00:00:00 Thanks for joining us on episode 686 of the inspired stewardship pod. Hi, I'm Ella Hawkins, author of cracking the leadership code. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to lead well is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this,
00:00:31 the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, and I missed all the signals because it was so like, I was blinded by my own obviousness. And we see this at work all the time. And psychologists call this by the way, projection bias, where you assume other people have exact thoughts. You do. I mean, if you ever heard yourself say things like,
00:01:00 well, I sent the email, they should know what to do, or doesn't senior management realize what a stupid process that is like, no, they're not you. And I think one of the biggest challenges is Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be,
00:01:19 then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you Impact. And today's interview with Alon. We talk with you about leadership and what it really means. A lunch share some tips on communication and Alon.
00:01:47 And I talk with you about what a motivational choice architect really is. And lots more. One reason I like to bring you great interviews. Like the one you're going to hear today is because of the power in learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read.
00:02:11 And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible, go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books.
00:02:40 The same way you're listening to this podcast. Ellen Hudkins is a consultant trainer, coach and speaker around the complex topic of leadership. His recent book cracking the leadership code three secrets to building strong leaders was released earlier this year, over his 20 plus year career, a LAN has led over 2000 groups in 25 countries, including groups at Walmart, Pfizer city group,
00:03:06 GE state farm IBM GM and Microsoft Alon has designed and facilitated seminars on many leadership topics, including team building, conflict management, communication, peak performance, innovation, engagement, and change. Alon also serves on the faculty of Duke corporate education and is published in many of the most prominent business and leadership sources, including fast company Forbes, inc, and more welcome to the show,
00:03:40 Right? And those are both forms of feedback once just internal and one's external. So they're both valuable. Um, from that same point of view, one of the things that, and again, listeners, uh, will laugh as they hear this. Cause I preach all the time. The idea of if you are not reflecting on your learning and, and you know,
00:03:59 constantly do that plan, execute, reflect, revise, plan, execute, reflect, provide. If you just simply lived your life that way. If, if we all did all the time, it'd be amazing what we could do. Now, that being said, you don't always, you can't always do that. You're not always perfect at it. We screw it up too.
00:04:17 Um, all of us do, I don't care how, how good you are. You, you mess it up, but the more often you can do that, the better it, it gets whatever it is. You know, it literally could be anything in, in that, in that Blake, whether that's communicating with your spouse, whether that's leading your company,
00:04:34 whether that's, you know, recording a record, I don't care at all. And also I'm really excited. I'll be here with you today. So ally, one thing that people often think of is developing their influence is being a leader. And we've talked a lot about leadership over the last few weeks, but I haven't actually asked you to explicitly define the word.
00:04:55 And yet I've discovered that that's one of those words that we all use it, but we all usually have different definitions too. So with that in mind, how do you actually define the word leadership? Sure, sure. So I will walk you through the definition as a sentence and then I'll go back and break it down. Cause I, I fought through this.
00:05:15 Um, so for me, leadership is the performing arts of getting others to willingly, want to work towards the shared purpose. So let's, that's it. So let's break that down a little bit. So leadership I'm going to ask that is a performing art. So interesting. I'd say performing art because to me, ultimately it boils down to it's your behavior.
00:05:36 I think it's what you say. It's what you do that also by the way includes what you don't say and don't do. I could run to the microscope and we're being watched. So it's having that like meta awareness of how am I being perceived, which goes back to an earlier conversation we had on emotional intelligence. So it's that performing art of basically getting others to willingly,
00:05:58 right? That's the key thing is knowingly. It's not, and this is the difference between compliance and commit and commitment and then getting others. And frankly, it could be getting yourself sometimes it's self-leadership or it doesn't involve somebody else's getting yourself to willingly work so willingly. So that's obviously some, there's some motivation that's involved there work that there's some discretionary effort that's involved that we have to do something.
00:06:20 And then we have this shared or co-created on some level of purpose, which goes back to an earlier conversation about human needs that we're trying to create something that has a vision that is greater than ourselves. So that's for me is when we lead. And the fact is you don't need a title to be a leader, right? Because we're all, we're all trying to do that at various.
00:06:41 Like anytime that you involve, whether it's just yourself, like you have to lead yourself to like your example from earlier, you know, go for a run in the morning, you lead yourself to make that happen. You know, you get yourself willingly to do that. Whether it's one other person saying, you know, let's say it's with your spouse,
00:06:58 just deciding, you know, what are we going to do on Friday night? Boom. Like you have to negotiate that and have a vision or whatever that might be. So I think, you know, it's funny, I just got an email from someone who wanted some, some advice on how do I get more leadership experience? Like I'm model leader.
00:07:14 I don't have it. I'm like, well, go out and do stuff. I said, Tier like join anything, like join any group, you know, or just try to help somebody else. I think anytime you try to be of service that's leadership, there's an opportunity for you to step in and practice the performing art of getting others, to willing to work towards a shared purpose.
00:07:36 Anytime that you're trying to create certain something, certainly I said, how did you start said, how did you start getting into like becoming, I said, number one, I was really curious in people. First of all, number two, I was curious in people not focused on how is this going to earn me a paycheck? So that's a key thing too.
00:07:55 And then I just basically started doing stuff. So I started facilitating as a co-facilitator as a junior facilitator, basically sitting in like an intern. I was an unpaid intern at a not-for-profit leadership development organization. I said, can I sit in on your meetings and see how things are run? I said, I'll do I can take notes. I said, okay,
00:08:12 fine. I took her and I took a really good note. So I got me noticed. So it's like, there are a lot of things you can do. I mean, if you want to, you can, a lot of people have heard of Toastmasters. You can join a Toastmasters group and then start volunteering for different roles. Plus bonus will become a better public speaker out of it too.
00:08:29 So there's no limit except our imaginations in terms of ways for us to develop these leadership skills and they are skills and they're all learning. Right. Well, and it's again, I love the fact that you call out action in more than one place in your definition, because it's both how we act as a leader or don't as well as how do others act as a,
00:08:55 to that leadership? You know, it's, it's, it's a bi-directional um, cause when you recognize that, like you said, then you can look for leadership almost anywhere, no matter whether you have the corner office, um, you, you you've got opportunities to lead your coworkers. You've got opportunities to lead at your church and your family, if you're a parent,
00:09:14 you know, all of the above. Yeah. And I think as you say that it is reminds me that, you know, I think particularly in North American culture, we have this crazy myth that we bought been bought into, I think, which is the sense that like when you are living your purpose and your passion and doing all this is that you should be getting paid good money for it.
00:09:32 You know, like that may or may not be true. But again, I think the place to start is start to do it and then the results will build on themselves from that. I agree. I agree. So we we've used the w the word I use a lot of times is influence. Um, and, and I kind of call it out,
00:09:54 uh, listeners of the show have heard me talk about this before, but I distinguish influence from manipulation in that influence to me is when we, as, uh, it help others kind of get what they want, do what they want do what's best for them. However you want to define that. Um, not as in, I come in and tell them what's best for them.
00:10:19 And then manipulation is sort of when I get people to do something, because it's best for me, it makes my life easier. It makes me win, uh, in that way. So when you think about influence to me, one of the core components of that is effective communication, because if we're not able to have that dialogue back and forth, we can't know what's best.
00:10:41 We can't know what's good for others. Would you share some of the major obstacles that we face when it comes to being effective communicators and maybe a couple of actions on how we can begin to overcome those? Yeah. So, yeah, I love the idea of this influence and how it connects to communication. So communication is so much harder, so much harder than it looks.
00:11:05 And I think one of the big challenges is, is the fact that we take it for granted, assuming that all of your senses are in good working order. And you have years that year and fingers that can type an eyes that can read and mouse. I can speak like, Oh, this is all fine. And it's, it's like, it's like the utility,
00:11:19 you know, or your internet, it's all fine until it's not working. And then you freak out. It's like, Oh my gosh, like, I can't live like this. And communication is a lot in the same way. And one of the biggest challenges to communication is that a lot of people think, Oh, I have to communicate for communication sake.
00:11:37 And the fact is communication. Isn't the goal communication is the process. And that a lot of people enter into the process without actually having a clear goal. And the goal of any communication should be creating, shared understanding the two parties or, or could be multiple. But the idea is between everyone involved. And the reason that shared understanding so important is because understanding becomes the platform for all future action.
00:12:05 So if we have shared clear, solid understanding, we can make really good decisions and then achieve really good results. If the platform we're standing on is really wobbly and shaky, because it's kind of fun. I don't really understand that kind of, sort of understand. Maybe then we're going to make some poor decisions. We're going to have some poor results.
00:12:23 I mean, as I think about that kind of shaky platform, I'm sure you've had the experience. Scott you've spent enough time in corporate life where you have the meeting after the meeting. It was like, after the meeting, after the meeting, what do we disagree to in there? I'm not sure what they say, you, I got it right.
00:12:40 What am I supposed to be doing? I don't understand exactly. So, so the, and the thing is around some of the barriers to really good communication, getting to understanding is the fact is humans. I mean, the default nature is going to be misunderstanding because to get a hundred percent accurate understanding, which is called it, the Holy grail that we're trying to get to takes three things to be in complete perfect alignment,
00:13:04 which is what is it that you say, what is it that you mean, which may or may not be the same thing? And what do I hear? And so oftentimes those things are not in alignment. And, you know, humans have this amazing capacity to put meaning in, in all sorts of ways that may or may not have been there.
00:13:26 I mean, I'll tell you a quick, funny story. It's not work-related, but people will relate to this one. So we live in Western, Massachusetts, and our house got a really narrow driveway wide enough for one car that widens out where we could park two cars side to side. We have never two car family, and that's fine. So we had these friends,
00:13:42 Pam and Charlie came to visit us for a weekend. They drove their car and they parked behind us. And so I had to leave to go to the airport to do a things just obviously pre COVID. Cause I went to the airport or fly for work. So I said, Pam, could you please move your car? I have to leave. And she said,
00:13:56 where do you want me to move my cars, please park car out in front of the house. She said, do you want me where you said I out in front of the house? You sure you have? Sure. Go ahead. So she leaves and I don't think anything else of it. So I get my suitcase, I put it in the car and I started backing slowly on the driveway.
00:14:11 And as I'm backing out, Scott, I look over and then this thing catches the corner, man. I'm like, what, what, what is that? It's Pam's car. And she's parked her car literally in front of the house as in, directly in front of the house, as in on the flower beds, in front of the house. Because in my mind,
00:14:29 when I say, park your car in front of the house, it is crystal clear. What I need is park your car on the curb, in front of the house. Cause where else would you put a car? You put it by the curb. But clearly Pam had taken my word, literally tried to check for understanding it. And I missed what you meant exactly.
00:14:47 Cause you sure you sure. And I missed all the signals because it was so like, I was blinded by my own obviousness. And we see this at work all the time. And psychologists call this by the way, projection bias, right? Where you assume other people have exact thoughts. You do. I mean, if you ever heard yourself say things like,
00:15:03 well, I sent the email, they should know what to do or it doesn't senior management realize what a stupid process. This is like, no, they, they're not you. And I think one of the biggest challenges is they're not us and we're not them. And what we have to do with communication is close the gap to help them to understand what that is.
00:15:20 So that's one of the biggest challenges. Another big challenge to communication as well is that everything is clear in your mind because you have context, you know, where it came from, what you're trying to do. And if you don't spell it out, it's not just what you say. It's why you say it, how you say it and framing it in a way that people get.
00:15:36 That's another big one. And the other third, particularly I think everyone can deal with this one. I understand what this one is about is the fact that we are just drowning, drowning in information overload. So the question is, how are you going to stand out? How is your signal going to stand out in the midst of all of the noise?
00:15:54 So those are some of the biggest barriers and something to consider. So number one, number, one thing to do is start your communications. So this is like tools, tips, and techniques, things to do to be a better communicator. Number one, have a goal in mind, like make sure you have a very clear central message should be no more than five to eight words.
00:16:13 So you're going to do an hour meeting. What's the point and like frame it in like five to eight words and repeat it a lot and make sure that people are walking away, having that same central message in mind and build all of your structure, all your communication in a way that people can get that. Another really simple thing you can do is what I call asking for a receipt.
00:16:36 I mean, we were talking about, we were joking about the meetings after the meetings, after the meetings. So often the meetings end and be like, go off. Like, I think we know what we're doing. So instead of doing that, build in a check for understanding, so stop commuting 10 minutes earlier and say, okay, before we finish,
00:16:51 let's just go around the horn. What is everyone saying they're going to do? And I know part of us are going, Oh, these are adults. We should treat them like adults. Like again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It's so much easier to catch it now than it is down the road. Because as we said before,
00:17:09 understanding as a platform for all future action and what are the reasons that we come together for meetings, we meet to create understanding. That's the point of why we meet. So let's make sure we get the understanding and not just assume we have it. So asking for a receipt of understanding, there's a great, great example of this to bring this to life comes from the fast food industry.
00:17:31 So you might remember the days when they started putting drive-throughs into fast food. This is the 1980s at the beginning, the process for drive-throughs within the nightmare. It was really calm, like over 50% of the orders you placed the order of the Intercom. You drive up to pick up your food and then you wrong. And this happened for years. And then one day the industry wised up,
00:17:49 and this is the incredibly fancy technology that you use to figure out the problem. They started having the employees repeat the order back That's to you. That was it. That was the key. That was the fix. It's like, Oh, but it gave you a chance to say, wait, no. Why Exactly before they went ahead, because they wanted to make sure they had the common understanding the platform for future decisions and action.
00:18:11 Right? So like you ordered three cheeseburgers, three fries, three kicks. No, actually I wanted two cheeseburgers. Thank you exactly. And so look, if taco bell will do this for a 99 cent taco, don't you think that your work deserves the same level of clarity? So to me, it's again a simple tool asking for receipt, cause we want to make sure we're walking away,
00:18:31 getting accurate understanding. Well, and even there it, you know, cause I I've had the same argument with folks of well, but we're treating them like adults. Okay. Yeah. You actually are because it's one thing in other words to say to them, okay, I want to check in and make sure you got what my directions were and you know exactly what you needed.
00:18:52 And it's something else to, just to go around the table and say, you know, are basically, are we all on the same page? So what, you know, Tom, what actions have you agreed? You know, what are the things that we're going to get done after the MI? Okay, great. Sam, how about you? Good.
00:19:06 Perfect. You know, in other words, it's diff it, the intent behind why you're doing it is different. It's not, I want to hold your hand. Have we left the meeting with everybody, knowing what they're supposed to be doing next so that we get it done. Exactly. And sometimes I'm brought in to work with clients and like I'm in a meeting and like I'm having a discovery call and you know,
00:19:25 one of my go to strategies is just all go Los edits with a question before we leave, just to make sure that I'm clear on what we're all saying. We just go through this again. So then it's not about them. It's about me. You know, it's like, whatever, I don't care. Like my ego can handle that at this point,
00:19:40 but whatever it takes. Yeah. Like it's the style. That's why I say leadership is a performing art because you know, we've been talking a lot about skills in terms of, you know, make sure you have understand and get a check for understanding. Make sure you have alignment. You what you say, what you mean. That sounds very block and tackle skill.
00:19:55 Like, but as we're seeing here, there's a style you do. It's not what you do. It's how you do it is so important. Right. And, and again, to me, at least I, you know, my GoTo technique was I told people why I was doing it. You know, I just, you know, Hey, I've noticed that we leave the meeting and a lot of times I'm unclear what I'm supposed to be doing next.
00:20:19 And it seems like everybody else's. And that's why we have the meeting in the hall after the meeting that goes another 20 minutes rather than doing that. I'd like to have that 20 minute meeting in here. So can we just kind of go around and make sure that we're all on the same? Okay. Yeah. Most people kind of laugh at you and go,
00:20:35 Oh yeah, that makes sense. Um, because you know, we all know it. We all do it. Mmm. Again, I've I actually used to have the cubicle. I started in the cubicle that was next to the most popular meeting room for my company. And so all of the meetings happened in that meeting room. I got to see,
00:20:59 it was hilarious. You know, they're there people would congregate right outside of my cubicle, right outside of the room after the meeting to finish the meeting, you know? Um, and it happened time after time, day after day, I got to see it play out. It didn't matter who called the meeting either. You know, it happened all the time.
00:21:18 It was very funny. Um, but it did give me a different outlook on them when I got to be the guy that started organizing meetings. Terrific. So one of the concepts, uh, that you talk about in, in the book is this idea of leaders becoming a motivational choice architect, uh, which I was just, I loved the phrase,
00:21:40 uh, how, how does this work? What is this, uh, what, what, what do you mean by this term for a leader? Yeah. So, you know, the idea of a motivational choice architect comes from the idea is that you can't actually motivate anybody else is what you can do. Obviously you can motivate yourself potentially, but what you can do for somebody else's,
00:22:03 you can create the conditions where they're more likely to be motivated. So I know that we talk a little bit back about behavioral economics and this whole idea of nudging or whatever things we can do to reduce the friction. So they're more likely to be motivated. And that's really what this is about. So it's what Q you do so that people are more likely to be able to motivate themselves.
00:22:25 And for example, um, you know, one of the things that some people think is like, Oh, well maybe I should just treat people the way I'd like to be treated, which in theory, I mean, that's the golden rule. That sounds like a really great strategy. And that might work. And as I'll tell you, his story is sometimes it doesn't.
00:22:45 So I was working with a guy and he told me this story, his name is Kelly. He's an it manager early in his career. Um, Kelly decided he wanted motivated. He was running a corporate help desk team to get 18 people on the team. And he thought, no, the team needs some motivation here. So you decided he was going to start a secret surprise contest.
00:23:05 So he started keeping track of some key performance metrics and he didn't tell anybody. And then at the end of the month, he told the whole team to meet in the big meeting conference room. He said, or the whole team we're going to meet over lunch time and I've got a surprise for you. And so they all come in and he's got,
00:23:19 he's bought prizes and he's working the whole thing up. And so he has everyone come in and he says, you've all been part of our first monthly. It help desk contest. Right? Duh, any kind of he's milking it all. I got prizes and he doesn't have runners up, you know, like number three, number two. And he gets time for the number one.
00:23:35 And they're number one for this month is Gina. He's like Gina, come on up speech. So Gina stands up and he says he could see her face. It's kind of changing shades of like it from like beige to pink. And she's got be the sweat and Gina looks at him and she turns and sprints right out. And he doesn't have a clue as to what the heck is this happened.
00:23:55 He doesn't talk about a massively awkward moment. But what we found out later is that Gina suffers from social anxiety disorder and in her job, she's fine. Right? She's finding her work, but this whole being put on the spot in front of her teammates, it completely pushed her over the edge. So clearly Kelly's idea. He thought it was great,
00:24:14 you know, but that didn't work for his team. So I like to think so when it comes to being a motivational choice architect, a good rule of thumb is you may have heard of the idea of the platinum rule, which is don't treat other people the way you'd like to be treated, treat them the way they'd like to be treated, but to do that,
00:24:30 you need to understand what their needs are, what motivates them, what drives them, what makes them tick. So a, you have to know your people and connect with them, get to know them on a more personal level. And then I know we talked earlier about these kind of four needs that people have. So what is their needs around safety?
00:24:48 What's their needs around energy. What are their needs around ownership? What are their needs around purpose? And so understanding what those needs are, and then you can start to meet them more easily. And the thing is, there's not, as we see with Kelly and Gina, there's not a one size fits all to this, which is why you need to develop a different type of relationship and a different connection with each person I'll look.
00:25:12 And, you know, people say to me like, what if you're a CEO and you have a hundred thousand people, I'm like, well, do it with your executive team. And now with their team, like if you model this well, that will be key. That will create a ripple effect moving down. And also if you are explicit and say,
00:25:26 this is what I'm expecting around, this is what connection looks like. And so a big part of that is leaders need to be teachers about so that we can replicate this and make this consciously competent. So that's a big piece of what motivational choice architecture looks like. It's about designing environments where people can thrive. Yeah. So it's, again, we're back to,
00:25:48 and I'm going to quote another quote guru out there is, you know, uh, that, uh, uh, culture eats strategy for breakfast. You know, it's the idea of, have you created a culture where this is valued and this is important again, if you're the CEO. Yeah. But you got to create the culture. Um, you know,
00:26:08 because if everyone looks at the CEO and the CEO doesn't value with this, why would anyone else in the company it would be political suicide. Yes. Um, so when we think about communication, uh, and, and we've talked a lot about it, one area of communication that boasts a lot of people want to do, and then it utterly terrifies people is this idea of public speaking.
00:26:33 Um, do you have any tips for folks on explicitly how they can develop their influence through this idea of communication through speaking? Yeah. Um, it's, It's funny. It's a funny, except, you know, you've, I'm sure you've seen the stats where they said that people fear public speaking more than they fear death, which means that they would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy.
00:26:55 Right. I mean, that's fascinating to me, but so in terms of public speaking, yeah. It's amazing because let's say you have, and people say, well, isn't that important? Let's say you have two equally qualified job candidates for a deposition. And they both had the technical skills. Yet. One person is articulate and can express themselves through public speaking,
00:27:13 other person can't. And who would you hire like case closed, right? So it is an important skill and how we show up. So there's two big component. Number one is public speaking is a performing art. You don't get better at it by reading books and watching YouTube videos of great Ted talks. And there may be inspiring, but they're not gonna make you a better speaker.
00:27:35 You need to practice and find opportunities to practice. Now, if you want to join a Toastmasters group, toastmasters.org, it's the world's largest. Not-for-profit, it's all about advancing the craft of public speaking, great place to do it. Or, or if you want to work on your own and find someone, the two key components are content and delivery, right?
00:27:54 So it's what you say is your content delivery is how you say it. They're both important. Somebody says, what's the percentage. It's like a hundred percent, 100%. Can I separate the two app? So in terms of content, make sure that you have a very clear central message and that your central message is relevant to your audience. Do your homework know who your audience is and then structure things.
00:28:17 So it's clear and know that when you are structuring, it's a creative act, which means that the first draft is going to be kind of not so good and you need to write, work it and refine it again. And again and again. So that's your content, and then you need to practice, get it up on its feet. You know,
00:28:33 find whether it, you know, some people can talk to the mirror. I can't do it, freaks me out, but you know, whether it's talk to your dog or a friend or go for a walk in the park and practice and practice and practice. And then when you think you're done practice some more. So the people who you think are great public speakers,
00:28:50 you don't see all of the process. All you see is the end result. Right? So I'll just give you an example. So speaking of Ted talks, I did a TEDx talk in October of 2018 and the talk runs about 12 minutes, and I can tell you, and then people said, Oh yeah, you're just talking. So practice, you know,
00:29:08 I noticed you didn't have any ums or, and it was all straightforward and clear. Um, you're a really good speaker. I was PR I must've run that entire speech word for word, and I actually ended up scripting it out. Now, granted at the end, I wasn't worried about having the exact same word. Sure. But I must've done that entire it's a 10 minute talk.
00:29:26 I must've done it at least 90 times, 90 times, you know, because I knew it was going to be on the internet for the rest of eternity. I wanted to make sure I only have one shot to do it well. And so if the stakes are high, you'll work at it. So I think what most of us need to is raise the stakes because unfortunately,
00:29:43 especially in the business world, the bar of quality is shockingly low. So that's good news and bad news. The bad news is the bar is really low. The good news is if you work at this just a little bit more than anyone else, guess what you're going to stand out. I'm like, gosh, you're so good at this. And it just is a question of practice really is practicing your content,
00:30:04 proximity delivery and get some feedback because you are not your own best critic. You need to get it from other people. And also you can use a videotape camera. And don't, don't flip out about how you look on camera. This is not Hollywood production at the same time. It's really useful to see when people say, Oh, you know, you didn't do a rush or mumble or don't finish your sentences by the way.
00:30:25 All of which had been given to me as feedback. So it's really good to get that information from other people as well. And to start to build a strategy towards becoming better. And yes, it will help you to become a better influencer. But yeah, and again, this is one of those things that you can do at all levels, whether you're in leadership or not,
00:30:45 honestly, if you're not in a formal leadership position. And again, we've talked earlier about the fact that you're still a leader, but yes, if you will, if that's a goal of yours, getting better at public speaking is actually going to move you towards that goal. 90% of the time, because one of the key characteristics that most companies are looking for in leadership positions is somebody who can get in front of a group of people and talk effectively and comfortably and not look like an idiot.
00:31:18 If you can do those things, you're usually ahead of the curve. And I also wish sometimes that they would change the way they do PowerPoint in corporate world too, because I can't stay in most corporate PowerPoints cause like cram 300 words, 12 point type on a PowerPoint and then expect people to read it, which is not an effective speaking technique. But my favorite strategy and my favorite thing that people say is,
00:31:42 I'm sure you've seen this people put up the PowerPoint, like with the Excel spreadsheet on it with a 6.5. Like I know you can't read this, my favorite expressions. I knew that I knew that would get you excited. I know you can't read this, but it's comparable to the comparable to the, you know, people can't hear me in the back.
00:32:02 Yeah. Okay. Let's do something about this, right? Yeah. You can follow a Len on LinkedIn. He's uh, Elaine Huskins. It's spelled a L a I N H U N K I N S. Or you can find him at his website with the same spelling, that.com you can find out more about the book@crackingtheleadershipcode.com. Of course I'll have links to all of that over in the show notes as well.
00:32:32 Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener? Oh, I, first of all, I want to thank you Scott, for the great conversation today. And I would say that, I mean, the key to moving forward with any of this stuff is just a little bit of action every day. It's not about trying to do it all.
00:32:51 It's not about setting a new year's resolution. I'm going to do assault. It's just, and we talked about earlier about the power of removing the friction and creating some habits. So creating habits that focus on development, learning, and growth and doing those things consistently over time, you know, oftentimes leaders, we talk about words like inspiring charismatic. I would take consistency over any of those other words any day of the week.
00:33:16 So be consistent and take action. And you will start moving in directions. You might not get there in a month or even in six months, but it's amazing. You do that over the course of a year, two years, five years. It's amazing how much things will change for you. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener,
00:33:51 we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes, right? All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time,
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