WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.120 --> 00:00:04.400 Welcome to Backing your Leadership. I'm Chris Lorenzo, and welcome to this week's 2 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:08.320 Thoughtful Thursday. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube at Hacking Leadership and leave 3 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:11.320 us a review on iTunes. On this Thoughtful Thursday, I want to talk 4 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:17.760 about rituals. I was getting my computer ready for a zoom call, and 5 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:22.039 I found myself doing things, you know, that I'd done many times before 6 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.519 and kind of focusing on that. So I made sure that my chair and 7 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:29.079 my standing desk were at the right height. I had a cup of coffee 8 00:00:29.079 --> 00:00:31.160 and a water bottle that I had in the same that I put in the 9 00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:34.399 same spot. There was no other clutter. I had notes open on the 10 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:37.679 screen that I always put in the same corner of a monitor. Like. 11 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.280 I started doing these things and then I just I realized in the moment that 12 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:45.520 these are things that I had done over and over and over again for you 13 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:49.439 know, previous zoom call interviews. And it got me thinking that, you 14 00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:53.880 know, there are things that we do as leaders every day that we are 15 00:00:54.159 --> 00:01:00.200 they're kind of like bedrocks of how we move forward in processes as leaders that 16 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:06.120 they would be considered ritualistic and and how you know, sometimes they don't work. 17 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:08.120 Like I've been in situations where you know, there, for whatever the 18 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:11.640 reason, I had to do a zoom call, but I wasn't at my 19 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:15.359 my main desktop computer. I was at a laptop in a hotel room somewhere, 20 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:19.079 and it just felt off. It felt off because I wasn't in my 21 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:25.599 my my ritual or my routine. But that can't necessarily be an excuse for 22 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:29.239 not doing the thing well that you were doing, even though they are important 23 00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:30.959 to have in general. We're your thoughts about this, Yeah, I think 24 00:01:32.159 --> 00:01:34.040 we've talked about it before, but just kind of the idea of having some 25 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:38.120 type of you know, some normalcy and the routine that you have in building 26 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:42.079 routines and whatnot. But I think ritual I like that word better because I 27 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:49.280 think that like that, it's it's things that really get you into a mind 28 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:53.319 space of being like I'm going to do great work. And I think that's 29 00:01:53.319 --> 00:01:56.519 the difference between to me, a routine and a ritual is that there's some 30 00:01:56.560 --> 00:01:59.680 intention there, Like what you're talking about preparing for the interview, like all 31 00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:01.519 of this is intentional to make sure that I have what I need at my 32 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:07.159 fingertips. That I have you know that I'm systems ready to go, that 33 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:09.840 I that I've done the work even to say like I've cleared my desk, 34 00:02:09.879 --> 00:02:15.240 which then is like clearing my brain to be fully involved and fully committed to 35 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:16.680 the moment that I'm going to be in. And I think that same thing 36 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:21.599 when it comes to like leadership rituals around like when you you know, when 37 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:23.840 I get up in the morning, what am I doing to set my day 38 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:27.280 up? You know, I only like to go to work and have emails 39 00:02:27.639 --> 00:02:30.759 that have shown as unread because I've actually already read them, but I know 40 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:34.280 I need to take action on something. So like I know that there are 41 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:38.879 things that I do from a from a ritual standpoint that helped me to build 42 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:43.360 my day up. But when it comes to my people and the development and 43 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:46.439 the things that I really want to make sure are happening and we kind of 44 00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:49.719 bringing my values to life, that's where I build in rituals to do things 45 00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:53.039 like once a month going through my open and paper notebooks and going through notes 46 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:55.759 and looking at things and reflecting and saying, all right, what are some 47 00:02:55.840 --> 00:03:00.400 things that from this last month that I think when well, what are some 48 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:04.240 things with this maybe this this leader's development where I, you know, want 49 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:07.800 to make sure I follow back on that or I look for more themes of 50 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:12.400 this behavior, both maybe positive or an opportunity. And so like I build 51 00:03:12.439 --> 00:03:15.919 in these rituals that allow me to make sure I have the time to really 52 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:17.400 be highly effective of the role that I have. And then I even think 53 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:21.439 about like the rituals that we have for like the podcast and the things that 54 00:03:21.479 --> 00:03:25.159 we've done for six years now that are just making us ready to get on 55 00:03:25.240 --> 00:03:28.919 and talk about the things that we want to talk about. Right But in 56 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:37.080 the world in which we live, sometimes the ritual can cannot help you because 57 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:40.439 if you are so beholden to it that it causes you to not get the 58 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:45.800 job done, then that's a problem too. And in the world of leadership, 59 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:49.360 you can't always plan out every moment every day. You can't always say, 60 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:51.520 Okay, I'm gonna do this first and this second. You know, 61 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:53.680 it's one thing to say, you know, I have a ritual of if 62 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:55.280 I'm doing a sit down with an employee in the room, I want to 63 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:59.479 have a pen and my notebook with me because I don't want to have my 64 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.000 phone out. I want to be able to take notes, but it still 65 00:04:02.039 --> 00:04:04.919 feels rude to me if someone is on the phone or if I'm on the 66 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:08.639 phone. Even if I'm taking notes and it's clear I'm taking notes, it 67 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.560 needs to be written down on paper and pen, and so I have to 68 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:14.840 have that. I will stop a one on one to go get that if 69 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:16.720 I don't have it, if I haven't prepared for it in advance. To 70 00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:21.079 me, that's an incredibly important ritual that has to take precedent in order to 71 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:26.199 make sure that what I'm trying to accomplish gets done well. Other times you 72 00:04:26.240 --> 00:04:29.000 miss the boat on getting done the thing you have to get done because you 73 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:31.120 were so beholden to the ritual. And so what I'm ask you, Lorenzo, 74 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.519 is what's a ritual that you have that it is so important that you 75 00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:40.000 will put something off in order to make sure it happens. It's not something 76 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.399 you can kind of pick and choose or you know, kind of take as 77 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:45.800 accounts. That has to happen or you can't be as productive as you need 78 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:47.519 to be on doing something that is expected of you. So I want to 79 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:49.040 ask you that at first, I want to get up to word for one 80 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:53.279 of our sponsors. All right, Lorenzo, And thinking about your role as 81 00:04:53.279 --> 00:04:58.439 a leader, what's a kind of air quote ritual that you do that is 82 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:00.759 incredibly important to you? You know, you have to plan it out and 83 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.360 make sure that's able to happen because you just won't be able to do the 84 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:05.839 job well if you haven't done this in advance. I think, and this 85 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:11.399 is something relatively new to me that I've learned about, but pre planning agendas 86 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:15.000 when I spend time with leaders, knowing there are things that I want to 87 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.000 talk to that leader about, whether it's about their development, their people, 88 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:21.319 their business. You know, for a long time, I could write that 89 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:26.160 in my little book and go back and reference it ahead of time and think 90 00:05:26.199 --> 00:05:28.600 about it, and would I would know that these are the things that we're 91 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:30.560 going to touch on or talk through. When you move into a space where 92 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:34.839 you have multiple leaders in multiple different places, the intention behind that is a 93 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:40.040 lot more important. So like as I if I know that I'm going to 94 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:44.120 go spend time with you Chris on next Friday, and between now and then, 95 00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:46.160 there may be conversations that you and I have, there may be things 96 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:49.439 that I'm looking at as it pertains to you, your business, your team, 97 00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:53.959 that type of thing. In those moments, I will then go to 98 00:05:54.040 --> 00:05:57.639 that invitation that we have for next week for our time together, and I 99 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:01.240 will type in like this an agenda item. This is an agenda item. 100 00:06:01.279 --> 00:06:04.680 I will add those ahead of time, but in real time, so that 101 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:09.680 they actually never even make it necessarily to maybe the pen and paper, but 102 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:13.639 they are definitely added to the conversation that we're going to have next Friday. 103 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:17.439 And so I've learned that that's a ritual that has been extremely helpful for me 104 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:21.600 to make sure that I'm like, man, I gotta remember to tell Chris 105 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:24.879 that, or I gotta remember to talk to Chris about that. If I 106 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:27.639 take that second, if I add that to the agenda of the time that 107 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.560 I already know that we have together, I can then allow that to go 108 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:33.439 away and then focus my attention on the task in hand, or the conversation 109 00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:36.560 that I'm currently in or whatever whatever I'm working on. And I've had to 110 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:41.000 do that because there's been times when I'm like, oh, yeah, I 111 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.839 gotta remember to tell Chris that, but because I'm doing something else in the 112 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.160 moments, I forget to get that down somewhere. I forget to reference that, 113 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:49.360 you know, and then maybe I remember when we're together, maybe gets 114 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:53.279 brought up again at that point. But I've really had to work on that 115 00:06:53.319 --> 00:06:56.360 as a ritual, right, Right, I've been in that same situation where 116 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:00.439 I have forgotten and then I remember the thing that I wanted to say seconds 117 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:02.759 after the end of whatever that meeting was. Right, There's just there's this 118 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.160 thing that happens when you're in the moment, and I think it's because you're 119 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.519 trying to be in the moment. You're trying to be there with the person, 120 00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:13.240 not thinking back to something that you were trying to recall that you tried 121 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:15.600 to file away. So yeah, writing it down in advance is something that 122 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:19.360 kind of allows you to free up that brain space, you know. I 123 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:24.079 think Albert Einstein was asked for his phone number once and he said, I 124 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:27.439 don't know my own phone number. What when doever call myself? And it 125 00:07:27.560 --> 00:07:30.360 was this idea of why would he fill up space in his brain with information 126 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:35.079 he doesn't need? And that's just that that's kind of a foreign concept of 127 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:39.720 people. We fill up our brain with these things that we probably should be 128 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:43.120 allowing, you know, pen and paper or other things to kind of take 129 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:46.680 off of our plates, because when you're talking about leading people, the the 130 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:51.319 ultimate goal is to actually be a good leader, and if the ritual can 131 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:55.360 allow you to do that, then that's a very good thing. If it 132 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:58.279 can help you, you know, kind of get in that mindspace. If 133 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:01.279 you don't do this, if you're ual is just all gonna file it away 134 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:05.040 remember it later. The brain power it takes to kind of recall that in 135 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:07.360 the moment is brain power you should have been spending listening to that employee talk 136 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:11.160 about what's on their mind and being able to help them. The writing it 137 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:15.480 down just allows you to say, all right, I'm going to reference this 138 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:18.160 one. I need it, but it doesn't need to occupy space in the 139 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.000 front of my mind, so I make sure I don't forget it. These 140 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:26.360 rituals are really important to do. But again, if if you've forgotten to 141 00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:30.160 do that in advance and you still have that meeting that employee come up, 142 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:33.919 does that mean you reschedule it or does that mean that you go forward with 143 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:37.039 it and you hope it goes well. I mean, what's what's how important 144 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:39.600 is it? Really? Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's 145 00:08:39.679 --> 00:08:43.519 it's I think going forward with the time that we would have together, I 146 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.720 think is critical like that that was already planned time for the things that we 147 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:50.799 have. I think that from a ritual standpoint, what I've learned very quickly 148 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:56.559 is that this is this is a very very important ritual if I want to 149 00:08:56.559 --> 00:09:01.120 get the most productivity out of that time together, because there are there are 150 00:09:01.159 --> 00:09:03.240 there are definitely things that we're going to talk about. And again having the 151 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:05.679 plan time means we're going to have a conversation, We're going to discuss. 152 00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:09.200 There are things that I already have that are big things on the agenda, 153 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:13.799 but there are many things that come up across from time to time that that 154 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:16.000 should be discussed or talked about, or it could be a heads up or 155 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:20.679 something like that. So now what I'm learning in this ritual is like when 156 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:24.600 I when I create the invite, here are the big thing agenda items, 157 00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:28.399 and then as I go here's the ones that I would add to it as 158 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:33.279 we're getting closer to something. So I in the past, if I just 159 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:37.879 have the time, and then if I just have the information in my book 160 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:41.039 that I want to discuss, that's also not helping to prepare the leader and 161 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.159 that's the other The other thing that I want to be able to do is 162 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:46.799 make sure hey that you know, Chris, like, here's all the things 163 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:48.279 that we're going to talk about next Friday when we're together. You know. 164 00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:52.000 That way, you have time to think about it, you have time to 165 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:54.480 be prepared, you have time for us to discuss, and that makes our 166 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:58.440 time together much more productive. Oh, I totally agree with that. In 167 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.559 fact, it doesn't just do that, I think. I think it lets 168 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:03.679 the person who's being invited to this meeting off the hook a little bit. 169 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:07.120 I know, if I was invited to a meeting by my leader and they 170 00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:09.919 didn't send me an agenda, there's a part of me, and I think 171 00:10:09.919 --> 00:10:13.440 a part of most people who in the back of their mind is thinking I'm 172 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:16.440 about to get fired, Like there's that little tiny bit, right, And 173 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:20.919 even though you know realistically that's not the case, there's this part of the 174 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:24.240 mind that will go there. And so as a leader, if you put 175 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:28.519 out an agenda that says all these things that you plan on talking about, 176 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:31.320 the big things and the little things, I think that does an incredible service 177 00:10:31.399 --> 00:10:37.120 to your people in terms of allowing them to not let their mind run as 178 00:10:37.159 --> 00:10:39.720 far as what's going to happen in this meeting. You're telling them now right, 179 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:41.360 this is what we're going to discuss, and anything they want to bring, 180 00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:45.799 they're more than welcome to bring. But you want to talk about being 181 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.080 productive in a meeting, put it out there in advance. And that way 182 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:52.639 you can actually hold them accountable to not being able to talk to these things 183 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:56.240 if you've given them enough time. But two again, it lets them stop 184 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:00.000 trying to focus on I wonder what Lorenzo is going to talk to me about. 185 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:01.480 Let me get all my numbers in a row and make sure that all 186 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:05.480 these things I can talk about, And they start spending a ton of effort 187 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:09.080 in time preparing for a meeting with you on things that you weren't even planning 188 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:13.240 on talking about to begin with. And so, yeah, it's not These 189 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:18.639 rituals aren't just important for leaders, they are important for people who have to 190 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:20.639 live with and work with these leaders too, absolutely, and with that it 191 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:24.480 brings us at the end of this episode, this is hack your leadership. 192 00:11:24.519 --> 00:11:26.919 I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and have a great day.