Tune in To Recognize

*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 performance of their leadership and those that 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 in your leadership. And 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
Hey Jeremiah, thanks for being here again. Part two of a three-part series we want move from. We talked about in Awareness Through Discovery, there’s another form of awareness, but it’s tuning in to recognize. Really, awareness of others, so we can recognize and be more effective. Tune in to recognize.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah. Right away I start thinking about the Daniel Goldman EI model, the two-by-two box. There where self-awareness leads to self-management, or it can. And awareness of others also leads to the management of other relationships. But it’s that recognition that stands out to me about this topic. How do we recognize the cues of the surroundings, the sounds of the space and what’s happening that we may not even hear in the space that helps us to recognize the perspectives of others in the room.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, absolutely. In the last episode we talked about that idea of tuning into ourselves. We didn’t call it that there, but that was that. Self-awareness is that awareness of recognizing others and it’s their personality traits, it’s their preferences. Right. As we have long or short-term relationships, we can kind of tune in, understand where someone’s coming from, understand them a little bit better so we can be much more effective with them.  They tune into their language, how they communicate, tune into their actions, their behaviors. We’re really observing, really playing the role of observer so we can recognize these different traits in other people.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah, as an observer it’s active observation, it’s listening to understand, it’s acknowledging others’ perspectives. And as much as we are doing the work to discover and tune in to understand ourselves, we’re now checking in with ourselves to listen to the things that may even be uncomfortable that other people are saying, hanging in there, recognizing what they’re saying and even coming back with some explore questions to say, “What I hear you saying here is that you’re not real comfortable with the pace of the project right now.“ That’s all part of the listening. That’s all part of the observation of the space.

Bill Berthel
You did a great job of sharing a quick overview of the DiSC model, one of the personality instruments we use in a lot of this work and along with those four different quadrants of personality types, let’s just kind of call it that just for today’s use. There are these mindsets, or these mental models associated with each of the types. They each have a primary type, and they have this kind of sharing partnering types. There are eight mindsets that go around this model. We’re not go going to try and explain all that today. If you’re interested in learning more about that, please do reach out to us. We’d love to share more and share physical model with you. These mindsets are. The analogy of computer programming comes up for me and I’m no expert in that space at all, but I think about how a computer requires programming to operate. So do we as human beings. Our brains get programmed to some extent through conditioning, through education. Through the other models that are around us. And there’s probably something genetic and innate there as well. This isn’t science class today. But that we can have this preferred mindset we tend to like to operate out of. And then some of the other mindsets are a little bit more of a challenge for us to both recognize and work in. What would you add to this idea of mindsets and emotional intelligence?

Jeremiah Poulsen
Thinking of it as the software we’re using on the system is really helpful. Even over the course of time as I’ve tried to pragmatically put this to work, I think of it as an operating system. I recently updated the operating system on my computer and it’s all the same hardware, it’s all the same. It’s the same tool in front of me. But now it looks different. Some apps aren’t working the same way they did before. There’s this upgrade that happens and in the technology space of which neither of us are experts, there’s a shift that has to happen for the user as you change these things and upgrade the system. I think of mindsets as the operating system that’s at work on the hardware that I’ve been given.

Bill Berthel
But I love where you’re taking this analogy. Cause what it reminds me is that we’re still our authentic self. Like in your analogy, the computer is still the same computer. We’re still the same person. We’re not asking for people to show up inauthentically or become someone completely who they’re not. That’s not the intention. The ability to recognize other people’s social cues, their mindsets, their behaviors. And then what do I do best to adapt, adjust enough without sacrificing my authentic self to be more effective in that situation with that person or a group of people.

Jeremiah Poulsen
That right there is a great coaching question. And I know we’re going to talk about calls to action later, but if you’re looking for a question to ask yourself. Right there. How do I do this and without neglecting myself and who I am? How do I show up in a way that understands and better connects with other people of different mindsets?

Bill Berthel
Not too long ago you had to meet them too. We were working with a group of folks and one of the leaders kind of pulled me offline. We were training and pulled me aside during a break and kind of confessed to me that he felt that he’s not very good at reading social cues. This is the heart of what we’re talking about today and tuning in to recognize. It’s those social cues. With getting to know this leader later, I was able to make many observations that he’s actually quite masterful at reading social cues. But he had this programming along the way that reading social cues was really all about what to do and what not to do. It was like this very polar space of protocols. Not just how to operate, but like this judgment attached to right and wrong ways because of someone’s social cue. How they showed up, how they talked, what they were even looking like or how they were emoting. Now there’s truth in that. That, I don’t want to throw that away. That is important that we are able to read social cues and know what’s right or wrong. There’s this huge space in between right and wrong. To be able to show up as our authentic self, adjust slightly to lean into or help that other person or even constructively challenge that other person in a way to ask them to flex a little bit. Tons of operating space around tuning in to recognize other people’s feelings, thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, behaviors. It’s not changing who you are.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Not at all. And I would say it’s a fuller version of that hardware, as you develop the scope or the spectrum between what is absolute and what is not. What ought to be judged even as an ought and what can stay in that space of flexible, purposeful conversation and agility. And it’s the difference between need and can or should and want. It’s recognizing that not all things need to be judged. There’s a lot of things that we can leave in the space of discernment.

Bill Berthel
I love what you just said. The way you describe that as fuller. That’s exactly, and I did not have that description in my mind at all. That’s exactly what this leader was demonstrating to me was his ability to bring in a much fuller perspective. Even challenging a group of people to stretch things or make it fuller than this narrow idea of some type of social cue, of what I should or shouldn’t do. I think that hangs us up. I think that stops us sometimes from stepping into, tuning into others, really paying a little bit more attention. I think the other thing that stops us is just taking the time to do it. That strategic pause of just a moment of deeper listening, like you said, watching, observing and adjusting a little bit.

Jeremiah Poulsen
And earlier you mentioned the things that could set us up with a certain mindset. I think you mentioned education and experiential knowledge, even family of origin. There’s so many different things that shape our ideal version. Whether that’s an ideology itself, whether that’s our worldview. Wherever we’re coming from, our tradition of worship, whatever it might be, is creating for us, around us, some sort of version of reality that we can easily say, this is how all things must be. And with all due respect, for every one of those spaces that we learn from, this isn’t an either-or conversation about recognizing these things. This is a both/and this. It’s recognizing where we’re coming from and then at the same time understanding how can I listen to the signals of the space to know what is best, what is better. And even in that language, there’s a choice to move into a space that’s more full in the current context.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely. And I think we’re careful with absolute statements, but I think this one deserves it. We all do this unless you’re a, well, if you’re a hermit and you’re completely unplugged and you’re off the grid and you don’t work with or see anybody ever. So I guess I think that’s the exception here. You do this is whether you’re in the workforce, out in public, whether you work from home, if you’re a home keeper. We’re going into society; we’re working with people. We go to the grocery store; we go to the workplace. Let’s talk about that. We bring everything we’ve been programmed with to this culture of an organization that has a vision and a mission, a set of values, a set of expectations on how to behave and how to operate. Those go best when we’re able to either adapt more fully or really well, or we naturally automatically come with something come from somewhere that fits that organization really well or that team really well. Most of us don’t completely do that. It’s not just an immediate organic oh, cool, I just fit in this team perfectly. Or oh, cool. I found the organization so well that I think we all strive for that. Like you find your herd, you find your people, you find your tribe. That’s also when it happens. But many of us work to do that. Recognizing tuning into others is an essential part of that work. It’s essential that I learn you so I can best mesh with you. I can also learn how to possibly influence or nudge you somewhere else. It’s not just about agreement. It’s also that I can have meaningful debates or meaningful influence with you or a team. So that’s the work here, recognizing the other so we’re not just projecting ourselves onto them so we can really find that space to do that, I’m gonna call it deeper work.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah. In that recognition, I, like where we’re going here with the idea of the team. Professionally there’s a recognition that can happen corporately around misalignments of these things. And sometimes, unfortunately we have those conversations as part of a one-off annual review. And there’s this moment where you discuss a potential misalignment of values or mindsets, whatever they might be with the overall organization. How much cooler, how much better would it be if each day leaders are showing up, practicing the idea of what are the signals that I can recognize of a misalignment and how can I better place people in a way that really exhilarates them, that really creates more value for their time here? And I think that’s the job of the leader. If I can speak in another absolute there. And if I can, there was a time in a work situation where I was being really provoked by a mindset that was complementary to mine. Different in the sense of last time I shared that I’m on that ‘i’ side of the circle, outgoing mindset. I had an individual that was not completely complementary but very dominant, very assertive, also at the same time very caring and appealing to the people in the room. So we’re all complex. And in recognizing the potential misalignment of his role. we had a specific project that we were taking a large group of people on and I said next time we do this, I want you to be the out in front director of traffic. I want you to be the one telling Everybody where to go and what time we need to be at certain places. And man, it was like light bulbs went on everywhere. Not just with that individual, but also in recognizing the value and the valid use of those skills and mindsets. It’s like everybody won, everybody’s winning when people are more aligned and recognized for and by their best use of operating system.

Bill Berthel
What I love about your story Jeremiah, is one, the application of recognizing what does this other person have to contribute. Two is we sometimes, I’m going to say often need to step out of the way, make the clear request, put them in place and us step out of the way and let them really use their skills and traits. It’s a little bit of a two-step dance, right? It’s recognized what the other person can really do. Ask them to do it and get the heck out of their way. If it’s not valuable for us to be in that space, I don’t disagree with you. I think leaders need to do this a lot. I got to witness, the situation was a, packing mechanic. This guy was a. I’d almost say he’d give you a race for how high ‘i’ this guy was like this.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Fun guy. Huh?

Bill Berthel
Very fun guy. But also fueled by rockstar energy drinks through the day. So like put that in there, right? A little fuel on the fire. Everybody loved him, like, you know, super co just like you. Everybody loved him. Super cool guy, very energetic. Also liked to do the work. Like he was good at the work and would do the work. And then his role was a packaging mechanic. So he had to work on automation machines, especially when they broke down. And so he would come in with his toolbox and he’d be dancing, he’d be singing. While the group around him is almost devastated because they can’t get their work done, their machines broken. It would cause conflict. And so there was a lack of recognition between the two teams. But I’ll tell you what, it didn’t take a leader’s initiative in this situation. This high ‘i’ kind of reflected on it. By the time I was the HR director, he came to me, he said, man, I just want to make them happy. I just want to get them feeling better. Yeah, well, the best way you can do that is get their machine back up as quick as you can and you know, just not project your energy onto him right now. They just don’t need that right now. They love you but not in that moment that way. He took it to heart. And what he told me was like, hey, I took one of my batteries out. I couldn’t bring them all out, but I took one of my batteries, I decharged a little bit and interacted with them. Sometimes we don’t recognize it, I think. And we can ask others. We can team up and I can say, Jeremiah, I’m just not clicking with this other person. What do you see in my relationship with them?

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah. And seek the outside support of a trusted individual, either at work or at home. One of the things that I love about the emergent definition of leadership is that it’s basically influence. It’s influence. Wherever you are, you’ve got influence. The question isn’t if it’s how you’re influencing others. So whether you have a position of title with direct reports or whether you’re an individual contributor, own that opportunity that you have to grow the space through your mindset and discovering and recognizing that of those around you.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. So what would you, ask our listeners to start practicing in this space to really tune in to recognize?

Jeremiah Poulsen
I can’t get away from the listening to understand model. Last time we talked about reflecting on your own space, your own mindset. I think there’s really great power in listening to understand other people’s mindsets. Stay curious, ask questions. And I would say if you’re not a typical question asker, even give yourself a couple of scripted questions that you ask that can’t be answered with yes or no and put yourself in that uncomfortable position of curiosity about things that you might not otherwise be curious about.

Bill Berthel
So by scripted, you’re suggesting write them down.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Literally, write them down. If your workstation is a computer, put them on a post it note, hang them from the desktop. if you’re walking around a shop floor, if you’re, in a parking lot somewhere, put them in your pocket, write them down, put them in your pocket and remind yourself of those questions. Put them on your phone. And I’ll tell you what, the more provoked you are, the harder it’s going to be to stay curious. Part of that is paying attention to your own bioreactions to when you’re in that space. And then rebuild the habit. Instead of making a response, give that moment of breath, ask a question of curious nature, and then listen. And then simply listen to what’s being said around you with the intent to recognize the other operating systems in the space. How about you?

Bill Berthel
I think I have two I’d share here. So the one, interestingly, is I learned this from a young engineer I worked with several years ago. He was in our lead forward program, and he wanted to make sure that he had, I think he called it a hack. He put three pennies in his right front pocket of his pants. And by the end of the day, if he didn’t do the thing he was set to do, and in this case, it was taking the strategic pause to recognize someone else’s preferences. It was exactly what this guy was doing. He wanted to be able to do it three times a day to start the practice. Every time he did it, he would move one of the pennies from the right pocket to the left pocket. He needed the physical touchstone, the reminder, which I thought was brilliant. If he’d get home at the end of the day and three pennies were still in his right hand pocket, that was a reflection. It was like, shoot. I probably missed plenty of opportunities to tune into others. And he would say, if I got all three of them in the other pocket by lunch, he said, sometimes I challenge myself. I put him back in my right pocket, see if I could do another three times for the day. I love the idea of physical kind of touchstone reminders to get us into action.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah. It even makes it measurable. All of us need, to a certain extent, that dopamine kick of, I’m getting some progress here. You get to move it from one side to the other. Yeah.

Bill Berthel
yeah, yeah. There just that really great little reminder. Right. But set the intention of that. I think that hack could work for any intention. His intention happened to be just what we’re talking about. He wanted to take that strategic pause a few times a day to make sure he was really tuning in to learn some of his teammates. He kind of put the geofence around his teammates, which I thought was focused and awesome. The second piece comes up for me is really asking for feedback. I think we get to understand other people by the feedback that they give us. I think asking for that feedback has so many other wonderful outcomes and maybe side effects from just learning to recognize a bit better. But we could also ask for feedback. How am I showing up? What am I missing? We can be really focused. I might ask you for feedback, Jeremiah, with, specific relationship I have with on the team that you have some observations on. So I get to get a temporary view through your eyes and how you’re recognizing things as well. It challenge us to ask for some of that feedback.

Jeremiah Poulsen
And it’s fun being able to have this conversation with you because you’re declaring something that I’ve heard you do in real life on multiple occasions. And so it’s a joy to almost see, like, the practical output of that. And also, I’ve heard Ralph even say, how are you experiencing me in this space right now? Different spaces might require different questions of feedback. So even in real time, asking your team, your colleagues, or your family members, how are you experiencing me here at this dinner table?

Bill Berthel
I thought you were going to say, different situations might call for different ways to experience me.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yes, absolutely. That too. Context matters.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, it does. It does. All right, awesome. This was second part. The third part, we’re going to be talking about relating through behavior, really putting this into even more action because that’s what Jeremiah and I love. It’s what the team here at Emergent really loves, is to drive people to purposeful action. So tune into that one coming up as the third part. Jeremiah, thanks for this conversation.

Jeremiah Poulsen
Yeah. Thank you, Bill.

Bill Berthel
Hey, folks, and thanks for listening. We sure do hope you enjoy this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can always listen to new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And the podcasts don’t go away. You can re listen and re listen and re listen all you likes, so don’t be afraid to revisit them. We hope you pick something up. You’re going to apply to your leadership and your work. Let us know how that goes by reaching out to supportAgetemergent.com or directly to me or Jeremiah. Thanks a lot.