Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am Roberta, and this week, I am back with John Laurito.

He is a change expert, a leadership expert, a consultant, and he turns companies around, some of which you are very familiar with.

He is the author of Tomorrow's Leaders, a book that he's just released.

And today, he's going to be sharing with us what it is that takes to make a leader, and how do you inspire others as a leader to buy into your vision and follow you.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome John.

Hi, John.

Hi, Roberta.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure.

Great to have you here.

When it comes to leadership, let's try and establish, do you see any differences in this new millennium versus the last two, three decades or so in the way that leadership styles have changed?

Definitely.

I remember coming into corporate America back in the 90s.

I was shocked almost at how authoritative the leadership style was.

It was almost like this dominating style, directive style, dictator type of style that was looked at as being the style that would get the best results.

The days of that type of leader being effective at influencing large organizations and massive change are really far gone.

Today, people really want a leader who's authentic, relatable, empathetic, who is really understanding them and understanding what the goals of the individual are, as well as what the goals of the organization are.

So it's changed dramatically.

And I think that the leader today and in the future is vastly different than they were even five years ago, let alone 10 or 15.

And what do you think brought about this change?

Because one thing about companies is they usually look at the bottom line, profitability, revenue, are we growing?

And therefore, how do they actually measure, okay, we have such great leadership, that's why we produce those results, versus just the products we have are going to sell whether I suck as a leader or not.

Do they actually take time to do that?

Or do they think if we make $100 million a year, it's fine, who cares what our leadership is like?

In reality, I think the smart companies understand that leaders are the ones that make the incremental difference.

So there's a certain expected result that would happen regardless of what leader is there, but the right leader will make a really big difference.

And where you see the signs of that, you can walk into a company sometimes and you can feel the difference in the culture.

You can just feel a place that's supportive, it's collaborative, it's inviting, it's rewarding, it's trusting.

And then ultimately, you feel the difference sometimes on the other end of the extreme when you walk into places.

Well, that's leadership.

A leader is the one who drives that difference in the culture.

It starts at the top.

And what happens in each of those cultures, for better or for worse, is you've got one of those cultures where people are engaged, they're communicating a lot, and they're staying in the organization, they're contributing, they want to grow and help the organization succeed.

And in the other, you see those people leaving.

So you'll see retention problems, you'll see that type of organization have to continue to hire and retrain people because they can't keep people.

So I think what's happened is now people realize, I've got a lot of choices where I work and what career I have.

I mean, it's much easier now to find out what companies are hiring than it was 15, 20 years ago.

It's much easier to apply for opportunities.

So you've got all these changes like that, that make people really realize that they have choice.

The days of somebody staying with an organization for 25 or 30 years to collect a pension, you know, that was way back when that doesn't exist now.

So it's harder to keep people.

And the only way you're going to do that is you're helping people grow.

You're giving them the ability to make a large impact and you're making them feel important and that they're valued in that organization.

We don't live in the industrial revolution where for 30, I'm out just to collect a paycheck, as you say, and wait for your pension.

People don't just value a higher salary or package anymore if they're not happy.

I remember I had a job back in Cape Town, management consulting job.

It was the highest paying job I had had up to that point.

And there came a time when I would actually be physically sick, waking up in the morning, just thinking about going there.

There comes a time when there's just more when you feel like, am I growing?

Is it worth me being here?

Am I contributing and making a bigger impact?

So as you say, there comes a time when even just knowing you have choices, even the money won't make you stay.

No, no.

And I think back to there were times in my career and one of the reasons I left what I was doing, and some people are like, wait, you left this really great paying cushy job, the secure job, and you went off on your own and you had no paycheck.

I said, well, not only did I do that, I did it on February 20th of 2020, which was three weeks before the pandemic hit.

And my business was based a lot around public speaking, keynotes and all this kind of stuff.

So bad time to start a business, but it turned out to be a fantastic time.

But to your point, you know, toward the last couple of years, I mean, there would be Sunday mornings that I would wake up when I was in my corporate job.

As soon as I woke up in the morning, I open up my eyes, I think about work, I think about Monday.

In 24 hours, I'm going to be in the office and I would dread it.

My Sunday was ruined because I hated what I was doing.

I mean, I truly got to a point where I just wasn't enjoying it.

And part of that was I was I knew I could do something different that I was meant to do, which is what I'm doing now.

But the other part of it was just the stress, the the monotony, everything that wasn't rewarding.

So in that case, I had the financial rewards with it, but it wasn't worth it.

And I've seen people chase, they make decisions based on the money.

And ultimately, they find themselves in this place where they're truly chasing that dollar.

That's it.

Because everything else is really just for that two week paycheck or one month paycheck.

And they're incurring so much stress and anxiety and unhappiness that at some point in their life, they look and they say, you know what, it's not worth it.

And unfortunately, sometimes that takes years and years and years for people to be like, why was I doing this?

The pinnacle of life is happiness.

And part of that comes from doing what you love doing and are meant to do.

And when you do that and you find what you're great at and you love to do, ultimately you become a better leader of yourself, a better leader of other people, and you become happy and you end up doing really well financially too.

I saw on your website, you talk about leaders so that they make the best hires.

Do they get involved in the hiring process?

And do they really delve deeper into finding out what the person's hopes and their dreams are, what kind of impact they make so that they establish whether is this person a right fit?

Or are they thinking you go to Harvard degree, you belong here?

That's such a great question, Roberta.

I think it depends on the situation and depends on the leader.

I was talking to a CEO of a tech company the other day and his firm has grown so fast.

They've added 250 people to their team in the last 12 months.

In that situation, he could never interview enough people to hire 250 people.

I mean, that's got to be 2,500 people, thousands of people.

I think it all depends.

In that situation, though, the leader has to build and they've got to be absolutely the people that are hiring their inner core.

They're people that are building their organization.

If I'm starting a company, the first three, four, five people that I hire are going to be the most critical.

A five-person operation, these other four people, they represent 80% of the company, versus if I'm adding five people to a company that's already 500 people.

So it has a much stronger and powerful impact, and so the leader has to be very hands-on with the hiring decisions of those people.

And he or she then needs to make sure that there's a clear understanding of the vision and the mission of the organization and the values of the company.

I find the best leaders are ones that hire people that have values that are in alignment with the core values of the company.

When you hire people that way, you know you've got people in there for the right reasons, and you typically will find those people are going to be in there for the long term with you.

When you start to deviate from that, or you don't pay attention to that, is when you make the bad hiring decisions.

I mean, I've interviewed thousands and thousands of people over the course of my career.

There's people that I've hired that I thought were the absolute best hires that I had ever hired that turned out to be horrible.

And vice versa, there were people that I thought were good that turned out to be phenomenal.

And the bottom line is you just don't know in an interview process.

There's some people that are professional interviewers, that are great at interviewing.

They can put on a great show, they can put together a great resume.

So if you're just looking at resume and look at how they answer some of the surface common questions that you tend to ask, that's not going to do it.

You really got to dive deep, you got to get a good understanding of this person's values.

Hiring people to the organization is critical.

It's an absolute critical task to hire the right people.

So yes, in the early stages or for a small organization, that leader has got to be hands on.

As the organization grows, they've got to make sure the people that are responsible to bring those people in are really top-notch and are really plugged into the values of the company.

So it must trickle down from the top.

Exactly.

Talking about company culture, do you think that the solution is for every company to have a Google type of environment where you come dressed up in shorts and you bring your pet to work, gym?

Is that the answer?

No, I don't think so.

It's a great question because everybody, there's a certain allure to that, right?

Everybody's like, wow, I'd love to have be able to walk in and have free food and have these really cool play areas and play ping pong and everything like that.

I think there's elements of that.

The result of what that is, is a very open environment.

It creates a level of a value of our belief in resting.

So it's not just about work the whole time.

It breeds a lot of communication because there's all these different areas where people can get together and congregate and talk.

So what they've built is an organization that helps support their core values, what they believe.

So if that's not the core values of your company, then having a Google type of environment would not be the right setup.

If your company is based around a different value of process and order and making sure that there's a chain of command, that probably wouldn't be the right culture.

If you've really got to have a culture that really supports what you're trying to do and the office environment that supports it.

I've always been a big believer that people need to have fun.

So in my offices, when I ran different organizations, we always did fun things, we had fun things, we had ping pong tables, we did stuff like that because that also helped me attract people that valued that as well.

But if I were looking at attracting a different type of person that was not wanting to interact with people, they were just off the charts, super smart, and wanted to be locked in their office with their computer and do research and development, then that ping pong table wouldn't attract them at all.

They'd almost be put off by that.

I don't want to have to socialize.

That's okay.

You just have to build the environment based on what you're trying to do.

And speaking of environments, I find that when I worked for a company where for the first time I had a boss who would say, especially around Friday, we never used to plan meetings on Friday because we just thought, oh, it's Friday, especially in my country.

Friday, basically the weekend starts around 1 p.m.

after lunch.

So usually around that time after lunch, my boss would go around saying, Roberta, what are you doing?

And then I'll start mumbling something.

You guys are wasting my internet, my electricity, all the utilities.

Just get done with what you're doing.

It's just everybody go home, not waiting for the 5 p.m.

knockoff time because to him, productivity didn't necessarily mean us sitting in front of desks in our computers.

What has happened with the pandemic, with most people having to be home?

What have companies come to realize with regards to that?

Is productivity about how long you sit in front of your computer?

It's such a great question.

It's such a hot topic.

The answer is no.

It was that old movie 9 to 5, which was with Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin and funny movie way back in the 80s.

That's 9 to 5 has been the personification of work.

I mean, let's say you work 9 to 5, 5 o'clock hits, you're done.

And we just our society's got conditioned to that 9 to 5 you work.

But in reality, what people have started to realize is number one is everybody's different.

There are some people that are not very productive in the morning, but wow, they're really sharp at night.

So if they really wanted to work at night and not work in the morning, why would I as a leader want to prevent that?

If that's what helps them make be more productive, I mean, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, maybe they need to be accessible during for certain meetings or calls or whatever.

But in reality, my job is to build an organization of people that are going to have the environment that they need to succeed.

And I've got to trust the fact that when I hire great people, I'm not going to have to watch over them.

Micromanage them.

Micromanage, you know, have them punch a time clock.

I mean, that's the easiest way to lose A-quality people is they just feel like, okay, this is about the number of hours I'm putting in.

When you have the right people, it's not about hours.

It's about getting the results.

I've had jobs, careers where I was working 60, 70 hours a week, yet was really unproductive because I was doing the wrong things.

And I've had weeks where I worked 10 hours, and in that 10 hours generated more results than I did in three, four, five weeks.

And this is not just me.

I know many, many leaders that I've had.

So Jeff Bezos was working.

He would never wake up or he would never go to the office before.

I think it was 1030.

I think his first meeting was 11.

So you've got such a successful leader there that knows for him to work best, he's got to have family time in the morning.

He's got to have his slow ramp up time and just have some time after coffee, read the paper.

You've just got to figure out what works best for you.

And I think leaders have been now forced to witness that people are at home.

They're working at home over the last couple of years.

And what they've most of them have been pleasantly surprised at how productive people have been when you give them more flexibility and autonomy.

It's pretty amazing.

And not all the time, not always, not across the board.

But most of the leaders that I talked to have been pleasantly surprised.

I don't know if you realize how a lot of motivational speakers would say, one of the things you should change is your habits.

What time do you wake up and they judge you if you're not a morning person.

But he's not a morning person, clearly.

As you said, if you're a self-aware and you know that I work so much better at night, I'm an owl and I'm the most productive when it's evening time.

And your leader would let you be that as long as you produce.

I think that, like I said, if you are aware of that and you let the organization know that, okay, I'm my most productive self in the evening, then there's not this judgment.

Because when you listen to those speeches, you think to yourself, oh, that means I'm not going to be as successful then, huh?

Exactly.

Everybody is different.

It's funny, I was talking about this friend of mine who's in the mortgage business, very, very successful, and he sleeps probably till 9.30 in the morning.

And it was like nine o'clock and so he said, hey, why don't you get him on the phone?

I'm like, no, he's still sleeping.

But it's not that he's being lazy.

I mean, that's his rhythm and the way he runs his day and his week.

Now, what you don't see in that, if you just looked and said, wow, I don't get it.

He's still sleeping at 9.30 on a Tuesday morning.

I mean, what the heck?

He must be unproductive and lazy.

No, what you don't hear or see is the fact that he does his best work at night.

He's working till 8, 9, 10, 11.

And even if that wasn't the case, if he figured out how to be ultra productive, it's like going to the gym.

I go to the gym.

I see people that are in there for two hours, but probably only work out truly for 15 minutes, maybe even 10 minutes.

They're just socializing.

If I could figure out how to go into the gym and really get a great workout in 20 minutes, great.

That's going to be better than me hanging around for two hours, and only doing 15 minutes of workout.

It's all about productivity.

Now, we talk about leadership as if it's something based on position.

You see, oh, you're the director, but what about us as employees or even fresh graduates?

How can we cultivate leadership qualities in ourselves?

What are some of the proactive things we can do?

Well, the first thing I talk to people about all the time is that everybody is a leader.

Unless you have no control over what you think, say, or do, which is not the case, everybody does.

Everybody is a leader.

You're a leader of the toughest person you're ever going to have to lead, and that is yourself.

So when we start to understand that, then it says, okay, my job is to become a better leader.

If I can learn better leadership skills, it will help me lead my own life better, which the result of doing that means that you're making better decisions and better choices.

You're influencing your own mentality and thoughts and actions, and you're ultimately doing more of the things that you want to do and that you should be doing and becoming more happy.

It's really what leadership is.

It's helping you get to a point in your life that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise, whether it's mentally, spiritually, health-wise, fitness, financially, whatever, career-wise.

So I'm a big believer in learn the leadership techniques and learn how to lead not people, but yourself.

Then learn how to lead other people, because it's going to be a lot easier once you learn how to lead yourself and get better at that.

I'm not saying you've got to crack the code and figure out everything and every nuance about it before you start leading other people, but start with yourself and then start to work on leading other people.

You're going to find you're going to be much more effective.

Because I know when I talk to people who are dealing with stress and anxiety, I used to have significant stress and anxiety, both work-wise.

I had panic attacks for 20-something years.

I ran off a stage in front of 70 people.

I had a panic attack.

I had no control at all.

And I finally learned how to lead myself through that.

It was really, really hard.

But it helped me figure out what I needed to do to change that and take something that was totally out of control and bring it in control.

It gave me confidence.

It opened up my eyes to different things that I could do and how I could help other people.

And so when you do that, it helps you become that more effective.

I can talk to people that have stress and panic attacks and anxiety.

Because I come from that situation too.

And have led myself so I can help them lead themselves.

Wow, John, that was so powerful.

Like you said, you cannot help someone else.

I mean, you can, but it's much more impactful if it's something you've gone through yourself because you know exactly what it's like to have been there.

So what are some of the things that you can share with us before we close that we can do to just two or three things to cultivate leadership in ourselves?

So govern ourselves is the first one, as you've mentioned.

And how can leaders, how can they create, cultivate an environment where everyone can possibly thrive and be the best they can be so that hopefully that leads into them being productive and producing more results for the company?

I'll give you a couple of things that listeners can take some action on.

One is there's something that I call the growth spiral.

And the growth spiral is really a way to get yourself, if you are growing in any part of your life, you're feeling good.

And when you feel good, you gain more confidence and it helps you do more things.

So growth starts with just a little tiny thing.

If you can get 1% better in an area, and I don't care what it is, some people get so fixated, they're thinking about their finances and they're like, wow, I'm just a mess and I'm trying to get to this huge level of success.

No, don't worry about that.

Just save an extra 1% above what you are right now.

Whatever, start with a small thing and just do that.

And start with that and then move on to the next thing.

So my message there is think about ways you can get 1% better, not 50% better.

And when you keep getting 1% better in areas, number one, it's a lot easier to get 1% better than 50% better.

And it does look doable.

Yeah, it's amazing at how fast you grow when you do that.

And when you look back and say, even on your worst week, just ask yourself, am I 1% better than I was last week?

And in any way, it doesn't matter, whatever way, am I 1% better in any area this week than I was last week?

And if you are, great, you had a great week.

Doesn't matter if it didn't show up in your paycheck or your scale that you're standing on or anything like that.

And part of that growth viral is I look for ways to help people gain control in something.

When you have a feeling of control with something, it really helps you get this feeling of power.

And when you have a feeling of power and strength, it helps you manage your fears.

And it doesn't mean that you eliminate your fears, because people are still going to be afraid.

But the people that step outside comfort zones, as you talked about, they're people that manage their fears.

So when you get control, it gives you power.

And it helps you manage your fear, which helps you step outside a comfort zone and do something different that might scare you or have that conversation with somebody that's intimidating or pick up the phone and reach out to somebody.

And when you've done that, whether you succeed or fail at that task, you're going to grow.

Because if you succeed, you're obviously going to grow.

Your confidence is going to grow.

But if you fail, you've got the confidence to know that you did something that you couldn't do before.

I tried it, and now I've learned something.

Now I'm going to do it again.

So it's all about building confidence.

So here's how I get control.

If I can take something and just create some order to it, for me, I feel more in control if I go to the gym in the morning.

That just gives me a good sense of control.

I've started my day the way I want to start my day.

Other people do a to-do list, and it gives them a sense of control.

Other people make their bed, it gives them a sense of control.

Other people do meditation, it gives them a sense of control.

That ultimately will start that growth spiral.

So figure out what that is.

It gives you a little sense of that control over your day, and all of a sudden you'll see it's easier to do those other tasks as you go throughout the day.

That's very good advice.

And speaking of trying things that you were afraid of before, I find that one of the things I love about being in my 40s compared to my 20s was I used to think I don't want to try anything in case something goes wrong because the world is going to end.

It's so wonderful to be older because you look back and you think nothing ended.

So I can try things more now because I'm more confident in the fact that even if it falls apart, it's okay.

Because there's this horror story we tell ourselves that, oh, if I try this and it fails, what's the worst that can happen?

Right, exactly.

Such a great point, honestly.

That's even if the worst happens.

It may feel really bad right now, but you know what?

In a month, you're not even going to remember it.

A year, you're not even going to remember it.

But that stuff that happens even when it's bad propels you to another level.

It does help you grow.

Bottom line is it doesn't matter if you stay in your little bubble and never take any chances.

You're still going to fail at something.

You're still going to find failure somewhere.

So you might as well find it by trying new things.

And you're going to find success along that journey too.

Jim Carrey, the actor, talks about his dad.

He said his dad, Percy Carrey, was much, much funnier than he was.

And he said the difference was, he said, my dad never took chances.

He was too afraid to leave his job as an accountant, even though he was significantly funnier than I was.

He just had this magic about him.

And he said, I always wished he would, but he never would because he felt he needed the security of his job.

Until after 25 years, one day he walked in and he got fired and he lost his job.

And the family went through this really tough time, dark time.

They went through financial turmoil because he couldn't get another job.

They were really in financial dire straits.

And his lesson from that, he said, you know, you can fail just as easily doing what you don't want to do and what you think is a safe route.

So you might as well take a chance on what you really want to do.

That message stuck with me.

But didn't the pandemic teach us that as well, that nothing is called secure anymore, especially with regards to jobs and careers and what we thought is secure.

It's not.

So you might as well take a chance.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And it pays off.

And sometimes, you know, I talk to people a lot of times about, I picture myself and I encourage people to think about this.

You're on the side of a lake and you have a certain perspective of that lake.

And this comes from my own experience.

I was kayaking one day.

I finally went out on the kayak in the middle of the lake and I had a whole different view.

And I saw things that were on the shoreline that I had no idea were there.

The analogy I draw is that sometimes you're sitting on the shoreline and you haven't taken a step out.

You just don't see.

And part of why you don't take a step out is because you don't see the path and you don't see everything you want to see.

And you don't know what the picture is going to look like.

And there's so much uncertainty.

But once you do take the step and you are out there, there's things that come into focus that you're like, oh, okay, that's what I need to do.

When I left my job, February 2020, right before the pandemic, I didn't know it.

That was a scary leap of faith.

I had no idea.

But a few months after I did, that's where things became in focus.

And I saw opportunities I never would have seen before.

And it was only because I had taken that leap of faith.

So you can't sit on the shoreline your whole life.

You're just not going to see the things, the opportunities that you're meant to see.

I like that.

A friend of mine has a board and at home it's written, just keep going just to find out where it could lead.

Yep, exactly.

That's exactly right.

John, it's been a pleasure having you here today.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure, Roberta.

It's been a lot of fun talking with you.

I've enjoyed it myself.

And where can we find you before you go?

Sure.

So two places.

One is I have a podcast called Tomorrow's Leader.

So if you search podcast Tomorrow's Leader, I do three episodes a week for the last couple of years.

They can also go to my website, which is my name.

It's johnlaurito.com.

So it's johnlaurito.com.

And they can email me from there.

They can do anything they want.

Excellent.

Thank you so much for being here today.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

Everybody is a leader and leadership is learnable.

That's the key thing.

Leadership is learnable.

Leadership is learnable.

John Laurito.