And she goes, that's what you're supposed to do. And so the daughter asks, but why? And she goes, that's how my mom taught me.
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12:36
And so she goes, go ask grandma. So she goes to ask grandma, and she goes, grandma, why do we cut the ends off? My mom keeps on cutting these ends off. Why do we do that? What happens with those ends? And she goes, sweetie, I cut the ends off because the serving platter that I had was too small. So that's the whole reason why she made it in this thing. And when she put it in the serving tray was smaller than the thing, so she had to cut it so it wouldn't fall off the ends of it. That's the only reason why I cut the ends off. And so for generations, they were cutting the front and the back ends off.
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13:05
On without anyone questioning. Back to the culture thing as well.
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13:09
Right? And here's the key in this story. It took a little girl. And the thing that I love about children and learning about children is they're always curious. And here's another deadly sin, is you need to be curious like a child. And if you're not curious like a child, you will always end up doing the same things over and over again. If you look at a kid, they're always curious. They're always asking questions. Why? And what happens is the parent, the authority figure, says, because I said so. Because I am your mother, I am your father. You do what I say, and then that carries over into the workplace. Yeah.
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13:50
Which then, think about it. Let's look at the other side of this. From a leader's point of view. If something seems to have worked all these years, is it a I'm afraid to take the risk and try something new thing just in case it backfires because we could lose money, things might turn upside down.
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14:12
Yeah.
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14:12
Would that be the reason sometimes they are reluctant to make a change even if something is not necessarily working?
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14:18
It could be. But everything's risky, right? Going on a walk is risky. You can go walk around the block and you can get hit by a car, somebody can mug you. It's risky, but there's also a risk in not doing it. What if you were to be able to walk around the block every single day for your health and you don't do it, you end up having a heart attack because your heart is weak. So it's risky to do it. And it's also risky not to do it, but you'll never know unless you do it. I think it's Jim Rohn that says what's easy to do is also easy not to do. So sometimes you have leadership that don't want to do something new or try something new because we don't have the time.
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14:51
I think a lot of it has to do with risk, but I don't have the time. I don't have the energy. I don't want to do that. But if somebody's asking me, why do we do this, I might just say, hey, find out. You find out. It's kind of like with issues and problems, right? I don't want to hear a problem and an issue in the workplace. If, when you bring it to my attention, if you're not bringing two or three solutions or something that you've tried for the last 30 or 60, 90 days and then it hasn't worked. Come with solutions to the problem, but don't come to the party with just a problem. Come with solutions. Right. And so in this case, if someone's to ask why, I'm going to say, okay, come back in two or three weeks.
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15:26
You let me know why and how and some different ways to do this. And the reason why I do that is two, I might not have the time. So I'm giving it to somebody who's passionate about it, who has the question. If somebody's curious and has a question, then they're going to have the heart and the desire to do the work. But if it's not important to the leader, then they're going to give some half answer or whatever it is. And so that other person is going to do it wholeheartedly. One, two. Now, I've delegated something, and true delegation is to empower somebody. Right. And so one of the things that I've learned pretty recently in leadership is delegation doesn't always mean to empower, but to empower somebody always means to delegate.
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16:11
And what I mean by that is I can give you a job and say, here, do this paperwork. I don't have time to do it, just do it. But if you come and continuously ask me questions, is it okay. To do this with this piece of paper, can I not approve this one? If you keep on asking me for answers. You have not been empowered. You are doing it the way I would have done it. Right.
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16:29
It's almost kind of like following instructions. No critical thinking, no putting my idea into anything.
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16:36
Yeah, but if I ask you how would you do it, why would you do it this way? Okay, so then go ahead and I've actually powered you or given you the empower to do that, then. That's true. Delegation. I'm empowering them to do something with their own thought process, with their own authority. I kind of give the example of if I hired you to decorate my home, if you keep on asking me what kind of colors I want, and do you want this couch or this couch? I decorated it, not you. So I delegated something to you. I didn't empower you. But if I empowered you to do something, then I've also delegated something, and now you have free rein to do it however you want with no permission, without anything. And what does that do in the long run?
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17:17
That builds trust, because if you do a good job, then I'm going to say, okay, now I have something else for you to do. And so that's one of the other deadly sins, is as a leader, you have your hand into everything. You don't think you're micromanaging, but you kind of are. It's a different form of micromanaging because no one can do anything without your permission. So a lack of empowerment equals a lack of trust. And you don't trust your staff. And so that's a deadly sin because then staff aren't going to want to work for you if they don't feel.
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17:42
That you trust them just on that point. Let's talk about what's been happening in the last three years with the pandemic, because before your boss could just check, come to your cubicle and say, hey, let me see one. What have you done here? Or something like that. Now, you had remote work micromanaging, which a lot of leaders were accused of because they also wanted to see, are they still working? Am I paying them? But they're sleeping at home or whatever it is. When it comes to that delegation and empowerment point you've raised, what would you say, especially with the clients you've worked with, what were some of the challenges that they faced and what did they do about it?
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18:22
I think that the bigger problem during the pandemic was the lack of true communication. Right. So, like you said, you had leadership saying, is the work getting done? Are you even getting stuff done? What have you gotten done? Let me look at numbers. Because they had never done this type of work before, right. No one had done remote type working besides organizations who always had remote work, right. There's a lot of customer service places that have always done remote work. What it revealed was how insecure leadership was. One of the things I have people do in my leadership classes is write down all the issues and problems that you have. Most of them, 99% of them are my staff do this, my staff do that. My staff don't understand this, my staff don't understand that.
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19:07
And what we find is that everything is everybody else's fault. And none of the things that they list are my fault or my issues, my problems or the way your team plays is a reflection of the management or the leadership. Right. I think Gallup has a poll that says 51% of people who leave the workforce leave due to the manager. So the manager has a lot to think of.
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19:29
Money. Not number one reason at least, right?
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19:32
What I found with that is it's value. Some people will connect money to value, which is true, but a lot of it is, do you value me as a person? Do you value me as somebody who has a family? Do you value my education? And so just to that point, a little off subject, but I'll stick with it, is do you value your worker? Do you value the recognition, which is what I was going to get to with the pandemic part, but a lot of organizations are paying for childcare. Do you care for me that enough where you're offering childcare? There are some organizations that built a daycare. They hired a manager for the daycare, and they hired three or four people to switch hours of work so that employees can go back to work.
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20:11
Some people are paying people to go to the gym because people got lazy and gained weight and their health declined because gyms were closed. And now they're paying for people to go work out. So you value my health. And so everything I see when it comes to that is, do you value money? Do they get paid what they're supposed to get paid? Do you value their family time, their time out of work, their time with their kids? Can they just say, hey, I have a family emergency. Go ahead and go. It's okay. We'll cover your stuff. Let me know if everything's okay. And then the follow up. Right. So it's the value. Do you value holistically, the person. But going back to the issue during the pandemic, I think a piece that was huge was the recognition piece.
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20:53
And Gallup finds that recognition needs to be done every seven days. Now, that's hard for people that have a lot of employees. Like, you can't go to 300, 400 employees every seven days because it's just too much. But that's just where the number switches, right? Do I have really good engagement from my staff when I say that they do a good job and I recognize them? It's still up higher than day 123456, but around the 7th day is where it's the highest peak. And so you can still go 8910, maybe twelve days. It's still higher than nothing, higher than 30 days, but seven is where it's the peak. So I think we lost the recognition piece because people and leaders were so involved in, are you getting the work done? Can I really trust this person?
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21:36
And again, what it revealed was when I talked about writing the things down that you have an issue with, you turn those things around. Are my staff really working? You need to work on your trust. They don't feel valued. Do I communicate with my staff? Do I value my staff? And so any issues and problems, I always tell leaders, the biggest pill to swallow is, where did I go wrong? What am I not doing enough of? And that's hard as a leader to recognize. How do I take responsibility for 100% of that 1%? So if I think you're wrong 99% and I'm only wrong 1%, I still have to own 100% of that 1%. I have to own all of it. And so when people say, well, this staff is disrespectful, well, if they're disrespectful, that's saying that they don't respect you.
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22:26
So then what do I need to do? Where did I go wrong that makes my staff feel that it's okay to disrespect me? Do I not respect myself? Do I not respect them? Is the word out there that I don't respect people? So it reveals. It uncovers what I'm not doing right. It's like a sunburn. You go outside, you get sunburned, you start to realize, I can't be out for an hour without sunblock, or I can't go do this without doing something. So it exposes where you lack. And sometimes it's good to write those issues out, and then how do you turn those on yourself to say, ooh, where do I lack? How do I fix this?
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23:01
Because the team is a reflection of the leader. So before they do all the training with you, if they at first think the staff, the team is the problem, how receptive are they to say, hey, wait a minute, maybe let's switch the mirror and make it look back at you.
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23:19
Yeah. So I hang my hat on the compliment that people give me when we ask them about how the training went. They say, juan was the most real, the most authentic and the most relatable trainer that we've had. Because I'm not going to sugarcoat things. I'm not going to make them say like, hey, well, we don't do know, kind of like with, you know, Johnny, we don't do that. I tell my boys, come here. What went wrong? What happened? Whose fault was that? Why do you think it's this person's fault? What can you take responsibility for? And I'm just upfront with people. We talk, know, courageous conversations. And for those leaders, I try to ask them questions that they can relate to. How energized are you throughout the day? How stressed are you?
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23:59
What do you feel causes your stress at home or at this? And I make them realize, well, maybe I'm not energized throughout my day because I'm not eating well. Right? Do you have breakfast? No, I just walk out and I grab a banana and my coffee. You don't have anything nutritious and then you're just putting caffeine in you. So you have this high with caffeine and then you have this low. So you're not energized because you're not putting like, whose fault is that? Oh, it's my fault, right? It's not that my spouse didn't make me breakfast. Or people say, I don't have time. Write out that sentence, I don't have time. Then whose fault is that?
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24:33
Time management, or lack thereof, is that.
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24:36
Well, and here's the thing, I challenge people on that statement of time management because you can't manage time. Like right now, if you needed an extra hour, could you stop the clock?
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24:44
No.
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24:45
So you can't manage time. You can manage yourself. And so it's not time management, it's self management. And this is a big issue that people say, I don't have enough time. They're blaming it on the time where true leadership takes ownership of their issues and problems, right? And again, I tell my boys this, have three boys, 1114 and 15. I tell them, you will become a better man and a better leader. And this goes, I would tell this, if I have daughters, I just don't have any daughters, you would become a better woman if you can own up to it. And I took my leadership to the next level when I stopped blaming other people. And I said, what can I do? So it's self management, right? I get those leaders to say, yeah, I could eat better.
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25:27
I can wake up 10 minutes earlier, and I can make myself something nutritious to eat, something with protein, something with value, good fats, like, for breakfast, I had ground chicken, some eggs, and some avocado. Right? I have protein. I have good fats in there, and I'm fueled for the day. I noticed that if I tried to cut corners and just have cereal loaded with sugar, loaded with all kinds of other stuff, and I'm dead at the midday. Right. Sometimes we need to pick me up, right. We'll have the midday caffeine or coffee or whatever, but I'm way more energized when I do that. So going back to this whole thing is when I can get a leader to say, yeah, I can do something different.
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26:03
And so if we list four or five personal problems, and they can say, yes, I can take responsibility for this, and this is what I need to do, then we switch it to work and we say, okay, so is it just possible? Is it possible? Not maybe 100%, but is it possible that at least one or two things on your list of issues at work you can take responsibility for? And so it's the whole connection thing. When I could be relatable, and when I can make a connection to something that's every day, all I need is the leadership personnel to say, it's very possible. Okay, so then where do we go first? And we just have to make that connection. And hopefully they're open to then say, I could take a little bit of responsibility for this.
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26:39
Right. Here's the beauty of taking responsibility as well. You realize that, okay, I messed up, but the power is in me to change, because if you blame other people, are you also not giving them that power to say, it's only going to change if they do something?
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26:58
Right? And if you just take the word responsibility, are you able. Do you have the ability to respond in a way that you know that you should? You have to respond with the best of your ability. And if your best of your ability is to point the finger at somebody else and not take ownership, that's not an ability. You're not able to do that.
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27:18
Yes, you give the power away. You say connection before correction. What do you mean by that?
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27:26
Yeah. So how am I, as a leader, able to correct a staff if I'm not connecting to them, I cannot correct my staff if I'm not connected to them. Right. It's kind of like a bank account. I cannot withdraw if I don't make a deposit, right. If you have zero money in your account, the bank is going to say, sorry, you can't take any money out. So all my interactions are either going to be deposits or withdraws from people. Right. So am I putting positive money? Because there are going to be times where you have to give a verbal warning or a documented write up to staff. Then I have to ask myself, have I made deposits? Because I know that this is going to be a withdraw. You cannot correct your staff if you're not correcting.
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28:11
So how can I correct you if I can't connect with you? That's one. Two. I also tell staff, I want to be able to protect you, and I can't protect you if I can't connect with you. Right. And so we find ourselves take on the world today. You're not going to have a heated discussion, maybe for the lack of better words, an argument with someone if you're not connected to something in the world, right? And I'm not trying to get political, but you have wars going on in the world. If you're connected somehow to one side, whether it's through somebody in your family is married to somebody of that background or you visited there before, you are going to have an argument and you're going to defend that side because you've made a connection with it.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
28:53
So how can I correct you if I connect you? And how can I protect you if I can't connect with you? And so there are staff that say, hey, this other person came and said this, and this. I'm like, okay, but you've also been written up and you don't want to take any feedback from me. So I can kind of understand why this person has having issues because this is the character that you created and I'm not going to say it in that way, but this is how my thought process is. So I tell staff, if you want correction in the sense of to become better, and I explain what better is. Right. Good leaders, good employees always want to know, how do I become better?
speaker
Speaker 1
·
29:29
Where you know that if you're a bad employee, is your ears hear, what am I doing wrong? No, that's not what. How can I get better? Means you're running a race and you are 2 minutes behind the slowest person. Right? You're the slowest person, but the next slowest person is 2 minutes faster than you? This is how we get better. I'm not going to talk about the negative part of things. I'm talking about how do we get better. Okay, so we've been working out twice a week to how do we get better? We need to work out four times a week. That's how we come better. But the negative ear hears you're bad. No, that's not what we're doing. We're focusing on how do you get better.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
30:04
So if you want to get better, I'm going to have to correct you, but you're not going to be able to receive that correction if I'm not connected with you. It's almost like if a parent, sometimes they say it takes a village to raise a child, but sometimes you have parents that say, don't tell me how to raise my kid. Right. Don't talk to me that way. And a kid's not going to take that because there's no connection there. Now if my sister tells my son, hey, don't say that, don't be disrespectful to your dad or don't be disrespectful to your mom. I give my sister the authority to correct my kid if he's doing something wrong. But if that was a stranger, that.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
30:36
Connection, yes, you're right.
speaker
Speaker 1
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30:38
It's a connection piece. And so you just have to realize it's going to take time. Right. It's going to take time to connect. And so this is why it's so big for leaders. I did a thing with teachers, with students, and we do a thing called a two x ten. How do I spend two extra minutes, ten days in a row with a student? And I can talk about everything and anything accords age appropriate and school appropriate. That is, anything but school related. Hey, I like your shoes. Where did you get them? What other shoes do you want? Oh, do you know that these new shoes are coming out? Or I like those shoes because you can make them dress them up with a shirt and tie, casual shoes, or you can dress them down with shorts, whatever it is.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
31:13
Did you see the game last night? Whatever it is, 2 minutes for ten days and you start to see a relationship starting to build because you're talking about them and everything else. And we could carry this into the workplace. So when we have meetings or we have what we call cooler talk, right? You guys can talk about everything and anything except stop talking about work. You see this a lot when people go on lunches, people go on lunch with coworkers and they'll talk about work. Stop, disconnect. Disconnect from work. Don't talk about work. Talk about everything else and anything else but work. And so part of that connection piece is, one, it needs to be authentic, but two, don't talk about work. Ask them about their spouse, ask them about their kids, but have that connection.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
31:56
When you start to have that connection later on, it's like, oh, they care about me. Well, if I care about you. And I'm starting to recognize the work that you do when I come back. And that's the other thing when it comes to recognition and feeding into people, is I'm making those deposits. So when I do the withdrawal of. Hey, you know what? You were late this week on a deadline. Here's the reason why we can't. And I think a lot of issues that we have in the workplace is we tell the people the what and the how. We don't tell them about the why. This is the deadline. We don't turn this in. We don't get a grant, or we don't get paid, or we don't get whatever it is. But I have to make that correction.
speaker
Speaker 1
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32:34
But it's ten times better if I have that connection.
speaker
Speaker 2
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32:36
True. Because I will receive it very differently if we have that connection, as you say, versus if it's all just work and always coming at me, if I do something wrong, it is received very differently.
speaker
Speaker 1
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32:52
Right. And on top of that, if I can get you to connect to it, right? If I say, like, if you have kids, and I say, remember the other day when you said that your son was upset or hurt because you were late picking him up from practice, and it happened twice. He said something that was hurtful or whatever, and it made you feel that way. This is what the organization kind of feels when it's late with the deadline, right? So we're looking forward to you finishing this work, finishing this work. And it doesn't happen, it lets us down. Here's the flip side of that I need you to fully understand. Just because you were late with your son doesn't make you a bad mother. Right? Just because you made a mistake doesn't make you a mistake.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
33:33
And just because maybe you think you failed doesn't make you a failure. I'm okay with you missing deadlines and falling. What I need you to do is, how do I get up and dust myself off and understand I'm not a mistake. I'm not a failure. I just might need some help. So how do we communicate what do I need to do with you to help you communicate? Hey, I don't think this is going to get done in time. I'd rather have the conversation on the front end than the back end. So this is what we're going to do. For the next two weeks, I'm going to communicate with you a little bit more. Not to micromanage, but to say, check in, we're about 50% done. Okay, cool.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
34:12
So by next Tuesday, when I check in with you, we're going to be about, what do you say? And I let the employee answer me. I'll be about 70% done. Okay. So I'm going to check in with you Tuesday. Is that okay? Yeah, that's okay. Now I have permission. I made that connection. Where are we at? And then you say, I'm 75% done. Hey, you said you were going to be 70% done. Now you're 75. Great job. High five. You know what? Let's take a break. Let's go have lunch. And I want to hear more about your victories today. And now I'm recognizing the good behavior. And if they say, I'm only about 60% done, and I know that I told you that was 70. Okay. How can I help you? Do I need to bring somebody in?
speaker
Speaker 1
·
34:44
And so we just have to have that communication? But it will always happen for two things. One, if I have that connection, and two, if I allow my staff to fail and them understand that it's okay to make mistakes, that's not going to change you or your character in becoming a failure or a mistake. You are not that. So it's that connection piece.
speaker
Speaker 2
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35:07
And when that happens, don't you think it also solves the problem you highlighted at the beginning, which was waiting until the end of the year to say, hey, this is what you did wrong.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
35:17
Yeah, for sure. It's got to be timely. Recognition has to be timely. For sure.
speaker
Speaker 2
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35:21
And then one last thought on being a courageous leader. Please, Juan, share with us.
speaker
Speaker 1
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35:26
Yeah. So a courageous leader means that you will always have to have courageous conversations. And we cannot be afraid to bring something up or have those hard, difficult conversations. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. You also have to understand as a leader, if you're going to have courageous conversations, you need to communicate that. Let's say I'm writing you up. You've come in late a week straight. We've talked about it before. Now it's time for a write up. I might tell you, hey, we're going to have a courageous conversation today. And it's not going to be courageous just on my part because it's hard for me to talk about this. It's also going to take you to be courageous because it's going to be hard to hear. And then I'm going to tell this person everything that they might feel, right.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
36:10
I'm kind of throwing darts in the dark a little bit, and I might hit something and I might not. But there's a movie, I don't know if you're familiar with it. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. There's a movie called eight Mile with the rapper Eminem.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
36:23
Eminem.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
36:24
And the battle that he has. At the very end, he tells the audience and the rapper that he's battling everything negative about him. I did get jumped, and I am white trash, and I do live in a trailer park, and I am this, and I did go here, and I did go there, and at the very end he says, now tell all these people something that they don't already know about me. I took a lesson from that movie.
speaker
Speaker 2
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36:46
In, I'm going to tell you, use it against me.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
36:49
Right. Exactly. That's the lesson. Right. And so I tell the person that we're about to write, you know what? You're probably going to feel like I'm pointing fingers. You're going to feel like maybe you're backed against a wall. You might feel like people are ganging up on you. And I might use keywords that they use. Let's say they say. They use words like triggered or maybe they're a little bit forward and they have I'm ticked off or pissed off or something like that. I might use that language and say, you know what? You might feel this way. I need you to talk about that here. Like, I don't want to have a meeting outside of this meeting, but you're probably going to feel this way.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
37:27
And my job is to make sure that this is a safe place for you to say, yeah, I do feel this way. So I just want to preface that and what I'm leading up to is we talked last week about being late, and I want to give you, before I get into my whole spiel, I want you to communicate with me what happened these last three days after we talked. Talk to me about when you arrived at work and what's going on at work. And then I let them talk, and I give them every single piece and time to talk. Here's the other thing, too. I want to face in a place where I'm not looking at a clock and I don't have my phone or my computer screen where I can look at the time.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
38:05
Because I don't want to be a clock watcher. I don't want to be a time watcher. I don't want to be a timekeeper. I will tell the secretary or whoever's out there. If this meeting takes 20 minutes, it takes 20 minutes. If it takes 5 hours, it's going to take 5 hours. Take everything off my schedule, because I'm here solely for this person. And when I tell that person, you have all the time in the world. If this meeting takes 20 minutes, it can take 20 minutes. If it takes 5 hours. I want you to tell me how you feel and what has happened in the last three days about the time that you came in. And I let them feel heard and understood.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
38:38
And once they go through however long it takes, telling me what they did wrong, or maybe they take ownership. Maybe they blame everybody else. Then I repeat exactly what I heard. So if I'm understanding you correctly, let me know if I got this right. You were late these last three days because you didn't have a babysitter. You had this flat tire, or this happened, and the schedule is really tough. Does that sound about right? Yes. Okay. So I want you to put yourself in my shoes. What does it look like to me? And so I want to make them to get the perspective, but then I say, what do you think that I'm to do? If my job is to be the gatekeeper of the policies and procedures? What do you think I'm told that I'm supposed to do in this situation?
speaker
Speaker 1
·
39:18
And I want them to say, you have to write me up. That's right. It's not my organization. I get told, hey, you need to make sure that our standards, everybody is here, and if anyone comes below that standard, we talk to them. If we talk to them once or twice or whatever the policy procedure is, then it's a write up. Did we talk to you two or three times? Yeah. So what do you think is next? A write up. And is that fair? Yeah. Okay. Well, here it is. I need you to sign here. How can I help you show up on time. What can I do to help you?
speaker
Speaker 2
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39:46
And we don't go to the next step after the write up, I would.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
39:50
Say whatever the policy and the procedures are for your organization, my thing would be leadership needs to hold that standard, whatever the policy and the procedure is. Because if we keep on giving chances, like you're supposed to go to 1234, right? If you do one a, one, b, one, c, then you go to two. People are going to think that discipline is a joke. Right. And what is a downfall for not coming in? So I want to make sure that when that happens, that person fully understands, and then it's like, okay, so tell me how you're feeling. Do you feel heard? Do you feel Understood? Because I want to make sure that you're okay. I've gone as far as saying, like, how can I help you?
speaker
Speaker 1
·
40:23
And for a couple of staff, we got permission to say, hey, if you're coming in late and you're supposed to start from eight to five, let's see if we can make it 820 to 520. You're still working your hours. We're just pushing everything back that you.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
40:37
Started a bit late. Yeah.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
40:39
Right. And so if this helps, I want to make sure that we help each other when we're able to do that. And sometimes HR or the boss, the CEO says, no, sorry, but I'm going to try to fight for you. Right. Because how do I protect you if I can't correct you in that connection?
speaker
Speaker 2
·
40:55
And the correction. Yes. That whole principle, it plays out in so many different situations, and not just when the person is doing something wrong. You find solutions as well. Thank you so much, Juan, for being here today. You are absolutely straightforward. No chase, no sugar coating, which is what we need. That's how people get better.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
41:18
Right. Honesty. Honesty is a huge key. I think it was four things in the book, the leadership challenge. It says that employees want from their leaders. Trust and honesty, forward thinking, inspiration, and always growing. Like, I want to know that I'm evolving and growing. So trust and honesty goes a long way. If I'm upset, I'm going to let you know that I'm upset and I'm processing things, and this is how it has to be. Right? So trust and honesty goes a long way. I honor you through honesty. And so I want to honor you, and I'm going to be honest with you. And my hope is that you do the same thing with me. If you don't feel heard or you feel like I'm not listening, tell me. We'll figure it out. But I want to let you know that we're in this together.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
41:58
That's the other part of the courageous conversations, is when discipline happens. It's not me versus you. It's you and me on the same side. And we're looking at the issue, and that's courageous to say you're not necessarily the problem, but it's about time and being late that's the problem. So how do you and I stay on the same side? Look at that and say, how do we together beat that? That's how we confront conflict. It's you and I on the same side, and we confront the issue. And that's part of having the courageous conversations.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
42:32
On that note, I've heard one of the guests previously said, it's like when you walk into the boardroom and let's say you're my boss and I need a discipline for something. I did sit on the same, you know, boardroom table is huge. Instead of you sit on the opposite side, Roberta, this is what you did. When you sit on the same side as me, you're actually saying, I'm not against you. We're looking at the issue or the behavior.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
42:57
Right. You're talking with the person and not at the person. Right. You're on either side of that table. You're talking at them. If you're on the same side, you're talking with them. And this even goes into parenting. I can get into. That's a whole nother podcast about how to parent.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
43:10
And you should come back, by the way. We can talk about the parenting.
speaker
Speaker 1
·
43:13
Just have me and I'll do that.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
43:16
Yes. Communication and parenting. I've had a few guests, but much fewer than I'd like. And there's a lot that parents have had to deal with, especially in the last three years. So they really need the tools to communicate with their children. So you should come back for a future show for go. Thank you so much, Juan Alvarado Jr. For being here today. My absolute pleasure. And before you go, where can we find you online or the social so that we can continue to have a conversation with you?
speaker
Speaker 1
·
43:45
Yeah, thank you for that, for allowing me to plug that in. So the website is ww dot, werazthebar, raised with a z. So R-A-I-Z. Ethebar.com. And then Instagram. You can follow me on Instagram at raise the bar. So same spelling, raise the bar CEO at the end. So I'm in charge of that organization called raise the bar. And then you can find me on LinkedIn. I think it's just RTB for raisethebar one, Juan. And I think raise the bar also on YouTube as well, where I drop leadership videos and a podcast specifically on leadership called the Relevant Development podcast.
speaker
Speaker 2
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44:27
Oh, so you are a podcast host as.
speaker
Speaker 1
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44:29
Yeah, relevant development podcast was doing it off and on, and then I've just been real serious about it this year. We do both personal and professional development that help you in the workplace.
speaker
Speaker 2
·
44:40
So the relevant development podcast by Juan Alvarado Jr. Thank you so much for being on our show today. My pleasure. I'm going to put all these details on the show notes. This has been amazing. I've enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.
speaker
Speaker 1
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44:55
Perfect. Thank you. I enjoyed it as well, too. Thank you.
speaker
Speaker 2
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44:57

My pleasure, Juan, thank you for joining the speaking and communicating podcast once again. The speaking and communicating podcast is part of the Bpodcast network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the bpodcast network, go to bpodcastnetwork.com. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a view on Apple and Spotify, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.