Podcasts

Episode 44- Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Jenny Drescher and Ellen Feldman Ornato - The Bolder Company

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Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ. I've got something very exciting for you all today, I have some improv specialists background people in Ellen and Jenny from the Bolder company. And one thing that I really loved about your strap line of Bolder Company was step up, speak up and stay up. So welcome.

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Ellen  

Thank you, Ross.

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Jenny

Thanks.

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Ross  

And really, you join us in your area is quite interesting, because a lot of people talk about behavioral change and transformation. And there was another key word and word really matter. And it's described as a catalyst for lasting behavioral change that empowers businesses to thrive. And so tell me a little bit more about Bolder Company and your backgrounds.

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Ellen  

Alright, so Jenny and I have been friends for I think it's 18 years at this point, we've been friends a very long time. And we started doing improv together for fun. We both owned our own companies and the improv exercises for us and I would say Jenny got it more quickly than I did. But we both started saying these exercises that we're learning are applicable in the work that we're doing in our professional lives. I was working as a full-time facilitator and I also had a marketing and PR company. I'll let Jenny talk about her background separately. But what we noticed was when we incorporated not only the principles and practices of improv, but when we actually used improv exercises in the work we were doing, things shifted more quickly for people. So I'll toss it to you, Jenny.

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Jenny  

Yeah, I think that's 100% true. So like Ellen said, we were doing our own things. I was largely working as an executive coach and doing a lot of learning and design, facilitation and freelance training. And so I was looking for something to bring learning to life a little bit more and stumbled into improv, I actually have a theatre background from a million years ago. So reactivating it was like reactivating a part of myself that had gone dormant.

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And when that happened, I started to integrate improvisation into learning right away. And what I think makes it work is the fact that we can read a book about listening. But that's not the same as actually practicing, listening and doing listening. So improvisation puts us in a position where we're doing the thing that we know we are supposed to be doing, right? If you're going to be a good conversation partner, it's a question of, “Oh yeah, I should be a good listener.” But improv makes you practice it. So you form all these new brain neuro pathways. That's why I think it works so effectively and faster.

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Ross  

I like that and the aspect of learning and development through either coaching or facilitating. It's one of these things where we go through phases I've seen within corporates of it being invoke, and this challenge and one of the beauties of improv is it's fun, it's a way to help people get out of themselves, and to break down a lot of barriers. And initially my improv was watching it on TV, Whose Line Is It Anyway, go into Second City when I was at in Chicago, and I loved watching it. But it's a very different thing, as you said, when you actually do it. And I think that's true of a lot of things and particularly around adaptability is there's a difference in learning to doing. And so what's been and so improv has been a big impact that shaped your careers. What are some other key events that you've come across that have helped shape your thinking and the way in which you engage with your clients?

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Ellen  

Well, when Jenny and I started our improv journey together, as we said, we both owned our own companies. And so one of the ways that we were filling our pipeline with future customers is we were going to networking events, right? Where people show up and they put on a name tag, in the worst possible scenario, they make you stand up and introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your company in 30 seconds or less. So like, no pressure there, but what we noticed was people were standing up and dying. They were the worst representation of their companies that they could possibly be because they were nervous. Somebody had told them that had to memorize an elevator pitch. And it was so inauthentic. And then you'd meet them in a conversation afterwards and go, “Oh, there you are.” That person didn't stand up in this room. That person didn't represent your company, that person didn't represent you and who and how you are.

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So what improv does for people and so when we started our first forays into doing work together, it was let's help people network more effectively, because we can help them show up feeling more comfortable in their skin, which means that they're a better representation for themselves, their companies, and they're more at ease. And so what improv does, you mentioned it before Ross is it helps us get over ourselves. But it also helps us get comfortable with being seen and heard, and seen and heard and screwing up.

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Because improv is nothing more than being willing to put yourself out there, make a terrible mess, and keep going, or succeed wildly and keep going. Because it only happens once. It's not like theater where you rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then you do it, right? You rehearse the principles and practices of improv, but every scene is improvisational, like getting up at a networking event. So that was really the genesis of where we started was how can we help people stand and be seen with more power and ease? And that's still what we're doing now. We're just doing it in bigger organizations with higher stakes for what they need to be more comfortable with.

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Ross  

And Jenny I'm interested in, so this challenge of being our authentic selves, and how do we show up, to be heard, and the way in which we can feel comfortable? I mean, life is just one continual improvisation. We set goals and set plans and then, was it Mike Tyson, everyone has a planning till they get hit in the face. And a lot of that is similar in terms of our lives and our careers and our paths. We'll set a plan, then things happen. And so I'm interested in your view of how from this drama, improv into then high stakes, executive coaching, where there are real results, how is that really tied together between “Oh we've had a fun off-site day” to “This is having real business impact for us,” and the human people that you work with. So tell me a little bit more about that.

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Jenny  

So I love that question. And one of the things that's exciting about that is that when you use improvisation to teach people, what you're actually teaching them, and this is how we designed, I don't know if every person who does the kind of work that we do does this, but many of our colleagues do is you practice the skill or the principle in isolation, kind of like if you go to the gym, you use a machine, maybe that goes out like this. And in the use of that machine, you're only working your pecs, right? Or your pecs and your biceps only. Everything else on your body, you're not really using nearly as much, your focus is on these muscles.

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So we design improvisation exercises in context to do that exact thing. So it lowers the stakes and isolates the skill. So that then you're able to as a learner go in practice just that one little skill, like reading other people's emotions, right? Because empathy is a thing that most of us need to get better at. So we might do an exercise where they're in character reading each other's emotions, but then they have a conversation, a rich conversation about, “Wow, where else do I need to be doing that in life?” So they start practicing low stakes, easy access, isolated muscle, then they're able to practice it.

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We always love telling people to practice all of these things at the grocery store. Practice everything at the grocery store. Because that's a low-stakes environment where you can still make that extra effort to read that cashier's face and ask her or him. “So you look a little down today, is everything okay?” And then they'll answer back. “Oh, I'm not down. I was just concentrating.” Great, now you know that you were practicing reading. But you got it wrong. What a wonderful thing to learn. So if you practice it everywhere you go, then when the stakes are higher, and it's the real world, you have that much more muscle memory for it.

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Ross  

I love that and it ties into one of the lasting impressions I got from when I met Chris Voss. He is the ex FBI, hostage negotiator. And he wrote the book Never Split The Difference. And they talk about low-stakes practice. So you build the skill and build the muscle in low stakes. So that when it's high stakes you've got some, as you say, muscle memory within that. And do you see clients and executives actually make that leap and those connections between practicing the muscle and then executing it in the high stakes as well? And do you get the opportunity to have, really good feedback, because as you talked about there, got it wrong but they had feedback so that they could then readjust and reassess.

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So I'm really curious in the way you've structured your programs at the Bolder Company and using it where you're practicing, then they go off and do it in high stakes. How do you work in terms of getting that feedback loop so it can be continual for lasting behavioral change, and thriving? So tell me a little bit more about that, Ellen?

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Ellen  

Well, one story is we got a call may be about six weeks ago from a former client, from when we first started doing our work together. One of the things that people said to us immediately after our first class, which was about public speaking and presentation skills is “Do you have more?” And we said, “Yes.” And immediately created a four-part series. And then another four-part series, because people were, they were authors who needed to stand at a podium and talk about their books. They were people who worked in corporate America, who had to make presentations standing up in front of a roomful of people.

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And we have this one physicality exercise that we made up, and it's like, close your eyes and imagine that you are the sheriff. And you need to walk into, a corral full of gunslingers, right? And have them take on the physicality of being tall and strong. And making direct eye contact and also having them practice kind of slumping in their seat, not looking directly at the camera. And so we had them say, “I'm the sheriff, and this is my town.” So this guy who contacted us said, first of all, we want you to work with our team, because people really need to up their assertiveness and their willingness and ability to speak up. Great. He said, I need you to know that. And this is in what, six years ago, that when I have a high stakes meeting, I breathe before the session and say I'm the sheriff and this is my town. So that's pretty awesome feedback.

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And then to answer on a more like how we do it as a company after each session, we're asking people give us direct feedback, on what worked for you, what's still challenging, what do you need to work on going forward? And we're also incorporating the improvisational mandate to make your partners look great. So if I go into a meeting, and I risk speaking up, and we're working with the whole team, and they know their job is to make their partners look good. Their job within that conversation is to find ways to “Yes And” what their partner's saying. And provide them with support, nod at them, make eye contact, smile at them, and support their courageous decision. So it's both behavioral in terms of how we act with each other and behavioral in terms of how I act on my own, as I'm taking on what I do.

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Ross  

So this challenge of taking something that was theory into practice, into then trialing it in the high stakes, to then becoming a habit and becoming something that sustains as a ritual, as a practice, as a mantra, as you talked about, before big meetings, you stand a certain way, you breathe a certain way and you have a saying that comes out. And I think this vision and challenge for organizations and any people going through change is that we need some things that are stable that do give us anchors so that when we face uncertainty, we've got an element in that crazy environment and world that we can depend on. Whether that is the saying that we have or the way in which we control, as I say our breathing and things.

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In terms of some of the clients and it doesn't need to be the specific stories of clients and bits there. But one of the things I'm really keen on and I know a lot of our listeners are is leaders who are leading other people, they have teams about how do they manage themselves and their own vulnerability and emotions. And where you said, “Hey, got it wrong, got it wrong at the grocery store, didn't do this right.” And the perception of leaders or managers getting things right, and the shift to being comfortable with getting certain things wrong.

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What advise or, organizations or teams who do that very well to create a safe space. Perhaps just give some tips or advice to leaders who might be in that situation of feeling, “I used to have all the answers, I used to know the playbook, I used to know what was coming, now everything shifted and changed. I'm working in a different environment and I'm feeling vulnerable.” How do they feel like the sheriff when they don't feel like the sheriff. It's kind of what I'm getting to. So I'm interested Jenny for any tips or hints or stories around where you've seen that transition that we might be able to learn from?

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Jenny  

That's a great question. I think that my top tip for an executive facing a sea of unknowns is to ask themselves the question, “How do I want my people to show up? Do I want my people to show up thinking they have to have all the answers or behaving as if they need to be right all the time? Or do I want them to be on the defensive all the time?” And if the answer to those questions is, “Heck, no, I don't want my people to be showing up like that,” then it's incumbent upon me as the leader to model the opposite of that. Because if we know that the future, if we look at your research and your body of work, Ross. We know that the future is full of loads and loads and loads of unknowns.

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So getting comfortable walking through that unknown means modeling that and saying, “Okay hey everybody” and sometimes it's direct conversations, direct conversations. We've had that many times with leaders where they had to come face to face in a coaching conversation and we've had to say, “Hey, you don't have an answer and if you want your people to be comfortable with it, you need to start trying that on to.”

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And once you give people permission to give themselves permission, that's a game-changer. We need to need to give ourselves permission to not have the answers. So very often, that's a step one right there is, “Am I giving myself permission and approval to not be the knowing of everything, not be the end-all and be-all.” And that permission goes a long way. We don't tend to reckon with our own level of permission nearly enough.

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Ross  

Yeah and I think from that Jenny is a great point. And I love this conversation because it's all “Yes And’s” right? Because you take it, you accept it and that's what great conversations are about and can we do that with ourselves? Can we have a great conversation with ourselves that is able to give us permission where we didn't have it before? To change an identity of what was before that I was the person with the answers to maybe I'm not the person with the answers right now but I'm interested in discovering them together. And giving yourself permission to evolve into something new, I think is a really helpful and it's just ticked a number of things in my own mind, about how we operate as an organization of giving ourselves permission. Is really, really interesting and I have got lots of thoughts now. I don't know if you want to add something there.

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Jenny  

You just used one of my favorite words, Ross. Which is evolve, right? Because so many, that's another dimension that I never really thought about is how often are we having conversations about change and changes, evolve is so much more approachable. Just from a language perspective, it's got a very different tone to it, right? I would like to evolve myself as a worker, as a school bus driver, as a CEO, as a whatever fill in the blank. Because there's something more for me on the other end of that which is a completely different conversation than I need to change because this isn't working. One is an emotional load that is 10 tons one is much more aspirational and inspirational. There's a whole lot more energy.

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Ross  

I'd like to add a little bit on that. Because words really do matter, they change our feeling, our sense, all of the nervous system of our reaction to “Do we get this amygdala hijacking when we go into something that we're facing of this fear?” to “Is evolve do we see that as something that's positive? Do we see that it is additive? Do we see change as conflict? Do we see change as bad?” And all of these biases and associations that we have with words, with people with jobs with roles, all of it evolves. We might have a particular word that means something in one country, in one culture, in one context, and it evolves over time.

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And this comes and I'd like your thoughts on this, Ellen is this challenge of unlearning, to accept something before, and now give ourselves maybe the permission to see it as being something else later. And particularly around maybe your journey from marketing and PR of keynotes, of facilitation now into the work that you're doing of that evolution journey. Where did you have to let go? What did you stop doing to give yourself permission of new things that you've now taken on?

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Ellen  

Wow, interesting question about my brain was in the place of the clients that we intersect with, and the evolution and shift that's occurring now, simply because the folks who were raised by people who were World War II Veterans, who came from an industrial age and that industrial mindset, that's still very operational in many parts of corporate America, and municipal government and state government where we are. As generations rise with different expectations for flexibility and vulnerability and of course, it varies by industry.

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But we see the shift occurring because people are more willing to say, we can be in charge instead of I'm in charge. For me, personally, from an unlearning standpoint, I've always had a passion for diversity and inclusion work. Starting with my own journey in terms of realizing it, I don't know, almost 30 years old, that everything that I thought I knew about myself was really not very true. Because I was looking at it through a lens of having grown up in a mostly white suburban area. And so all of the things that were running in the background, in terms of bias, were things that I didn't necessarily think of. And once there was a spotlight on then I said, “Ah, there's a place of unlearning for me, and how do I help other people unpack that?”

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Because that talk about loaded words, telling people you're going to put them in a required opportunity for unconscious bias work, sets up a wall of I'm not biased, I'm a good person. My family are good people. I didn't learn that right. So we have to disarm the whole conversation with different word choices. So the process we believe of unconscious bias and unpacking that is through the lens of emotional intelligence and who and what we respond to that does hijack our amygdala. And how do we notice the subtle things that take us out of being present as well as the mega things, the mega things are a little more obvious, but what are the subtle things in our day-to-day journey?

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So the unlearning, for me has been how do I let go of things I used to do to focus more on the development of leaders? The answer is I don't let it go, I integrate it. Because we're also business owners. So everything that I learned in PR and marketing, we use. Everything I learned, most a lot of things I learned in urban planning, we use because we work in architecture, engineering, and construction. So the integrated piece of it is, I'm not reviewing site plans for development anymore and I can have that conversation with our clients about what they do with some level of understanding. So for me, it's more about like, how do we integrate? I would say the unlearning is what are normal business hours.

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Ross  

Yeah and I really want to drill into this Jenny, where you picked up on the evolve and to evolve things. So a journey of unlearning that evolves, what do I focus on, what becomes a support act, what becomes a standing at certain points? And it also got me thinking when you were talking about diversity and inclusion, and all of these pieces of how does I am the sheriff, and that generation safe for an individual, to thinking of the inclusivity, we are the sheriff's and we come to this room, and we come to this town.

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And I think there's always a place where it balances the “zoom in, zoom out” the “I” the “we” where there are things where it is about you, and it's cool to be about you. So there's other bits where it's cool to be about we and inclusive and team. And that to me is a sign of intelligence to do that with knowledge, with thought, with insight. And I wonder if you could tell me a little bit more about your company from the aspect of all these words matter, and it's called Bolder. So where did you get that name? And is it from this sense of being bold? What's the story behind the name?

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Jenny  

So the story behind the name is that when we had our previous brand, the first couple of years that we were in business, it was always a placeholder, and we never completely loved it. And we realized along our journey, we work with some good friends who are in branding and marketing and they helped us get at through their own facilitated process, they helped us to get at, what is it really that we do, what is at the heart of our work? And what's at the heart of our work is we exist to help people feel powerful. Whether it's an “I” or a “we”, because all everywhere you go, what do you see, you see a loss of power, you see it in organizations of every shape and size where people feel like they don't have choice, they don't have authority or agency, they don't have the ability to speak up because there may be repercussions. They don't speak up because they don't think they belong. They don't act because they think, “Oh, that's not the right move or I shouldn't do that.”

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All these pieces that pull in emotional intelligence, that pull in a sorted kinds of bias and impose in that old school, what we would call an old school culture of the industrial age, Henry Ford is brain and that information workers, especially need to be letting that go. We need to be setting aside that thinking because it doesn't work in the now. And because we're not automatons, we're humans, we're not little robots. So we can't stay focused on creative work in the same measurement system, or the same even way of thinking or mindset, that we can think about how many of this widget am I making? That two don't work so what that results in is people inside information environments, or even modern factories, feeling less powerful. 

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When you look at all of these things in combination, it's a lowering of people at the individual and a team and that worker, leader, whatever level feeling like, “Well, I care about my own job, but I don't have a power, I don't have the power to do anything about the company as a whole,” or anything like that. So the Bolder Company came from realizing that no matter who we're working with inside an organization, the challenge that we're putting in front of them is to become more powerful humans and to integrate more of a sense of personal power in life and in work.

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So we're challenging leaders every day. What's your power strategy? What's the strategy that you have afoot to help everybody inside your organization feel powerful? Because that's a conversation not enough, companies are not having that conversation. We're not talking about “Let's make people feel empowered.” We're saying “No, let's get messy. Let's get into the dirt. Let's find out what would it take for people inside your group to really feel powerful” to see them be a bolder version of themselves whatever that is. Bolder for me because I'm an extrovert might be different than Bolder for you as a more introverted person. I'm saying you randomly as any person out in the world. I don’t get off muscle box, I can do this all day.

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Ross  

I love it and the elevation to be more powerful, to have more powerful and the enemy of powerless. And a lot of things comes back to childhood for me, in terms of at what points has it shaped how I think and certain things like to want something, was seen as a bad thing to want something. And I remember my coach for the last 10 years or so, has helped me reform my relationship with wanting and seeing wanting as a positive thing, not seeing it as a bad thing. And similarly, this challenge of everyone who hears something, hears it through their own brain and their own lens of life, and powers as is that a bad thing? Or is that a good thing? It's inert, depending on where we deploy it. So I think the challenge of maybe some of the negatives about power, is because it's been deployed in the wrong direction Power being deployed in a great direction, to thrive, to grow to elevate others is a really amazing thing to be part of.

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And I've got a really selfish question here because I want to know, and it's a challenge that I see we're facing and many others are facing is in terms of how to communicate really well in a remote environment. And so a lot of these things that I have gone through training in the past of having presence, of having body language, being a speaker, being a facilitator in a room, using pauses, using tone, using movement, using anchoring of movement, using all sorts of different things. I feel so challenged to be able to read effectively through Zoom, to be able to get a sense, to allow people to have voices, to have my little court sense of the spidey sense of people in the corner that “Ah I need to invite them in.” I find it so hard in our Zoom environment. So I'm wondering if you can help me in terms of how can we be bolder? How can we be powerful in a Zoom world, and in a world where people are working in a more physically isolated space from our colleagues?

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Ellen  

So one of the things we have a luxury with Ross is that there are two of us. And when there are two of us facilitating in a room, one of us is talking and the other one is watching. So we're feeding each other information all the time on “Call on Lisa, she hasn't said anything in a while.” Or, “Bill doesn't need to talk anymore,” right? So we are doing some social engineering in the room. When we're sending people to breakout rooms, Jenny loves doing this, she's behind the scene. She's putting people in conversations with each other if we know that we're working with a team that has some communication, with people who need to talk to each other. So we're creating intentional dynamics within the room that very often you can't do in a room, room. 

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The other thing is, the more often you can put people in breakout rooms, the better off they are. Because I think our brains just go numb, especially when you get to the tiled approach. And you've got 20-30 people on the call, our brains just go. And it's also super disconcerting when somebody starts talking. And you have to spend like the first 10 seconds of when they're talking, figuring out who in that maze of people on which page in this meeting it actually is. So we have to slow down, I think. We have to put less in our sessions, we have to give people idea more upfront about what's going to be covered and what their part might be. So we talk to people frequently about if you know somebody is reticent to speak in front of the group, and you want them to contribute, notify them in advance that you'd like them to talk to give them some time to prepare. And then make sure you include them of course.

So part of it is just we have to get better hygiene around meeting dynamics in general, to intentionally include people, and also give ourselves a break from screens. Some of the best conversations I've had recently were conference calls where there was no video at all. Because I think we're all a little overwhelmed, everybody's zoomed out. Zoom fatigue is a thing, right?

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Ross  

Yes, it definitely is. So a few tips there of, be well thought out and planned in advance, we should do that for all meetings, but maybe even more so when we are, using these video tiles of people to understand who we want to contribute, give them advanced warning. I love that great piece and to use breakout rooms more so that we haven't got this cognitive overload of lots of people and faces and trying to work with there. Jenny, have you got some thoughts to share as well for us?

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Jenny  

Yeah, you're making me think about something, Ross. Which is I heard you say, what can I do in these situations? I would say it's actually if I’m calling back to the conversation we had about leaders being more vulnerable, or about any of us being more vulnerable and modeling more of what we want, even in a, say a sales situation, right? Maybe you're interviewing somebody who you'd like to take as a client, you can use that as an experimental space with yourself and with them to be more vulnerable by asking, “So, this video thing is just sometimes it interrupts my ability to see what's going on for people. Here's the idea just put in front of you. Can you tell me what you think about that?”

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And that's part of that slowing down thing that Ellen is saying that you can do that even in context of podcast recording or a sales conversation or a team meeting, stop and ask. So an active practice that you can do is to hang up more of your assumptions at the door, like just say, “Oh, no, that's an assumption that's not necessarily helping me right now. And I'm just gonna literally sanity check it.” So doubling down on inquiry is a best practice and it's a practice also of vulnerability. We use a little model, we call it MAPS. It's what's my Mindset? What are my Approaches? What are my Practices and what are my Skills? So you can take that on in any conversation that you go into as part of your preparation.

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Ross  

I like that. And one of the challenges of everyone just losing the human side, when we're just back to back Zooms, come in with task rabbits, get the next bit done, okay who's done that, quick update, to reminding we're human, to slow down, to allocate space, to maybe check in with some of those assumptions and validating that same bit that we talked about of a feedback loop. And so we can get mixed up in our own heads of our own thoughts of an event, a situation,  a person, don't be afraid to go and ask that in a humane way, in a comfortable way. And maybe it's even more possible when it's in breakout rooms. So we don't feel too much on judgment, too much that “Ah what's everyone else thinking in here?” And pick our moments to do that.

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If we, because we're coming to the end piece here. And there's two important things I want to cover off. One is, if we all believe the fact that our world is accelerating quicker than it has before, that in all aspects of globalization, of technology, of connectedness, of access through internet for half the population, over the next few years, what's this going to do for our societies and our economy. So if we were living in this digital landscape, and this accelerated change, as people who work with teams and executive leaders, helping them to be bolder, to thrive in a sustainable way and create lasting behavioral change, or behavioral evolution, in what they're doing, what are some tips again, and I really like making it as practical as possible, you've given some great things of your analogy of the MAPS, what's your mindset, your approach? What was P, remind us?

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Jenny

Practices.

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Ross

Practices and skills. So are there any other little golden nuggets or bits that people who are feeling frazzled by the pace of everything, they ascribe to what you've just said of slowdown, ask more questions. Can you give them some tips about where and how to do that? Perhaps Ellen, you could start us off?

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Ellen  

Well, one thing occurred to me as you were talking Ross, which is be more discreet with how many meetings you have, period. We just finished up a huge project with a client. And to a person, they said we are WebEx to death. And most of the time when I get invited, I don't even know why I'm invited. So that's the first piece is be more discreet and intentional about who you invite. And the flip side of that is decline the meeting invitation if you don't know why you need to be there and set healthier boundaries around your own time.

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Ross  

Let’s just pause on those two points a moment, Ellen. I gotta let that sink in for people. Be more discerning about your meetings and who you invite. And be more proactive in saying no, if you don't know why you're there, or what you're going to contribute. To amazing things that will transform, I think everybody's working life right now of those things. Be more discerning in inviting and be more discerning in accepting meetings. Great, sorry, Ellen. But I just wanted to let that really hit home for people rather than “Oh we're on to the next great bit.” That's really profound and valuable.

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Ellen  

Thank you. And I'm sure Jenny will echo this, the boundary setting. If I have 12:00 to 1:00 blocked on my calendar every day for me to eat, drink some water and get away from the screen, then I'm sabotaging my own productivity and well-being by saying, “Okay, we can meet during that time, it's the only opening I have today.” And sometimes that's urgent but other times, that's just a bad habit of blocking off time for yourself and then putting stuff there anyway. So that's the other thing is to protect the time that you've intentionally set for yourself for its intended purpose.

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Ross  

Jenny, I'm going to pose you a piece with a little segue. In one of my previous interviews last week, we were talking about how to say no, and a graceful no and an elegant no. And I'd be fascinated as to okay if we're now saying no to who we would invite and we're also then saying no to being invited based on being more discerning about that. How do we gracefully and elegantly make that transition to evolve where that is a positive, not a negative, and we've got the bit of mess, we're gonna be in the mud in the earth of the, “Well, you've just excluded me, you've always invited me to that, whether I turned up or should have been in,” we've got a little bit of mess to go through. So how might we really say no elegantly and gracefully in that situation? I'd love your rare insight here.

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Jenny  

So saying no to being invited, is it that simple?

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Ross  

Maybe both or either whichever one you want to pick.

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Jenny  

So if Ellen invites me to a meeting, I'm going to stop and I'm going to do what she said. But I'm going to stop and say, “Is this really important for me to be there?” And if my immediate reaction is, “Oh, yes, I absolutely should be there.” I'm going to ask myself the next question, which is, “Is that really necessary? Or is that just my ego yapping?” And that literally can become a practice of having a Post-It Note, a Post-It Note just like this, on your computer screen, “Do I need to be here?” It's that advertising campaign from the 80’s, “Is it real? Or is it Memorex?” Is it true that I actually should be here or is it just that my ego wants me to be in the mix so that I feel like I have kind of control? So there's that question always of what's the purpose of me being in the room, right? And that is something that you can take on as a practice. My favorite way to install a new habit is to put a Post-It Note on my computer, a new mindset, that's what helps me reprogram myself every time is, “Do I need to be here?”

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And then the other thing that helps me to get out of my own way that your listeners might also find valuable is if, and Ellen and I have a practice like this in our company that we do with each other is, “I'm going to take that meeting, I know you've got other things, do you really want to be there?” And then we stop and sanity check each other in conversation, that we tell each other, “No, I trust you to take care of that.” So incidentally, you're also adding a layer of relationship-building trust, when you stop and ask someone or again, there's that permission and approval piece coming in and say, “Hey, Ellen I see you've got this meeting on-deck with Magical Mike. I don't think I really need to be there and I'd love it if you could take care of that for me, I trust that you're going to just fill me in on whatever.” So just opening up conversations would be I guess the heart of that practical tip, would be just open up more conversations, and sanity check your own ego.

Ross  

And I like the way in which we can think about the transition to the Utopia. Utopia, where we're only invited into things that we absolutely should be there, we're really clear about what the expectations and how we need to show up. And likewise, we then won't have to decline things because of that failure in the kind of process. But there's this, as I said, the mess in the middle. And there's a couple of bits I want to pick up and then we'll close out.

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So the first one, one of the challenges in saying no in doing that, what you didn't say was well just email them back or put it on Slack or Microsoft Teams and say, “Should I really be in here?” It can cause a potential friction or thought of, “Well, do they care and they're not really there,” and they go off in a hundred miles an hour about “Okay, if I upset you, if I piss you off, what's happened here?” To “Ah, you took a moment in there.” And you used some great things of saying, “Hey, I'm not sure if I'm going to add much here. I believe in you, I trust you've got it. I'm here if you need me. But it's probably best if I work on something else right now,” that kind of bit for a little bit might soften the blow but also deepen the relationship.

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And I had something else and it was inspired by your Step Up, Speak Up and Stay Up. And it was step out to step in. And so if we're thinking about in these meetings, if we're stepping out to then be able to step in with full presence. That's a beautiful gift that people can start to reframe in their own minds. So I'll let you do a quick response on that. And then I'm going to ask you, how can people get in touch with you if they really love what you're saying, which I know they're going to, and they want to work with you. What's the best way to get in touch? So any reflections on what I just said? And then how do people get in touch with you?

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Ellen  

Yeah, one quick reflection. First of all, it's a cultural thing. So let's take note of that, if you operate in an excessively polite culture, people may be more hesitant to say no. And so it's a leadership thing, to elevate it and say, ‘We noticed that a ton of time is being taken in meetings, let's all be more discerning. If you feel like you need to be in a meeting, you can ask to be included. If you feel left out, just know that person's probably valuing your time.” So signposting and using clear communication about we're trying to shift our behaviors, because everybody's burnt out, you can't have meetings all day and still get your work done.

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So what that winds up doing is forcing people to do their work after hours or first thing in the morning, which means, guess what? They're not paying attention to their lives. And that's unsustainable. So the saying no to somebody else is saying yes to yourself. It's not actually saying no, it's saying yes, my priorities matter. And I guess I would leave it there that the communication around all of this, how we spend our time shifts because we can all be on all the time. And that's not healthy either. 

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Ross  

So it's the improv of the, “Yes, thank you, for the invite or the exception. And I want to know, am I going to be as valuable as possible to be there? How can I do that?” Those kinds of things. And this leadership responsibility to make no acceptable and to give that permission and mandate for that to happen in what culture do we want to create? And yeah, lovely. Jenny, your final thoughts and how do we get in touch with you, what's the best way?

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Jenny  

So I love what you said about step out to step in, and the idea of being able to create an opening for yourself to take ownership of your own experience, in your work and in your life. So that would be the piece that I like about step out. Because if I step out, and then take a rest but I can then step in from a much clearer place. A much more balanced, open, rested even space by doing something as simple as taking a walk during lunch. Or remembering that we have phones and we don't have to be on video all the time.

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A friend of mine said that to me recently, he's like, ‘We all sort of forgot that we have phones.” So remember that we have phones because that allows you to step out and then step back in, and be in that ebb and flow sort of space. People can reach us at TheBolderCompany.com T H E B O L D E R Company so not Boulder, Colorado, but Bolder. Be the Bolder version of yourself. TheBolderCompany.com we're also on LinkedIn, and Facebook. And where else are we Ellen, and you do, you're on the marketing team. I don't even know all our social media. I know our website. 

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Ellen  

We're on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, of course, both personally and as a company. So we're pretty easy to find as long as you don't put a “U” in the name of our company.

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Ross  

I love that. And as someone who has, got you in our community, I feel incredibly proud and privileged to have your thinking, your wisdom and equally you sharing part of that mission with your audience. You are regularly doing events, regularly speaking so if any of our listeners want to go a bit deeper into the some of these subjects and topics, you will do yourself a favor and check them out at TheBolderCompany.com and thank you both. I look forward to an amazing future of continual evolution that leaves no one behind. So thank you.

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Ellen  

Thank you.

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Jenny

Thank you.

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Voiceover  

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Outro

Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding AQ. Please make sure you subscribe to your favorite podcast directory, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.

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