Building Trust and Connection at Work

Welcome to the Quick Take podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tomlinchuk.

And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.

Hey, welcome to Quick Take. I'm your host, suzy Tomlinchuk, along with James Capps. How are you, james?

I'm doing great We can shout out to all those quick pictures out there watching today. Thanks for joining us.

We appreciate you So excited to be here. You know, I think this is a great topic vulnerability And the reason it's such a great topic is we think we know it, We talk about it a lot, but it's a lot deeper than we give ourselves credit for. We agree with that.

Yeah, i think it's a pretty generic term that I think is overused, and perhaps I think the challenge is really getting to the root of what it is and making sure, as a leader, that we embrace it where we can.

Yeah, and it's another one of those things that we have to kind of relook at ongoing, because you don't just set and go.

Yeah, Again, yeah. it's not due vulnerability on Wednesday. It's not how it works.

And so my story today comes to you from a friend of mine who lives back east who kind of gave me an urgent call like I need to talk to you today, can you drop everything for me Because I'm having a career catastrophe. And so I talked to him and he and I will say he's not like a very emotional person, just in general. And so when I got he got on the phone I was really struck by how kind of tied up he was in what was going on.

And so, basically, he had been a senior leader in a quite a large organization, well respected, delivered on a very high level, teams loved him very, networked within the company And he was being demoted and going to report into somebody else, And not necessarily because of him, but just because of the structure and how that was all going to play out politically.

And so it took him like a day, but he was able to kind of hone what was going on and separate that from himself so that he could look at it objectively And he was just really open about. So this is how I'm going to recast this for myself.

Right.

And I think having somebody to to as a sounding board helped him get to a point where he could be open and vulnerable so that he could see it and shift it. So that's how I kind of look at vulnerability in that example.

Well, i think that's a great example of the value of being vulnerable in certain circumstances And, in fact, if I was coaching that individual, i would talk to him about how he should use this situation and express those emotions to his peers and at work to show hey folks, i was demoted and this has been challenging for me, and so that is an opportunity for him to really create an environment where boy he's going to get.

in fact, this demotion could be perhaps one of the best things that could happen in his career, because it allows him to pivot his brand, if you will, and really create relationships much stronger because of it.

I got to call him back. It's a really good opportunity. I'm going to. I am going to.

It's probably about the right time to call him back and say here's some added on and I see a new career for you Oh there we go, but I think that's you know, that's really my first recommendation and creating, leveraging vulnerability in the workplace is really having that open and honest dialogue, creating those situations where you can be clear with your emotions and share that type of challenge. This is a super great opportunity for this individual to express the frustrations, address them openly and honestly And you know it's hard to hide at work when you've been demoted. That's not like you can brush that off or you know, everybody knows it's clear and it's probably been communicated. But what an opportunity for you to really do, you know, take that step and create a world or an environment where people appreciate and know that they can be vulnerable to.

Okay, so I'm going to ask you to be vulnerable right now. So when you think back on when we worked together, so maybe 10 years ago, i'm trying to think of you in that context. I feel like you were vulnerable, but I feel like you have evolved.

Oh, gosh Yeah, so like how did that happen for you?

Do you think it was where you were in your career? What do you think it was that time of the era? I think it's a lot of things.

I think. Certainly I don't know that we had an environment where that was necessarily appreciated. I don't know that I was, you know, seasoned enough to to know when to do that. But I would also argue that you know, personally I've been somebody who tends to be a little more transparent in the way that I share things And I think that you know my staff probably from back then would probably say, yeah, that I was. Maybe I did share my emotions and frustrations like that and hope to create an environment like that. I'm certainly better now than I was then, but I do think it depends, you know, in that case it was certainly a different type of environment.

Thank you for being vulnerable. James, appreciate that I'm happy to do that, all right.

So the second way that you can do that another really great tip that I like to give people when we talk about is admit mistakes.

So this is you know and acknowledge the fact that maybe that your behavior and performance wasn't the best or things could have been better, and creating that dialogue where you can seek feedback is always fantastic. You know, that is the, i think, the hallmark of vulnerability, of you know, just raising your hand and saying, yes, this wasn't the ideal situation And that creates you know, back to a couple of our other episodes where it creates an environment of dialogue, creates an environment where people are going to trust, to share with you certain things, and so you, as a leader, being vulnerable, not moment, saying, boy, we could have done better and help me grow from this, i think, is a really good way of creating that a strong team.

Great suggestion. I also would say it's not always black and white, it's not always like I said we should go with this software and the software was wrong. Mistakes can be a lot more nuanced, and so, even taking the time to tease out some of the things that you could have done differently, or an approach, or the way you've said it, or like there's a lot of different ways you can articulate that, if you're conscious or conscientious of being intentional about that.

What I like to say in meetings is like I wonder if we could have done a better job on that, or I wonder if I could have been better. It's really not saying I was wrong because I'm not to your point. I'm not afraid to say I'm wrong when it's binary, but it's rarely binary.

It's rarely cut and dry that oh shoot, we should have gone left and we went right. It's like, hey, maybe we could have learned from this. I love the retrospective concepts. We do some episodes with some leaders, our live events, where we do retrospective on some of their decisions. I just think that that honest moment and that vulnerable conversation goes a long way to really ensuring that the teams improve and appreciate you.

Yeah, and it could be very small, like just saying that.

Absolutely.

That shows that vulnerability. All right, what's your third one?

Well, i think the third one you nailed it when we started was share personal stories, share where times when you have not been perhaps as good as you could have been.

I think that, first and foremost, we, as humans, love stories and we hear things through stories and we tie things together and relate to people through stories. I worked for a guy for a while who would say things like boy. I did that same thing and this is how we should do it now. That was interesting. But I've also worked for leaders who told me a story Back when I was working for this particular firm. This is the challenge we went through and this is what I learned, and so let's talk about that here. So that vulnerability of saying, hey, here's how I got here and this is how I learned that window into your past and that window into your thinking process really is a way of showing vulnerability. In a way, i think that is almost seductive in its power, because people do get to learn about you and they learn about how you think, and just that storytelling is a real strong tool, i think, for leaders to take advantage of.

Yeah, and it opens up because for some reason we believe that we have these things that aren't quite all that they need to be. but everybody else doesn't have those same struggles, even though we hear these stories. But the more and more we share and I want to share a funny story My peer back in the day, dan, as I refer to him, i remember his whole thing was to show he was always in control and such, and so we were battling back and forth. I remember one night we were in the office late and we were just kind of talking and he said I have to be honest with you, kind of our battle was over and he said my strategy has always been intimidation and I wasn't able to intimidate you.

And.

I just thought that was a vulnerable moment for him to share that. But it was also like this reality that he was living, this thing that wasn't truly him, so that he could be that person that is not. And thank goodness that that day of celebrating that kind of Iron, you know kind of like shield is over and vulnerability really does, to your point, allow people to show up naturally with their own strengths, with their own Ideas, emotions, opinions. It's good 100% agree.

I we say it all the time on the show here is that you're always your best when you are yourself, when you go into meetings. And you are yourself and you are, you know, you bring your true self to work. You are going to be that much better and, yeah, to do so often times requires you to be vulnerable, requires you to bring Some emotion to work, bring a story to the table. You know those things are, are part of how it works, and and But that that, at the end of the day, is going to make you more productive, more competent and ultimately, build a better, stronger team.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you. It's a good long-term strategy.

Absolutely. These are all long-term strategies. There's very few quick fixes, unfortunately, in this cookbook. This is something that I think it's. It takes practice. You know, you don't need to show up next week and and check these three boxes. It's something you need to put the back of your mind and and work on them, just like anything else.

All right, so remind us what they are.

Sure, absolutely So. First and foremost, you know really you want to encourage open dialogue and an ability to Express emotions. You know People have lives outside of work and you get to give them the opportunity to to have emotions in the workplace in a way that You know it allows you to know that these are, that these are good people and humans that we all work with. Second one is clearly, you know admitting mistakes and seeking feedback. Be transparent about the way that things have gone down. Don't hide behind the failures and and just seek, seek feedback and and guidance when things aren't exactly right then. Third, you know Share with stories, share your truths, tell people how you got here now. We all work. We all worked with that guy that's got a story for everything and we always we know that guy that always says boy, when I worked at general electric, and then 14 minutes later, if you forgot what, we're doing right.

But do them, do them judiciously and use them appropriately, and they become a great way of Bringing a team together.

Awesome. Those are so good and something that I would say. As you were reading those, i thought what a great thing to put on a sticky note on your on your computer to remind you So that it doesn't just kind of go off in the ether that it really is something that's top of mind, right, and then you know, I think that with any one of these topics we discuss, you know You're gonna learn them through teachings.

Yeah so share. You know we talk about it all the time, about, you know, sharing these episodes. But it's not really just about sharing the episode. Sharing share what you've learned Yeah, and you learn through teaching, and so that that's a really powerful way of ensuring that you can grow and improve.

Yeah, I love it and every of these three. They're sticker worthy.

Oh good, They're very good. We don't have stickers, but we may. It could be. A side gig for us is the quickies.

Wow, we missed the boat on being marketers.

Well, I don't know.

Tricks up, or so we didn't miss our calling. Thank goodness, neither Quickie stickies. Move on now Quicktake. I'm not gonna admit who I am, but I'm along with my friend, james Capps. Thank You, james, for being here and we appreciate you. We are both on LinkedIn. Feel free to drop us a note, ask us a question, and we'd love to hear from you. We it's so exciting to us to hear from our. What do they call?

it quicksters.

I don't want to say it wrong again. Yes, and like James said, feel free to share this with somebody, especially somebody you think needs to get a little bit vulnerable. Go ahead and share that. That means you're. It's a win-win to win and win. show them you're thinking about them. So thanks for joining us. We appreciate you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of quick take, where we talk about the questions that are on the minds of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.

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