Relating Takes Practice

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel

Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast. The Get Emergent Podcast guides leaders to creatively strengthen relationships and improve the performance of their leadership and those they lead. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and leadership. Hopefully, you’re going to find some better practices to apply directly to your work. I’m Bill Berthel.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I’m Jeremiah Poulsen.

Bill Berthel

So Jeremiah, I know you have a brief reading to share with us in this space of “relating takes practice.”

Jeremiah Poulsen

I do. I’ve been reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. Great book—if you haven’t read it, check it out. It’s a really cool tool, and I couldn’t help but connect today’s topic with what I was reading.

In Chapter Four, Daniel calls Gregg Popovich “The Relationship Maker.” Here’s why—I’m reading directly from Chapter Four:

“A while back, a writer named Neil Payne set out to determine who was the best National Basketball Association coach of the modern era. He devised an algorithm that used player performance metrics to predict how many games a team should win. He crunched numbers for every NBA coach since 1979 in order to measure wins above expectations, which is basically the number of times a coach’s team won a game they had no business winning based on player skills.”

He then plotted the results on a graph, and Daniel goes on to say that Gregg Popovich’s team had won 117 more games than they should have based on the team’s skill level and competency.

So, the reason he calls Popovich “The Relationship Maker”—and I won’t read the rest of the chapter, obviously, if you want more, go get the book—is because Popovich’s success was deemed impossible by most, and the key to that success was building relationships with his players that extended beyond the function of basketball. He even went so far as to learn the different languages spoken by his players.

He showed up in a way that, before any conversation about on-court performance, he would ask about their personal lives—how they were feeling about the game, and how that related to how they performed.

There was this very intentional practice of meaningfully connecting with team members frequently, creating a team culture of open sharing, vulnerability, and psychological safety.

Coyle even calls that the “secret sauce” of their victories. Even when they were outmatched in terms of skill and competency, they were able to outperform because of the selfless and meaningful ways they related to one another.

Bill Berthel

Wow. So, the outcome of those practices of relating by the coach—and I imagine it filtered through the team as well, how could it not—was being attributed to much higher than expected performance. In this case, it was a significantly higher number of wins that, statistically, they didn’t “deserve.”

Jeremiah Poulsen

Absolutely. To your point about that trickle-down effect into team culture, if you read the team’s history, players would come to Popovich’s team who had been seen as difficult or uncooperative in other team cultures. They’d come in and start changing—adapting to his culture.

They’d become the most selfless passers on the court.

Other All-Stars in the league would even say, “When you play against Popovich’s team, they do things that don’t make sense.” They don’t take the shot—they pass when you don’t expect it, just so the other player gets the spotlight.

To the average eye, it looked very uncharacteristic of high performers, but it was that act of servant leadership, that act of meaningful connection—even on the court—that led to their success.

Bill Berthel

The practice of relationships.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

You know, and probably most of our listeners by now know that I’m not a sports guy, so I didn’t know that story.

What it’s bringing up for me is the fictional world of Ted Lasso, right? Another sports-related example, though fictional—where it’s really about belief in one another and building relationships.

Doing the work, sure—the fundamentals of the craft, the skills—but it also requires the practice of relating, of putting that into action with one another.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, and it’s not about the absence of direct communication or competency sharpening. It’s not relationships at the expense of performance—it’s both/and.

And it’s a hard approach—putting in the time, the training, the strength-building—while also building relationships as an equal priority.

Bill Berthel

Exactly. With this episode being the third in our three-part series, we previously talked about discovery—getting more awareness of self in an emotional and social intelligence framework using personality.

Then in the second episode, we focused on tuning in to others—recognizing other people’s emotions, thoughts, and preferences.

Now, we’re putting it into action. This is where we take that self-discovery and recognition of others and begin experimenting—practicing effectiveness in relationships and our work with others.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, there’s something to be said for building a habit around opportunities already available to us.

You can take everything we’ve talked about, but if you don’t make it part of your regular practice, it’s going to sit on a shelf like a book you once read.

So, the hard work we’re talking about today is about putting it into practice—creating a habit or routine so that our learning becomes our behaving—so it becomes who we are.

Bill Berthel

You’re hitting the nail on the head. More contemporary research into personality shows that personality isn’t fixed—we are not hardwired in a specific way.

Yes, we have strong tendencies from upbringing, and there’s probably some genetics—nature and nurture—but personality is absolutely trainable.

It’s adaptable. We can be agile, especially when we intentionally create experiments to tweak one piece at a time to see what works and what doesn’t in specific relationships or situations.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, it’s been a real relief and a joy for me to know that emotional intelligence can be developed.

I’ve heard that IQ is largely fixed. I’ve never taken an IQ test, but I’m grateful that, no matter where that number might land, I can still grow my EQ and the related competencies.

Bill Berthel

I’d bet your IQ is higher than you give yourself credit for—but you’re right, IQ is mostly set during our formative years.

That doesn’t mean we know everything at age six, of course. We can always gain more knowledge and skills, but our IQ ceiling doesn’t change much.

EQ, however, is different. We can develop it over our entire lifespan.

Yes, our neuroplasticity shifts with age, and we may learn differently, but EQ is always growable.

That’s probably the best argument for why it’s the place to invest your time, energy, and experiments.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. So talk about that a little more. What are the key components of developing EQ and putting those behaviors into action?

Bill Berthel

It starts with self-awareness. I worked with an amazing coach for about three years, and she used to always say, “Bill, it’s an inside job.”

And it is.

It starts with me—my perspective, my awareness.

Who am I? How do I think, behave, act? We don’t need to dig too deeply into the “why,” but we want to understand the current state.

What are my preferences? What’s my personality? What are my mindsets in specific contexts?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Got it.

Bill Berthel

It really starts there — self-awareness. Right? Then it moves into awareness of others. How do I tune in and really recognize how other people operate — not focusing on differences, but focusing on how diverse we are, how we are different. But it’s less about the differences themselves and more about, “Oh, there’s something here that’s unfamiliar to me.” Probably not something I’m completely ignorant of, but maybe less familiar — sometimes even less comfortable.

So it helps to give a situation — this is more IQ than EQ — but sometimes analogies work really well. I never considered myself a math guy. I sometimes joke with the team that numbers are these arbitrary symbols whose meaning changes every time I look at them. Right? I’m not a math guy.

Well, part of that starts with me. It’s an inside job. That’s my inner dialogue. I know why — my brother, who I grew up closest with, is like a human calculator. Jeremiah — I never had to be good at math. If he was nearby, all I had to do was yell, “Hey, Michael, what’s 92 times 7?” Boom — faster than I could get a calculator out. That shaped me in a certain way, right? So, from an IQ perspective, maybe I’m not so mathematically inclined.

Same thing with my personality. My environment shaped me. It shaped what’s worked for me — what’s made me successful or not. The things I’ve done where it’s like, “Ouch, that didn’t work.” That shaped my personality.

The beauty about personality? We can keep growing it. We can keep adjusting it — if we have the willingness to step in.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. So it starts with this recognition of where we are — of self. It’s an inside job, which can mean so many different things.

Bill Berthel

It meant a lot of things for me.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And then it comes to this place of, “Okay, what’s my desired picture of the future? What is the future reality of this relationship that I want? And how do I get there?”

So the practice seems to be: recognizing where it starts, then doing the work to refine that vision of the future, and then moving from where you are — in relationship either to yourself or others — in a way that gets you there.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely. And I really appreciate the way you shared that. It’s a visioning process of a future. Now, we could hold the paradigm of, “I want the future to be exactly like it is — from my perspective.”

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

And that’s valid. It is a choice. We can absolutely do that. In some situations, we’re absolutely right to do that.

It’s not about acquiescing to every situation. It’s not about being completely flexible all over the place. We’re not chameleons. We’re not just going to take on the color of our surrounding foliage. That’s not how it works for us.

There are times when you are absolutely right to approach it the way you’re doing it. However, if we’re rigid — and that’s mostly what we do, or always what we do —

Jeremiah Poulsen

Relationships…

Bill Berthel

Yeah. In all situations, with all people — if we hold that kind of rigid, maybe single-minded stance — that’s limiting. It really is.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. I hear that a lot. And I don’t know if we’ll get some comments on this — either in affirmation or correction — but I hear that a lot from leaders who are training up the next generation.

Essentially, they’re saying, “I was taught this way. This is how I came up. Why don’t they get it like I got it? I’m doing everything that worked for me — why aren’t they getting it?”

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be age-related — it could just be new hires or a new person on the team. Someone transferring in.

“This is how I learned it. I’m teaching them the same way. What’s wrong with them?”

There’s this rigidity in the process of building the relationship — as if everybody learns the same way, as if everyone has the same mindset I do.

Now if that ruffles your feathers a little bit, I’m glad. Let it bristle you a little. Start thinking about what that means. How do I adjust? How do I maybe create a picture of the future and work toward it differently — if I’m open to it?

Bill Berthel

It’s really interesting. That brings up a story from a past role helping to create more diverse teams. And at that time, “diverse” meant diversity of thought.

What we noticed was our hiring managers were hiring people who thought like them, had the same education — it was before any formal DEI initiatives. And we were forming incredibly homogenous teams.

Why was that important? Because those teams weren’t functioning as well — especially as they grew. They were lacking innovation. Lacking the ability to challenge themselves — because they were just far too alike.

So we started experimenting. This was some of my early use of the DiSC instrument. We used it in the recruitment process — not as a decision-maker, but as a tool to better understand how candidates approached work, how they behaved.

Then we used that strategically in interviews — to ask smarter questions, to bring in new ways of thinking. And it worked. Let me tell you — those teams performed much better.

It was an experiment we had to run to see if it would work.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. And there are experiments we can run personally — even before we get into department- or business-wide initiatives. It starts with the personal experiment.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I ran one once that made me really uncomfortable. I’ve historically been more rigid — especially in relationship to my children.

So I’ve got three kids — 22, 18, and 16. I wasn’t satisfied with the nature of my relationship with one of my daughters. I thought, “I need to work harder to see things from her perspective.”

So I decided to stop giving responses and just ask questions — mainly while we were in the car. Shoulder to shoulder — driver’s seat, passenger seat. I would only ask questions, offer acknowledgments, and validate her perspective. Just see what I could learn.

Almost immediately, I noticed a change in the “temperature” of the room — by that, I mean posture, openness. Even afterward, she said, “That was a great conversation. Thank you for listening.”

My intent was just to hear her perspective. And that small experiment with one of the closest people in my life has been exponentially helpful with all those I work with outside the home.

So experiments can vary widely based on context. Starting small, or close to home, might be the best way to begin.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely. And congratulations — first, on having the awareness that this was a relationship you wanted to shift. Some of us are aware but don’t take the next step.

And then to recognize what your daughter might need in those moments — and put that into action.

That’s really what we’re talking about. You discovered, you recognized, then you designed an activity.

I used to work in R&D — and one of the fundamentals in experimental design is understanding the variables and only changing one at a time.

That way, you know what caused the result.

Like making cookies — if we change one ingredient but keep everything else constant, we can see what impact that has.

It’s similar with emotional intelligence. It’s a social experiment — usually involving other people — but you can start with yourself.

Know how you want to show up. What if you just changed one thing? Like you did — you stopped responding.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

You knew your preference was to respond. But you chose to change that one dynamic.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

One variable at a time.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Exactly. And as we’re talking about experiments and variables — even relating takes practice.

There’s going to be experiments, sure — but also a required set of goals to verify movement forward in the relationship.

And sometimes, we juxtapose “relationship” and “achievement” in an unhelpful way.

Bill Berthel

Yes.

Jeremiah Poulsen

But relationship isn’t the absence of achievement. It’s the beautiful combination of both.

So setting a goal for a relationship doesn’t mean you’re being overly formulaic. It means you value the relationship and its potential for achievement.

I love the idea of setting a verifiable goal in the midst of relationship — something to be enthusiastic about. Set a timeframe. Even go through our VITAL process — what does it mean to set a goal that’s limitless by default?

Bill Berthel

Your goal was an improved relationship with one of your daughters?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Absolutely.

Bill Berthel

My silly example was a better cookie.

But we both had a goal in mind. And sometimes we race to the endpoint. We try to change too much or think we have to become someone entirely different.

Probably not the case. It’s probably just a small tweak or two. Run the experiment long enough — don’t give up too soon. Then reflect: how did that work?

I like to think of three levels of experimentation. First, the basic — a fundamental change. It might not be easy, but it’s within your control. Like your decision not to respond — fundamental, but manageable.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Then the second level — you recognized the car as the right environment. You controlled the setting.

Jeremiah Poulsen

It was a small tweak to a preexisting context that I could change regularly. It was energetically expensive for me — but also a manageable shift.

Something I could do daily, in a small way, and see the difference over time.

Bill Berthel

And now, I bet you’re operating at the third level — where the environment doesn’t matter as much. You could do it in the living room, at the grocery store — anywhere.

You’ve mastered that first variable. Well — let’s say “mostly mastered.”

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Now you can move into that more advanced level. So, don’t stop at beginner. Keep nudging forward.

Change the environment. Expand to other people. Can you do it everywhere — even with the most challenging people in your life?

But don’t start there. Start with the low-hanging fruit. Build up.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Giving yourself permission to start small — that’s a powerful step. It’s probably the most powerful work you’re doing.

And by the way — you’d have to ask my daughter to know if I’m progressing.

Actually, this is becoming a coaching conversation for me — because I’m realizing: “Oh geez, I could move it out of the car.” Thanks, Bill.

But yeah — it’s okay to start small and incrementally adjust.

And you know what else it does? It gives you a new awareness of when it’s not happening around you.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, absolutely.

Jeremiah Poulsen

You’ll start noticing when it’s absent. And that can be uncomfortable.

You’ll start to get rubbed the wrong way by people who aren’t practicing it.

So how do you approach those in your circle — or in your reporting lines — when you now need to be the trainer in these areas?

Bill Berthel

Stuff will shift. That’s my silly way of summing it up.

As we become more agile — run experiments, show up differently — some people will embrace it, and some might not.

In between, some people might just be confused.

I think socializing it is the best thing to do.

Jeremiah Poulsen

What do you mean?

Bill Berthel

With the people around you — say something like, “Jeremiah, I’m going to run this experiment. I might show up differently. I’d love it if you could be an objective observer. Let me know how I’m doing.”

Just make the declaration. Now it’s not, “Why is Bill acting weird?” It’s, “Oh, he’s running this experiment.”

Jeremiah Poulsen

So the first step is deciding what small thing to change — and then being open with others about it.

For feedback, yes — but also because it creates a cultural ripple effect.

It becomes normal and accepted to practice relationships — and to look beyond yourself.

Bill Berthel

Exactly. In our emotional intelligence training — whether it’s for leaders, or using the ESCI model, or even in our everyday EI workshops — we suggest participants socialize it with their manager at a minimum.

It’s not just about respecting the investment — it’s about support. That public declaration gives people around you context.

If things feel weird on the team, your leader has your back.

If you can socialize it with a few teammates too — great. Maybe even with someone you don’t always get along with.

Say, “I know we’ve had some friction. I’m trying to change how I show up for the team. Would you partner with me?”

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. That’s the magic of discovery, recognition, and action — all in one moment.

Being open about your work, inviting feedback and support.

That’s a great way to punctuate all three of these conversations:

Take it to the next level. Socialize it. Give it space in your connections as you discover more about yourself — and recognize it in others.

Take time to have those conversations when you’re ready to move toward a better picture of the future.

Bill Berthel

I want to recognize that you’ve got two more extroverted guys on this call. And being introverted, right, this is not as easy or as familiar—or as ready—for some folks who might either identify as, or know they are, more introverted. The reason I say “identify as” is because it’s amazing how many folks I work with who say, “I’m an introvert,” and it turns out they’re really not. They misunderstand what that is.

Introversion doesn’t mean you’re not able to be social. It’s not that you don’t like social situations—it’s that you don’t get as much energy from them. It’s a bigger energetic spend to socialize. Those of us who are a little bit more on the extraversion side—we get energized by doing that. Right? So it’s pretty quick for me. I’m not a strong extrovert, but I’m on the extroverted side of things.

It’s not too hard for me to say, “I’ll just tell Jeremiah what I’m doing. I’ll ask for his help.” That alone might be part of your experiment—and awesome. Push into that a little bit. Not to make you an extrovert, but because it’s a worthy place to invest your energy in order to get that support from outside yourself.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Really important. And I would say some of the most self-declared—and evidentially introverted—folks I know are also the best outward communicators I know. So sometimes there’s this sense of, “I can’t do this,” or maybe even, “I shouldn’t,” or something like that, and it gets into internal criticism.

But yeah, give yourself the grace and space to approach this action—this practice—in whatever way makes the most sense for you from where you’re sitting at the table.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. Love it.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Since we’re talking about introversion and extroversion, I’m thinking we should do a whole podcast on this, Bill.

Bill Berthel

We definitely can. Yeah, this being the third part in a three-part series, we’re really talking about the full composite—or the accumulation—of the awareness pieces: discovery, the social pieces of recognizing… all in that emotional-social intelligence space. That alone, I think we could judge as worthy—and maybe even beautiful.

But we’re really talking about action here. We’re talking about turning these awareness pieces into behaviors, because that’s where the rubber meets the road. In your opening reading about the basketball team, it was about those over 100 wins they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

It’s about results. It really is. This isn’t just nice to have. It’s not just about being a nice person. It’s not a soft skill. These are actually differentiating, pragmatic skills that, when put in place, increase the performance of yourself, your team, and your organization. And that’s the reason we’re talking about it here today.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, absolutely. And study after study shows that the higher the level of emotional intelligence the team leader has, the higher the performance of the team itself.

So there’s a direct correlation between a leader’s capacity to be self-aware, others-aware, and to manage those—and the bottom-line output of the team, whatever that bottom line is measured by.

The “soft skills” approach to me is like, wait—have you not checked the stats lately? This is powerful stuff toward achievement just as much as it is toward relationship. It pays to be honorable in your relationships.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. You’ve actually inspired me to respond less. I’ve been working over the past few years to speak up more, and I’m feeling like I may have turned the dial a little too far. I don’t know that for sure, but I’m feeling that way a bit.

So my action out of today’s conversation is to get just a little bit more aware of that before I start dialing it back. I’m going to get a little bit more aware—am I responding too quickly? Or where I don’t need to respond at all?

Because the last thing I want to do is take up the space that someone else could use—someone who might do it better than I would. That’s my action out of today. And I don’t want to put you on the spot, but are you going to take any action out of today?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah, I’m going to hold you accountable to that.

Bill Berthel

Good. Thank you. That’s the reason to share it with you—and all of our esteemed listeners—in all seriousness.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And I mean that. As we are at Emergent, we’re always available to one another to—yeah, absolutely—nudge each other on.

But I appreciate it. I think, for me, there really was genuine awareness when you started talking about the beginner, middle, and expert levels—I forget the exact language you used.

But specifically, I want to practice that skill of listening, acknowledging, validating, and exploring—outside of the car. And I think I can do a lot better work there now that I’ve achieved some success in that space.

I want to expand that a little bit—and in other ways too. I think there are people who activate me, people on the other side of certain perspectives, and I could definitely benefit from practicing that art more with them.

Bill Berthel

Awesome. Jeremiah, thank you for this conversation.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Oh, thank you. I love it.

Bill Berthel

And thanks for listening, folks. We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And we sure hope you picked up something you’re going to apply or use in your leadership and your work right away. Let us know how that goes by reaching out to [email protected] or directly to myself or Jeremiah.

Thanks for listening.