How Great Leaders Navigate Tough Conversations to Drive Business Growth | Gene Hammett

Summary

Podcast Summary: Beyond Blind Blaming

Episode: How Great Leaders Navigate Tough Conversations to Drive Business Growth | Gene Hammett
Host: Kevin D. St.Clergy
Guest: Gene Hammett
Release Date: June 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Beyond Blind Blaming, host Kevin D. St.Clergy engages in an insightful conversation with Gene Hammett, an accomplished entrepreneur, author, speaker, podcaster, business strategist, and leadership coach. The episode delves into the pivotal role of tough conversations in leadership and business growth, offering listeners valuable strategies to navigate challenging dialogues effectively.

Guest Background

Gene Hammett shares his extensive background, highlighting his journey from an engineer at Georgia Tech to a seasoned leader in the consulting and startup worlds. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish a successful sports tour company in 2001, which scaled rapidly to $6-7 million before an unforeseen crisis in 2010 dismantled his business. This experience profoundly shaped his approach to leadership and coaching.

Gene Hammett [00:00]: "A leader's job is to develop the people around them. You owe it to them, you owe it to the company, you owe it to yourself."

Overcoming Challenges

The conversation takes a candid turn as Gene recounts the collapse of his sports tour business following a failed contract and the subsequent legal battle that lasted four and a half years. This period was marked by significant personal and professional upheaval, including the loss of his house and a severe blow to his confidence.

Gene Hammett [04:01]: "I lost everything. And when I say everything, the business was gone. The money I had set aside for, you know, safekeeping was gone. My confidence level was rocked. I lost my house."

Determined to rebuild, Gene transitioned into a leadership role within a digital marketing company and eventually embraced coaching. His coaching philosophy emphasizes the importance of developing leaders who can foster growth and navigate their teams through hyper-growth phases.

Leadership and Tough Conversations

A core theme of the episode is the necessity of having tough conversations in leadership. Gene underscores that avoiding these dialogues can exacerbate underlying issues within a team, ultimately hindering business growth and employee development.

Gene Hammett [00:44]: "When people are out of alignment, it impacts everyone around them. And you ignoring it because it's uncomfortable is only going to make it worse."

Importance of Purpose-Driven Organizations

Gene highlights the shift in workforce motivations, particularly among younger generations who seek purpose-driven workplaces. He emphasizes that organizations must align their missions with meaningful work to attract and retain top talent.

Gene Hammett [15:56]: "It's really hard for companies that aren't doing meaningful work to be able to track a younger generation of worker today because they are much more keen to do something purpose driven."

"How to Have Tough Conversations" Book Insights

The discussion transitions to Gene's book, How to Have Tough Conversations, which has garnered rave reviews for its practical approach to handling difficult dialogues. Gene explains that the book is designed to complement his deep coaching practices, providing leaders with tangible tactics to improve their conversational skills.

Gene Hammett [11:36]: "This book was meant to complement my deep coaching, because a lot of my coaching is about how to evolve as a leader. And it's not about what you're doing as a leader, it's about who you're being."

Framework for Tough Conversations

Gene introduces a structured framework from his book, breaking down tough conversations into four manageable phases:

1. Understand and Clarify
2. Name the Pattern
3. Be Direct
4. Exit

He elaborates on each phase, providing examples and highlighting the importance of tone, empathy, and preparation in facilitating effective conversations.

Gene Hammett [28:25]: "Phase one is understand and clarify. If you've never had a conversation with someone about this issue, you've identified what the core issue is."

Practical Tactics and Tips

Gene offers actionable strategies for leaders to implement during tough conversations:

• Preparation: Develop a clear plan and understanding of the issue before initiating the conversation.

• Tone Management: Approach discussions with curiosity and calmness to foster a constructive environment.

• Active Listening: Ensure the other party feels heard by prioritizing listening over talking.

• Follow-Up: Schedule subsequent meetings to review progress and reinforce accountability.

Gene Hammett [33:42]: "Phase one is understand and clarify. Phase two is name the pattern. Phase three is be direct, and phase four is exit."

Conclusion & Contact Information

As the episode wraps up, Gene emphasizes the importance of documenting tough conversations and maintaining empathy throughout the process. He invites listeners to explore his resources further and implement the strategies discussed to become more effective leaders.

Gene Hammett [46:53]: "But the key here is they're not gonna get better on their own. If you're not willing to talk about it, how do you expect it to get better?"

Contact Gene Hammett:

• Website: coreelevation.com or genehammett.com
• Podcast: Growth Think Tank
• Book: How to Have Tough Conversations available on all major online platforms

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Notable Quotes:

• Gene Hammett [00:00]: "A leader's job is to develop the people around them. You owe it to them, you owe it to the company, you owe it to yourself."

• Gene Hammett [04:01]: "I lost everything. And when I say everything, the business was gone..."

• Gene Hammett [15:56]: "Organizations must align their missions with meaningful work to attract and retain top talent."

• Gene Hammett [11:36]: "This book was meant to complement my deep coaching..."

• Gene Hammett [28:25]: "Phase one is understand and clarify..."

• Gene Hammett [46:53]: "If you're not willing to talk about it, how do you expect it to get better?"

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This episode of Beyond Blind Blaming offers invaluable insights into the art of tough conversations in leadership, blending personal anecdotes with practical frameworks to empower leaders in fostering growth and alignment within their teams.

Transcript

[Gene Hammett]

A leader's job is to develop the people around them. You owe it to them, you owe it to the company, you owe it to yourself. Because a leader's job is not just about getting results and it's not about what you're doing as a leader. It's about who you're being.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Today I'm joined by Gene Hammett. Gene is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, podcaster, business strategist, and a coach for those who want to evolve as a leader and and manage hyper growth in their business.

[Gene Hammett]

I've worked with more Inc. 5000 level companies than any other person in leadership development and I pull out of them. What are the leadership strategies that make this thing work?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Part of that leadership in keeping people is about having those tough conversations. So talk to us about why you feel they matter.

[Gene Hammett]

It's because when people are out of alignment, it impacts everyone around them. And you ignoring it because it's uncomfortable is only going to make it worse. A lot of people will avoid the tough conversation that they know that they need to have. But the key here is.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Welcome to Beyond Blind Blaming. This is the place where we explore how easily hidden truths can hold us back, trapping us in cycles of frustration and blame, often without even realizing what's truly stopping us. Each week I'm joined by experts and professionals who share their journey of taking back control of their story, overcoming hidden challenges, and discover how to stop blind blaming from dictating their outcomes. The insights you're about to gain will help you see beyond your current limitations, find the courage to seek new perspectives, and ultimately live a life that's both purposeful and powerful. So if you're ready to break free from blind blaming and discover what's possible, you'll definitely want to listen to our next guest. I'm your host Kevin St. Clergy and today I'm joined by Gene Hammett. Gene is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, podcaster, business strategist and a coach for those who want to evolve as a leader and manage hyper growth in their business. He works with founders and CEOs to create repeatable leadership development strategies that foster growth. His research into fast growth companies has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Success Magazine, Yahoo, NBC and Entrepreneur Magazine. Gene, welcome to the show.

[Gene Hammett]

Excited to be here?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, let's start with a little bit about you and your background and let you to what you do now which is helping people succeed.

[Gene Hammett]

Yeah, back how far you want me to go?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Kevin, your bios all start with back in 2001 when you started to grow your own businesses and I Think anybody that's owned a business and had some significant growth, we do get to that burnout point where we start our business becomes our life. Doesn't create a life for us. Do you want us to go back that far? Do you want to go back a little farther?

[Gene Hammett]

I'll go back just a step further. Graduating from Georgia Tech, an engineer. I never wanted to be an engineer. Went into consulting, got a lot of variety of work, strategy consulting specifically, and then did IT consulting because of the Internet age that was emerging. This is back in 95, 96 when I worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers. They wouldn't put me on the Internet projects. They were too valuable. They wanted people with experience. But the Internet was very new. So I ended up going to a dot com. Worked there for about three years, really. And fun experience to work in that startup, feel just the uncertainty, but also the possibility of ownership and exiting. Newsflash. We never exited. Got a lot of experience and we all learned about E commerce. And so in 2001, when 911 hit, I was forced to either get a job or find an idea to execute on. And I feel like I was amassing the skills of entrepreneurship the entire journey, whether it be strategy of business or IT or sales. And I was ready to go out on my own. So in 2001, I started a sports tour company. Not really a sports fan, but I just, I saw an opportunity to jump into the Internet world and sell these tours and tickets online and it was wildly successful.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

What happened after that?

[Gene Hammett]

I continue to run that business. It was a lot of learning how to operate. I think I was a good doer, but I was an okay manager. But I had to actually lead. I had about 10 people. After about two years, we got to a million pretty quickly. The first year I think was around 150,000 or something like that because we started in November. So we kind of like cheated the system there. If I was trying to make the Inc. 5000, which I'll bring, come back to that, I was able to successfully grow it to about 6 or 7 million. I can't remember exactly what it was until 2010. And then I don't know if I can cuss on here, but everything changed. The shit hit the fan. Kevin. I lost everything. And when I say everything, the business was gone. The money I had set aside for, you know, safekeeping was gone. My confidence level was rocked. I lost my house. I know everyone has one of these rags to riches story, but mine was like I had gone through pretty much 20 years of my Professional business life of doing everything well and being successful. And this was the first real kind of challenge I faced that caused me to really reflect on who I am. And I had to rebuild myself. I can go into the details, but the short version of it is I had a deal with my best friend in 2009. We put it together. And 2010. Cause I told you, I did sports tours. I was in Vancouver waiting for my inventory to show up. That never materialized. So I had 10,000 customers looking to me. I had collected their money, I had paid it on this contract, and the inventory never showed up from my supplier, slash friend, if you will, in air quotes. And I had to close the doors and I had to lawyer up, and I had to fight my way back into entrepreneurship. And it wasn't easy.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I bet that's a huge blow, not only your pocketbook, but your ego and confidence. I would think it was all of it. And your integrity. Because from what I know about you and the people that you've had on your podcast, you seem very similar to me. As I got to be able to sleep at night. And the decisions I make, if somebody feels like they're screwed over, I'd just rather give them their money back and step aside.

[Gene Hammett]

I wish I could have given their money back, but I had given it all to this contract. It was about $3 million. I don't think I said that, but. And it was all over in one day. The legal battle was four and a half years. So that was. That was another arduous journey of doing this. You know, we don't need to go into it too much, but basically I. I had to restart my life. And when I was in the dark days of that, I was like, okay, I'm an entrepreneur through my heart. I knew I'm going to have to get a job because I got to pay the bills for the family. My wife had to get a job, and she hadn't had one in years. And we both went into these situations and it felt like soul sucking. Because being an entrepreneur, getting someone to tell you that that's not the good way to do it, that's not the way we do it here. There's no other option to do it a different way. All that stuff I had to endure for a couple of years. Until 2012, I was the VP of a digital marketing company. It was a really good experience, but we sold the company. I didn't get to profit in any of the sales. I just helped them set it up to be successful in the sales process. And I'm still friends with that CEO today. But I was able to go back on my own to be a coach. I got certified. When I was in the dark days when really things were hard for me, I leaned on that coach training. And I knew that if it could help me when things were really troubling and I doubted myself, that I would be able to really make a difference in the world as a coach. But then again, it's hard to be a coach when you don't know the business model. You're trading time for money you don't know how to charge. I started out charging 50 bucks an hour, which no one really trusts the value of probably their advisor if their only thought is, I can only get $50 an hour. I charge a lot more now. But I also know that I've. I've got stories behind me of working with. Mostly I work with the Inc. 5000. I do have a few clients outside of that that are, you know, kind of not interested in that accolade. But the Inc 5000 is a privately held company. Most of my clients are probably 50 to 200 employees, and they're doing probably 10 to 20 million. But I'm helping them navigate through the different types of leadership and the evolution of their own leadership skills mindset as they grow this business. And we've actually added leadership development, too. So everything has kind of come together full circle in the fact that I love making a difference in this world. And I think the businesses I've had before, I didn't make a difference. And I think my heart wasn't in it the way it is now. And so when it gets hard, it's much easier for me to keep going because I am making a difference for my clients. I mean, I could give you story after story of companies that were $4 million in revenue and now they're 20 million or they're 5 million in value, and now they're 50 million in value. And that's. I love being a part of that story. I don't get to participate in the upside the way I'd like to, but it's really an incredible experience.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, it's clearly what lights you up. I mean, I've been coaching for 20 years, and it's what gets me up every morning. It's always fun to have somebody get on the phone and say, listen, you made me another couple million dollars this year, and I just wanted to say thank you without asking for it.

[Gene Hammett]

Yeah. I had one kid that I work with, and this is one of my early clients. And he was struggling with. He was at 19,000amonth in revenue, like a digital agency. And just like all over the board. No real ideal client, no real service that really defined his value. He was just basically collecting money. We've all probably worked with marketing companies like this, and I got him to zero in on the service that provided the most value to the type of client that provided the most value. And after a year of working with him, and this isn't my type of client now, I'm just telling you, going back in time, but he was doing a million in revenue, and then we doubled that the next year, and then we doubled it the next year and doubled it the next year until I stopped working with him and we built that strong foundation. But the reason I bring it up is because this kid, he was 26, half my age now, but he was able to sell the company for $23 million.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

No kidding.

[Gene Hammett]

I felt like I really provided the foundation guidance and strategy and also unlocked him to focus on the right thing. And I've gotten to be a much better coach. So I think the value is even more now because of the tools and the patterns and all, you know, all the experience I have with. I've worked with more Inc 5000 level companies than any other person in leadership development.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I also loved your story, by the way, when you're like, look, I could have been on the Inc. 500 list if I would have remembered to apply. We never got around to it either. So it really hit home with me. I'm like, we had significant growth. I think we could have been on the inc 5000, not 500. But I laughed pretty hard when I read that. I was like, oh, that sounds like me.

[Gene Hammett]

Yeah, I didn't know. I look back at it, I had to do the calculation and I would have been not in the top five rankings, but I would have been in the middle of that 500, which is very respectable. And it's an incredible list of clients I work with now that are on the Inc 5000 and just really happy to serve them. My podcast, not to promote it and whatnot, but I'm just. I really connected to the CEOs that are in the trenches of growing their business, and I pull out of them. What are the leadership strategies? What are the principles? What are the tactics sometimes that make this thing work? And working across industries, working across different size levels. I've amassed thousands of interviews with these clients and of course, my coaching, where I get very intimate with their strategies and development. It's been an incredible journey to this point and most recently, writing the book how to have Tough Conversations has been another level of growth for myself and for my clients.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

It's fun. When you write a book, you get a lot out of it yourself because you start digging deep into some stuff and then you have these aha moments. You're like, oh, this is really good. Which we're going to get into today because I really enjoyed reading. In fact, I set it aside to read again this week. I prepared for your podcast last week. Well, that's where we're going next. Your newest book, how to have Tough Conversations, I thought was incredible and getting rave reviews. It was pretty cool to see a lot of the people that gave you rave reviews that were on our podcast, like jld, Robert Glaser, Mark Victor Hansen's coming up here and I want to get into that a little bit. But speaking of you working with some pretty amazing people and companies, can you tell me about a time that really sticks out when a company thought they knew what the problem was, but it ended up being something else completely, something that they couldn't see but you could as a coach, because this is a big topic of my new book, Blind Blaming, which I'll tell you about after the call. But talk to us about that.

[Gene Hammett]

I will say that we all live in blind spots and these blind spots are things that we don't know. I went through one yesterday. I'm still learning new things and my wife sat down with me and had a tough conversation because these tough conversations isn't just for work. But she let me know something and it was eye opening. So I really am excited about the impact that the book is making. But as far as to answer your story about specific client I remember a client who had $30 million in revenue. They've been a leader for about 20 years. They were the COO. That was just a title, right? Titles don't really mean that much. They were really operating as a president, if you will, and they had four founders that were really not as involved with the business. And so he was really guiding everything. He came to me because he's like my style of leadership. This military background isn't working the way it used to. And so I'm looking to figure out what's in the way. And it was a blind spot for him because he came to me and started sharing with me some of the internal struggles he was having with. Well, I tell them what to do and they don't do it or I get upset with them and then nothing gets done. And I just wish people do their job. And we ended up uncovering was he was leading from a place of fear, which works probably short term. And a lot of people may say that's just the way it is. Some people parent from a place of fear because you say do it, because I said so, all those things. But he realized that he needed to shift his approach to leadership. And the funny thing about it is this big, burly military guy said, I need to shift the way I'm showing up. And I pull it out of them with the work I use. And I tell this story quite often, but specifically after about an hour of us working together, we were able to discover if he showed up calm, let that be his intentional way of really connecting with his people, that he would get more out of them, he would enjoy it more, he would have less stress, he would listen better, he would communicate better, he could see around corners. And so the entire year we'd worked on other things. Kevin. But we helped him shift from his old way of being, which is fear based and frustrated and angry, to a place of calm.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

My favorite part of that story is you got to the root cause it wasn't what he thought it was.

[Gene Hammett]

And sometimes I do that in a sales process. And I know that's very dangerous in a coaching world to, to really expose what the problem is. But my theory is I've been doing this for a decade. You said two, two decades. I know that I have more value to give because of just the repetition. When I went through coach training, I looked at my mentors, I was just in amazement that they could listen to someone for two minutes, stop them and then ask them a question that really struck to the heart of what was going on inside them. And you'd see the tears running out of their face. And I know a lot of guys may go, that's not what I'm looking for in my experience. But it was literally the ability to catch them in their own story and the story that they'd made up and the story that they were trying to live into whatever it is, and they were able to get them aware of what the issue was and to be able to see a new future. And if you just did that as a coaching, that that's powerful. But then if you actually hold their hand and guide them and support them and hold them accountable to all these changes and when it gets hard, that's where the real transformation happens, inside the work that I do and that I really have enjoyed over the last decade.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Plus, it's kind of like what we hear all the time, people don't want to work today. That's not true. People don't want to work for you, maybe, but they do want to work. Some people don't, some people don't. I get it.

[Gene Hammett]

But for the most part they do. They like to pay their bills, they.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Like to eat, they like to be part of something bigger than themselves. A lot of most people. So let's go back a little bit. What do you think is important for finding the best people and keeping them?

[Gene Hammett]

It's really hard for companies that aren't doing meaningful work to be able to track a younger generation of worker today because they are much more keen to do something purpose driven. They want to get paid, they want the freedom and all that stuff. Those are things that are absolutely true. But they absolutely are looking at what impact is this going to make on the world and on me. And it may be very different from you and I when we first started working. I told you I spent about 10 years in kind of corporate America. I was chasing skills. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, didn't have the idea, but I knew I needed to understand strategy and IT and project management and sales and I was amassing skills. And I think today the younger generation's a little bit differently. So you've gotta provide a mission driven organization that does attract the right talent and it's so easy to get behind that. I interviewed a lot of people through the podcast. It's incredible to hear these stories, but even the most drab companies, a real estate company that's providing homes for families, I mean, you can connect to the mission of that if you frame it well. You're not just selling houses to make money, you're providing homes for people. And it's a very different experience for people to go to work and realize that's what they're doing. One's going to get them much more loyal employee and the other one's going to get someone who's chasing money.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Part of that leadership and keeping people is about having those tough conversations that you mentioned before and what your book is about. So talk to us about why you feel they matter and why do so many of us put those tough conversations off or not do them at all?

[Gene Hammett]

Tough conversations, some people might say difficult conversations, but when you're trying to title a book, you can't title it just like someone else's book. You can, but it's not very good in marketing, I think. And so we looked at the market and Tough Conversations was kind of the second way that they framed this difficult conversations with the first. But I've always been a little bit more direct with my style than most people. Being direct is a good thing. You can be too direct. And I can unpack that for you a little bit later if you want me to. But I have realized when I'm working with these leaders that they need someone to talk about what they're experiencing at work. Sometimes they can't go to their executive team and bitch about the people around them. Cause it's just not really good. Maybe it's the people that are in the room, maybe it's other people, maybe it's the board. And they use my coaching to really help them think through this. And sometimes that's all you need. I'm a verbal processor, so if I talk about what's going, I'm going on, I have a much better chance to find a solution. I won't find it with my mouth shut. It seems like my wife at least tells me that I had so many of these conversations and I can listen to them for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes sometimes because they need to get it out. But then I was asking this question so much. So what's the missing conversation you haven't had yet? Let me repeat that. What's the missing conversation you haven't had yet? So if you were a leader and you're listening to this podcast and you've got a group of people around you and it could be customers, it could be partners, it could be employees, it could be at home. But what's. Everyone has probably a missing conversation. It could be a small thing, but it could be something very serious. It could be someone's a high performer, but yet their attitude is not in alignment with the company or the culture. Or maybe they're even a little toxic and you're struggling with how do I reach them? You've probably been through this before as you've been a leader for a while, Kevin.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Oh, yes.

[Gene Hammett]

If you ignore these things, do they get better?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Not at all. I was the avoider. That's me. And we'll get into the next. The four types of people I really like. That's my next question is like, hey, I think there's four types of people, but I'm the avoider. And that's why I actually had to bring on a partner who was not an avoider. And that's how I dealt with it. So I could focus on the sales and marketing aspect and he could focus on managing and leading the team.

[Gene Hammett]

Understanding your type has been very helpful, I think, in that book. And I will add to this. Why does it matter? There's a bottom line to performance. Everyone knows that if the team is working well together, if the team is performing on the systems that we've set out, then you're probably going to get a good result or even working together to find solutions to problems. Like the marketing that used to work three months ago doesn't work today. And it certainly doesn't. What we did last year doesn't work. Sales, sometimes it, you know, you have to try some new approaches. Maybe you got to go up market, maybe you got to go down market. Maybe you got to narrow it, maybe you got to broaden it. Whatever it is, things change. And so you've got to be willing to look across the organization and see where people are out of alignment. And as a leader, I think it's, you owe it to them, to those people, you owe it to the people around them, you owe it to the company, and you owe it to yourself. Because a leader's job is not just about getting results. A leader's job is to develop the people around them. And that's one reason my fear doesn't work. So if you believe that a leader's job is. Is to develop the people, then you owe it to them to be able to call them on. They're out of alignment. This is a broad stroke of these issues. Why tough conversations matter is because when people are out of alignment, it impacts everyone around them. And you ignoring it because it's uncomfortable is only going to make it worse.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

We just went through this in a presentation. I just about how to make decisions. And one of them was about hiring. And the two biggest things I talked about was, look, if you don't have those tough conversations, I didn't use your words. But when you don't make that decision to have a conversation with somebody who's not doing well or toxic, then the worst thing they can do is either quit and stay or stay and cause your best performers to quit.

[Gene Hammett]

And I've had the experience of seeing both of those things happen. They stay and you check back in six months later and you're like, yeah, they're still here. And I can't hire anyone else to fit there or I can't promote anyone. This happened at one of my clients I was working with. And they're like, I think that we've got to make a big decision on this toxic employee, even though they're a high performer. And I said, what's the straw that Broke the camel's back. The three people we tried to promote around them refused the promotion because they were going to get bullied at work and they were not willing to have the tough conversations. This is before I wrote the book. Now that I've written the book, I've given it to them. And they did exit that person. It happens. I do pride myself in one thing. I do give my clients advice. But I never have said, you should fire this person. We will talk about it. Sometimes I'll talk about it till I'm blue in the face and I'm like, what the hell's going on? But I've never said it's time. I always let it be their decision because I do have a lot of empathy for that other person. But I also believe that if you have a person that's out of alignment and it continues over time, you've done what you can with the tough conversations, that you've done everything you can from the strategies and tactics in this book that you want to set them free and let them go find a place they're supposed to be at because they're not happy either.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

And what I learned from. And I'm going completely blank on his name because I'm on the spot, but I learned that instead of people put off making that tough decision because they're not really sure what to do and they think they're going to create this gaping hole. But what we learned on another podcast was to have a conversation with them about a transition plan. Look, I don't think you're very happy here. You're showing it. But I want to really talk about how we can help you find something that you're happy with. Not right away, but down the line. I really want to start a transition plan to get you something where you're happy or something to that effect. And what I've seen is that people are a lot more willing to have that conversation sometimes. I mean, sometimes, let's face it, there's somebody toxic. I always ask, what do you think you should do? And what does this person do to you when you walk into the office? And I literally had somebody lately go, or recently say, Kevin, when I walk in the door, she sucks the life out of me. What do you think you should do? I'm with you. I don't like to tell them, get rid of that person right away. But I do like to ask, well, and what's your life going to be like if you don't have to see that person or work with them each day?

[Gene Hammett]

A Question is much more powerful than a statement in this area. That question allows that person to reflect and be able to see and take ownership. Because if I tell them to fire someone, I know what's going to happen. They're going to go back into their world and to their work and go, is now the right time? Maybe one more chance. But I try to be as supportive and direct as possible and I have the kind of conversations and I ask the hard questions. I've been doing this for more than a decade. I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to challenge your thinking. But your decision has to be yours and your actions have to be yours. I can't do it for you.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

That's what makes you a great coach. But I think it's what leaders need to learn to ask questions the same way. Because good leaders to me have always been coaches, at least the ones that I've enjoyed working with the most. Are you tired of feeling stuck in your business, career, relationships or your health? Are you frustrated by problems that just won't go away no matter what you try? After coaching and teaching thousands of people for over 25 years, I've discovered something powerful. Every unresolved problem has a hidden solution you just can't see yet. That's why I created the From Stuck to Breakthrough challenge. A free 5 day live experience where I'll show you exactly how to uncover what's really holding you back and finally break free to the results that you want. Whether it's in your business, your health, your wealth, your relationships. I'll help you discover the real root cause of your challenges and give you the blueprint for permanent change. Join me and a community of like minded people ready to break through. Go to blind blaming.com again, that's blind blaming.com to sign up and we'll see you soon. I want to go over those three types of people because when I read the Avoider I was like, oh, that's me.

[Gene Hammett]

There are three types of people. We could have a fourth one because the fourth one could be they do it well.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

There you go. The winner, the winner.

[Gene Hammett]

I debated on that with my co author, my wife and I lost. She said, no, I've been doing this, she'd been delivering it. We never write a book based on what we think works. We are writing a book basically documenting what has worked for us in the conversations and the strategies and the tools and it gets refined in the book writing process and is really a powerful experience. And powerful is another word for hard fun.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I call it the capital F and U. Fun. That's what I call it sometimes. I'm in the editing process right now, so I'm going back and forth with the editor.

[Gene Hammett]

Yeah, it's no fun. It gets better. You finally get to put the book out into the world, and people get to give you some value from it. Back to the three types. One is the avoider. So very quickly, a lot of people will avoid the tough conversation that they know that they need to have. They question themselves, like, is it my responsibility to have this conversation? Shouldn't they already know this? I don't want to micromanage them. So they don't want to cross the boundaries. And it's all these, like, doubt that gets put in there instead of that. Avoider is popular, but the next one seems to be the most popular, which is the productive procrastinator. They know they need to have the tough conversation, but funny enough, something always is more important. It's the sales meeting, it's the prepping for whatever. It's everything else under the sun, the clean desk. You know, they'll do anything to avoid that tough conversation. So that's the second one. The third one is kind of like the diver or the bull in the china shop, if you will, is the person who's like, I don't have a problem with tough conversations. When I see the opportunity, I just go for it. And usually I go, well, how does it go? And it's like, well, sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't. And what they're missing. And I think a lot of these people don't realize that there are four phases which we can go into and unpack those. But they're also missing that part of the process where you need to plan, you need to be intentional, you need to go through. There's specific questions that we've put in the book. Maybe you can even discover some on your own because your business is a little bit different. But you go through those, and once you go through those 10, 12 questions, you're really prepared to have a really effective tough conversation. If that's all you did in the book, then you would have much better tough conversations. You would avoid less because you would be prepared. You'd already know, like, yeah, this is really important. I see that the angle I'm going to take here and all of those things. The book guides you through the tactics of it. And so those are the three types. And if we want to add a fourth one, it's, you do it really well and effective and that's the lowest number of all of them because most people that do it well aren't really honest with themselves. They're having more than they need to and they're avoiding, even though they don't realize that they are.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I love the advice on mapping out a conversation. We've been big on that for a long time, and it's what people need to hear. And I think you're right. Whenever you're prepared for something, you're more likely to do it. And when you're not prepared, you either don't do it or you fumble it or totally eff it up in a bad, bad way. So I totally get that. But yeah, let's go into the four phases.

[Gene Hammett]

I think this is my favorite part of the book. And I don't know if it's because I had to fight for it because my wife, who's my co author, said, I don't think we need it. I said, well, let me ask you a question. And I'm going to ask you the question too, Kevin. When you are having a tough conversation and you've ever had a second or a third tough conversation about the same topic.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Oh, yeah.

[Gene Hammett]

Cause it didn't stick the first time now. And it could have been they didn't hear you, or they didn't prioritize this, they didn't get it, or it could have been you didn't do it. Well, it could be one of both, or it could be both of those. But if you think about it, you've had multiple conversations with someone, you're going to treat that second or third conversation different than the first. And so that was the basis of which I felt like we needed phases. And the four phases, very simply are. The first one is understand and clarify. If you've never had a conversation with someone about this issue, you've identified what the core issue is. And I could give you examples all day long. But if you've never had the conversation, you start in phase one and you ask questions, you be curious, you kind of put that coach hat on and you go, what's going on here? I will tell you where I got this from. I don't think I gave credit in the book, but there was a video that got put out maybe 10 years ago by Simon Sinek, and he talked about the empathy of leadership. And one example he gave was, if someone's late to work two or three times or late to a meeting, many leaders will pull them aside privately because you don't want to do this in public, but they will Go. What the heck's going on? Can't you just get it together? Why are you late to these meetings? And they're coming with a place of attitude and trying to, like, berate them. Whereas Simon gave a different approach to. It was like, hey, is everything okay with you? Is everything okay at home? If you started there, I would bet that the conversation is very different.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, see, and that's why I want you to go over the tone stuff, because what you're describing is the tone, because that kind of fits in there. Because what you're saying, but how you say it. What you say is one thing, but how you say it is another. And I loved how you did objective and tone when you went through the portion. I don't want to give the book too much away because I want every single person to. And what I'll commit to is if we have listeners that want me to buy your book, I'll buy it for them since you were on the, I guess from the show. But I want them to read it.

[Gene Hammett]

The charts in here, I know you can't see it on the video, and if you're certainly on audio only, you can't see it. But I'm just going to look at this to make sure I got everything right. The tone of this is just be curious and calm. In the first phase, you're going to ask questions. You're going to try to understand the perspective that person's coming from. My hope is that's all you need. But maybe you go that step further and you just clarify this. Hey, I get that you're having a tough time at home or you're having a tough time with your car or whatever it may be. Our expectation is for you to be at these meetings because you're an important player. We need to make sure your voice is here and you're sending a signal to everyone else around you that your time is more important than theirs. Now, that's just one example. But imagine if you took every tough conversation in front of you and you treated it from a place of curiosity and calmness and you ask questions and then you clarify what you expect of them in this role and everything got better. That's not even that hard of a conversation. It's not tough. The second phase is what happens after you've had the first one. Let's go with the same theme. They were showing up late to meetings. If they keep showing up late to meetings, then you would be able to name the pattern. That's what I call the second phase. It's where you would come in and say, hey, we had a conversation about this a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that this is still happening and it seems like you're still disrespecting the team. You're naming the behavior, you're not naming the person. And so I really think that's an important distinction because you want to make sure that you're able to truly connect with that person. And I'm looking at the tone of this, I don't have my glasses on, but it's neutral and clear, it's not accusatory. Even though you're naming the pattern, you're letting them see if that's a part of their identity. And most of the time it's such a kind of negative view of this, like disrespecting your teammates. No one wants to be that person. And so when you do that, well, hopefully they get better and you don't have to have a third conversation. But if you do, you go into phase three and it's not about the number of conversations, it's just about kind of the, like you could have messed something up, you could have missed something, you could have not handled it well. You might have to go back and do a phase one again. But in phase three it's about be direct. This is the point where if you are talking with an employee, you might put them on a PIP performance improvement plan. One of my clients calls it a memorandum of understanding. So it's a written document that you would have that could go in their employee file. I've done some speeches for lawyers and they wished that employees would. What I'm saying here, by documenting these conversations, you can document the first one, you can document the second one, the third one and the fourth one. It's not so much documenting because the fourth one is about exit. Not every relationship can be exited. But in the fourth phase, you're gonna come in with that be straightforward and matter of fact tone and you're going to just say, obviously we've given you a few chances here. It doesn't seem like this is a fit for you. We're gonna have to part ways today. That kind of tone is very different than I've seen the blow ups. This is horrible. But if every, you know, everyone's got a horror story of this. But I had a friend that exited and his question was, will I get my full severance? And the boss would not answer the question. And he asked the question again. Well, I'll do with legally abide is what he said. And he's like, well, what does that mean? He's like, well, whatever I'm legally do, I'll pay you with it. And it got heated to the point of he called him fat, ugly, dumb. It was really bad. And so I know a lot of HR people would cringe at this, and they would be like, look, you never wanted to get to that point. So back to the phases you want to Phase one is understand and clarify. Phase two is name the pattern. Phase three is be direct, and phase four is exit.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, see, now you've given people a system that they don't have before, and that's what I like most about it. And I think what you did a great job of is keeping it simple.

[Gene Hammett]

I appreciate that, Kevin. It wasn't easy.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I bet it wasn't. Well, I know I'm going through the same thing, so I'm with you. And then the framework. Can we go into that, since we're. I don't want to give away the whole book again, but it just kind of ties into the framework, because I like that as well. And by the way, your book is very straightforward. There's no fluff. You know, a lot of the New York Times bestsellers have a bunch of fluff, and you want to get through it. You just hit home right? Page after page after page.

[Gene Hammett]

I really appreciate that because we read Radical Candor, and it's a great book, and it's changed a lot of the ways in which people engage with these tough conversations, being candid with people. And Radical Candor is a great book. Crucial Conversations. It's a great book. There's some difficult conversation books out there. They're all big idea books. And we all know those kind of big idea books. And I'll give you an example. I think this is an incredible big idea book, which is Simon Sinek Start with why. But you have to buy the course from his company to figure out how to do it. The big idea, the speech that they did, the TED Talk is like number three in the world, I think, still with millions and millions of downloads. It's a big idea. It doesn't tell you how to do it. And so what this book was meant to do was complement my deep coaching, because a lot of my coaching is about how to evolve as a leader. And it's not about what you're doing as a leader, it's about who you're being. I gave the example of going from frustrated to calm. It may sound like a simple thing, but there's a lot you have to do. And Address to get someone to naturally be calm when their way of seeing the world is to get angry. And so this book was meant to complement the deep work I do in coaching with a very tactical plan. And that's one reason why I don't think I've said this. So I'll just kind of say it. I wrote a different book last year, and the book I wrote was about leadership, about how do you develop more leaders. Because every one of my clients said, I need more leaders in my company. I just don't have enough. I have managers, I have doers. I need more leaders. And so I was going to write up, write that book. Well, it's just, it turned out to be a lot and it was longer than I wanted and it was a little bit. Not rambly, but it just, you know, it's putting together all the tools that we use inside of our leadership development and coaching. And it was too much. And so my coach at the time came back to me and said, well, which chapter is most important now? I thought about it, we talked, probably asked a few questions, and within about three minutes I came back and said, I think it's chapter 18. It's about tough conversations. And he's like, what if you create a series of books and this is just the first one. So we plan to do a series. And this series is the Nothing But Tactics series for leaders. And really proud of that concept. I think we delivered on that with this. Cause people don't need fluff. I interviewed a lot of CEOs and say, why don't you read more books and recommend more books? And the same thing came back over and over. Too fluffy, too long, didn't read, should have been 100 pages when it was 250. I really tried to make it closer to 100 pages, but I think it came in at about 140. So something you can read probably in a East coast to west coast or flight if you wanted to.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, those are the best books and the most memorable ones. I'm reading the. It is the War of Art right now, and it's another short, powerful book that I really like about mindset. So it's been great. Okay, well, let's go into those.

[Gene Hammett]

The framework. You asked about the framework.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

The framework, Yep.

[Gene Hammett]

You know, we may not have time to go into everything, but I will tell you what the differentiators behind this, because there's some things that are just common sense. I'll kind of highlight a few of those. I broke it up into me and my, my co author Amanda broke it up into, before, during and after. We started with this framework because we needed a tool with the clients and we didn't find it in Radical Candor and all these other books in the same category. There was no real framework to guide a leader. And so we started with the before, which became with don't let your emotions take over. Don't be afraid to undress, but also don't go in angry. Everyone knows that when you get, when you're angry with something, you get an email from a, from a hot client or a hot employee. Don't respond right away because your blood pressure is up, your aggravation level is up, you're most likely going to come off. Even if you try to write it really well. Your tone is not going to align what you really want to show. Right. You're going to be kind of in poker world, they call it tilted.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

I was always getting a note for the next one. Tilted. I haven't heard of. No, you gave me something. I had this 24 hour rule, like if I get mad, I write the email and then the next day I'm like, wow, you're really pissed off, Kevin. And then I Google has this. You have a 30 second delay when you hit send and you can say, oh shit, I probably shouldn't have sent that. Let me, let me. I can hit undo. Anyway, that's what I was writing down.

[Gene Hammett]

The 24 hour rule is a very common approach to the same thing. And it's just a rule that you put in place that if you're going to fire this off on someone, then you just write it and let it sit in the draft. Don't put the email address in there yet, just in case something happens. The point is the same. Don't let your emotions take over. That's not news. That's just a reminder of these things. A lot of people know that, but we put it in the framework because it's just part of the experience. The biggest part of this. I already talked about this. Make a plan. Before you go into the conversation, be intentional. We've got questions in there. You can mark them just like I've marked them. I've got little sticky notes on this to really help you understand it. My hope is people would read it and do this and it would sit on their desk, not on their bookshelf. I got a lot of books on my bookshelf, but this is an incredible resource that you might use once or twice a week, sometimes more, if things are not right. But the make a plan. There's 8, 10, 12 questions in there. No exact number. My favorite question in this is, if someone's out of alignment, ask yourself, how have you contributed to this issue?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Take responsibility. I love it. Look in the mirror.

[Gene Hammett]

Because if you take ownership first, you lead, then you may have a much better chance of connecting with that person. Then there's the during. The during is the bulk of the framework, because there's 10 pieces to the framework. But they're mostly just reminders. I'm sorry I have to remind leaders to be present under these tough conversations, but a lot of people think they can multitask. But I ask a lot of people, Kevin, can you sense when someone else is multitasking?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

A hundred percent. You just caught me writing down a note and I missed what you said. You can't do it very well.

[Gene Hammett]

Would you say that you're better at it than most and you can cover up better than anyone else?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Oh, yeah. Especially well. I'll tell you when it stopped. It's when we had to do video calls instead of the old conference calls. That's when it stopped. Cause then you were forced to be present. That's one of the reasons we switched to it as a company, because we were forcing other people to be present. Because you're. How many times you remember? Because, I mean, years ago, you're doing a conference call and you hear the keyboard clicking, you checking emails. In fact, that's how I used to take notes and I had somebody. You checked emails, the whole coaching calls, like, actually I was taking notes on the call. But does somebody else do that to you?

[Gene Hammett]

It's an amazing. Just reminder to be present. Some of the other factors in there, just quickly, you want to listen more than talk. If you're having a tough conversation, you want the other person to feel heard. And if you just run over them with what you want to get out and what you've said, even though you made a good plan, you really missed the point. Because really you want to be empathetic with this. And that means you've got to listen to them. You've got to listen to whatever their story is. You don't have to agree with it, but you want to make sure they go away from the conversation, at least the first one going, okay, I feel heard. I got to say what I needed to say. The one thing too is take your time. You've had time to process this. You've hopefully made a plan. You've let your anger kind of dial down a little bit, your frustration, and so you're able to do this, but you're surprising them. Because the thing that makes a tough conversation so tough is they're not asking for feedback. They're not like, hey, you know, how can I grow today? What am I doing wrong? You want to make sure you give them time to process. And so a lot of leaders will ask me what happens when someone cries. It happens. Some people, they're criers. I don't cry that much. I cry when I watch movies and I watch a dog die or something like that. And I'm not saying I'm just some stoic man, but I cried earlier today with one of my employees because of something that she's going through. So I will cry. But if it's a tough conversation, pause, let them compose themselves and then you can ask a question. Are you okay? Should we proceed or should we table this till tomorrow or later today? Give them a choice. And sometimes if they're really shaken up, maybe they don't get a choice. Like, hey, it'd be better if we just talked about this tomorrow and be willing to give that time and space the rule in the book. I don't know if you remember it, but if you think it's gonna take 15 minutes, give yourself three times that much time. If you think it's gonna be five minutes, give yourself at least 15. Maybe that's even too short. But most people underestimate this and they schedule meetings back to back and they wanna try to be efficient. Being efficient is not the goal. Being effective is the goal in a tough conversation. There's a few other pieces in there, but I'll skip forward to a tactical plan. Every tough conversation should have a follow up conversation. In my opinion. If you're talking to someone using that theory before about being late, then you want to say, okay, we had the conversation, I'm glad we had a chance to. You were able to stand in this and take this, what we had to say. I'm glad that you have a plan. Why don't we meet next week on Monday at 3 o' clock and let's just review your plan, let's see how it's working. And a lot of people don't do this. It's a technique I've learned from sales. I know you mentioned about sales. How much easier is it to book a meeting when you're on the call with a prospect than it is to wait and try to chase them in email?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

A hundred percent. That was one of the first best things I ever learned. When, how much time do you need? When would you like us to follow up and I think you can do the same thing with your team members. How much time do you need to get this around and when should we follow up? Okay, great. Let's get it down on both our calendars and have that follow up meeting. And I agree with you, we skip it. And when we do, three months go by and they're like still doing the same damn thing. They haven't gotten any better.

[Gene Hammett]

And I call it the encouragement meeting. I like to name things, but you know, I'm gonna smile when I say this because it's one of two flavors. You're encouraging them that you're getting it right. I'm seeing the change in behavior, I'm seeing the change in attitude. I'm feeling it. Keep it up. That's the best one to have. But the other one is you're not seeing it. And you don't necessarily need to go through another tough conversation, but you might have an encouragement meeting to get back on plan, to get back into showing up on time or being prepared for meetings or whatever the issue is. And so always have a follow up meeting. It will never be one and done. And I haven't said this either. A tough conversation is never by text or email. I don't care how good of a writer you are, if someone is going to be a little bit upset by this, they will read attitude and tone into it because it's the human nature for us. And no matter how well you word it, there will be gaps in there and they will make up the worst scenario if it's done by some type of written format. And so you want to always have the tough conversation, either face to face or video call to video call or even phone to. Just regular phone does still work in person.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Let's say in person, not in person, but live. Maybe Live is a better word. Live these days.

[Gene Hammett]

Live is a great word. And then I'll wrap up with this because you definitely want to make sure that you document these calls. Every attorney, especially if you have employees in California, you've got to document everything. It's real. A lot of clients won't even hire people in California because they've been sued by their legal law employment practices. But then I love this extra little detail in here and it's the C and the empathetic that we use the 10 steps is care. How do you let them know you care about them? If they've stood with you and you've had this tough conversation and you take 24 hours afterwards and you send A text. And a lot of people go, why do you send a text here versus an in person call? Because you don't want to get backed in the conversation. But you might just want to say, hey, I really appreciate you being vulnerable with me yesterday, taking some ownership behind this. I know that you're a valuable employee here and we believe in you. And they can look at that text and hopefully they've read it with a good tone because you've taken some time to read it well or write it well and they can look at it 10 times and they can go, you know what? This company really does care about me. It's not just about numbers, it's not just about whatever. They care. And so there's a lot more to this, but that's a pretty good run through of the before, during and after the call.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

That was incredible. And I know your time's valuable, so we need to wrap it up. But great job today. Incredible information. Highly recommend. I meant what I said. If anybody wants the book and they don't want to buy it, I'll buy it for them. If I get a ton of requests, I may call Eugene for a deal. We'll see. But thank you for being here. Is there anything if people want to get ahold of you, what's the best way for them to find you?

[Gene Hammett]

My home base is coreelevation.com but my home has been genehamett.com so if you can get my name written up there on the screen or it'll be in the show notes. But if you like podcasts, Growth Think Tank is a great resource if you want to be a better leader. And then you can buy the book wherever you buy. Books online really is an incredible, you know, all formats, audible, read by the authors. Both of us, we kind of tag team that. But it was a fun experience to do that with my wife and just really proud of the book that it will make you a better leader. You can pick something, one thing out of it immediately, put it in play and realize that it worked. You get good feedback on it and then start using some of the other tactics. Or you can read it all the way through and just start revamping your whole approach and strategy to having tough conversations. But the key here is they're not gonna get better on their own. If you're not willing to talk about it, how do you expect it to get better?

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, thank you and I also loved your advice. This isn't just tough conversations at work, but it can be tough conversations at home, which I think it sounds like you and your wife. Since you survived writing a book together and you've been together for a while, that's worked well for you.

[Gene Hammett]

Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Kevin.

[Kevin St. Clergy]

Well, thanks, Gene. We'll talk to you soon.