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Leading Saints
The Arc of Intentional and Self-driven Leadership | An Interview with Shawn Moon
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- [00:02]
Kurt Frankham
Hey, if you think Leading Saints is just a podcast, well that's a big mistake. We are so much more than a podcast. We've established online a Leading Saints Community. That's right. If you go to leadingsaints.org Zion you'll be pushed towards a community online where the discussion is really happening. Sure you're going to listen to this episode, you'll get some great tips and ideas and hear a thought provoking discussion. But the conversation doesn't end there. We go over to the Leading Saints Community and talk further there. You can make comments, you ask questions and we'll probably do some follow up live streams with maybe the same guest. But a lot is going on at the Leading Saints Community so check out the show notes for the link leading saints.org Zion and join the Leading Saints Community. I would be rude if I didn't take the time to explain to the newer listeners what Leading Saints is. Here goes. Leading Saints is an organization that started as a hobby blog in 2010 and then really caught some traction in 2014 when the podcast started. We talk about all things leadership in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We aren't owned by the church, but we have a great relationship with them and always aim to be faith promoting, even though we talk about the tough topics. My name is Kurt Frankham. I'm generally the voice you hear as the host of the podcast. I've tried to get other hosts but people demand my smooth tone and I really enjoy it. Check out leadingsaints.org to really get into the weeds of what Leading Saints is and learn all about our mission to help Latter Day Saints be better prepared to lead. I am excited to once again invite back Sean Moon into the studio and talk about another book he has coming out. We talked about learning leadership from the Scriptures a few years ago and Sean's a prolific author and is coming out with another book called Roots, Relationship and Results. And the premise of this book is fantastic. Essentially he found 100 plus leaders out there, some of them Latter Day Saints, and simply asked them if you had one sermon to give to your family, your posterity, to those that you influence, what is the message that you would want to leave with those in your world? And what came from this was 11 principles that chi put together in this book and really powerful. We talk about how to be a leader when you're not called to a formal position as a leader. The way he puts it is leading when no one hands you the mic. We talk about trust. We talk about Purpose. And this is just a good, well rounded, thought provoking interview that hopefully will have you reflect on what's your last sermon. If you were to leave one message with your family, with your children, with your posterity about leadership, what would it be? So here's my interview with Sean Moon. Well, Sean, welcome back to the Leading Saints podcast.
- [03:00]
Sean Moon
Thank you. What a privilege to be here. Thanks for the repeat, of course, opportunity.
- [03:05]
Kurt Frankham
Enjoyed the last conversation. And it's all based on a book that you wrote. Maybe just give us the quick review of what book that was so we
- [03:13]
Sean Moon
had a chance to talk. A couple years ago, I had written a book entitled Learning Leadership from the Scriptures, and it was really based on the. When I was a missionary, I remember hearing President Kimball actually reading a talk that he wrote called Jesus the Perfect Leader. And in that he asserts that of all of the leadership development that one can have, the greatest place is the Scriptures. And of course, the Savior himself is the, the most important model of leadership, but all of the scriptures. And so I sort of percolated on that for a number of years and, and decided it actually came about. President Nelson gave a challenge to all the members of the church at the bicentennial of the first vision. Right. As we entered into 2020, that great, you know, year that we'll never forget. And so I decided that that would be my project. And then Covid happened and that derailed everything. But it gave me some time to think about it. And the book was a response to that. How the Scriptures really are the greatest manual for learning how to be a leader in all areas of life. And I did it on leading your own life and leading in your family and then leading in your calling. So that was our previous conversation.
- [04:23]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, we'll definitely link to it so people can check it out. And you have background with Franklin Covey. You're a CEO. I mean, you're in the leadership world, right?
- [04:30]
Sean Moon
I am. It's been my career. Spent about three and a half decades with Franklin Covey and had, my goodness, what an amazing opportunity to engage with women and men who just are extraordinary leaders. I spent 25 years working closely with Stephen Arcovey and that one of the great privileges of my life, as well as years and years working closely with Hiram W. Smith, who I love so much, passed away recently and left an indelible impression on me. And it's also been my privilege to work with leaders and executives and executive teams across the world, literally on every continent of the world except Antarctica. That's still on the list. And Hope to someday maybe you and I can go stand on the ice and we'll have a conversation about leadership so that I can claim that continent, but working with these people on every continent and engaging them on how we can be more effective in our leadership with others. And so that's been a big part of my career. And in the last several years now, working as the CEO of a company called Zerorez. And we're all over the United States now in the UK and Canada. And so it's been a really fun opportunity, not just to talk about leadership, but to actually, you know, be a practitioner as the CEO.
- [05:41]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. And we. Shasha mentioned you have a. You're a stake president right now, but a very unique stake. Tell us a little bit about that.
- [05:47]
Sean Moon
Yeah. And it really speaks to this issue. So I spent many years of my life working with the wonderful Ysas of the church and love that so much. My wife, Michelle, and I love that experience. But I'm currently serving as a stake president of a married student stake. There are only 13 of these stakes across the world.
- [06:07]
Kurt Frankham
And how many are in Provo? Four. Oh, only four, really?
- [06:11]
Sean Moon
And I don't know exactly them. There's. I think there's four in Rexburg. There's one at asu. I think there's one in one at Harvard and a couple of others elsewhere. But these married students are magnificent. They are the future leaders of the church. And I have just really been so humbled by their goodness and by their desire to be lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ. It's really been such an extraordinary experience. I feel like one of the things that my counselors and I feel impressed as we look at our calling is to help prepare them in every way to be leaders again, Leaders in their own life, leaders in their family, and leaders in building the kingdom, you know, wherever they go. Wherever they go. And so we have them to be a member of our stake, they need to be one of the spouses. One of the people needs to be a student in some, whether it be BYU or UVU or hair school, it doesn't matter. But they need to be involved in furthering their education, even with pathways. But we only have them for a short period of time because eventually that time in their life comes to an end. And so they then get sent off into the world to go make their mark. And so we have them for just a short time, a year, two years maybe. And our job is to help prepare them to be leaders.
- [07:29]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah.
- [07:30]
Sean Moon
And it's a phenomenal experience. I love them.
- [07:32]
Kurt Frankham
I Bet. And I'm sure there'll be different stories and anecdotes maybe crop up as we talk through this new book you have, which is Roots, Relationship and Results. Maybe tell us, when was the moment you sat up in bed and thought, I'm going to write this book.
- [07:45]
Sean Moon
So I actually am the co author with two other people. One is a gentleman named John Lottie, who is a dear friend and colleague of mine. And then I have the privilege of doing this with my eldest son, who is a leadership consultant himself. And so he's out and about all over the world as well, working with leaders. And that is such a treat. To be able to both of them and to be able to do this with my son is terrific. So he and I have been talking about this for a number of years, but the genesis of this really came about. For 25 years, I've had a group of dear friends, colleagues that were now scattered all over the, you know, doing all kinds of different things. But we gather once a year and we used to do this around BYU football game, where we would go to an away game, and while we were there, we'd have a flag football game with the local elders quorum and we'd play golf. And just as the years have grown and we've gotten a little bit older and the hairlines are thin and the, you know, the waistlines expanded a little bit, we've dropped football. This was a flag football game, always ended up being full contact. You know, that's how it works. But it's given us this forum to just talk and how are you doing in your life and what's happening in your marriage and how are your children and how's your health and all of those sorts of things. And it's one of those rare forums that has just provided this opportunity to get real with each other. It's been really a beautiful experience. And we were actually sitting in the Hotel California where the Eagles wrote the song about.
- [09:15]
Kurt Frankham
Right. Wow.
- [09:16]
Sean Moon
And we're having this conversation and the topic came up about leadership. And if you had your loved ones around you and you had a chance to say, leadership is a lot of things, it's not just one thing. In fact, I get a little, you know, because I've spent my career teaching and writing and thinking and trying to practice leadership, I know that leadership is hard. It's not just one thing. You've got to be the leader in your own life, and you got to be clear on your values and your focus and your direction, your vision and how you manage and lead your life and who's really responsible for your choices and all of that. And then you go to work and you have relationships, and you've got to navigate that. And hopefully you take an abundant approach and you communicate effectively and you engage people, you know, relative to their strengths and try to value the differences that others have and. And do all of that in a way that balances your life. And it's tricky. And then some point. Kurt, you're tapped on the shoulder. Winston Churchill had this great quote. I won't get it exactly right, but he said, in each of our lives, we are figuratively tapped on the shoulder to do something significant and meaningful and unique to our talents and abilities. And he goes on to say, what a shame if that moment finds us unwilling or unprepared to do that which would otherwise could otherwise be our finest hour. Well, we get tapped on the shoulder, and so we've got to get results with and through other people, not just as an individual contributor, but now, how do you engage the hearts and minds of others so they don't just show up with their hands and their heads, but their hearts as well? And how do you do that in a way that engages them around a compelling vision? And how do you actually get them to do the right work? And how do you help them get a vision that they're also leaders and that they need to in developing other leaders and doing this really complex environment and hopefully doing in such a way that you're building, you know, sustainable trust and all. So leadership is a lot of things, but if you had one lesson that you would want to pass on, what would that be? Sort of at that same time, I was reminded, you might remember back in 2006, there was a gentleman named Randy Pausch.
- [11:18]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, I remember this.
- [11:19]
Sean Moon
And he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. And he was diagnosed kind of, you know, wasn't expecting it, didn't have the symptoms, but diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. And they did all the tests, they came to him and said, you know, you've got five to six months. It's terminal. And instead of, you know, just tapping out, he decided to use that time to do something meaningful with his life. And so, in addition to taking care of his family, which was remarkable, he decided to complete his last semester as a teacher. And he taught a course called you'd Last Lecture. And I was really struck by that. It's a great book he wrote, Last Lecture, and such an inspiring story. In fact, when you see the TED talk that he does, when he's talking about this. He actually gets on the stage and does his push ups. I feel great, I feel fine. And in five, six months, I won't be here. In fact, he wasn't. So what a profound concept. I started thinking about what would. Not just your last life lecture, but your last leadership lecture. And so this is scriptural as well.
- [12:24]
Kurt Frankham
There's so many examples of totally of people on their prophets, on their deathbed, speaking to their families.
- [12:29]
Sean Moon
I'm always drawn to that concept. I think the entire book of second Nephi is the last lecture. I think Matthew 25 is the Savior's last lecture. I think that we have so many of these vignettes in the Scripture where the prophets are saying, this is what I want you to know. Of all the things, this is so critical. Anyway, with that in mind, and I just come off writing that other book, we decided that we would interview a number of leaders and we picked 100. We ended up interviewing more than that. But CEOs, executives, athletes, entrepreneurs, judges, ecclesiastical leaders just in all across, all political leaders, across all walks of life, what their last lecture would be. It's been a really fascinating process.
- [13:17]
Kurt Frankham
And how long do those interviews last?
- [13:19]
Sean Moon
Or what was the process they started off? So here's how they started off. I told them it would take just, you know, 20 minutes or so. We just want your. And I sometimes would prepare them in advance. I'd like you to think about this. And sometimes I wanted to surprise them with the question because I wanted their top of head. You know, initial reaction always went longer than that because as people, this was their sort of response. Almost every time they would say, wow, that's an interesting question. I hadn't, I hadn't thought of that. Let me think about that. But then really quickly they would come to, here's what it would be. If I had my children around me, this is what I would want them to know.
- [13:58]
Kurt Frankham
Wow. Yeah. And that, I mean, if he had more bandwidth in life, that would be a great premise for a podcast. You know, the last lecture. I know these things. A book is good enough for now,
- [14:09]
Sean Moon
but it would be. And people were so forthcoming. And I, you know, having been in this world now for three and a half decades, I have a pretty good network of great leaders around the world. But some cases I just reached out cold. And when they heard the premise, like, yeah, I would love to do that. So it was really fun to get their kind of initial reaction to this and be like, that's something I'd love to share.
- [14:32]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. And Was the goal or the assumption that certain principles would come to the surface, or were you just kind of seeing where this would lead?
- [14:41]
Sean Moon
We really went in purposefully without any preconceived notion. I thought that this will sort of kind of naturally organize into five or six maybe themes, you know, that would come up. And what we learned is that they didn't all say the same thing, but they did organize. And they organized into what became this really powerful leadership arc, leading to the title of our book, Roots, Relationships and Results. And again, they didn't all talk about the same things, but some of them talked about the roots of personal leadership and the notion that if I'm going to be effective in my leadership with others, they said, I would want my posterity to know you've got to start with yourself. And here are some elements that you need to be aware of. Some of them talked about the criticality of the relationships in your life and how you engage with other people and how they end up feeling when you engage with them, and that notion. And some of them talked about, you know, the end of the day, one of the things that we're responsible for as leaders is to get results. And here's some lessons that I've learned about that. So it ended up being actually 11 of these, what we call leadership attributes that then fall into one of those three buckets. And after we had done, oh, you know, 40 or 50 of these things, and that that leadership arc had kind of established itself every subsequent interview without us leading it, guided into naturally one of those three buckets. The roots, the relationships, or the results.
- [16:14]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, that's interesting. And not that there's a clear parallel here, but just the past, present, future type of thing, or where'd we come from, why are we here and where are we going? I mean, there's an internal connection there.
- [16:26]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
Yeah.
- [16:27]
Sean Moon
There's a journey that we go on as individuals and as leaders and as we engage with other people. And that notion of starting with yourself. I remember my first day of high school. I was 14. It was ninth grade. And to that point, my parents said they had emphasized grades, but I was far more interested in hanging out with my friends and playing sports and all of that. But then they said, all right, you start high school. This is when your grades matter. And they had really emphasized that point with me. And I remember being a little bit intimidated, and lot was on the line, and you want to go to a good school and have a good life, you need. So I remember I was literally the first five minutes of my first class in high school, 7am and my teacher, Mr. Williams, said, all right, welcome to high school, kids. In your brand new notebooks, take out a brand new sheet of paper, and we're gonna have a quiz, and it is gonna count on your final grade. And I remember thinking, oh, no, this is gonna count on my grade. And he hasn't taught us a single thing, and I'm gonna fail it, and I'm not gonna go to college and all's lost. He said, it's just one question. It's very simply. He asked, who is the most important person in the world? And I remember sitting there in class thinking, what does he want me to say? I'm trying to read his mind, right? And I remember thinking, is it God? Is it my mom? I think I put down my mother and I got it wrong. Because the right answer is, what would you say? Who is the most important person in the world?
- [17:54]
Kurt Frankham
God or yourself? Or I don't know.
- [17:57]
Sean Moon
So. So that was the. That was my, you know, conundrum there. And he said, it's you. And I remember thinking, that's a really egocentric response, right?
- [18:06]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, it feels that way.
- [18:06]
Sean Moon
And he, of course, he goes on to say that nobody else makes your choices for you. Nobody. Other people can influence accountability. Ultimately, you are responsible for you. And that's really where this begins.
- [18:20]
Kurt Frankham
Right.
- [18:20]
Sean Moon
And so many of these people talked about. We want people to understand that they're responsible, their choices matter. And this is not a book on the seven Habits, but I love this notion that Stephen R. Covey talked about in the 7 Habits with Habit 1, that between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in that space, he said, lies our freedom to choose. And I think that's such a profound principle of life. So that's really kind of where this journey begins.
- [18:45]
Kurt Frankham
Makes me think of, you know, in this context of, you know, creating leadership context or leadership in the context of being a Latter Day Saint. So often we default to, you know, you talk about this tap on the shoulder. Yeah. Like, we sometimes wait for the bishop to tap us on the shoulder or when the ward needs us or the stake or. And we wait around for that calling when in reality, we enter temples all the time and make that fifth covenant that the law of consecration, that we are covenanting to dedicate our time, talents, and everything that God's given us. And oftentimes we don't. We feel that. But it really, I found, like, the, the leaders that I interview that have made a difference, who, they often feel like I'm just a regular Joe in this ward. And. But I thought had an idea and I moved forward with it. It's this moment of them taking on responsibility, saying, I made that covenant. I'm not going to wait around to get a certain calling or to be invited to participate, but I'm going to move forward. And. And those are zion builders.
- [19:40]
Sean Moon
I think so, too. In fact, one of the really interesting interviews we had was with Liz Wiseman, and she wrote the New York Times bestseller book Multipliers. And have you talked with.
- [19:50]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, she's been on several times.
- [19:51]
Sean Moon
I love her.
- [19:52]
Kurt Frankham
She's great.
- [19:52]
Sean Moon
She was phenomenal. And she said something that I've thought so much about. She said that sometimes the best manifestation of our leadership, the title of the chapter, is leading. When you, you know, when no one's giving you the mic. Meaning, how can you be a leader when you don't hold the formal title or have the formal calling?
- [20:14]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
Yeah.
- [20:15]
Sean Moon
And she said, maybe that's the best manifestation of leadership because people don't follow you because you have the calling or because you have the title. They follow you because of other things that you do that invite your influence to be broadened and expanded. And I think that's such a really, really interesting concept. We are leaders in every aspect of our life. Leadership is, yes, when you have the calling, yes, when you have the title, you need to demonstrate leadership. But our entire life is about learning how to be a leader and leading when no one has handed you the mic, you know, and how can I be a leader when I'm just a neighbor or just a friend or a cousin or an uncle or an aunt or whatever it is. Right. Not because you do your influence to do something, to improve, to grow. Not because I've told you or given you a commandment or an edict, but because I trust you, because I believe you, because you feel that from me, maybe more specifically because you feel my love for you. That's really the essence of leadership, I think.
- [21:19]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. Yeah. You say here some of the most powerful leadership we witness happened when people with no formal authority at all, you know, just step forward. And that really is the. That's the inspired leadership. I mean, because it's easy to slip in when you are called, you sort of. It's easy to slip into this administrator role of like, I'm just make sure the lights turn on, the doors get unlocked and, you know, doing the things. But when you have that calling from God, he's tapping you on the shoulder saying, no lead. Yeah, make a difference.
- [21:48]
Sean Moon
But when you don't. You can still lead. Yeah, right. Liz gave the analogy of sometimes his parents. You know, if you've been through raising teenagers, there's a certain point in your kids lives where they say, you're not the boss of me. And well, I'm still your parent. No, you're not. And there are those moments of learning how to influence when we can't lean on the title or the calling.
- [22:10]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, that's so good. Is there another one you want to go to or is there more to it?
- [22:14]
Sean Moon
No, I mean, let's just. Wherever you go, I guess I would. Maybe I'll just go with the first one because I think it is so foundational.
- [22:20]
Kurt Frankham
This is the ordered lives.
- [22:21]
Sean Moon
Yeah.
- [22:23]
Kurt Frankham
The inner architecture of leadership.
- [22:25]
Sean Moon
Yeah. I think that one of the metaphors that we heard is that as leaders you're more the thermostat than you are the thermometer. And how. So the first chapter is Ordered lives. Right. How we control ourselves and what temperature we set the room to as the leader.
- [22:48]
Kurt Frankham
Right.
- [22:48]
Sean Moon
Because everything we do as leaders communicates something. Especially when we have positions, formal positions or formal titles. People will watch everything we do, what we say, what we wear, how we engage, how we solve problems, how we don't solve problems, what time we show up, what time. I mean, everything we do as a leader communicates whether we want to or not. And so being deliberate about that communication, I think is really, really important. Had a chance to visit with Danny Ainge, who is currently the CEO of the Utah Jazz and was the executive of the year when he was with the Celtics and and then was two time NBA champion in five NBA Finals, but also played professional baseball at the major league level. And just this amazing experience of leadership. Served as a bishop. And I asked him this question and he said, it's really clear to me. He said, it is. Again, this notion of your ordered lives and how you control your own emotions. What you bring as the leader makes such a difference. Your ability to be the thermostat, not the thermometer. And he gave a couple of really wonderful examples. He told the story of when he was playing and he was playing for the Phoenix Suns and they had Charles Barkley on the team. Charles Barkley had won the MVP that year at the NBA. So he was the best player in the NBA that year. And the Phoenix Suns were the best team in the NBA, far and away the best record. And so they had the first seed going into the playoffs in the Western Conference. They were playing a five series game with home court advantage against the Los Angeles Lakers, who hadn't had a great year, and they were the eighth seed. So all you had to do is win three games. The first two were at home. Well, Kenny said the Suns go on to lose game one and then lose game two.
- [24:34]
Kurt Frankham
Wow.
- [24:35]
Sean Moon
And they're going to Phoenix, and it's first, you know, to three wins. And he said. And we are losing at halftime. Said our coach was Paul Westphal. And he talked about how Paul Westfall was this kind of leader that had the ability to, you know, really set the temperature with those around him and his control, this inner control. He said, we go into the locker room at halftime fully expecting to just get chewed out. You know, this whole season has led to this moment. We're down in game three at halftime, behind two games to nothing. And he said, they're sitting in the chairs in the locker room. And he said, paul Westphal just sits down and looks at all the players and says, does anybody know a good joke? He said, they spent the entire halftime telling jokes and just bringing the temperature down. And they went on to win game three and win, you know, the series and go on to the NBA Finals. That notion of being in control. Right. Is so critically important.
- [25:31]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. And it's one of those things you have to. It has to happen organically, but you can. You can nurture the soil for it to happen. Where a lot of leaders, they want to force it. Right. They want to go in there and chew them out and hopefully inspire them or shame them into motivation.
- [25:44]
Sean Moon
Right.
- [25:45]
Kurt Frankham
And go win the game.
- [25:46]
Sean Moon
And sometimes there. There may be that opportunity to do it, but sometimes you need to bring a different temperature. He talked about Larry Bird, how Larry Bird, he said, was the calmest guy he'd ever played with in any sport in the last few minutes of the game, always. And that calm just brought everybody else down and allowed everybody else to succeed and to run the plan without getting so uptight about the stress and pressures of the moment or of the day.
- [26:11]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
Yeah.
- [26:11]
Kurt Frankham
That's awesome. Anything else with the ordered lives coming to mind?
- [26:15]
Sean Moon
Just this notion that what we do communicates and being clear on who you are and what you stand for and having that clarity of focus that if I'm going to be effective with others, I need to be effective in my own life. That's where it all starts.
- [26:33]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah, that's good. Which one do you want to go to next?
- [26:36]
Sean Moon
Oh, let's talk about. I want to come back to number two. Let's not do number two yet. Let's talk about this number three, the attribute is gratitude, and we titled it in the book A Leadership Multiplier. This was an interesting one. This is one that several leaders talked about. And you think about gratitude is this nice attribute, but the notion that gratitude actually is something that helps you in your leadership. Arthur Brooks talks about gave the example of, we have this gland at the back of the top of our brainstem called the amygdala. And the amygdala is what governs the fight or flight mechanism in, you know, and we have lots of conditioning around. Someone pushes, you either push back or you run and all of that. And you think about in our lives where we have these pressures on us and we engage the amygdala, and it sends these hormones into our signals, into our brain, and we either fight or we fly. He said, gratitude is an interrupter. Think about in your own life those people to whom you are grateful and for whom you're grateful. And he said, when you engage gratitude, it stops those signals and engages a different part of your brain. You move from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex to this more deliberative part of your brain where they call the executive part of your brain. And that's one of the things that changes the. Your normal thought process. One of the CEOs talked about being in a room where there was some conflict with another colleague, and they were instantly mad at that colleague, and they disagreed. And they. And they had all kinds of reasons to, you know, disparage that other colleague and stop themselves and said, okay, what about this person are you grateful for? And she talked about how it just changed the entire nature of that interaction from this. I'm frustrated, I'm angry with you, to I'm grateful for you for this and for this and for this. And it changed the entire dynamic of that discussion. It changed how she approached him. It changed the outcome. And the lesson for her was gratitude is so powerful when we engage with other people. And so other CEOs talked about what has happened is we're grateful over time and the impact those relationships, how they ended up bearing this marvelous fruit because of gratitude. So I don't know if we typically think of gratitude as a leadership competency, but I think it is one. And I think it's something that we can be more deliberate about and we can actually develop skills for.
- [29:07]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. And is that typically something that's like a personal exercise or something that, like, a leader could infuse into the culture of the organization?
- [29:15]
Sean Moon
I think it's both, but I Actually think there are some questions that we can. We've developed this thing called five Questions on a Sunday Evening. And one of the questions is, who was I grateful for this week? Did I acknowledge that person? And how can I more deliberately do that? And so, yes, I think that we can develop skills around this. And I think there's certain guys, we have these things in the book at the end of each chapter called introspections, and they're just four simple questions to help develop. Do some simple skill building around each of these attributes. So for gratitude, who was I grateful for this week? And who needs to know? Hear me express my gratitude for them.
- [29:55]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. And that can go a long way, especially, you know, in these church leadership roles we have. There's so many people involved, and, you know, you're kind of going through the motions on Sundays at times. But to really have space to extend gratitude, that means a lot. I remember when I was called as bishop, I opened a drawer in the clerk's office, and there's this thick stack of. Of letterhead, right. With my ward name on it. Whatever. I'm thinking, there's no way I'm going to send. I'll never need this many sheets of paper with our ward name on it. And so I made a practice where I would write a handwritten letter on one of those and mail it out to ward members. Right. And the impact that it had on people was just amazing. You know, just these moments of, hey, I see you, I recognize you. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for doing whatever is you do there. Right. And it was really impactful.
- [30:43]
Sean Moon
These are things that people will remember. I had1former CEO tell me the story about. He was running a firm, and there was a woman on his team that was a great contributor. And she retired. She'd been there for years and years and years. And as she left and packed up her stuff, they were getting the desk area ready for someone else to move in. And he found, tucked away, a note that he had written her that she had kept all these years. And she'd put in a place where only she could see, Right. And for him, that was almost like, wow. I didn't realize. I don't think as leaders, we realize the power that comes when we express gratitude. And I, in a church setting, in a. In a business setting, in a family setting, I think that's something that I'm not sure where some are natural there, but I'm not sure we're all really good at that.
- [31:31]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah.
- [31:31]
Sean Moon
Yeah.
- [31:31]
Kurt Frankham
It seems like a skill that nobody really Fully attains.
- [31:34]
Sean Moon
And you think about, you know, in. When you're in an ecclesiastical setting, in a church setting, where you're asking people to serve in a calling, and they do so with all of their heart, their might, their mind and their strength, not because they're paid, but because they love the Lord and they want to contribute. And I think that's worthy of expressing gratitude often.
- [31:58]
Kurt Frankham
Anything else with gratitude that we missed?
- [31:59]
Sean Moon
No, just that it's something we can get good at.
- [32:01]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. Yeah. It can be a skill set that needs practice. Right.
- [32:05]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
Yeah.
- [32:06]
Kurt Frankham
Go back to number two. Or what do you.
- [32:07]
Sean Moon
Let me. Let me just walk through and see if any of these jump out. So ordered lives is number one. The second one is the work that matters when built on the first attribute that our lives, you know, that we're in charge. Let's make sure that we're doing those things that are leading us in the right direction. And then we talk about gratitude. And I mentioned the conversation we had with Liz Wiseman, leading when no one handed you the mic. And what are those things that we can do as leaders that invite people to volunteer their finest efforts? Which leads to number five. Maybe I'll talk about five. I'll go through all these. Then I'll come back and talk about five for a minute. But those leaders that don't just are trustworthy, because that's important, but are trusting. So I'll come back and talk about that in a second. I had a beautiful conversation with Steve Young. And if you've talked to us, Steve's been on.
- [32:53]
Kurt Frankham
Not yet. I'm working on it.
- [32:54]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
Boy.
- [32:55]
Sean Moon
And he's written a couple books with Deseret book that talk about this concept of what he called the irrationality of love, this notion of transactional versus transformational. And the greatest leaders are those who love. And in our lives, we have these transactional elements. You know, you're in a work setting, you've got performance objectives, and if you do this, then you get that. And all of that is good and important in our relationships. Sometimes we set our relationships up like this. I will extend this to you. If you demonstrate this kind of behavior and we transact, it becomes this transactional approach. And that's necessary. But there's something beyond that transformational, when we just love. And that was a wonderful conversation with Steve. The seventh one is the attribute of listening. I'm not sure there's ever a leadership development book or course you'll ever go through where the notion of empathy isn't addressed and how can we engage Other people and help them feel understood, the power of that. We talked about a bunch of leaders. Number number eight was what we call failure, grace in the long game. And it was really interesting how so many of these leaders talked about the great kind of profound learnings that occurred when they made a mistake. And so leadership is not about not making mistakes. Sometimes it's about making mistakes and overcoming those mistakes and how sometimes, you know, guilt is probably a good thing because it tells us we've done something wrong. But sometimes we attribute shame to that and we put that second layer on. And that shame causes us to hide and want to conceal things. Right? And we learn about that in, you know, in the temple. We want to hide from our mistakes. And as leaders, one of the things we need to do is own them, learn from them, and elevate everybody through them. So that was really interesting. The ninth attribute was defining winning and building humans at the same time, and how important it is in a calling or in a professional setting that we are clear what success means. I remember having that conversation with the church leader. We were defining what. What is success in this calling. And people were all over the board, and that's okay. But having that kind of clarity and doing it in such a way that you're honoring the people doing it right. So, you see, as we go through these, there's a lot of connective tissue between all of these. The power of small Wins was the 10th one. And, you know, you've probably heard of the metaphor or the story of the two stonecutters who were. Who are cutting stone, and someone comes up to them and says, what are you doing? And one person said, well, I'm chipping away the stone. The other person said, well, I'm building a cathedral. And we use that as a great example of having a profound vision. And I love that story, and I love the idea of a profound vision. But one of the things that several of these leaders said to us is, but there's something about ending the day knowing that you've won the day and chipping the stone away from this particular area and doing it well and doing it right and knowing that you've won that day is really different. There's a difference between satisfaction and engagement or inspiration. And sometimes we need to know that we've won the day. And the power of those small wins that comes is great. And then the last one was contribution beyond today's title. You know, we had some great interviews with amazing leaders who their career, formal business career, in some cases, their formal church leadership, is sort of. They've done that. They've been mission leaders, they've been stake presidents, and they're not doing that again. And they said, the time of my life right now, it might be the time of my most profound leadership contribution. I don't have the title anymore. I'm not the CEO anymore. But what I'm doing now as a leader is maybe the most important leadership work of my life.
- [36:35]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah.
- [36:35]
Sean Moon
So that was really. That was really interesting.
- [36:37]
Kurt Frankham
That's so. That's cool.
- [36:38]
Sean Moon
Happy to talk about any of these.
- [36:39]
Kurt Frankham
Did you want to bounce up to trusting leaders?
- [36:42]
Sean Moon
Yeah. So think about this. You think about those leaders in your life. Stephen Covey gave this great quote where he said, leadership is seeing and communicating another's worth and potential so clearly that they begin to see it in themselves. And I love asking the question of leaders. Who is a leader in your life that saw you maybe even at a time where you didn't see you, but they saw you? And because they did, you believe them. You may not believe yourself, but you believe their vision of you. And because of how they articulate that, in other words, how they trust you makes all the difference. So Stephen. We interviewed Stephen M. Arcovy for this, and he wrote the New York Times bestseller book the Speed of Trust. And it's wonderful. And it talks about being the leader that is, you know, is able to build trust. And trust is so important because where trust is evident, where trust is manifest, everything else runs smoother. Right. Everything is faster, everything costs less. Trust is great. But he said something that kind of surprised us in the interview. He said, you know, I'm going to talk about trust. I said, yes. He said, but. But actually, I'm not really going to talk about trust. That's just table stakes. That's the price of entry. If you want to be an effective leader, you got to be trustworthy.
- [37:57]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah.
- [37:58]
Sean Moon
Period. And stop. We know that. He said, where you take it, the next level is you're the leader who extends trust, who is trusting. Maybe at a time where they don't believe it themselves, but you give them that opportunity. And of course, we talked about extending trust is not being dumb about it. Remember Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. You've got to. People need to live into that. But giving the opportunity for people to hear you say and see you believe that in your behavior, you believe in them. Such a powerful concept. So I love talking with leaders about that notion and hearing from them stories of leaders that extend to trust. I'll give you one example. There was one Leader who I asked this question and he raised his hands like I gotta share, so tell me your story. And he said, I was 14 years old, I'd made every possible mistake that a 14 year old could make. I was incarcerated, I was in a troubled youth detention center. He said, I'm sitting at the cafeteria one day and this worker, I don't know if he's a social worker, whatever, but guy that worked there came up and knelt down next to me, put his hand on my shoulder, he looked in the eyes and he said, he asked the question, what would you like to do with your life? And he said, normally that question might have set me off because I was an angry young man and confused, but for whatever reason, it didn't. He said, I don't know. He probably said, oh, because that's how 14 year old boys talk. But in his mind he said, I don't know. And, and he said, this person looked him in the eyes and said with total sincerity, I just want you to know I believe in you and you can do anything you put your mind to. He said, got up, he walked away. And I sat there dumbfounded because he said, honestly, I had never had a single thought. It had never occurred to me that I could do something in my life. Just hadn't occurred to me. That's not how I grew up. He said, I started to think about it and he said, this leader stayed with me and sometimes it was tough love, it was high accountability, but always, always with the reaffirmation, I believe in you. He said something, there was a vision that sparked with me and he said, I graduated from high school, I was the first person in my family ever to do that. So you kind of get a sense of where he'd come from. He said, I discovered that I could learn, that I liked it, that I was good at it. And I applied to university and I got in, I couldn't believe it. And I got my four year degree and I thrived. I loved it. I discovered that I was smart, that I could learn. And after that, he said, I started dating, met a beautiful girl, we got married, started our family, and then I went back and got my master's degree. And he said, I now lead this significant part of this organization, this amazingly innovative organization with this incredible team where I'm their leader. And he said, sometimes I have to pinch myself, say, how did I get here? He said, I can trace it back to that day when that leader said, I believe in you and you can do anything you put your mind to. It and then stayed with them. Right. That's the power, yes, you have to be trustworthy, but that's the power of being a leader who trusts others, who is trusting. It's transformational. Sometimes it is over the course of lots of years, and sometimes it's in. As leaders, everything we do communicates one. I was giving a speech in Mexico City one time, and this guy said, can I just share? And he. He told the story of a boss that he worked with 35 years prior. And one day, in a short exchange, the boss came to and said to him something like this. You have talent in this area. I've noticed. I think you ought to make this change in your career. Let's make that happen. And I asked him, so what'd you do? He said, well, I made the change. I said, what kind of impact did that have? He said, it changed everything in my life. The whole trajectory of my career changed. Then I asked him, that was 35 years ago. How long was that conversation? He said, a minute, couple minutes. Do you think if you were to find that gentleman today, 35 years later, that he would have even recalled that? He said, probably not. But then I asked him again, what kind of impact did that have? He said, everything. Everything in my life changed because that leader trusted me to do this.
- [42:02]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. Yeah. And so trusting others is not necessarily this accountability exercise, though that's maybe part of it, but it's more the, you know, I trust you in. In your journey, with your life, with your potential in this role or in this life.
- [42:15]
Sean Moon
And you help provide vision, maybe at a time where people have that vision and you're just guiding them. I see that a lot in my current responsibility with Stake president, that so many of them are, you know, they're on their way to medical school or dental school or law school or investment banking or elementary school teaching, whatever. And there's a subset that aren't quite sure yet. And so they need that sense of. Of vision given to them. And we've all had that in our lives. We've all had those leaders. In fact, I invite those who are listening to this and watching this, think about that leader who expressed confidence in you, who saw something in you, maybe at a time when you didn't even see it, but because they did, you're different today.
- [42:54]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah.
- [42:55]
Sean Moon
And my challenge would be find some way to acknowledge them. They may not even be here anymore. Find some way to honor what they did. And then the second thing to think about is, and who right now, in your circle, right now in your calling in your work, in your family, could benefit from you seeing them that way, giving them that vision that they're capable of doing something that they might not see it themselves.
- [43:19]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. Yeah, that's really good. Any other one you want to make sure we cover before we wrap up or.
- [43:25]
Sean Moon
Well, let me. Let me just talk about behavior number two, the work that matters.
- [43:28]
Kurt Frankham
Okay.
- [43:28]
Sean Moon
Yeah, I love this one. And maybe just share a personal experience about this one. I think one of the people that we talked with, CEOs, shared this statistic with us, and it caused me to just pause for a second. He said, when a child is born, we have 2.4 billion seconds. And every second that passes is a second that we'll no longer have. And we get to the end of our mortal experience here. And it doesn't matter how much money we've made or how influential we were, we can't manufacture any additional seconds.
- [44:03]
Kurt Frankham
Right.
- [44:04]
Sean Moon
What's gone is gone. And so what we do with those seconds matters. And that's what really the second behavior is all about. It's the work that matters and focusing on making sure that we are spending time on the stuff that is consistent with what we've identified as that matters. Right. And so there's just a little practice that we invite people to consider. We call the five by four.
- [44:28]
Kurt Frankham
Okay.
- [44:29]
Sean Moon
And this is hard. This causes. I've. I've sort of lived in this world for a lot of my life, and I. I set aside every Monday morning at 8am to kind of go through this exercise. You know, you're planning your week and of course you have your meetings and all your other stuff, and we all do that. Yeah, but what are five critical things above everything else that needs to be done this week? And that causes you to dig deep to make sure. I'm not just spending my time doing something that keeps me busy, but I'm spending my time focusing on those things that are more important than the other things. And it's a natural prioritization exercise. My guess is that many of us kind of do something like that already. But when I'm actually sitting down, I write down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And I go through that and I think about all of the things that I have. My list. It's a little bit of a discipline to go through and identify. Here are the things that I really need to make sure I attend to this week. And then more important to that, just to the right of that, I do. 1, 2, 3, 4. Who are four people in your life that you can touch some way this week, professional, personal, family, church. But who could you make a connection with this week in a way that would lift them, that would be meaningful to them, that would engage them in some way? And that's hard. Yeah, that's hard to think. I think sometimes we get so busy thinking about all the stuff that we've got to do that we miss who are the people. And sometimes it's a text, sometimes it's a note. I gotta send flowers to this person or I love what you talked about when you were a bishop. You know, the handwritten note, that's such a lost art in today's world. And when I receive something like that, it's like, wow, that was really, really thoughtful. So just.
- [46:13]
Kurt Frankham
And is that like a exercise that you are, you're writing these things down, scheduling things or.
- [46:19]
Sean Moon
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I write them down, I put them in because if I don't, then I lose them. So just a personal example of this, I was thinking about this whole experience of the time I had a 13 year old son. He's now married and has a couple kids, but he was 13. And. And if you were to have asked either of us, you know, how's your relationship? We would have said, fine. But if you've gotten to the truth of it, I probably would have said, he's someone who doesn't want to clean his room. And he probably would have said, my dad stands in the way of all my joy and happiness in life. You know, because he was 13, I was the dad. So I was thinking about my son Matt, and what could I do? He's on that list. What could I do this week that would make a connection? You're not going to solve all the world's problems in a week. But what's one thing, one thing I could do this week? And I was looking at my calendar, I realized I had a trip to New York City a couple weeks out in the future. And so I was like, hey, Matty, do you want to go to New York with me? He said, well, I'm in school. I said, I'll let you get out of school. I said, done that. You know, skipping school trumped having to spend time with dad. So I said, here's the deal. You get to plan this whole trip. I've got these two meetings. Other than that, you're in charge. And we can go Empire State Building, the Rockefeller center, we can go to Central park, these great restaurants, whatever you want to do, you get a pick. And so we spent the three weeks planning. It was great. And he got to be the final voice. I said, there's just one caveat. He said, what's the caveat? All right. There's just one thing you got to consider that is it's a have to. Okay, we're going to see a Broadway play. Well, my wife did musical theater in college and that's been part of our family. But he was a football playing 13 year old and he's like, dad, that's not going to happen. I said, no, but here's the deal. You get a pick. And said, okay, I can agree that. So we shook hands. And so we go to New York. It was awesome. It was cold. So on the plane in, our first plan was to go to a sporting goods store and buy jackets with New York, you know, I think we got Knicks jackets. And that was a highlight for him. And then we did all the stuff. The meetings went well. The stuff was great. We were going home on Saturday morning and it was Friday afternoon and we still hadn't seen the play. So I said, matt's time. So we go to the ticket booth and we see all these placards of shows that I would love to see. And we see this, we see this. There's just one that I was like, and we're not going to see that. Of course. Matt says, well, I want to see that one.
- [48:30]
Kurt Frankham
Nice.
- [48:31]
Sean Moon
Did you know there was a musical version of the movie Rocky? Oh, I'm a Rocky guy. I like that. I live in Philadelphia, but I have no interest in seeing the musical version. No, thank you. I said, matt, I'm not going to see the musical version of Rocky. Sorry, it's not going to happen. You're going to see this or this. He said, dad, you said I could pick. So I was like, dang it. And I shelled out all of this money to get great seats. We're right on the aisle of the orchestra, right on the side, kind of halfway up. And Kurt, it was awesome.
- [49:02]
Kurt Frankham
Wow.
- [49:03]
Sean Moon
Rocky did all his workout and he drank five raw eggs in front of us. It was amazing. But we get to the final scene and they put all the people in this intersection orchestra section up on this stage. They had some risers put on the stage and from the ceiling descends this boxing ring. And Matt and I then found ourselves literally with ringside seats to the final scene where Rocky and Apollo Creed are in this the ring and they're throwing punches and fake blood's flying and they're singing. And when that final bell rings and Rocky is still standing, the only person, I mean, the Whole audience got to their feet. They screamed and cheered. Matt and I leading the way. It was. It was awesome. It was just one of those great father son memories. And I'm flying home on Saturday morning and I have this Lord blinding flash of the obvious. How easy it would have been not to have had that experience because life is just so crazy. It's just so busy. So there's a little bit of discipline as we lead our own lives. This is part of the roots of. Let's make sure you're clear. You're the one that brings the temperature into the room. But then how you spend those 2.4 billion seconds matters. Yeah.
- [50:13]
Kurt Frankham
And really being intentional of infusing these things with substance that will last beyond the moment.
- [50:20]
Sean Moon
That word intentional really kind of is the essence of the book. It's let's be intentional about our leadership.
- [50:26]
Kurt Frankham
Yeah. Really good. So if people want to check it out.
- [50:30]
Sean Moon
So the book goes pre sell at all of the outlets on July 10th. That'll be Barnes and Noble and Amazon and wherever you buy your books, it'll be available. It'll formal release at the end of the summer, but it's available for pre sell right now.
- [50:43]
Kurt Frankham
Awesome. Love it. So I'm curious before we wrap up, like, did you include yourself in these interviews?
- [50:49]
Sean Moon
Oh, yeah.
- [50:50]
Kurt Frankham
And what was the principle then? And how is that morph since going through this entire book?
- [50:55]
Sean Moon
You know, anytime you write something, there's a little bit of exposure. I learn so often through mistakes that I have made. And so there's a lot of those in the book. And you know, things that. And same with my colleagues and my co authors about when we did something stupid or when we were not kind in a relationship or, you know, weren't paying attention, and the profound lessons that come as we overcome that. We were able to combine, you know, over 50 years of experience in leading and teaching into the book. And so we did infuse a lot of our own story in this. But we love the concept. We love this notion. We end the book with just this little kind of vignette. You remember from Camelot where Arthur has created the round table concept where people could come, there's no head of the table, and these knights of the round table would come and they had voice and everyone could contribute. And it was this profound leadership and social concept that people would have. And yet we learned through that play that leadership is also hard and you're dealing with people. I have this quote that my colleagues tease me that I use all the time. My life as a leader would be so much easier if I didn't have these darn people. Because people. It's hard, and getting people to engage and volunteer their finest efforts is difficult. And King Arthur had that challenge, and the knights revolted and there was intrigue and all this stuff, and they ended up in war. And at the very last scene of that play, you're getting ready for battle. It's early on the morning. Arthur's got his armor on and ready to go lead his troops. And there's this young lad that walks out of the woods. And Arthur says, who are you and what are you here? And he said, well, I've been learning about the Round Table and I want to be. And this is. He cited the virtues of what Arthur was trying to do by heart. And King Arthur was so touched by him that he had the young boy kneel down right there. And he took his sword out and he knighted him a Knight of the Round Table. And then he was too young to go into battle, so he sent him home and said, go on, pass it on. You be that leader. You be that agent for change in your life. And I think that really is what we're trying to accomplish with this book is is this notion of passing it on, of being that leader that makes that difference. Go take that charge yourself. And leadership is a beautiful thing. Foreign.
- [53:23]
Kurt Frankham
That concludes this episode of the Leading Saints podcast. We'd love to hear from you about your questions or thoughts or comments. Go to leadingsaints.org contact and send us your perspective or questions. If there's other episodes or topics you'd like to hear on the Leading Saints podcast, go to leadingsaints.org contact and share with us the information there. And we would love for you to share this with any individual you think this would apply to, especially maybe individuals in your ward, council or other leaders that you may know who would really appreciate the perspectives that we discussed.
- [54:01]
Church Leader / Quoting Church Authority
It came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon us by the God of Heaven, who brought forth a restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the declaration was made concerning the only true and living church upon the face of the earth, we were immediately put in a position of loneliness. The loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away, and to which we must face up with boldness and courage and ability.