Executive Podcast #339: The Power of FOR

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Super excited about today’s content because we’re going to lean on a really good friend of ours, Jeff Henderson, and we’re going to talk about know what you’re for f O r. So number four, not the number four. So we’ll get to that in just a minute. As a quick reminder, I want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast there. If you’ll click on this podcast, we’ll have a learner guide for you to download. There’s a form if our team can serve your team in any way.

Chris Goede:
We would love to be able to do that. If you’ll fill that out and hit the submit button, our team will follow back up with you. Well, as I mentioned, today’s topic is the power of for f o r this concept that Jeff Henderson has put together and we love the book so much so that Perry and our team work together and we built an entire training on this for teams to really understand not only what are they for personally, but also as a team and as an organization, what are you for? And as I mentioned by Jeff Henderson and so prior, just a quick thing about Jeff. Prior to working as a pastor, Jeff started his career in marketing with the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens Lake Linear Islands and then Chick Fil A, which who he is currently working with now.

Perry Holley:
That’s correct.

Chris Goede:
So talk to us a little bit about where we’re going to go with this content of Jeff’s.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, the book, you know, like you said, Jeff asked great question like what are you known for? And then the book, the better question after that was what do you want to be known for? Is are they do they match up? You know, what you want to be known for, what you are known for. But he had a, you know, he talked a lot in there about working at Chick Fil a and working for Truett. Cathy, the founder of Chick Fil A and said Truett had an interesting way of looking at the business. See that True. It was more interested in growing the people than he was in growing the business. Grow the people. The people would grow the business and the people took care of the customers. And it really was an interesting.

Perry Holley:
And so as A leader. The question, and I often use this in coaching. I use it a. Actually, can people tell are you for them or do they think that you as a leader, their boss, you want something from them? And so I guess start. The great question was, can you tell when someone’s for you?

Chris Goede:
I think you can. I think those that have intuition probably have a stronger sense than others. There are some people that I know that don’t have any intuition. And maybe you just don’t know regardless. But a couple of things came to mind when I look back over my career. People that were really focused on my development, both personally and professionally. Those that lifted me up publicly and privately now, they still criticized me or challenged me or worked with me privately, but they kind of put it up there. And then I think those that removed barriers for me to allow me to succeed, they don’t have to necessarily do that.

Chris Goede:
Ultimately is my job. But I knew by those things when someone was for me versus for themselves.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. So the book he wrote is called Know what yout’re For. And in the book, and what I really want to hit on today was he calls them for the team actions. So for the team actions that you could take as a leader. And we’ll go through these quickly, but I. I thought they were pretty interesting. For the first one he said was believe abundantly. He said, do you believe in your team? Do they know you believe in them? And I wondered your thoughts on showing belief.

Perry Holley:
That’s sounds like. Is that really my job? I’m. We’re running a business here. But showing belief in the people.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love this. I think this drives a lot of confidence in your team. And what we don’t want to do is have the fake confidence. Right. So I say all of this with making sure that we’re talking about doing it authentically speaking. Belief into like, if someone came to me and said, hey, I believe you can go shoot 72 on the Golf course. That’s not okay. We got to be authentic about that.

Chris Goede:
Right. Why are you laughing?

Perry Holley:
You shoot 72 every round. How many holes?

Chris Goede:
Nine. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah. But we’ve mentioned before, too, about a belief deficit, and I think it’s getting worse and worse. I think people begin to believe in themselves less for whatever reason that been going on, especially since COVID And so I want to encourage us. This is more than just words. To your point, how do we show them? So it’s the actions behind that. So a couple things I wrote down was, you know, I let them run and Own things.

Chris Goede:
I let them make decisions. I want to see how they’re making decisions so I can help coach them. And then I want to. I want to play to their strengths. I want to recognize and play to their strengths. Now, on the opposite side of that, I thought, well, what does it look like? When I knew a leader didn’t necessarily believe in me, Man, I love this word, not micromanaging, right? They’re all up in everything that you’re doing. They’re questioning everything you’re doing instead of inquiring and being curious or questioning you. And you can feel the difference in that tone.

Chris Goede:
Maybe there’s a lack of, of affirmation. And so I love that he made this the first point. And I love the word abundantly behind it because, man, that is so key for people to know that you’re for them.

Perry Holley:
So some leaders get tangled. I have. I want to show belief in you, but sometimes it does that. Does that mean I can’t give you feedback? Does that mean I can’t tell you the truth? Does that mean we can’t have difficult conversations? Does that mean I can’t hold you accountable? And I think they think that if I do any of those hard things, it’s going to make you think, I don’t believe in you. What are your thoughts?

Chris Goede:
I say the exact opposite. If you believe in them, remember we said authentically. I use that all the time. I would say, hey, Perry, because I believe in you. I know. Or I see or you could be like, I lead with that. And so I had that conversation with some of my team, even thinking about maybe some deals that didn’t go they the way they wanted to or. Or we didn’t perform like we should have.

Chris Goede:
And then their spirits are down. I’ll be like, no, no, no, wait a minute. Like, man, I. I believe in you. Now, we made a little mistake here, but if we fix this, I know you’re going to be able to do that. And so I think the opposite side of that.

Perry Holley:
I agree. I think about. We did a podcast some months ago called the 19 word feedback. That was the magic. You call it magic feedback, but it was. I’m giving you these comments because I believe in you 100%. Even though I have high standards, I believe you can meet them and I’m here to help you do that. So it was really accomplishment of that.

Perry Holley:
So number two, Jeff said was appreciate consistently and he kind of thought asking the question about what is your gratitude system? And I don’t think as a leader, I actually think this way that. Do I have a gratitude system? Do people. Do I communicate appreciation? Do I appreciate gratitude to people? On my. It kind of goes along with I believe in you, but I also appreciate what you’re doing. I’m thinking about Truett Kathy again, how he was so big on the chicken will take care of itself the people. So we got to worry about do that. But what’s your thought on appreciate consistently?

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And I think also true. It was big on encouraging people. Right. Period. He was always, always encouraging them. Consistency compounds. So the, the more that you show gratitude, again, specific gratitude for things that you see means more to people.

Chris Goede:
And I think the more that you do that, the more appreciation that they feel that compounds. And then even their belief, talking back to number one, their belief will, will lift. The thing I’ll say about this is I know man, like Jeff Henderson is so good about and I know this was modeled for him about handwritten notes for just the littlest things that he saw and they were specific of what he would write about and send them out. I also think back to five levels appreciation languages in the workforce. Right. I think there’s a way you can take this up a level because some people may not care about a handwritten note. They would prefer X, Y and Z, whatever their appreciation line. So the more you know your people, the better they’re going to feel that you’re for them.

Chris Goede:
Because the way that you appreciate them is going to align with what they value, if that makes sense. So I have a spreadsheet, a little chart with team members, their favorite things that, what they like, what they don’t like, their wiring, how they’re wired, their values and all stuff. And periodically I’ll go to that when I’m looking to do something to appreciate them versus going, oh, I, I’ll just call up and say, hey man, great job. That’s awesome. Give them a high five, a lot of energy and walk out. Well, some don’t care about affirmations. Yeah, sometimes they care about that.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, words are cheap. I want action now.

Chris Goede:
I have some on my team. They’re like, I need it. Like, even if I did a bad job, tell me how much you appreciate me. Right? Like say so. I think the point here is when you appreciate them in the gratitude system is we, we talk about lead people the way they need to be led. I think if you figure out how to show gratitude the way they like to receive gratitude, man, it will 10x how they feel appreciated inside your organization.

Perry Holley:
Good, good. Well, funny story. My son owns Chick Fil A. So he was at an event where Jeff Henderson spoke, and he knows that we know Jeff and all. So he went, my son went to introduce himself and he got in a discussion with Jeff about something and then went away. And he called me, you know, a week later. He says, you’re not going to believe what I got in the mail. I go, we were on a FaceTime call.

Perry Holley:
He goes, held up his handwritten note from Jeff Henderson. So what, what he writes about in this appreciation system, this gratitude system that Jeff really does, what he said. And so it’s really a great. It’s hard to do that. And Jeff said he’s written thousands of notes to his wife and to his children, writes them one note every week, and they have boxes. He says, but by putting your thoughts and writing it, this means something to people. So.

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Perry Holley:
Number three was develop intentionally. This is in our sweet spot. But are you growing personally? Is the team growing? Do you make personal leadership development a priority? And these are, again, these are team actions to show that you’re for people and say, how does personal development play into you being for me?

Chris Goede:
Well, I think this was one of the things I mentioned early on that I know people start to develop into, pour into me that they’re for me Now, a little squirrel trail here. We joke around time and say, well, I sure hope you’re developing your people intentionally and they’re staying around versus not developing them and they’re still staying around. That’s a problem for you as a leader. And so when you do that, here’s what it does for me personally when I think about this, is that this, it will increase your competence. I always want to be learning from people that that are my leaders that are doing things differently and better than I am. And when I do that, then I think it gives me a little bit more confidence. I think also the job satisfaction and the changes. The retention from an organization standpoint was something we work on a lot, is how do we increase that retention number.

Chris Goede:
And so when you’re developing them, it’s going to show up in that. And then I think the other thing is making sure people know that development of people is an investment. It’s not an expense, but we see it as an expense either financially or our time. Yeah. Resource. Any of our resources. We have conversations around executive tables all the time. People get excited about we’re going to add value to the team and to Perry and all these things.

Chris Goede:
And at the end they’re like, well, wait a minute, it’s going to cost me X. Okay, so show me the return on investment on my EBITDA over here. Right. Okay. Well, you can’t. Not really. Okay, we’re out. I’m like, what about the people? What about developing them? Right.

Chris Goede:
And so I would just. That’s what I would say.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. I think about the level four of the five levels of leadership is people development. And one word, descriptor, was reproduction. You’re reproducing you, but the little sentence says, I follow you now. I’m influenced by you now because of what you’re doing for me personally. And so when you think that it kind of feeds into the. If you’re developing me, I kind of know you’re for me.

Chris Goede:
Yes, to your point. Exactly. Right.

Perry Holley:
Number four, probably this is the one we can need the most work, but it’s the most obvious. Jeff Anderson says, listen actively. And I’m. I smile because I just did a. A keynote a few weeks ago and I had one of my charts. The only thing it said on the chart was overcoming my compulsion to tell. And I noticed that a lot of executives, a lot at. The higher you go, the more.

Perry Holley:
Just the easier it is to tell people what to do. But I also notice I don’t like being told what to do. So maybe I could ask more questions and listen more actively.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I have the statement of our question. How dialed in are you when people are talking and we could talk about this all day, where people are already formulating a response, they’re thinking about the plus one story, which. That drives me crazy. Even if you’re trying to just connect with a team member or somebody in this situation to let them know that you’re for them, if they share something, then you go, oh, yeah, well, that also happened to me. And then all of a sudden it’s not about them, it’s about you. And so if you really just sat back, and not only to Jeff’s point here, number four, listen actively. If you went back and did an audit of your listening of a conversation, you came away and said, did that conversation end up being more about them or more about me? And you know this, right? When. When we’re helping people get what they want, when we’re making them a priority, you’re asking questions, they’re talking.

Chris Goede:
They feel like that you are for them, your influence with them grows right through the roof. And so my question is, how dialed in are you? Because we do need to listen actively. And I say that, and Perry mentioned it. We both need to do a better job of working on this. And so it’s a constant battle, I’m.

Perry Holley:
Noticing, at home as well, just a letting the family know you’re for them. You got a lot going on in your life. There’s a lot of, you know, actions you could be doing. But when I actively listen to you, when I formally focus in, dial in, like you said, I know you’re for me. It is a great communicator. Number five says Jeff said live repeatedly. And this idea about these four things we’ve talked about, about leaders are repeaters. You must keep showing the way daily, consistently over time.

Perry Holley:
And are you being consistent? Is this repeatability coming in there on these tactics?

Chris Goede:
Well, let me. I’ll wrap up for us here, because I want to close with this story, with this live repeatedly. You’re very close to the Chick Fil? A organization. Your son is an operator and moving up the ranks quickly. But this is a story that we share sometimes because we know it. You’ve shared it with us and others and everybody that has experienced the Chick Fil? A experience. When you go in, whatever you do with them, when you say thank you, they say, my pleasure. It’s their common language.

Chris Goede:
And we talk a lot about this. And we use this example because the common language of leadership for us is in the five levels methodology. And we believe that if you have common language, it leads to common beliefs, which then leads to common behavior. And you see this modeled in what true it did. And what I love about it is that he didn’t mandate this. He just started talking about it in the boardroom, and he just started modeling it, and it became part of his common language. And then the executive started doing it, and then the support center. And then all of a sudden, now it’s all the way down to every single location, no matter where you’re at in a Chick Fil a store, when that happens, they say, my pleasure.

Chris Goede:
And that’s the power of repeating something and having a common language that allows you now what do we feel like as a customer, we know that Chick Fil a for us, right? They’re there to serve us. And that filtered all the way from True. It started, and it took years to get from Truett doing this in the boardroom. And he learned it from Ritz Carlton. He was just being observant. He was listening actively. And the bellman, right, was like, hey, my pleasure. And it stuck with him and then he started repeating it.

Chris Goede:
So just thinking about that and that story is powerful around common language. Let me close with this. This phrase right here. I want you to always remember we’re talking about know what you are for? Do people on the team know that you’re for them? So how people experience you as a leader is what they begin to expect from you, which then becomes your leadership brand, your leadership style. What is that? So how are they experiencing you? Is it for them or do you want something from them? As you posed early on, what do they begin to expect? Which one is it? And then, by the way, depending on which choice they’re going to make about you, which, by the way, is on you, depending on your actions, is what your leadership style and brand is going to be. No matter where you’re at, doesn’t matter. Your title doesn’t matter. Any position doesn’t matter.

Chris Goede:
It’s all about that leadership, credibility, style and brand. And I know we’re all in the people business and I think we should be at a place where people know we’re for them more than what we want from them.

Perry Holley:
I love that. Thank you. What a great conversation. As a reminder, if you’d like to know more about this content we have on Know what you’re for, you can learn about that or other podcast family members as well as leave us a comment or a question. You do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast. We love hearing from you and we’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.