Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Shifting from Drama to Empowered Leadership
Unlock the secrets to mastering servant leadership with executive leadership coach Chris as we explore how to foster environments where teams truly thrive. How can leaders balance the outer game of performance with the inner game of core values and purpose? Chris shares his wealth of experience from his time in higher education and nonprofit leadership, where empowering others is the true hallmark of success. Drawing on Robert Greenleaf's concept of servant leadership, we investigate how a leader’s true success is measured by the growth and autonomy of their followers.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the interplay between competence and confidence, exploring how the courage to take action can build lasting confidence. Chris and I highlight the pressures leaders face amidst unrealistic expectations and the vital need for a culture that encourages learning and risk-taking. By aligning personal ambitions with organizational objectives, leaders can transcend self-serving goals and make a meaningful impact—both within the organization and in the wider community.
In our final segment, we tackle the challenges of personal growth, addressing the concept of "immunity to change" and the self-imposed barriers that stymie progress. We explore effective strategies for balancing the competing demands of relationships and results, advocating for a shift from a drama-driven mindset to one of empowerment. With insights into moving beyond outdated self-concepts and leveraging discomfort for growth, this episode promises to be a guidepost for leaders striving for continuous development and fulfillment. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that is sure to enrich your leadership journey.
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Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpacked Podcast with your host leadership consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron's delighted to have you join us as he unpacks and shares his leadership experience, designed to help you in your leadership journey. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
Speaker 2:Good morning. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of Global Core Strategies and Consulting, which is a leadership firm based out of Columbia, South Carolina. Everything we do is about adding value, making a difference for people, because people always matter. We love what we do. My wife ran in the business for 10 years. We work together every day, so that's a whole nother conversation. But today we spend a lot of time on Unpacked with Ron Harvey, where we are transparent. Let you behind the curtain, if you will, and answer real questions.
Speaker 2:We invite guests from around the world for this podcast. The beauty of it is all of them say yes without any questions in advance, so you get a real conversation. Nothing scripted other than we're going to talk about leadership and we're going to add value to you and make a difference. So I'm super excited to have a good friend. That's on. We met each other in the green room, had a wonderful conversation before we got started, but I want to bring Chris in. You're on the screen with us, Chris. Thank you for saying yes. Let me hand you the microphone so you can introduce yourself in a way that you want people to know you.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, Ron, it's a pleasure to be with you and, yes, we had a very fine chat in the green room. I enjoy what you're about. I really applaud this work on building connection and I love the words you use social capital. So I think I want to begin there that I'm an executive leadership coach, and what that means in polite terms in terms of social capital is helping leaders create and cultivate the conditions for flourishing at work, Because we spend an awful lot of time there expending a lot of social capital as well as anything else that the business is expending.
Speaker 3:Okay, In straightforward terms, I'm with leaders to help work suck less. One evolving leader at a time Wow. And so what that means for me and why I call my practice the serving way, is because over my 30 plus years of growing up into leadership and then leading right below the C-suite, that means building teams of teams, kind of as an intrapreneur in higher education and a global educational nonprofit space. What I noticed was man, there's some leaders and I sit up a little straighter and my shoulders a little broader and, Ron, when they come to me with a real challenge, I say, yeah, I'll do that, I'll take that on First. I trust you, Ron, that you're not going to cut me off at the knees if I stumble and learn. It's only if I stumble and refuse to learn that you might have an issue.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And I get the sense from these kind of leaders that really had powerful influence on my life is they exercised their rightful power Remember, rightful power with me, for me, through me, and the big thing, they weren't afraid that my power would grow up in me. They were not insecure about me getting bigger and stronger and more capable. So I love to make a distinction between competencies and capacities. Competencies are what I might call the outer game of leadership, like what we do, how we do it. We build it around technique, we build it around skill. We build it around expertise. We build it around experience All very, very valuable. My clients are absolutely paying to see performance gains that are tangible and add real value. Cool, that's the outer game, if you will. Apps on the phone.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:The inner game of leadership, and the inner always drives the outer, Our capacities, the operating system. Who am I as a leader? Operating system who am I as a leader? What is my core purpose? What are my deep values? How do I make meaning out of the world? And it's that inside out, that operating system upgrade that these great leaders were inviting me into. Yes, I would build more skill, but I would also increase my deep core to do the work. Well, you know, about 25 years ago I discovered there was a guy, Robert Greenleaf. He wrote a long paper called the Servant as Leader, and so this whole thing that I was experiencing I found in this notion of serving leadership. I like the word serving rather than servant, because it puts more the emphasis on the doing. And Robert Greenleaf got that just right when he wrote about the best test for a servant leader. He did not list a bunch of characteristics, he said look at the followers. The true test of a servant leader is are the followers growing, becoming more autonomous, wise, strong, capable, and are they serving others?
Speaker 2:So let's talk about that for a second, though. I mean, when you think about that, chris, there was a time. You've been in the industry 30 years plus. You have a lot of wisdom, experience and exposure, if you will, a couple of things you dropped that I think are really really worth unpacking for us. When you think of competence and confidence, in my head it's almost as though they're related One has to exist for the other to exist, because if I'm lacking competence, I may not look confident.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes. I think that's a really good notice, ron, and I come at it this way. I often have clients are saying to me I need to build my confidence, yes, I need to build my presence, I need to build my influence. And we say, yes, of course there are skills and techniques by which you can show that competence and that will gain you a lot of ground. But so many times people are lacking in confidence from the inside out Operating system. Right, they don't believe in themselves. They've told themselves a story or been told stories for a long time.
Speaker 3:Things like to be a leader, you have to get it right every time. Well, no amount of competencies is going to make us perfect. To be a leader, you have to have all the answers. To be a great leader, you need to be able to fix everything. None of those is true as you grow up the leadership ladder, and so I'm finding that I help clients pivot from confidence. That will show itself A different metaphor that'll be the fruit on the tree. Yes, let's go down into the root system, and I help clients see, hey, the way to build confidence is not to wait until you're confident to do stuff. Have the courage to do the stuff and the confidence will emerge.
Speaker 2:I want to explain to our audience. If I'm in an organization where it's unwritten, unspoken, but there is an expectation that you do know all the answers, that you do always get it right, that you can never say I don't know, because then your appraisal or your evaluation takes a hit or you get marginalized or minimized. And there's some culture still in some organizations at least. I've been in some of those spaces where it's almost this unwritten expectation. I have 21 years of military service and there was times where, as I was coming through that leadership chain, I really couldn't say I was, I didn't know and still feel safe and I was going to get promoted. I had to fake it till I make it or fake it till I break it One or the other.
Speaker 2:Something happened. But how do you help leaders that find themselves in the space of where there's an unwritten rule, where we do want you to know it. We promoted you because you're supposed to know it. We do want you to have the answers, we want you to always be right, we want you to always be there. All those are very unhealthy as we move forward.
Speaker 3:Yes, Well, that's a powerful and difficult reality, and I'll go back to what I said, if the word is not too impolite living in a place like that sucks, yes. So I work with leaders at the top to say you've got to change that thing. In fact, if you look around at creating the value that the world really needs from your enterprise, you're not going to get there by demanding that people always have it right. Why? Because we're in whitewater conditions. You're from the military. You know the acronym, vuca. It's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. If that's reality, then to expect you to already have the answers is insane.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:To expect you to fix everything right the first time is nuts. So when I'm working at the top, I say first of all, if you tell that story to yourself, let's start there, because that's not a good story to be telling yourself. Absolutely. Now create the conditions, cultivate a culture in which people feel safe to learn, feel safe to fail, feel safe to take risks. That's going to advance us in whitewater conditions. Yes, only when it's simple and easy and straightforward can we say oh, you already ought to know that.
Speaker 3:So it's a difficult thing when I'm working with people in the middle and I love working with middle management like they are the best. They're the transmission in the car that takes the engine from the C-suite and turns it into traction on the tires. So God bless middle management. So they often sit in this and we often work on things like how do you be a great follower, which means helping leaders see that it's more our ability to evolve than our ability to be right today. Can you make that happen?
Speaker 3:Can you show that upward in a polite way, saying to the boss hey, boss, you think you want right answers from me, but what do we really want and need for this enterprise? And it might come, and I've had clients who realize they are in an unhealthy place that will not allow them to grow up, grow big, grow strong from the inside out. I have the saying if you're the smartest person in the room, get a room of smarter people. I mean, upgrade your room, and so I'll be there with clients who need to walk away in a skillful way and then understand what they're looking for at the next place. So you asked a brilliant and hard, realistic question and thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for the explanation. I mean going in details, I love it. You said something that I love to unpack what does the enterprise need? And sometimes, as leaders, you can get in the way of what the enterprise need versus what the leader wants. And there should be an alignment, but that's not always the case. Sometimes there's a misalignment in what the leader wants, because of their own personal agenda, and what the enterprise needs.
Speaker 3:How do?
Speaker 2:you help navigate that space if you're looking and you're trying to lead up and it feels as though the leader has an agenda versus and it's not in alignment with what the enterprise needs I'm going to sit with that a bit because it's really juicy, and I'll come at it this way.
Speaker 3:I coach leaders who understand that to really serve their stakeholders wisely and well, they have to serve purposes greater than themselves. It's's that simple. Unless we are helping in our enterprises to create flourishing in the world for customers, yes. For the investors, yes. For the board, yes. For the C-suite, yes. For the employees, yes.
Speaker 3:But when I'm with a client, there are a lot of other people in the room the families of all these people. I've just named the families of all these people. I've just named the communities of all these people. I've just named the generations that will come after all these people. I've named that their enterprise exists to create true value that people out there, stakeholders, want and need, then we're probably not a good fit. That client and I. Now to help somebody in the middle.
Speaker 3:I always invite them really to say put yourself in your boss's position and consider what's in it for them, what's the pain point they're trying to solve, but then expand it out. What's in it for this enterprise To be a functioning, healthy, high social capital, high idea I-D-E-A, inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible? What does it take us to be a high idea culture. And then how do the people out there in the world say, yes, that makes my world better. And now we come back to the leader, my client herself, and we say so, place what you want right in the center of that.
Speaker 3:What do you want? What do I want, me client, what do you want, ron, my boss? What do we, the team, the team of teams, which is the enterprise, what do we want? But it's all based on what can I get a little goofy? Yes, absolutely, what the universe wants, or call it higher power, call it God, call it like something bigger, that is calling us to make life more fruitful, life more easeful, life more beautiful, all the way out to our planet home, which we all share.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. I love it Unpacking I mean, you dropped it there real quick. I have to go in reverse a little bit. You mentioned idea and I'd love for you to mention that again because, as, because, as leaders, I think it's super important, especially what we're trying to figure out right now. So can you go back a little bit and walk them through the idea again, like if the organization is really helpful. Using the word idea, the acronym, so I inclusion d diversity, e equity a accessibility.
Speaker 3:Inclusion D diversity E equity, a accessibility. And so, when we think about really serving a very broad constituency, a broad set of stakeholders, we need lots of different people at the table. We need them to know that they're included. We need the diversity, the differences, the multiplicity from many, many voices, many points of view. We need equity in the sense that when we do the right things, the right things come back to us and the accessibility means it's more than just do I have a nominal place at the table? Do I check some box in HR? No actual power needs to be accessible to me at my level.
Speaker 3:So go back to those whitewater conditions. I need lots of different people in the raft with lots of different abilities to notice the conditions. And maybe everyone on the left side of the raft has to go hard paddle and everyone on the right goes hard back paddle because we need to turn. Oh man, we're not going to do that If everybody in the raft thinks the same way, sees the same things, does everything the same way. We just live in way too complex a world to be so simplistic not to seek out the best ideas inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. You really have more than a seat at the table. You help create what this table is and I think, if there's one big word that wraps it up, that people are looking for is a sense of I want to feel I belong here at work. So we're back to social capital, which is all about the exchange of what we bring. That's different, which gives us a sense of I belong to you, you belong to me, we belong to this enterprise because the enterprise belongs to the world.
Speaker 2:Yes. So when you think about leadership and if I'm a young leader and young leaders watch and they listen it's the first time in the leadership role we got senior executives, ceos. What do you tell a new leader that's coming up, that's trying to figure it out? What are some best practices that you're noticing? If it's my first time in leadership and I want to be good, but technically I'm sharp and I get promoted because of that. But now I'm in this position where my future is not based on my skillset of doing this task anymore. It's based on my ability to influence, take care of and be responsible to people that I'm held accountable for. Right, this is for me.
Speaker 3:All right, so you've named it so beautifully. I love being with clients at their growing edge. That's a place where they see more of what got them here is not going to serve them at that next level. That's being called for from their leadership. And it's really hard because many times we've built an identity around what got us here. Build an identity around what got us here.
Speaker 3:I got to confess I spent a lot of time of my life thinking my identity is based on being the smartest kid in the room. I was rewarded for it from kindergarten through grad school until I look around and, as I said, being the smartest is not going to get me where I need to go and in fact, it's holding me back. I'm getting in my own way. So when clients at the middle can start saying, oh man, I've got some tough stuff to let go, I've built an identity about being a great solo performer and now I get my 360 review and says people can't stand, chris, that you delegate and then you take it back, uh-oh, that you delegate and then you take it back, uh-oh. And so their minds are blown and they have to let go so that they can receive the next place they're going to be Now one of the things that stands in the way so this is one of those best practices, or I'd call it a common theme I'm with is what I call immunity to change. I didn't make it up, keegan and Leahy and Harvard made it up, but what it means is that I say I'm really committed to do X, y, z, I need to do that to up my leadership game. And I don't do it. And then people beat themselves up. But if we unpack, say what else are you committed to? That you're not really aware of it's actually blocking this other commitment. Unconscious is blocking you and there's a story behind that other commitment. So, for example, if I'm called upon to have more influence, have a bigger voice, take bigger risk, if I have a competing commitment to be a people pleaser, to be liked, well, I can say all I want here's how I'm going to show up differently in the outer game. But if I don't address the inner game and let go of that I need to be liked, then we're not going to go ahead. So just working in the space to help clients find where's this other stuff, where they're getting in their own way, and then how to release that. So immunity to change.
Speaker 3:Another one that's so important is to be able to navigate polarities. Yes, where we see an either or. Both are really good and we can't seem to have them together. It seems like they want to pull apart. So relationships and results we all know leaders who are just all about the relationships. It's kumbaya, it's everyone gets along and sometimes serving gets a bad rap that way, like it's all about everyone getting along and being happy. No, people need results too, not only the enterprise Everyone getting along and being happy. No, people need results too, not only the enterprise.
Speaker 3:I need to not only be in a good relational space, we need to notch some wins as a team. We need to produce stuff of value. That's as important to me and my growth as being in a healthy relational space. So when folks say, oh man, if I lean too hard on the relationships, I will fall down into a lot of negative, unintended consequences, if I'm too hard on the results side, I'm going to fall down into a lot of unintended consequences. I probably have a preference, and my preference will cause me to ignore my own dark side and all I see is the dark side of the other side and I don't appreciate the upside. Well, if I can start, change that and move with you to a third way which is not just a pendulum or split the difference like 50-50 relationships results. A pendulum or split the difference like 50-50 relationships results. It's more like how do we have the upside of both while avoiding the downside of both? And we're going to have to let go some of our favorite things. And I'm back to idea. You need a lot of different people in the room to bring the two sides of a polarity up into the light so that we can find our way together in that third way. Immunity to change, navigating polarities those things come up a lot. And the other one I'll add to is being able to move from drama to empowerment.
Speaker 3:In drama man, we all fall into one of these three roles and we'll cycle around all of them. I'm a victim. Woe is me. I have no power, no control. I'm not saying that people don't actually suffer being made victims. I'm talking about a victimization mindset. Yes, that everything is somebody else's fault out there in the world. And then the persecutor role, that's, the person who never wants to be the victim, so the best defense is a strong offense. And then the third role is the rescuer who actually is not trying to fix anything, except they're trying to fix their own discomfort. They see the drama, so I'll go in, I'll put a band-aid, I'll make it all all better For them to see wow, I can pivot from a victim mindset all about threat and danger and problem to a creator mindset. It's about desired outcomes, it's about what I want in the future. I can move from persecutor to truthful challenger and I can move from rescuer to coach. Now you can see, we do that for ourselves. We need to work out that dynamic in ourselves. We do that for ourselves. We need to work out that dynamic in ourselves, in our close relationships.
Speaker 3:But if leaders can move from oh yeah, I'm contributing to this drama because you know, I feel you victimized me, ron, because you didn't do it, you experienced me as a persecutor and then we're looking for somebody or something to come and rescue where I can move. No, how wrong? Could you and me be co-creators? And if I'm a leader, sometimes I'm going to have to challenge you with the truth. But can it be a challenge for you to grow, for me to grow, for the enterprise to grow? And then, as a coach, it's more like how are we actually going to develop together what it takes to do this? So, yes, I can do it. Here's how we're going to do it and okay, let's go after it. Three things immunity to change, navigating polarities and moving from drama to empowerment.
Speaker 2:Yes, Thank you. Phenomenal Thank you for sharing. I want to go back and unpack something that you said earlier. It's showing up across the board. How do you help leaders that at some point in your career, when you're in your climbing ladder of success, you become very consciously competent? I mean, you become good and you know you're good. Yes, Then you find yourself in a position where you've gotten promoted and you become unconsciously or you become consciously incompetent because you're not as good as you used to be. You don't have all the answers you used to have because you're not in the job you used to be in, which causes insecurity.
Speaker 3:How do you help?
Speaker 2:leaders that find themselves going from this consciously competent to this consciously incompetent because they've gotten promoted or they're climbing a corporate ladder and they find themselves in a role that they're not technically as good as they used to be because of the promotion, so they're insecure. How do you help them be safe and not be destructive in the workplace?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got to pause and say I've been on a lot of these and you ask really good questions. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it Very real. Down to earth, this, the pain, is questions. So I love that model of conscious competence, conscious incompetence, like I kind of know that I don't know. Yes, I know I don't know. Yes, conscious incompetence and unconscious incompetence. It's for yes.
Speaker 3:Now to help the person who's kind of stuck in man. I know that I don't know some things, I know I'm being stretched. It goes back to what I said before I knew I was being stretched and the great leader said you know what, chris? Together we can work on the stuff on the outer game where you know you don't know, and we can figure that out. But back in whitewater conditions, none of us know what we don't know. It's just too crazy. Out there, everyone is sitting in some space of we don't even know where the cause and effect lines go. Yes, well then that is really uncomfortable. I mean, people are in a lot of pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, and I'm not a therapist, but I'm with the whole leader.
Speaker 3:Leader, when we can drop down and to say you know, it's really okay to not know what you don't know yet, just add the word yet I'm not competent on the outside game yet I'm not fully developed on the inner operating system.
Speaker 3:That's at the unconscious level yet. And now, if you can go, sit in the space where I'm very curious what I'm unconsciously incompetent about and embrace that as a friend, not as the enemy, because when we go to that place we can come back the cycle and say, oh, now I kind of know the deeper development, the internal generative change that I'm going to need to really be successful at the next level. And we go back to say it's for the leader, the chief culture officer, the chief purpose officer, the chief vision officer, the chief serving officer, to create the conditions in which I can move around that cycle. Because when we get to that place of conscious competency, the world's going to change and I'll be back in the cycle. And I got to go all the way to the beginning of what do I not know, that I don't know and I don't even know how I make sense of this. Yes, until I go inside and say what are my sense making capacities and can I upgrade my abilities to thrive in VUCA whitewater conditions?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. I mean, thank you for unpacking that, because it happens constantly but we don't talk about it and we find ourselves in that space and having a good explanation of hey, everybody goes through that. And the moment you become constantly competent, hold on, because you're about to take that roller coaster dip one more time and you're going to have to navigate through all the bends and the curves and the flipping you upside down to get back to the top of that roller coaster again, as fun as it is and I imagine it like a roller coaster in order to have the fun you're going to get bent and turned and flip upside down and all that stuff and screaming and yelling, but then you get off and you realize like the experience was worth it because you got the thrill that you were looking for. That's leadership, yes.
Speaker 3:Another aspect in this Chris Argyris came up with ages ago, and that's the idea that first order learning is all on the side of consciousness. I see that I'm consciously competent, then life gets hard and I'm consciously incompetent, and if we just cycle up and down on that side, that's first order learning. It's like we tried something, it didn't work, let's go back and try something else. Second order learning is we tried it, we executed it, but the strategy wasn't right, and so we go back to second loop learning, go deeper. We executed it, but the strategy wasn't right, and so we go back to second loop learning, go deeper. And the third loop learning is our strategy isn't right because our thinking processes weren't right. We had assumptions, we had blind spots. The best strategy in the world that we had was sort of built on sand. So we have to go back again to the inner place of what were you assuming? What were our unconscious biases? What do we absolutely know is right? But it's not Because the results are clearly telling us. I mean, that's not right because it's not producing the stuff in the world that the world wants, that the world will pay money for, pay attention to.
Speaker 3:So again, you know first order. Lots of people just bounce back and forth, tried it, adjust it, tried it, adjust it, try it, adjust it. They'll spin there forever. Then they go back to okay, what was the strategy, why did we do this? And then drop down into again what were our meaning-making apparatuses that are not up to the task at this new level of complexity.
Speaker 3:So to help leaders, the earlier the better, they start practicing triple loop learning. Then I'm going to come back when they do that, especially when a coach is alongside, who kind of play, or a great leader who's a coach, kind of I play for you your best highlights on the game film, not your worst, your best and then say to you that thing, figure out how you do that and do more of that. When those growing leaders can start doing this with the help of a coach for themselves, they develop the confidence and the courage to keep turning those cranks. And if it's the right place, a place full of ideas, hopefully they'll be rewarded and they'll have satisfaction and fulfillment and a work-life balance because their purposes and values are aligned with all that time they're spending. And if it's not the right place, they know how to graciously move on because they know who they are. They know why they want to lead, not just the outer how and what.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I love the gracious move on and I think that's important because there comes a time when you do have to grac gracious move on, and I think that's important because there comes a time when you do have to graciously move on, and it's not that you're not good or the organization is just not the right place for you and everybody has a particular place and it's so important to understand oneself. I love what you're sharing and I know you're doing phenomenal work as we begin to come to a close for the podcast. Are there any highlights you would love to share with the audience about our conversation? Then we'll go to you, know who are you, where are you, how do we reach you and make contact with you? So, is there anything based on our conversation? What nuggets would you leave the viewers and the listeners?
Speaker 3:Well, viewers, listeners, pay attention to the questions Ron asked. He asked the real hard on the ground questions. The next thing to take away is we need to be able to sit with discomfort. We need to sit with it, not push it away, not just pull the happy easy. We need to sit with it to see what does this want to teach me? It's when we are avoiding pain and trying to hold on to what's easy that we're just going to be stuck. Yes, we got to go out in those places of sometimes really deep discomfort. That's where having a great serving leader, that's where having a coach, a mentor, therapist, if that's necessary, a spiritual friend all of those elements to your whole person will help you sit with what is, because reality is our friend and the just buck, reality is a recipe for a life of hurt. So if that's the thing to take away is we put out some really real deal stuff here and there are no simplistic things, even in coaching or leadership development. That is as complex as anything those leaders are facing, if not more so. So be with it, just be with it. Let life teach us, find the people who support our ideas and go with grace, starting with grace for yourself, because we are going to mess up all the time, and so be able to give ourselves grace, to have some compassion and some kindness. I'll end this way.
Speaker 3:When I went to the coaching program for my certification at georgetown university, the minute we all walked in like 30 of us, the highest performers around the world and all kinds of things and I was the guy sitting there, like everyone else, saying they surely made a mistake about me. I mean, I'm the person they let in for who knows why this is going to be a disaster. And the first mantra we learned is I am already a great coach. I am already a great coach. You are already a great leader and I am always a beginner. I will always be a beginner. I will always begin again and again with a beginner's mindset which is curious and open and nonjudgmental. And so here's to the next great leader all y'all are pregnant with already. If you need a coach, a coach is like a great midwife Not my baby, I can't have it for you, but I'm really good at being alongside. But I'm really good at being alongside. And great coaches are good at being doulas birthing partners for the folks doing the inside out work.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we've unpacked a lot. Chris shared a lot and you'd like to meet him more. I mean, georgetown is where I went as well, so you're exactly right how to get you into that program and they do a phenomenal job. So you know professional development. I call it strength and conditioning. People call it professional development. I say no, it's strength and conditioning. And you never, ever stop doing strength and conditioning. No matter how long you've been in the game, how long you've been around, how mature you are, you constantly do strength and conditioning.
Speaker 2:So thank you for providing strength and conditioning for all of our viewers, all of our listeners, and real, practical, open, realistic conversation that we unpacked. So, chris, you've done a phenomenal job and I want to make sure that people know how to reach you. People look for coaches. They're very valuable, but you got to have the right coach. If someone's interested in having you on another podcast or talking to you more about coaching or your practice and what you do as a business, can you share enough information so people can reach out to you should they desire to?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, and I'm sure you'll have this in the show notes as well, but the website is theservingwaycom. I will say, when you come there, be looking to find yourself, because I want you to realize somehow Chris already gets it that I'm the hero of my own story. I don't lead ever with who I am and what I do and how great I am and all my credentials and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all about you. So come to the website and see if you find yourself. If you do, then let's have a 30-minute coaching exploration. It is absolutely not a sales call. It's all about you will experience what coaching conversations are like with me, because it's all about a trusted relationship. It's all about a right fit. You might not be right for me, I might not be right for you, that's fine, we'll have a great conversation. I will go by saying I met a great human being, but if then it seems you'd like to explore this, we take the next steps to really custom, craft and design an engagement that meets those external goals that your stakeholders want to see in your performance, and then start looking at and what are the things you're going to need to really be shifting from the inside out At LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:It's under my name, chris Thiberg. I'm an occasional poster of content. I seek to do more, and the email address is christhyberg at theservingwaycom. So all of these places are the doorway to find me and start a conversation. And it will be that a conversation. You will experience, you will taste what coaching is, and it will be all about you. And then you get to ask me. All about me? Sure, I'll tell you, but let's begin with you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it, Chris. And for the leaders that are listening, you know Chris dropped as he's telling you how to reach him. He's telling you don't make it about you as leaders, and I love the idea. You never have to sell anything to anybody. Just be of service to people. You never have to sell anything. Be of service. Find out a way to serve people and people will buy. You know what I have learned over time, chris, is that people don't like to be sold anything. They like to buy everything. They want to be in control of the process. So allow people to be in control of whatever it is that you offer. Just be of service and you will never have to sell anything. Chris been phenomenal. Thank you for joining us and unpacking For all of and viewers.
Speaker 2:You know we bring a different guest on every single Monday. We release a different episode and share information that's been very, very helpful. We invite you to share it with your friends, your colleagues or co-workers or leaders that you know that are looking for some other resource to get better at what they do. Unpacked with Ron Harvey, released every single Monday. Again, we're on a leadership development firm. Chris and I are both in business. We would love to earn your business. I'd love to do a partnership with anybody that's looking for the work that we provide or the resources. So reach out to either one of us. I'm at Global Core Strategies and Consulting. You can find us. I'm also on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you, and just to collaborate doesn't mean either one of us have to do business, but I love meeting great people. Thank you all for joining and sticking with us for our podcast. Once again, ron Harvey, unpacked with Ron Harvey and here with Chris Thiberg. That's T-H-Y-B-E-R-G. Look us up. Love to talk to you Until then.
Speaker 1:Chris and I will sign off and you guys have a wonderful day. Well, we hope you enjoyed this edition of Unpacked Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice. To join us every Monday as Ron unpacks sound advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are, for the people you serve, because people always matter.
