Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to another hacking leadership leadership author
Speaker 1: podcast in our new series that we're doing. We're extremely excited.
Speaker 1: We've had so many great interviews and great conversations with
Speaker 1: some amazing leaders who also happen to be leadership authors.
Speaker 1: And as we've said, you know, Chris and I have
Speaker 1: done a lot of put on top, put a lot
Speaker 1: of time and effort and to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: vetting some of our guests that we feel really great
Speaker 1: about their content. So as always, we will ask you
Speaker 1: to not only enjoy the show, but please click on
Speaker 1: the links in the podcast show notes, check out their content,
Speaker 1: by their books, subscribe to their podcast and newsletters because
Speaker 1: we're taking a lot of great inspiration from the content here.
Speaker 1: And today we're extremely excited to talk to Phil Geldart,
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Eagles Flight, which is a
Speaker 1: recognized authority in the areas of transforming organizational culture, leadership development,
Speaker 1: and experiential training solutions. So again, these are all things
Speaker 1: that speak to our heart and we just want to
Speaker 1: say welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Phil, Hey, Lorenzo, thank you Mouseful.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, right, a lot, Hey, You've deserved it, though,
Speaker 1: a lot of work that you've done here, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. We're going to spend today talking about Phil's
Speaker 1: book here leading what matters most and what I will
Speaker 1: tell you. I love this because this is a way
Speaker 1: of talking about leadership that I have quite honestly not
Speaker 1: seen in this type of a platform before. It's a
Speaker 1: full book around leadership development through a story that's being explained,
Speaker 1: and it's like a fiction work here. But the way
Speaker 1: that it tracks in the book and the things that
Speaker 1: are spoken about obviously come from real life experience. You
Speaker 1: can just tell in reading it that these things really
Speaker 1: hit home in some spaces there. But maybe Phil, can
Speaker 1: you just talk to this a little bit about like
Speaker 1: why this approach to this leadership book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, Lorenzo, I'm happy to do that. Thanks a
Speaker 2: lot for having me. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: books on leadership, in fact that I've written a few
Speaker 2: myself that are tend to be more like manuals or
Speaker 2: case sets, and I feel that the real challenge if
Speaker 2: you're trying to be a great leaders Okay, but what
Speaker 2: do I do? Like in practice? I get the theory,
Speaker 2: I get the you know, you've given me the recommendations,
Speaker 2: and I know what other people do, but I honestly
Speaker 2: feel that leaders wrestle with the day to day. But
Speaker 2: what do I do differently? And so I thought trying
Speaker 2: to put it into the context of a story, so
Speaker 2: you could identify with the main character. You go, Okay,
Speaker 2: I could do that, or I could do that. That's
Speaker 2: not that complicated. So I chose that approach to try
Speaker 2: to help the reader feel like they can implement it.
Speaker 2: Does that makes sense?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? No, I love it because I think that to
Speaker 1: your point, a lot of times, as I consume you know, books,
Speaker 1: audio books, media, ted talks, you know, whatever we might
Speaker 1: have out there, sometimes it can feel very theoretical, and
Speaker 1: as you're reading and consuming it, you're thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: how what does that do? How does that look? Does
Speaker 1: that make sense to me? Versus a read like this,
Speaker 1: which is like a story. And now I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm a part of this journey and I'm asking the
Speaker 1: same questions that the characters asking and I'm looking for
Speaker 1: the same solutions, and it's just it was a very
Speaker 1: different experience from a from from somebody who's consuming the content.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me give you an example. Right early
Speaker 2: in the book, Bridget, who's my ficational CEO, wants to
Speaker 2: make a transformation and she chats with the consultant and
Speaker 2: the consultant says, okay, well, how committed are you and
Speaker 2: she I'm committed, he said, but how committed are you?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: She said, what do you mean? And he begins to
Speaker 2: say to her, well, you have to make sure your
Speaker 2: executive team are on board, and she says, well what
Speaker 2: does that mean? So then he says, well, if they're
Speaker 2: not on board, you've got to be willing to let
Speaker 2: them go. Let them go. So they have this dialogue,
Speaker 2: and I feel, you know, very often we talk about, well,
Speaker 2: the senior management needs to be committed to the outcome.
Speaker 2: Everybody nods sagely, but they don't appreciate that to be
Speaker 2: committed to an outcome to transform an organization is an
Speaker 2: all or nothing commitment. You have to model it, you
Speaker 2: have to be there front and center, you have to
Speaker 2: use the language. And so in trying to explain that
Speaker 2: to her, she begins to understand in practice what it
Speaker 2: means to have senior management commitment. And then I'm hoping
Speaker 2: that the reader would say, Okay, I can make a
Speaker 2: decision for myself. How committed am I to this transformation?
Speaker 2: So it allowed me to bring to life the real
Speaker 2: practicalities of what it would take to make change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love that. And in a recent interview
Speaker 1: you talked about this idea of like, hey, if I
Speaker 1: mean asked to make a change, if I'm going to
Speaker 1: have some trust established and making change, is my boss
Speaker 1: doing this? Right? Is their boss doing this? And it
Speaker 1: kind of goes all the way up that way. And
Speaker 1: I love that how you broke that down, because that's
Speaker 1: the important thing is like if you're if you're asking
Speaker 1: people to go through a change, how are you working
Speaker 1: yourself to the change curve? How are you as the
Speaker 1: leader role modeling these types of behaviors? And then can
Speaker 1: you honestly put your hand up and say that and
Speaker 1: say like, no, no, I am doing the things that
Speaker 1: I know I'm asking my people to do, and I'm
Speaker 1: showing them that I'm flexible, that I'm learning agile. You know,
Speaker 1: am I sharing with them maybe even my emotions or
Speaker 1: my thoughts and going through this change as a means
Speaker 1: of being transparent with my feelings so that they can
Speaker 1: kind of align with me. So I love that you
Speaker 1: kind of brought that up. Did that come from kind
Speaker 1: of experience going into the book or is this something
Speaker 1: that as you were writing the book you kind of
Speaker 1: uncovered this nugget that you wanted to highlight.
Speaker 2: No, I've known this for a long time. We've done
Speaker 2: a lot of culture transformations, and I mean we, I
Speaker 2: say we Eagle Flight the company that I v The
Speaker 2: big issue is very often helping senior management understanding their
Speaker 2: role in the journey. So I've had to go through
Speaker 2: the discussions that consult mad with Bridget many times, and
Speaker 2: I think, you know, you put your finger though on
Speaker 2: a critical point. If I could just elaborate for a bit.
Speaker 2: If I'm coming to work and I'm I'm working in
Speaker 2: a warehouse and I'm moving the boxes. My supervisor is
Speaker 2: maybe like three years older than me and had the
Speaker 2: job before I did. But as far as I am concerned,
Speaker 2: that supervisor is my leader and he represents the company
Speaker 2: or she, I may never get to see the CEO
Speaker 2: and the executives who are really committed to the transformation.
Speaker 2: I look at my immediate boss. What is she doing
Speaker 2: and what she does I do, so I model on her,
Speaker 2: and if I'm having trouble, I look for her to
Speaker 2: come and say, Okay, here's what you need to do differently,
Speaker 2: So she's got to be there to coach me. So
Speaker 2: this idea of the leader having to set the example
Speaker 2: and to also be skilled to coach me to follow
Speaker 2: that example puts huge pressure on the organization to then
Speaker 2: train that supervisor. And I think that very often organizations
Speaker 2: don't fully understand that your frontline leaders are generally not
Speaker 2: trained to do this kind of thing. They're trained to
Speaker 2: be good on process, they're good on policy, they're good
Speaker 2: on dealing with customers, they deal with their functional area well.
Speaker 2: But you have to start right at the most senior
Speaker 2: level and say what do I want you to do
Speaker 2: or do differently in order to demonstrate the behavior we
Speaker 2: want everybody to do. And you've got to cascade that
Speaker 2: all the way down and it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2: But if you get it right, then you know that
Speaker 2: every leader is actually able to model on their own leader,
Speaker 2: and so you begin to see that behavior change. So
Speaker 2: your point is critical. I'm just not sure most organizations
Speaker 2: understand what it takes to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I love that because I've always believed in the
Speaker 1: same thing as like the kind of the impact of
Speaker 1: your day to day is really your experience at work
Speaker 1: is really impacted by two levels above your boss and
Speaker 1: your boss's boss. To your point, right, that is ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of what you experience. So so if you
Speaker 1: look at it that way, then they really become the
Speaker 1: manifestation of the organization's values and structure and expectations, and
Speaker 1: all these things come to life for that person in
Speaker 1: those two levels of leadership. So that's extremely important. I
Speaker 1: love that you highlight that and and you kind of
Speaker 1: walk through that, and then I think, to your point,
Speaker 1: it's like I think a lot of organizations and leaders
Speaker 1: and organizations understand that concept and they would say, Phil,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, you're right. And then the next question
Speaker 1: is how do I do it? And then and then
Speaker 1: how do I build work systems where I can validate
Speaker 1: that it's actually happening?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I think what I liked about the book is
Speaker 1: that there's kind of like this flow of not just
Speaker 1: the here's the question, here's the answer, but then here's
Speaker 1: the work. Oh, oh, here's here's the issue. Something else,
Speaker 1: there's another thing that popped in here that that's a problem.
Speaker 1: And then I love even like at the line where
Speaker 1: it was like towards the end of the book and
Speaker 1: you know, no spoiler alerts here, but but hey, hey
Speaker 1: there's an issue and we're on top of it. And
Speaker 1: I think her response is, I know you are you like,
Speaker 1: we've gone through this full journey now where we've built
Speaker 1: this element of confidence and capability at the same time,
Speaker 1: which I think is so so apparent in there. But
Speaker 1: I think also, as you've done this over the years,
Speaker 1: and as you've discovered this as the thing, maybe what
Speaker 1: is that first thing that you would say to a
Speaker 1: leader who is trying to have the same journey that
Speaker 1: you've got in the book here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know this is not going to be your
Speaker 2: typical answer, but the very most important thing is to
Speaker 2: sit with the leadership, and I mean at every level
Speaker 2: and say you have responsibility for the lives and careers
Speaker 2: and performance of human beings. They are adults. They leave
Speaker 2: your job and you know, they're on boards and committees
Speaker 2: and they're raising families, and you are the one that
Speaker 2: in their job life they look to you and you
Speaker 2: have this tremendous potential that you can lead and nurture.
Speaker 2: And I try to help leaders understand that Leadership is
Speaker 2: begins with valuing the potential in every human being. If
Speaker 2: you simply treat the person for all, right, I pay
Speaker 2: them to do this job, and they do the job.
Speaker 2: Even if they do it well, you forget the fact
Speaker 2: they could do a lot more. I mean, in five
Speaker 2: years they're probably going to be a manager and then
Speaker 2: five years later that they're going to be a director.
Speaker 2: They have that potential. So leadership begins with saying, my
Speaker 2: job is to release that potential. And that is actually
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent altruistic. If you go to a
Speaker 2: board and say, okay, what am I paying you to
Speaker 2: be a leader? I mean, how much do I pay you?
Speaker 2: How much am I paying my leaders? And how much
Speaker 2: am I paying my employees? Are you getting the best
Speaker 2: out of them? Because if you're not, then why aren't you?
Speaker 2: Because I'm paying the salaries, I expect the very best.
Speaker 2: But many leaders say, well, firstly, that's a foreign concept.
Speaker 2: I'm being paid to release human potential and secondly, I
Speaker 2: have no idea how to do it. But Lorenzo, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: If you think of the best leaders you've ever worked for,
Speaker 2: you perform better, they get the best out of you. Okay,
Speaker 2: I got to be like one of those people. I
Speaker 2: want to be a best leader because I know for
Speaker 2: myself I perform better for a great leader. So that
Speaker 2: then makes it much easier to go to an organization
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, we've codified what makes a great leader.
Speaker 2: We will teach them. You got to make sure that
Speaker 2: they apply what we teach.
Speaker 1: I love that, Phil, and I want to go deeper
Speaker 1: into this concept of releasing human potential, but first I
Speaker 1: want to give it up for a few of our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: so welcome back. We're talking to Phil here, and I
Speaker 1: want to dive deeper into this idea of releasing human potential.
Speaker 1: And you kind of were talking about this before the break,
Speaker 1: but as you explain this concept and the importance of it,
Speaker 1: which I completely agree with, and maybe people say they
Speaker 1: want to but then their actions don't show you that
Speaker 1: they're going to do it. I would love to know
Speaker 1: more about that, Like do you feel that's an element
Speaker 1: of not wanting to give up controlled? Is it ego?
Speaker 1: Is it protecting opportunities because they feel that others, when
Speaker 1: empowered and emboldened, maybe able to take their role. Like
Speaker 1: what do you feel are the things that are stopping
Speaker 1: some of the leaders from releasing the actual human potential.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a great question, and I think your
Speaker 2: average listener would immediately jump to, well, you know, they
Speaker 2: don't want to give up control. It's their ego. I
Speaker 2: don't really think that's it for the majority. And let
Speaker 2: me see if I can paint a mental picture for you.
Speaker 2: Think of a rectangle, vertical rectangle, and at the bottom
Speaker 2: of this you have me just getting into the job.
Speaker 2: My first job, I'm digging ditches out on the construction crew,
Speaker 2: and then I get promoted. And as I'm moving up
Speaker 2: that sort of vertical rectangle a little bit. As I
Speaker 2: get promoted, I got a guy working for me, but
Speaker 2: I'm still now I'm on the back home. Then I
Speaker 2: get promoted again and I'm operating the back hobe, and
Speaker 2: I'm also doing a little bit of hiring because now
Speaker 2: I'm a lead hand. But as I progress through my career,
Speaker 2: I'm moving and keeping being promoted because of my competence functionally.
Speaker 2: I'm good on the road, I'm good with the equipment,
Speaker 2: I'm good at dealing with the contractors, and I keep
Speaker 2: getting promoted until ultimately I become a VP of construction
Speaker 2: or something. But if you go back to that the base.
Speaker 2: In my first job, I was all functional and my
Speaker 2: only interpersonal relationships I had a beer with the boys
Speaker 2: at the end of the day. By the time I'm
Speaker 2: kind of like the foreman, I'm still eighty five percent functional,
Speaker 2: but I'm fifteen percent only now I got to kind
Speaker 2: of deal with a couple of problems when the guys
Speaker 2: are showing up late. So as my career progresses, I
Speaker 2: move from being primarily functionally driven to being more people centric,
Speaker 2: and by the time I get to a VP, I
Speaker 2: can't even remember where the key to the bacco is
Speaker 2: and I'm just dealing with people problems all the time.
Speaker 2: But the reason I tell that is because each promotion
Speaker 2: is based on functional competence. I know how to do
Speaker 2: stuff with things, so I naturally take those skills and
Speaker 2: apply them to managing people. I treat people like things, right,
Speaker 2: because that's my career, until ultimately I suddenly realize people
Speaker 2: aren't things. The way I'm managing them doesn't work anymore
Speaker 2: because they're actually But by then I'm so far into
Speaker 2: my career I've not been equipped to manage people differently.
Speaker 2: So what you see is it's not that I don't
Speaker 2: value that you have potential. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: do that. I think of you as a machine of it.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be that course, but that is really what
Speaker 2: it is. And so I'm managing you the only way
Speaker 2: I know how to manage anything. Why you do this,
Speaker 2: you get that output. If it doesn't work, you fix it,
Speaker 2: as opposed to Early in my career, I was taught
Speaker 2: how to communicate effectively, how to give feedback with respect,
Speaker 2: how to take feedback and not be offended by it.
Speaker 2: So very often when I'm working with an organization, say look, guys,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you don't have the skills to release you
Speaker 2: with potential. But it's not malicious. It's not that you
Speaker 2: don't want it. You've just never wrapped your head around that.
Speaker 2: So let me help you with that. I mean, they
Speaker 2: typically say, okay, that's great. And once you see the benefit, Lorenza,
Speaker 2: once you get the power of the people coming to
Speaker 2: you and giving you all that they have, you go, man,
Speaker 2: where has this been all my life? And so they
Speaker 2: migrate to it. So that it's more about recognizing the
Speaker 2: leaders are not poor leaders by intent or by conscious choice.
Speaker 2: It's by circumstance and we have to jump in and
Speaker 2: deal with that deficiency, and most of the time they
Speaker 2: embrace it and you get the benefit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you were talking through it. I
Speaker 1: imagine in most all jobs and industries, you know, you
Speaker 1: hire someone to be a specialist, and then you teach
Speaker 1: them how to become that specialist. And then as they
Speaker 1: continue to your point, you know, navigate their career and
Speaker 1: advance up, they become more specialists at different things, but
Speaker 1: they being a generalist with humans is different than being
Speaker 1: a generalist when it comes to like, you know, verticals
Speaker 1: of specialized things that you have to do there. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned this earlier in the show, but like that
Speaker 1: idea of like, what are we teaching those at that
Speaker 1: level to better collaborate, to understand how do you work
Speaker 1: through and managed to conflict, how do you create spaces
Speaker 1: of healthy debates, and how do you have them understand
Speaker 1: that that. I think to truly be able to empower people,
Speaker 1: you have to feel empowered yourself, you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of have to. You have to experience that in a
Speaker 1: way that allows you to then create the space to
Speaker 1: make that happen.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you know, it's interesting because I'll talk with
Speaker 2: leaders and they go, okay, Phil, I get it. I
Speaker 2: get it. You know, I'll master this. And then they
Speaker 2: get their feedback forms and they go, well, baby over
Speaker 2: here thinks I'm great. Fred thinks I'm terrible. How is
Speaker 2: that possible? I'm the same guy. And I think it's
Speaker 2: because they do not understand that human beings are different,
Speaker 2: so you can't treat them all the same and you
Speaker 2: can't expect them to all be like you. You as
Speaker 2: the leader, have to learn to adapt, and we have
Speaker 2: in our communication course we talk about style, fact and passion.
Speaker 2: So if I'm going to deal with somebody, what is
Speaker 2: their style? How much do they like fact and how
Speaker 2: much do they like passion? And that formula changes for
Speaker 2: every human being. So as a leader, I the leader,
Speaker 2: have to change and when I do, then all my
Speaker 2: feedback forms come back saying I'm great because not because
Speaker 2: the person has changed, but I have learned to adapt.
Speaker 2: And I do that because I want to get at
Speaker 2: the potential and therefore I'm willing to make the changes
Speaker 2: in my behavior that I need to optimize their contribution. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. And you also mentioned this in an
Speaker 1: interview and it's kind of this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: you want to write a book to help organizations leverage
Speaker 1: the fact that people want to give more. So like
Speaker 1: this whole thing is baked in. People want to give more,
Speaker 1: they're looking for reasons to do it, and in the organization,
Speaker 1: and the leaders of the organization have to find ways
Speaker 1: to to want them to do that by again, by
Speaker 1: role modeling that type of thing. But tell me what,
Speaker 1: tell me more about that? Like what do you mean
Speaker 1: when when you're so when you're when you're when you're
Speaker 1: very confident in knowing that people want to give more?
Speaker 2: Yep, uh, Well, most people want job security. Typically they
Speaker 2: want either advancement or certainly quality of life, and therefore
Speaker 2: they want their organization to succeed. So Lake, if I'm
Speaker 2: I'm gonna work, I'm gonna do my best work. If
Speaker 2: my boss doesn't let me do my best work, I
Speaker 2: get frustrated, and that's part of the problem. So I
Speaker 2: think there is there's sort of an inherent desire to
Speaker 2: do well and that can be killed easily if your
Speaker 2: boss is a bit of a not supportive. But the
Speaker 2: moment you work for someone who causes that to flourish,
Speaker 2: then you jump into that. Now the challenge is a
Speaker 2: great leader defines the sandbox the employee. So the sandbox
Speaker 2: means I will help you determine as much freedom as
Speaker 2: I can give you where you are not overly. You
Speaker 2: don't have too much freedom, and therefore you could put
Speaker 2: something at risk, or you don't have enough freedom, and
Speaker 2: therefore you get frustrated. So let's define your freedom of
Speaker 2: authority in your job. Someone comes to you to rent
Speaker 2: a car and the car is not there. Can you
Speaker 2: give them another car? Can a discount? Like what's your
Speaker 2: freedom of authority? And then the person goes, Okay, I
Speaker 2: now know the sandbox that I can play and I'm
Speaker 2: not always worried that I'm going to but my job
Speaker 2: as at least and then you know what, let's talk
Speaker 2: about increasing your sandbox. How can I help you grow
Speaker 2: so you can make more decisions have a bigger impact.
Speaker 2: And you see that particularly especially in the service industry,
Speaker 2: where you're dealing with clerks and sometimes you know they've
Speaker 2: got no authority, know they want to help you, but
Speaker 2: the organization has not given them the environment that allows that,
Speaker 2: and you can see how frustrated they are. As opposed
Speaker 2: to other companies where they're there, they want to help,
Speaker 2: and their sandbox size has been so well defined they
Speaker 2: know what they can do. And as a customer, I think, man,
Speaker 2: I really like you. I'm coming back here again. But
Speaker 2: it's the same person. It's just that one organization has
Speaker 2: done nothing around the sandbox definition and the other has
Speaker 2: done a great job at defining it and growing it.
Speaker 2: And that, I think is how you get in practice
Speaker 2: what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: I love that. I think you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of articles over the years around Zappos when they first started,
Speaker 1: and kind of that concept of like whatever it takes
Speaker 1: to take care of the customer, and yes, we sell shoes,
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to order a pizza, We'll figure that out,
Speaker 1: you know. But like to your point, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, likes there's that element. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to someone else the other day about the idea of
Speaker 1: the sandbox again, and she had a great analogy. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know that there's gonna be stand that's gonna spill
Speaker 1: over into the box next to yours, right, and then
Speaker 1: real leaders will understand that and they will help people
Speaker 1: to like how do I open a door there? How
Speaker 1: do we allow some of that sand to flow back
Speaker 1: and forth and as we yeah, as we create partnership.
Speaker 1: So that's fantastic. Well, Phil, I really want to thank
Speaker 1: you for the time. I would love to, you know,
Speaker 1: let the people know where can they get more information
Speaker 1: from you? Where should they go to buy the book
Speaker 1: and buy some of the other books that you've got there.
Speaker 1: And then the organizations. We have a lot of C
Speaker 1: level executives that listen to the show that constantly write
Speaker 1: into us. How can they contact you around doing some
Speaker 1: of this work with their organizations?
Speaker 2: Wow? Great question, Thank you. You can find out about
Speaker 2: the company through Eaglesflight dot com, so Eagle like thebird,
Speaker 2: eglesflight dot com, and you can find out about me
Speaker 2: at Phil Geldart dot com. But if you go to
Speaker 2: eagles Flight dot com you'll find me so very awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you Phil again, I really appreciate it, and we
Speaker 1: ask all of our listeners to please click the links,
Speaker 1: check it out, get the content. I know, if you're
Speaker 1: listening to our show, as you have for a lot
Speaker 1: of years, you're pouring into your own development and books
Speaker 1: like this, concepts like this, partners like this that can
Speaker 1: help you and help your business get better or why
Speaker 1: we exist and why we do this show. So again,
Speaker 1: thank you everyone for listening, Thank you Phil for the time.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue this dialogue on our pillars and
Speaker 1: pitfalls a series here over at Lionsgot Academy dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you all next time.
Speaker 2: Take care by now