← Beyond Blind Blaming
Beyond Blind Blaming
How to Turn Leadership Mistakes into Your Greatest Advantage | Dr. Todd Dewett
00:51:43
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- [00:01]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
We all make mistakes. I don't want you to make them, but we're going to, and you should use them.
- [00:06]
Kevin St. Clergy
Today I'm joined by Dr. Todd Duett, who is one of the world's most watched leadership personalities. Todd has delivered over 1,000 speeches to members of the Fortune 500. And his educational library at LinkedIn Learning has been enjoyed by over 30 million professionals.
- [00:21]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
All the things I've done around leadership, people, team psychology, all these people related issues in business, One of the most common persistent things I see people struggle with is what you just said, accountability. Another one is, you know, what the average person does when they make a mistake in professional life? They blame. That's a word you love. Blame others. At work, we're being told that, you know, work and home life are different, separate. We're professionals. Let's be professional. I love to tell people, no, we've overdone that. We're not supposed to be best friends. I'm not saying that. But you're supposed to see people, not just professionals.
- [00:55]
Kevin St. Clergy
How can leaders cultivate these qualities in high pressure environments?
- [00:58]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
The short answer is.
- [01:12]
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 stopping blind blame from dictating their outcomes. The insights you're about to gain will help you see beyond your current limitations and 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 my next guest. I'm your host, Kevin St. Clergy, and today I'm joined by Dr. Todd DeWitt, who is one of the world's most watched leadership personalities. A thought leader, an authenticity expert, best selling author, top Global Instructor at LinkedIn Learning, a TEDx speaker, and an Inc. Magazine Top 100 Leadership Speaker, Todd has delivered over 1,000 speeches to members of the Fortune 500. And his educational library at LinkedIn Learning has been enjoyed by over 30 million professionals in more than 100 countries in eight languages. Todd, welcome to the show.
- [02:21]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Hey, man, great to be here. How are you?
- [02:23]
Kevin St. Clergy
I'm well. I always like to start the podcast off with a little bit more about you and what led you to do what you do now, which is helping people succeed.
- [02:30]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Thanks for asking the answer to that's luck and persistence, hard work. I basically didn't know what I wanted to do as an undergraduate, which is common for an undergraduate. And I knew business was interesting. That's as far as I really got after I graduated, actually went straight to an mba, which at the time was not normal at all and was kind of a risk. And doubled down on loving business and then started thinking seriously about people and relationships and business psychology and those related issues. Worked for big box consultants for a few years, both Ernst and Young and Andersen, but not long, because I discovered, oh, I was right. This people part of business absolutely captured me. And I also knew this is just blunt as I can say it. I didn't fit in corporate America very well. I'm loud, colorful, full of ideas, and following rules was more difficult for me than most of their folks. And I wanted a place where I could go be me and have it not be a threat to my progress. And I figured out the best way to do that, which was to go back to the ivory tower. And I got a PhD at Texas a and M in organizational behavior. And I became a professor for 10 years at a school that I still love called Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio State. And I thought, to be honest with you, Kevin, I'll do that forever. And then, as you know, you make your plans and life laughs at you. It kind of throws you some curveballs. And one day a phone call came in and a former student said, hey, I was in your class. Do you remember me? And I said yes, even though I did not. Hey, we've got this meeting coming up. Would you come out and tell some stories? You were really funny in class. And I thought, well, okay. And I did it, and I did it for free because I didn't know what I was doing.
- [03:59]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's always a good start.
- [04:00]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
This is where we all start, right? That built into something to the point that I had to think about what do I want to do as a career, Speak in related things or be a professor. I started canceling a lot of classes. I was traveling. And I made the decision to go solo and be a solopreneur. And so I was tenured. I had been a dean, I had a job for life, and I let it go. And I moved for family reasons and business reasons to Houston, Texas, from Dayton, Ohio. And right before that move, I hooked up with Lynda.com, which evolved later into LinkedIn learning. And turns out I'm still an educator. I'm just now doing it online for Millions of people every year instead of hundreds of people in a classroom every year. So I write books, I give speeches, I'm continually making courses. I'll be honest though, when LinkedIn called me and said, hey, we saw some of your stuff online, I think we should talk. Let me tell you what we do. Maybe you'd be working with us, maybe you'd like to. I said, no, I don't think so. This is true. I said, no, I don't think so. I don't think you could do online what I can do in a classroom. And they were patient with me and sold the proposition to me. And they were of course exponentially correct and I was acting like a dinosaur and thankfully they pulled me into relevance and I've been online helping people ever since.
- [05:13]
Kevin St. Clergy
Sounds like me waiting to adopt AI until the end of last year. And then it's changed my life.
- [05:18]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Good for you. I'm still trying to force myself to do it.
- [05:22]
Kevin St. Clergy
I like it because it helped me clarify some ideas and take some concepts that I had that I've learned from several different people and make it one of my own and make it unique. I think AI will always need a pilot and a copilot, or a copilot as they say. But it did help save some time where I was able to write this newest book a lot faster than previous books that I've written. So I would start with ChatGPT, but when it comes to writing, look at Claude AI. It's a much better writer. The problem with Claude though is as well as writing and helping with blog posts and book ideas and concepts, it doesn't have a very good memory. So ChatGPT, I subscribe to both. They're the only two that I have, but I learned these from my business coaches who are like, dude, you have to start doing this like, well. But you have had one hell of an impact. 30 million people. My goal with the new book was 10 million, so I'm going to have to up that to 30 million now. So I've got to do better than Dr. DeWitt.
- [06:11]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
LinkedIn gets you credit, my friend. I didn't know this, but looking at a camera and having people want to listen and find your delivery just as much as interesting as the content, I didn't know that was a skill. I had no idea I could do it. And they showed me that I was natural at it. It's just something I'm good at. I don't know why. And because that's true and because they're world class marketers at LinkedIn. Yep. We've been able to touch and help a lot of people.
- [06:33]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's awesome. I'll have to look into it. I've been speaking all over the world as well, and speaking in camera scares the hell out of me. So I'm going to be doing it a lot. I shot 22 videos last week with a coach and I'm doing it and I'm really pushing my comfort level and it's been a lot of fun. So kudos to you for doing it earlier than I did. Well, let's get into your newest book a little bit because I really enjoyed the fable. And as we talked about in the green room or before the show, it just triggered me because working with fable editors, as you know, was a lot of fun. But what inspired you to write Dancing with Monsters as a fable rather than a traditional leadership book?
- [07:09]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I'm a variety junkie, is one answer. I'm not good at following a formula and then honing it to perfection over 20 years. I'm definitely a variety junkie, and I had enjoyed in the past a few fables that had been popular. Found them interesting, maybe a useful tool I should consider using to get some messages out. And I just started thinking about it one day and I got excited about it and I was probably drinking too much coffee and I started taking notes and then I just felt like starting to write. I have no experience writing a fable. I'm glad it came out pretty good. And six hours later I had a draft. It's a very short book. Of course I had a draft that was done. That's the definition of passion. When you find a fit, something that you really like, not something you're forcing yourself to do. It's hilarious how it just flows out of you. And when you think about, well, there's monsters. The book's about little misfit monsters. You know, we got a crazy mummy and a zombie and what have you. And they're on a team. They're not performing well. Doing what monsters are supposed to do, of course, scaring people. They need some help. And the vampire Joe is the protagonist and he also is floundering and being told that he's floundering and asked to increase his abilities and start performing well and to help this group of misfits do so as well. It was just fun. You know, I love these topics. Facing fears, overcoming the things that scare you and stepping in. Not worried about the consequences, but just excited to engage and be whatever it is you are. In their case of monsters, it's so simple. It's been done by a million people. I wanted to find a new way to take that message to people. Hey, your fears might hurt, they might be crippling you, but guess what? They're actually somewhat irrational. They are somewhat fabricated based on perceptions and assumptions. They're not necessarily immovable objects at all. And someone needs to say that and push people to jump in and. And prove that to themselves. And that was the idea for the book.
- [08:51]
Kevin St. Clergy
You did an incredible job. And I personally love short stories because they're easy to get through, but the concepts were powerful. So congrats. Cause you did a great job with it.
- [08:59]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
It was very kind, man.
- [09:00]
Kevin St. Clergy
I appreciate it. You're welcome. Can you elaborate on the symbolism behind choosing monsters as characters to represent leadership challenges?
- [09:07]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Yeah. I've always loved monsters and all their shapes and sizes. One of the biggest themes of what I do is help people think about themselves differently and better first before having them look at their team and organization. And we have trouble as humans feeling good about ourselves Sometimes it's very easy to. Even if you're great at building confidence, it's very easy to have something happen or even just to perceive that something happened and have that confidence take a hit. We look in the mirror and sometimes we don't like what we see. I think that's nearly universal. And I like to take universal things that are difficult and talk about them. Because most people. I'll give you an example. Mistakes is one of the sub themes, if you will. We all make mistakes. And you know what the average person does when they make a mistake in professional life? They blame. That's a word you love. Blame others. Blame, by the way, is an acronym. Give you the PG version. I have a PG and an R version. PG would be barely legitimate, almost meaningless excuse. I love that. And it's true because it's easy and it takes the heat off of us, at least inside our little brains. The second thing we do is to disavow its existence and shove it in the back of our minds and ignore it like it never existed and hope no one ever brings it up again. Those are very common responses to making mistakes both small and large. And I just love, again, basic ideas. Simple. But we know from science that they're powerful. If you will start wearing them on your sleeve a little bit more, so to speak. Never put them in the back of that dusty brainy ears and actually learn from them. Analyze them, laugh at them, and then here's the big part. Find the right time to share them. It's Hilarious. How mistakes can become fuel for growth. Now, everyone knows this, but it takes a Pied Piper on occasion, of course, to remind us of these obvious things that we've forgotten, because maybe they're not easy to digest, even if they're logically understandable. Mistakes rock. I don't want you to make them, but we're going to. And you should use them. When I get someone to stop lying about their imperfections. I've done this to audiences many times. Hey, show of hands, how many of you will admit you are wonderfully imperfect? And usually this is funny. I mean, it's obvious what the answer is. And yet usually I have 80% max, something like that, raised their hand. And I just. I can't believe that I say to the other 20%, I'm worried about you. We should talk when we're done today, because I hate to break it to you, but you're just as imperfect as the rest of us. Here's the punchline. And that's okay. That's okay. That's normal. That's like, we breathe air. It's normal. You've got to learn to use that. Laugh at it and admit it. Because we spend so much energy denying it, it's hilarious. And I want people to use that energy in some other way.
- [11:39]
Kevin St. Clergy
I usually say when I have an audience that doesn't really truly admit what's going on, I'll say, well, I can see me coming here was an emergency, because you guys are in complete denial. And when I get the book in your hands, you're going to learn something called the blame loop. And being aware that you're in that loop, it's vicious cycle that keeps building on, you know, you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, which shapes how you view the world and how you look at when you're making mistakes. But in our. The last company that I just recently sold a couple of years ago, on our weekly agenda, we used to have a celebrate mistakes area. I was very nervous about it. I'll give my business partner Charlie, full credit for it. It was his idea. He's like, no, no, we got to celebrate. We got to have people not be afraid to admit that they made a mistake. And we have to not only celebrate it, but then each person each week would get the crown, and they had to pick the biggest blunder, whoever made the biggest mistake. Next week, somebody wore the crown that we used to pass around. We were a virtual company, so we'd actually ship the crown to people to wear. It ended up being A lot of fun. But what they would do is they would outline their biggest mistake, admit it, and then say, here's what happened and here's what I'm going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again to us as a company or me as an individual. And it worked so well. We had incident reports that came out of that from another team member. And it just really got people more vulnerable. And they weren't scared to come to us and make a mistake because we had some situations where maybe you run into this too. People would make a mistake, but they were scared to death to go tell their boss about it. And then nobody wins.
- [13:00]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
It could be even worse. I remember years ago when I first started looking into the concept of psychological safety, which is what you said, people got to be comfortable with trying to try things and make mistakes and talk about it and face it. Now they often refer to psychological safety, which is that willingness to be vulnerable to those possibilities. And when I was first researching this years ago, I saw a study. This is going to shake you up. I saw a study about nurse managers in hospitals. And turns out that when they become aware of mistakes made, hey, Mr. Jones, got the wrong dose or whatever, they don't always report it quickly or sometimes don't even report it up the chain the way they're supposed to immediately to correct course because they fear repercussions on themselves. That has direct patient care implications just because of that human reality. How scary is that? Right?
- [13:45]
Kevin St. Clergy
Very scary. Somebody could die. I think I got into that in some of the research on the book, though, about how the medical field and hospitals, they're not getting to the root cause of the problem, which it sounds like what you do. And your monster fable hit home with me because I think all leaders go through the stage where sometimes accountability scares them and they're afraid to hold people accountable because they're going to come across as a mean ogre, which is actually a term that I've used.
- [14:08]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
So all the things I've done around leadership, people, team psychology, all these people related issues in business, one of the most common persistent things I see people struggle with is what you just said, accountability. So they can tell me what it is, they can tell me why it's important, but they have great difficulty doing it because they don't want to be that terrible ogre, which is why it's fun to remind them, you know, if you're doing all the things ideally you're supposed to do leading a team, you're doing the humility, the vulnerability you're sharing the spotlight, you're collaborating and hearing their voice, not just dictating, et cetera, et cetera. If you're on average doing those things that make work not just bearable, but maybe even fun on occasion, and purpose driven, they're not going to look at you like an ogre when you say, let's talk about that report you just turned in. So it depends on who you are in their mind as to how they're going to react to that critical feedback. Right?
- [14:58]
Kevin St. Clergy
I'll tell you some of the things we've been doing for several years to prepare not only our organization, but others is when the first day we start them off with two articles, which one will be an article on my book about giving up, taking responsibility and giving up two things, blaming and complaining, otherwise you truly can't. But also we talk a lot about and share some resources on a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, specifically on how they take feedback. So people with a fixed mindset take feedback as a personal attack, which is what we're all scared of as leaders. But if you prepare the team to take feedback and say, look, when I get feedback to you, it's not a personal attack, you need to start welcoming it. And what's really cool is when we start people off on those, then people start saying, asking for feedback, which is when I like, I've got a new assistant now and she actually came in this morning. She's like, hey, I'm just curious, how am I doing? And I was like, holy crap, it worked. It still works. I mean, we've been doing it for, geez, eight or ten years, but it still works if you can prepare them to do that. Because I think a lot of people put people in a position. I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning and says, man, I'm going to do a crappy job today and my boss is really going to attack me. Doesn't happen. But your book went into that a lot and I loved it.
- [16:03]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I'm looking forward to reading that. These are universal, they never go away. Hopefully we continue to find helpful perspectives like yours to get people to focus productively back on those issues. The truth is, everyone thinks that if they admit their imperfections and some of those mistakes and things they don't know, things that concern them, all those difficult types of issues that they're going to lose, people are going to lose confidence in them. That is basically not true. So what happens with most professionals is that they really work hard through blaming, avoiding all kinds of Things to not talk about imperfections, mistakes and so on. But the truth is, if you were to talk about every day, three times a week about this thing you screwed up that time, you failed, the big worry that you have, yes, then you would start bothering people and they would worry about your mental state. But my observation is that people really strive to never do it. So my job then becomes to remind them, hey, the frequency matters. It never is not good. Don't do that. What you're supposed to do is three, four times a year.
- [16:57]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's it.
- [16:57]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
That's enough. Sincerely, at the right venue, might be a weekly meeting, might be a conference. I don't know. You're supposed to bring out, like, I've got a State Farm story about a time I bombed 20 years ago on stage when I was a rookie speaker. It helped me grow. Ultimately embarrassing that day. It was really, really difficult, scarred me, and I turned it into great learning. The point is, we all have that three, four times a year. You're supposed to use that because if they see you as competent, good in several ways, but also absolutely human, just like them, that's the power of humility. And talking about mistakes and all these issues, it validates the imperfect humans that are looking at you when they see you embrace that reality, too.
- [17:36]
Kevin St. Clergy
Yep. Have you ever forgotten what you're talking about on stage?
- [17:39]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Oh, sure. You name the error. I've done it.
- [17:41]
Kevin St. Clergy
I've tried it. Yeah, I've been maybe even doing a little longer than I have, about 20 years for me. But I just recently I forgot what I was on stage and I just thought a joke. Look, I drink a lot. It was a joke. And people started laughing at least. And I was like, where was I? And the audience was like, you were here.
- [17:56]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I was like, oh, right, that's a big one. I was talking on a live session the other day with someone who wanted to talk about public speaking, and you just brought up one of the nightmares that people dream of before they get on stage. Here's the truth that no one understands. And I don't think we talked about it in that live session the other day. So here it goes. You can be on stage just like you did when you forgot and I did when I forgot and other things I've done. Oops, I left out a story, didn't I? How did I run long and left leave out? So things happen. If what you do overall, the message and the delivery is well received by the audience, they happily quickly forgive you for all the errors and imperfections that are always Present. And people just need to understand that they don't care because they're listening to that message and want to hear it. Continue.
- [18:37]
Kevin St. Clergy
We were in Orlando doing a talk for our mastermind group, and my business partner and I decided to come up with. We were going to put a mistake in a slide, and we did it on purpose. It was very glaring because there's only three words on the screen. And we did it. And we were talking about mindset, how to not get stuck on the wrong things. And I encourage you to try it because I was a little nervous about it. Like, I screw it, let's try it. I'm always big. We have these crazy ideas that we. We talk about. We usually try them because we're both crazy together, which works out really well.
- [19:02]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Crazy is good. But if you want to talk about crazy, I actually haven't used slides for about 20 years, maybe 15 years, something like that. So I can't do that one. But I hear you. The idea is still good. I'll screw up on purpose and see what happens.
- [19:11]
Kevin St. Clergy
Well, yeah, they get stuck on it. We went through it. I mean, I. I would love to get more. I don't use slides either, but I do enjoy just making some points. And this one was fun because half the room, these are people with multimillion dollar businesses who are extremely successful. And about half the room, when we went back two slides later and said, how many of you were bothered by that? So half the room said, oh, you're human. You're not just these great speakers. You're making the mistakes. And some of the people said, well, I felt sorry for you. Or I was like, wow, this guy is really not on the top of his game today. And people went and were like, wow, that's really interesting. And then we said, well, what do we talk about on the next slide? And it was silence in the room. So everybody went off on a tangent. We were just talking about getting distracted and things like that, and how you gotta try to not let things bother you, like bad language, which there is a note about language in my book. Because there is something that I have in the book which I did write down. I want to know that we're pretty open on this podcast. So I would love to know the bad language part of the blame thing, just because it's a big topic in my book.
- [20:08]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Oh, the rated R version?
- [20:09]
Kevin St. Clergy
Yeah, the rated R version. I want to hear it.
- [20:10]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Bullshit. Lame ass, meaningless. Excuse me. I love it.
- [20:13]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's so good.
- [20:14]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I used to ask MBA students, I taught MBA students for 10 years. And I would always tell them, I got a PG and I got an R. Which one do you want? Without exception, they would always say bar.
- [20:22]
Kevin St. Clergy
Yeah, well, I'm learning that there's a lot of people that get held back by bad language. So I actually have a note about bad language because at some point, once you have all the information, everything else, you have to do something that we call mfd. And you're welcome to steal this. Just give me credit. Make a fucking decision at some point. Yep, at some point. I think leaders have to do that. You've got all the information, but you got MFD because it came from a coaching client where she was him and hawing about what to do with two different hires. And I just said, kayla, you've got to make a fucking decision. That's my style. It's very calm. And about a month later, I'm on another coaching call with her and I'm like, well, how's it going? She's like, oh, I'm MFD ing all over the place and it's changed my life completely. And I'm like, oh, crap, can I use that in my book? And she's like, yeah, absolutely. You've really changed my life. I made some mistakes and I've had to adjust, but at least I'm not just sitting there hem and hawing for weeks at a time and stalling.
- [21:11]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I love that I was talking about accountability being so common in my experience. Another one is people not knowing how to balance the need to think, talk, analyze and prep for a decision versus make the call. It's very difficult for people because there's risks involved in actually taking a position on anything.
- [21:26]
Kevin St. Clergy
Well, it goes back to what we talk about is fear, which I've got some questions around the fear, but I want to step back into the story a little bit. You have Joe, who faces the risk of losing his monster status due to poor performance. How does this scenario mirror real life leadership struggles?
- [21:41]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I'll use me. I mean, Joe's modeled on me a little bit. You beat me. Congratulations on the road to AI. I need to. I had a guy I just started working for, the largest content producer for one of them, for Coursera. So this is a company that goes out and finds people like me to make courses for Coursera. And he didn't berate me. He's a very nice guy. But he did encourage me clearly and repetitively to get on the AI wagon because it is becoming the norm rapidly and will reduce my time as a major Benefit. And Joe's the same way. Sometimes you need to have someone smack you just a little bit. And the wicked witch, as you'll recall, riding her nice broom from hr. I'm sure I made some friends in HR by doing that, came over to give him the heads up. He come to Jesus talk and he decided, which is interesting because he kind of barked some orders to people and got nowhere quickly. And then he had a. He had his own come to Jesus time to think about, what am I doing wrong? Why aren't these people, why am I, and why are they not responding the way I want them to? And he realized he needed to be a little more real instead of posturing people, really. That's why I love authenticity. I always talk about it. It's sprinkled thematically into this book as well. You gotta be real. The more they see you as a human, not just as a person with more status and power occupying a position over there, but a human being just like them, the more they're willing to go and relax and listen and engage a little more. That's priceless. And so of course he had something to show them behind his glasses and it was a big moment. And I loved writing that scene where they were all like, what? This is not the vampire I'm used to seeing. But he revealed himself to them in a vulnerable way and they removed and started opening up as well. I mean, you want to face fears, it's a solo adventure, but it doesn't have to be full time solo. Sometimes with a good friend or a team that's got some nice rapport, you can do it in front of them and help them do it as well, which is what this team did.
- [23:32]
Kevin St. Clergy
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'm curious on the building rapport, because one of the things I've done when I go in and work with teams is I got it. I totally. Well, I call it ethically swipe and redeploy, but I always give him credit. I totally stole it from Patrick Lencioni and his book the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. But he has this exercise called the Personal histories exercise. Have you read about that?
- [24:38]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
No.
- [24:39]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's where you get everybody in a room. Everybody goes around the room. They talk about how many siblings they had growing up and what their biggest challenge as an adult and a child was. And it just. It kind of forces people into that vulnerable mode, and it explains a lot about how the team can work better together. But I usually start with the owner. You're welcome to steal it. I got to give Patrick Lencioni. He's the one who gave me the idea from his book Death by Meeting the Fable. That's where I got the idea. My first book was called the Death of Audiology, which is I'm an audiologist. That's where I got my start. I don't know how I got into the business side of it. I do, but I'm out of audiology, sort of, but still teaching in that realm. But, yeah, it's a powerful exercise that gets people to do it. The end of his book, he's got all these exercises you can do to build rapport, because I think people aren't sure how to do that. Your book gives them some ideas, but I think there's some other things. Anything you've done over time to get people to be more vulnerable.
- [25:28]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
The bigger issue, the way I would frame that, is to say that there's a lot of obvious knowledge that we want obvious desire to have teams be more open and connected with rapport. Sure. How do you do that? Well, the classic answer in corporate America is to use various assessments. The Myers, Briggs, there's many disc, et cetera. Those are useful, but not everyone loves them. And they sometimes freak people out because they're being scored. And then we're being reduced to scores and certain labels, and there's some utility there for creating common language and understanding people. For sure. I do advocate that, but I like what you described and many versions thereof much better because they're not scary, they're not complex. Maybe they're not as scientific, but they do hit a nerve in terms of opening up people to be honest about who they are. Where They've been. And that gives insights to others. And it's fast, easy, and cheap. So I love activities like that. So you go to college, they might pass around a roll of toilet paper at orientation. Hey, take as many squares as you'd like. I'll tell you why in a minute. And maybe there's 30 people in a big circle. And then the facilitator says, okay, I want you to tell me the scariest moments from your childhood. How many, as many squares as you're holding? Again, there's a million versions of these activities, and they're brilliant. So I commend you for picking up on it and finding a way to get people talking, because, and I've said this too many times, everything great in business starts with great relationships and fruitful, honest conversations. That's just as true as true can be. And yet we struggle with that mightily at work for a lot of reasons. We're fearful of how people think, fearful of causing too much, too many waves, or causing more work for me and for others. Or maybe I share an idea that's no good, et cetera. And so censoring and saying what we think is safe in the eyes of those who are important around us becomes the norm. And that's when you know a team is going to be stuck in mediocrity soon.
- [27:14]
Kevin St. Clergy
I love it. I think the most recent example I have is, we had a woman when I did this. It was last year, I guess around this time. It's the most powerful one I've ever done. We did that exercise, and she's like, look, I had a massive heart attack at 32 years old, and I almost died. And this is why I love my job. I just love coming to work every day. I'm just happy to be alive every single day. And I was crying. The group was crying. And then. But fast forward, because I just had the coaching call this morning with that same account, and they said, listen, I want you to know that that personal histories exercise has really changed our company. Because three of the five people I did reviews with last week mentioned that personal histories exercise with the woman who had the massive heart attack at 32. And when they have a bad day, they think, you know what? I'm still lucky just to be here and make a difference. And I was like, wow, okay. That's why it's fresh on my mind.
- [28:00]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
It should be. That's an amazing story. The way I say it is that at work, we're being told that work and home life are different, separate, and we can be people over there, but at work we're professionals. Let's be professional. And I love to tell people, no, we've overdone that. We're not supposed to be best friends. I'm not saying that. But you're supposed to see people, not just professionals. And the activity you just described is one great example of how to move in that direction.
- [28:22]
Kevin St. Clergy
Well, speaking of that, authenticity and humility are often emphasized as key leadership traits. How can leaders cultivate these qualities in high pressure environments? Which is pretty popular in corporate America at the moment.
- [28:34]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Yeah, I mean it is. The short answer is we have to work on fear. I always work around this topic, but on a podcast I'll just be more honest with you. One of the worst things at work anywhere is job insecurity. And it's the nature of not owning the company. You can't get around it. Most of us who work for paycheck of some sort have job insecurity. And that job insecurity leads us to do things we would otherwise not do. Unavoidable. It leads us to say things we would otherwise not say. It leads us to hang around people we would maybe otherwise not hang around. That is powerful and challenging and it's part of the system we've chosen. Not saying it's evil. I'm saying it's a challenge that we face. So how do you get around that? The best I've ever seen, not a miracle, but a good answer is for leaders to be more and more human and validate those weird eccentricities, weird ideas, fails ideas, mistakes in others when they see them. You can do it with products and services the way you were saying, pass around a crown, for example, to someone who had the best goofy thing that they did or said last quarter. Or you can do it like back in the day, Google had a failures little library everyone used to talk about 20 years ago. I don't know if they do it anymore, but they would have products and services on a shelf in a box or on a computer if necessary. So you could go see the screw ups. Right there in that room is the collective failures of the last 10 years. Some version of that. So corporate leaders on an individual basis have to get off the pedestal we often find them standing on and go humble themselves. You do that a couple ways. You go hang out with the troops more instead of only doing zooms. And you do that by admitting some of those things you're fearful of and have screwed up. That authenticity piece is scary. Here's the good news. You don't have to jump in the deep end and try and you know, Friday you're wearing a three piece suit, Monday you show up in cargo shorts. You don't have to go extreme and quick to show who you are. Toe in the water, just like testing the water. So all you got to do, just be a little more obvious about what you say, how you behave, maybe what you wear in terms of grooming and all that as well. But most importantly what you say and how you behave at work. For example, when someone really is brave enough, which in some workplaces is rare, to speak up and criticize an idea the boss just shared, do you immediately try to shoot them down? Very common response. Because you want to assert the right righteous nature of whatever idea you just shared. Or do you say, you know what, that's interesting, let's unpack that. Maybe you've got something. What do you think, Joe? And then you give the microphone to someone else. That's an act of rapport building through humility. It really is. And the more you do that, the more the team says, ah, we're a team, they're a member. It's not like we're a team. And over there is a boss, they're on the team too. That's a mental shift that is brilliant to watch someone take.
- [31:16]
Kevin St. Clergy
We've always encouraged people to not always lead their own team meetings. They have everybody in the team lead a different team meeting each week.
- [31:24]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
You and I think about these things very similarly.
- [31:26]
Kevin St. Clergy
Yeah, I love again, I'm going to give my ex business partner Charlie credit for that one too. But I've learned a lot. He was my mentor and coach before. We partnered together to create a wonderful company that as I said, we exited on. But I learned a lot just from him and the things that we did together. But we got to be where I was enjoying that because what was really fun was just seeing other people step up. Now I will say that a lot of them were stressed the F out before they did it and they're telling me, I am so stressed about this meeting. I was like, you're going to do great. Focus on the agenda, be yourself and you'll be fine. And what was really cool is to see other team members who would say, you did a great job on the meeting and it built their confidence level and it just helped us grow as a team. So all your stuff was great suggestions. I love it. Well, given your extensive experience as a speaker and educator, how do you see storytelling impacting leadership development compared to traditional training methods?
- [32:14]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
There's a Lot of good methods out there, for sure. Probably the top two would be surprising to some people. Number one is modeling. That is to say, go be a great version of yourself. Because people are learning vicariously as they watch you, not just when they're directly interacting with you. Modeling the way is probably the most motivational thing. Assuming you're modeling great behaviors for others to watch, and then the one that you're alluding to is more authenticity. How do you do that? Most people are scared to death to let out any of that at work. Well, storytelling is one of the best ways to do that. Why? Because we have been trained as a people to love comic books and TV shows and movies and stories in all their different forms. They have characters we can relate to, we can love, we can hate. We know that it's going somewhere and there will be a climactic ending of some sort. We get stories because it's simple, emotional. That's a huge part, and powerful as a result. So I started experimenting. First year as a professor, I was in class. I had been taught by good people, and I knew how to. I thought, technically speaking, I knew how to run a classroom. And I was. This is true. I was quoting research and using three and four syllable words and trying to make sure that everyone knew exactly how much I know and how bright I am, which is moronic. I didn't know that for the first year or so. And no one wants to hear that. And so I recognized that in their faces and in feedback. And I started becoming the casual, maybe too casual sometimes person that you're talking to. And a big part of that was stories. And I've always enjoyed telling stories. So I'm lucky that something that came natural to me turns out to be useful in a leadership capacity. And I started telling stories, and they got more vulnerable quickly. For example, I still end many keynotes by talking about my dad's journey with cancer. And invariably it makes people laugh and cry and think. And that's a beautiful trio right there. And so for years, I had a captive audience where I could work on stories. Those stories then became the basis of two books I've written, just short stories, books made up of short stories that I use in keynotes. That's literally a couple of books, and people love it. I can't tell you. No one's ever come to me. No one, Kevin, has ever come to me, says, you know what, man? I read that paper you wrote on blah, blah, blah, and published in this journal over there. And, you know, it moved me.
- [34:15]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's so true.
- [34:17]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
No one's ever said that. But I've had people come up to me crying and hug me and thank me and then send me emails later when they hear a story that hits them and helps them lodge loose where they were stuck, maybe and think anew about something that's big in their life. Maybe something that been avoiding. I'll give you my favorite example. Hasn't happened for a while because society has changed so much. But when I started, I didn't have as much ink, but I had a lot of visible ink still. And as you know, decade by decade, the stigma associated with that has become lower. It's still there, but it's become lower. When I was starting, say, the first five, 10 years, it was not uncommon for someone to come up after a gigantic and say, you know, that was great. I looked at you and I thought, what? It doesn't look like what I expect, especially because of those tattoos. And then you did what you do and it was really great. So why do you show them? Why do you have them? Because they didn't understand it was honest. And I said, well, I don't know why you style your hair that way. We all make different choices for how we look and present ourselves, and that's okay. But that was common. They wanted to tell me that they didn't get that. They saw that and then it evolved as I got better. I've heard this one, I swear to you 50 times, a man or a woman will come up to me and they'll say, I've been at war. Some of them in a small way, some of them in a large way with my son or daughter because they started getting tattoos and I told them they were going to ruin their careers and I didn't support that. And it's caused a rift, a big one, in our relationship. I watched you today and I realized, what the hell am I doing? Why does this matter at all? What matters is the outcome. Like you delivering your speech. What matters is the things they're doing and how I feel about those behaviors and the outcomes they're trying to create. And if that looks great, why do I care about how they do their hair or whether or not they have tattoos? I've watched people make that mental turn. It's one of the most satisfying, gratifying things ever.
- [35:59]
Kevin St. Clergy
That's awesome. That's right at blind blaming. My kid's not making any progress. We'll stop harping about them at the damn tattoos and let it be themselves. Well, what key takeaway do you hope readers will implement in their leadership practices after reading Dances With Monsters that they're.
- [36:17]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
A little more okay with being who they are. We can all build skills and evolve and grow. I hope that for myself and everyone else. But the truth is, any given moment, we are what we is. And a lot of people make. You have to make a choice. Do I lament that? Do I hate that? Do I question that? Am I concerned about that? Or do I accept that and feel good about the best parts of it? That's a choice. Perspective is a choice. So I hope that as Joe reveals himself and rallies the team to new heights in the book, I really do hope that people go, you know, I can have hope. I can see past those obstacles that have been killing me for the last year, that I've been treating. Treating as immovable objects because they're not. And just like Joe, if I'll loosen my damn tie and get a little more honest, roll my sleeves up, get dirty with the team not just dictating, maybe we'll all realize that it's okay that we're imperfect, because when we work together, it's amazing what we can accomplish. We just got to focus on what's possible instead of how we believe we're imperfect.
- [37:15]
Kevin St. Clergy
I love it. Well, you've heard a little bit about blind blaming, and that is the topic of the podcast. But can you tell me about a time when you had a client, or anyone really, who thought they knew what the problem was, but when it came to it, or when it got down to it, they just ended up solving the wrong problem perfectly? Do you have an example of that in leadership? You can share a story, if you will.
- [37:35]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Sure, kind of. I'm thinking about a manager I knew. I used to do a lot of consulting. That morphed into consulting workshops and training, and that became speaking. And then I do a lot of speaking, writing, and courses now. But back in the consulting days, I got so many interesting stories from people who were facing challenges and they didn't understand them and they thought they did, which is kind of what you said. I remember one guy, I went in, I was doing some survey work and some interview work, trying to figure out why there were such morale problems, turnover problems, engagement problems at a midsize manufacturer in the Midwest. That's all I'll say. And I remember talking to the managers. There's maybe 20 of them, give or take, before they unleashed me on all of the employees and doing group interviews and such. And this guy was confident and I liked him. He was a nice guy. And he was confident. He understood the problem. The problem was a couple of bosses over there in groups they related to and worked with every day. And the problem was compensation and a couple other things I could mention. But the point is, the problem in no way was him. He even told me, you know what? I'm pretty proud of the rapport we have. There's no fighting in my group. We just talk and get along, get things done. And I was like, well, okay. Inside my brain, I'm thinking, this smells funny. I've seen this a million times. Maybe he's really got his stuff together, but let me go find out. And so I started talking to his team, and they were a little more open and brave than I was used to a little bit. And turns out they did not like their boss. Their boss was believed in being a professional. We talked about this briefly just a minute ago and did not believe in friendships or anything that looked like friendships. He didn't want to know about the camping trip you just took. Didn't want to know about the kid just got in this college or whatever you did last week with the wife, et cetera. Wasn't interested. Wanted to focus on just the work to keep them simple and clean and hopefully productive. And he never said, this is the most common thing they told me. He never said on a Friday, thanks, great week, have a great weekend, or some version of that. And on Mondays, he never said, you ready? I'm ready. We're gonna do this. It's a new week. We're gonna get some things right this week. Let's go. He never had tiny moments of positive motivational contact or personal contact at all. And this is fascinating to share with you. To answer your question, he was meaningfully unaware of that reality. Otherwise, good guy. This is not a bad guy. But unaware that he was being perceived that way because out of civility, they wouldn't give him any critical feedback whatsoever. And I put them on a path to having a broader conversation. A little less censoring, a little more authenticity. You can never have pure authenticity. We're all a little too strange on the inside. And you know this. But that's okay, because what we have is often none of it at work. No authenticity, no real honest rapport. And so I push people to go into that happy medium where they keep things professional, but they're very happy to learn about people and be honest about themselves and sprinkle in some of that authenticity.
- [40:20]
Kevin St. Clergy
Cool. I think the concept's called self deception, where you're the problem, but you can't see it.
- [40:25]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Ooh, it's common.
- [40:26]
Kevin St. Clergy
Yeah, that's a good one. We used to do, just to get people finding what they did, we did this thing called the Awesomeness Blog. So the Awesomeness Blog was like our internal Facebook page. So what we would do is. And we had our meetings Monday morning or Monday mid. Actually, Monday afternoon, one o' clock every Monday. And people over the weekend or during the day or during the week would put up stuff about them, their families, their hobbies. And on Monday, we had somebody who was in charge of going through the Awesomeness Blog and bringing it up. And then like, hey, Joe, talk about how you went on your ski trip this weekend. It looked like it was a lot of fun. And that's how we started our meetings. We found that it got people in a good mood. Now that I've done the research on blind blaming, I know that that actually doing that activates different parts of your brain, which starts the meetings off well. And it's interesting because new companies stop some of those meetings. And I keep hearing all the time, you know, we miss our Awesomeness Blog and all that stuff.
- [41:13]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
So is this like the 10th time in this chat that you've done something that is very similar to. Talked about something that's very similar to how I believe and what I've done? I've said many times, I think I wrote this in at least one book when I was talking about meetings and how they're a necessary evil? You should rarely start with just, okay, today's first point on the agenda. You should almost always start with, I like to say, three to five minutes. You got to be careful. We know that can grow and be a problem. You got to manage that. But at three to five minutes max, something like that, how you make that conversation on the social side, not the task side happen is up to you. But your Awesomeness Blog is a great example of how to kickstart that conversation. I love that.
- [41:49]
Kevin St. Clergy
You're triggering me a lot today. You're reminding me of some of this stuff. So I love it. Well, just, I think relationships are important. I think a lot of people stray away from it. But to me, to build a successful company, it's about the quality and quantity of the relationships you have with your team. Any advice on how to develop stronger relationships?
- [42:06]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Yeah, well, you have to invest time. So how do we allocate our time? It has a lot to do with how we're evaluated at work. So I like to tell people, we know the science is there in many disciplines that relationships are the backbone of most good things that happen in business. It's just true. So start becoming more self. Aware. Term we haven't talked about today, how do you do that? Through self observation, Journaling. Talking to someone who has eyes on you like a mentor, a coach or a good friend. Getting data on you and how you're being perceived and how you're thinking. Meta thinking. Right. How am I approaching all that? The more you start doing that, the more you're going to see opportunities to shift how you invest in relationships. And so what I tell people at work is it's almost always true before people become meaningfully self aware that they're over investing in unproductive relationships and under investing in great people, great relationships. That's almost always true. It's because of social pressures. It's because of certain people who are needy. It's because you're not self aware. But the truth is there are some people you need to spend a little less time with and some people you should spend some more time with. And when people grapple with that idea and then behaviorally engage it, which means putting stuff on a calendar, it's amazing how good we are at remembering when we put reminders and things on our calendars. I don't care if it's paper or not, do it. And then at the end of the week, you can say to yourself over a few months, okay, did I like I intended, Did I change the nature of how I'm investing in relationships? A little less there, a little more there. How do I feel as a result? How did that go down? Good, bad or indifferent? That's the reflection, that's the journaling. If you do that very often, you're going to find that either marginally or significantly, you're feeling better and being more productive. When you better hone the balance of those types of negative and positive relationships.
- [43:46]
Kevin St. Clergy
It sounds like you're helping people overcome the thing. I hear a lot and I'm sure you hear it on the road a lot. In fact, I was part of a group where I did a talk and then they broke them into small groups and each group would come up and ask me their biggest challenge. Well, this one group had gotten together together as a team and they were all from different businesses. But they came up to me and they said, kevin, we just have one big challenge. People don't want to work anymore. And I smiled and I started laughing. I was like, what I hear you saying is people don't want to work for you. So any comments on that and how people can get away from that mentality because it's so wrong in every level. And usually when I say, what I'm hearing you say is people don't want to work. People just stop and they kind of sink in their chair like, oh, maybe, but they're still in denial. But anyway, talk to me a little bit about how you feel about that, Kevin.
- [44:26]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
I mean, it is, it's the fun thing about being outsiders like us. We get to say things that insiders cannot say. That is one of the biggest fun parts of being an outsider. As an expert of some sort, I love to tell people, look, you do not see you like others see you. What we know from a thousand years of psychology in different ways can be summarized as follows. We will, at the end of the day to put our head down on the pillow and go to sleep easily. We will distort reality in a million ways quickly, without even knowing it, so that we can feel decent about ourselves. That's just how we operate. And it's a self defense mechanism. So if you can laugh at how much you actually know yourself and realize that your view of yourself is imperfect, that's huge. And most people will acknowledge it when I say it. But then behaviorally getting on that page by seeking feedback, they call it feedback. Feedback seeking behavior. Absolutely. Finding people. Not yes men who will tell you whatever you want to hear, but real people with insights into meaningful chunks of your professional life. 2, 3, 4 of them per year. And you empower them. You got to use that word even if it's overused. Because sometimes when you ask people for feedback and you know this, what you get is kindness in response. Because there's not a history of already giving critical feedback already in place. And so you got to empower them. You got to be a little repetitive. And this is the big part. You got to be specific, not general. When you ask them, don't say, hey, you've seen me a lot lately. How do you think I'm doing? That's really difficult for people to grapple with. So instead you get really specific and you say, you remember last week I gave that big presentation to the whole sales team. I felt it was okay, but there was, I don't know, there's something about that presentation didn't feel right. What was your take about that presentation? How I could have done it better. That's much easier. I wouldn't say easy, but much easier for them to grapple with. So that's number one. Number two is you get it out succinctly in 10 words, not 50 words. And then you do this very hard for all of us who think we know something, especially type A people. And you let them take that space, which makes people a little nervous, usually, and then start to fill it, because that's what you're looking for. And if they say anything that even sounds a little critical, that's new, you validate that and then you get quiet again. Explain that to me. And you've given them space. People don't have permission, they don't have space, they don't feel safe in it when they do find it. And you've got to develop that for them. The best thing I could tell a manager is in some ways you are as good as you think you are. In a small number of ways, you might be better than you think you are. And in a interesting number of ways, you're not nearly as good as you think you are. And until you embrace a feedback mentality, you'll never know exactly which one of those things is which.
- [46:52]
Kevin St. Clergy
I love it. It's great advice. I always try to tell people, look, listening means you are not talking. And it's hard for me sometimes as a speaker, I have to shut my mouth and listen. Active listening is actually one of my top goals this year. So I'm making progress.
- [47:05]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
It's hard. It's very hard.
- [47:07]
Kevin St. Clergy
It is hard because we all. Instead of focusing on what person's saying, and especially as a podcast guest, as I've learned and gotten better according to my producers over the last year or so, it is hard because you start thinking about what am I going to ask next instead of focusing on what they're saying. And I think a lot of leaders get in that bad habit. Well, clearly you've learned to invest in yourself. And I always like to ask this on every podcast too. What are some ways that you develop yourselves? I clearly like to read and just researching your books and papers. But are you part of. Do you have a. You mentioned coaching Today we own mastermind groups where we get a lot of high quality professionals in a room together. What have you done to develop yourself and how do you invest in yourself?
- [47:42]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Well, definitely reading. And I try to mix it up so I don't read one news site. I read 10, maybe two or three each day and then I mix it up over time. I make sure to read in my world, business, leadership, teams, people, and outside of my world, novels, sociology, other things. So what we know about the brain is my first love as a scholar before I became a talking head guy was creativity and innovation what makes a team willing to have those conversations, to take those risks, et cetera. And what we found very often was that you can't tell someone to be creative and then as a result, make them more creative. But you can create circumstances that help them loosen up and maximize how much of whatever amount of creativity they might have actually is applied and used and comes out. And so I think variety is one of the biggest, best simple answers to how I develop myself. I try to talk to people when they're strangers, and they say, whenever someone says to me, I work in blah and I don't know what it is, I want them to explain it to me. Why? Because it's new stuff. What happens in the brain when you take new stuff and it doesn't know what to do with it because it's not a folder ready for it, because you don't know what they're talking about, what happens is that your brain tends to freak out and wake up. Most of what we do, you know this. Most of what we do is subconscious, and it dominates our life because we can't consciously think about everything that we're doing. So when you get in a car in the morning, this is true. You get a car in the morning, you're not thinking, where does my key go? Or, where's the start button? You just do it. That's an example. And there's 5,000 per day that we all go through. What happens in the brain when you do the variety thing? I'm talking about with food, with what you wear, with everything, when you do a little, not a lot, you can really make yourself nervous if you do too much. But two or three intentional deviations on those ingrained routines, the brain tends to go out of that subconscious processing mode that dominates our day for efficiency and into conscious mode. What's going on? Well, what we know is that when you do that through consuming with variety the statistical likelihood of novel ideas, meaning chunks of knowledge in your head, the likelihood of two or three of those colliding and creating a novel, interesting idea, maybe in your brain that you can potentially use, goes up significantly Just because you prodded the brain through variety in your behaviors to wake up a little bit. That's probably the most important thing. I'd share on that.
- [49:53]
Kevin St. Clergy
I love it. Well, Todd, thank you for being here. Incredible interview. Loved having you. I learned a lot. If somebody wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
- [50:01]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Well, thank you. This has been my pleasure. Very easy. Two places I always tell you to go. Probably number one is LinkedIn. That's my home online. I love it. Look me up on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect, especially if anyone has a question, I'm happy to give you my 10 cents. And then I do have a website, drdoit.com where you'll find more than you ever want to know about what I'm up to.
- [50:19]
Kevin St. Clergy
Great. And we'll list those in the resources at the bottom of the podcast on both YouTube and any podcast people like to listen to.
- [50:26]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Thanks.
- [50:27]
Kevin St. Clergy
Well, thank you again. I look forward to maintaining our relationship. I'd love to stay in touch with you, if that's okay, and get you a copy of the book as well.
- [50:32]
Dr. Todd DeWitt
Sounds great.
- [50:33]
Kevin St. Clergy
Thank you, Sam.