Balancing Connection with Production in Leadership with Brandon Allen

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down balancing connection with production in leadership. To drop these value bombs, I brought Brandon Allen into EO Fire Studios. Brandon is a transformational leadership coach who helps leaders better connect with their teams and organize their lives. Today, we'll be chatting about the two types of leaders, the connector and the tasker. We'll talk about the sweet spot between the two and once we identify the challenge, what are the next steps, and oh, so much more.

0:37And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Brandon and our sponsors. The often overlooked secret of businesses crushing sales is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for shoppers buying simple. And for millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Upgrade your business today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash on fire. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

1:17Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15 minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you. Brandon, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Hey, everyone. How are you guys doing? Okay. One thing that most people disagree with that I believe to be absolutely essential to success, and this is something I'm going to say right up front because I always think about this. I think about what would my wife say about this thing I'm about to share? So this is something that I struggle with.

1:58Even though I'm about to say it, it's not something that I necessarily do well all the time, but it's this, that action is not nearly as important as slowing down and understanding what it is that we're going to do. whether that be a problem with a person a problem in your business an idea for your business there was this whole idea and I think it came from Mark Zuckerberg when he said move fast and break things I think that was kind of his motto years ago and I think a lot of people adopted that where they were like speed and take action and do things but I think for most of us in most situations taking a more deliberate approach, slowing down, and really understanding what it is that we're getting into, what it is that we're really doing, what problem it is that we're really trying to solve is a much faster way to success than simply just moving in whatever direction as quickly as you possibly can.

3:06Fire Nation, you can tell it's going to be an on-fire episode with Brandon as we talk about balancing connection with production in leadership. Now, Brandon, you believe there are two types of leaders at work when it comes to productivity. Tell us more. Let me get to the two types and then I'll kind of break these down. I believe there's relational people and I feel that there's taskers in any sort of work setting, any sort of organizational setting. The relational person, which I am not, is the kind of person who values relationships over doing things. They're the kind of people that are really worried about how people are doing, really take their time with people, check in a lot, those kinds of things.

3:53I mean, they just really want to connect with people in a deep, meaningful way. Then there's taskers, which is what I am. And I really value getting things done, checking things off a list. And I don't want people to get in the way of me getting things done. So I will run over people if I feel like they're in my way. And when I was a leader, that was really problematic. But that's, those are the two types of people that now that I've been in organizational work for, you know, I did that for like a decade working in organizations and then coaching leaders over the last 16 years, I've noticed these two types of people, the relational people and the people who are very task-oriented, which is how I orient.

4:43Let's start with the connector. I want to know what are the typical struggles that connectors have? What we would ideally like to be is we would like to balance the two things. But for a relational person and a connector, what they really struggle with is they struggle with getting things done and they struggle with getting things, you know, timelines, follow through, organization. Now, it doesn't mean that if you're a connector and you're listening to this, that I am saying every single connector is bad at that. But the tendency is, is because people get lost in relationship, they're not really mindful about their space.

5:24They're not mindful about their time. And so they end up getting taken away from the absolute priorities of an organization. So when I work with people who are people pleasers, because a lot of connectors can have that tendency to people please, they're always answering questions. They're always putting fires out for other people. and because of that there's two things that show up for them number one their absolute priorities at work as a leader aren't getting done to the level that they want to get done and then what happens is their boss says hey i'm unhappy with your performance now the connector's like oh my gosh like how could you be unhappy with my performance like my team loves me and all these things get done in their world but they miss the priorities that they've been working at and and then the byproduct of this, and I've coached so many leaders in this space, is they just get stressed and resentful of the things that are on their plate and the people around them.

6:28Because eventually they get to a point where they're like, can people just leave me alone? Could people just please stop talking to me? Stop asking me questions. Stop asking for help. Like they, get to a point where they just get absolutely resentful. And then that leader becomes a very difficult leader to work with because of that animosity that they have towards people because of their lack of boundaries. So you talked about the connector. What are the struggles of the tasker? So that's me. This is a really easy one for me to answer. So my very first leadership assignment that I had was in banking and finance.

7:07I was 25 years old. And like a lot of 25-year-old people. I thought I knew everything there was to know about leadership. I was like, oh my gosh, it's like only a matter of time before I'm the CEO of this fortune 100 company. And I get into this space and because I don't connect, people don't trust me. So I'm so task driven. I'm so outcome and results driven that people don't really feel heard. They don't feel respected. They don't feel valued because I don't really lean in to that relationship that we have with people at work. And the worst thing for me was a piece of advice that I got right before I got promoted.

7:50And a senior VP had said, hey, you know, we're about to put you in this office. You're going to run this office. And, hey, can I give you a piece of advice? And, of course, you know, at 25 and this person's a senior VP, been with the company a long time. I'm like, yeah, I'm all ears. He said, hey, don't be friends with your people. He's like, hey, I need you to kind of you want to hold them away from yourself. Don't get too close. All that kind of stuff. And for me as a tasker, I was very avoidant in relationships anyway. So I was like, oh, man, that's ideal. I'm like, oh, this is great advice.

8:22And then I tried it. And about nine months into my career, my team was performing very mediocre. The energy in the office was really poor. And all I kept doing was just trying to push harder and harder and harder. And the more I pushed, the further away my people seemed to get from me. and I worried that I was going to get fired. Here I am nine months into a leadership assignment. I had actually moved to a city and state that I'd never lived in before. I had just gotten married a few months prior to that, moved my wife out to this place as well. Now I'm worried like I'm going to get fired. I remember talking to my boss about this and I really started to think about what I could do differently and we can get into this later.

9:13But for me, that lack of connection led to my team really not liking me. They just didn't really like me and they didn't really value what I was trying to bring to the table from a productivity standpoint because I didn't make the connection with other people. So I think people can avoid relationships. They avoid other people's emotions when they're so buried in their tasks. And then for me, I get so buried in tasks at times, then I forget to recognize when a task I'm working on, maybe I should stop working on it. Maybe the thing I'm working on right now is not the thing I should continue to work on.

9:49So being more discerning about things that I work on, projects that I follow through on, all those kinds of things, seeing the big picture can be lost when we're too task oriented. Powerful stuff, Fire Nation. I wonder what you're resonating with most as a listener, the connector, the tasker, and then what you can take away from this. And then we're going to talk even about a sweet spot between the two and oh so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. When you think about businesses that are growing their sales beyond forecasts, like Feastables by Mr. Beast, it's easy to say they deserve all the credits.

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12:19Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at www.northwestregisteredagent.com slash fire. So Brandon, we're back. And again, before the break, we talked about the struggles of a connector, what that could look like, the struggles of a tasker, which you are and the ones that you actually went through personally. Is there a sweet spot between the two? Is there something that we can do in the middle that's very meaningful and can actually work? And if so, how do we find it? Getting to that sweet spot is really identifying what kind of a leader do I want to be?

12:59What kind of a leader do I admire? So one of the things that I do with leaders is we have a workshop and we do some training around identifying what your leadership philosophy is. Like, who do you want to be as a leader? Because one of the things that I recognized early on in my leadership career was that I constantly compared myself to other people. I thought, how come I'm not so great with people like Jim? Or how come I'm not like this like Mary is? And like, I would look at other leaders and I would look at how they were. And all I would do was feel a lot of shame and a lot of inadequacy about what I struggled with as a leader.

13:40So I think the first thing we have to recognize and acknowledge is what are our strengths and how do I play to those strengths? But also how do I play away from my weaknesses? so interestingly enough and this is this might make me sound like a monster as i share this with you but there's things that we do very well but there's also the the dark side to even our gifts and talents and so my very first thing in my leadership philosophy is to recognize that everyone that i work with and come across has value now for some people you hear that and you're like, yeah, dummy. Like, of course that's true.

14:18But when you're a tasker, you put the task over the person. So there's a hierarchy there and people aren't at the top of that hierarchy. So in my philosophy, I want to remember that people have things going on in their life that I don't know about, that there's always a deeper story that's going on with that person. So there's a proverb that I have memorized and I think about all the time when I'm working with people and it's chapter 20, verse five, it says the purposes of a person's heart are deep waters. One who has insight draws them out. And so I think about that all the time. I think about, okay, people have value.

14:58People have things that they're going through. How do I reach in and understand that and connect with that in a way that's not necessarily intuitive to me? That isn't maybe my first reaction towards a situation with someone else. But then there's other things that come very natural to me. Like I, part of my philosophy is to work hard and play hard. Like I'm like, yeah, I love to work hard. I love to play hard. I like to make sure that we have a good mix of those things. So I've had to really work on identifying that sweet spot. And for everyone, it's a little bit different, but it's, it's a mix of somewhere in the middle of connecting and tasking and recognizing when it's time to complete something.

15:43And if you're a connector, the challenge with that is, is that your credibility is your currency as a leader. So if you don't have credibility with people, then it's hard to create influence, right? And so at work, if we really want to be a powerful leader that empowers and find that sweet spot between connecting and tasking, but we want to empower. We want to empower people to do the work that we know that they can do and bring out the best in them and recognize when it's time to push, when it's time to lean in and connect and really finding that mix for us. And we all have different skills and abilities that we bring to leadership.

16:23We all have different experiences. We all have ways that we see things and ways that we see the world. And ironically, as I think about the advice that I got early on in my career about not being friends with my team, it actually didn't work for me at all. I'm such a person who actually really enjoys to connect, even though it may not be the way that I predominantly operate, that the idea of being impersonal with people that I work with, it never sat well with me. And when I tried it, it worked horribly. So when I could tune into what was more natural to me and what I really enjoyed, even if it wasn't something that I was predisposed to, it really opened up a lot of different possibilities.

17:07So one of the things I would recommend for everyone who's kind of in this space of figuring out the right mix is just to pay attention to, you know, what that is and identify, hey, what is my sweet spot between the two so that I'm connecting, but I'm also following through that builds that credibility for other people, right? So when I say I'm going going to do something, I do it. When someone's having a struggle, I lean in. Those things matter to people and it really endears them to leaders that they work with. Now, at the end of the day, finding the sweet spot is just what it is. It's pretty sweet.

17:40It's ideal, but we need to be honest. Connector is going to connect. Tasker is going to task at some level. So what should we avoid when it comes to tasking or connecting? Yeah, I think a lot of this is getting to the root of what's challenging for us with either one. So a lot of work that people do is around hacks and productivity tips, and it's all about the doing. But what we spend less time thinking about is our being and who we are as a leader. So on the surface, you could say, well, Brandon is really task oriented. He just seems to have a predisposed bent towards getting things done. And that's what you see on the surface.

18:29But what you don't see underneath, and when we talk about getting to the root, is a human being that as a child, I grew up with a single parent. I never knew my dad. My mom was a drinker. so if you can imagine growing up in that for the first decade or so of your life my opinion of people was that they're not to be trusted so I'm not going to connect with people when I don't trust them and I had to do some work on my predisposition towards people to allow me to unlock this piece of connecting that, first of all, I think all human beings are wired towards and really lean into that in a meaningful way.

19:17And if you're a connector and you avoid tasking, right, you avoid disappointing people. You avoid making people feel bad because you don't have time in this moment for something that they need. You avoid their discomfort in trying to figure something out for themselves or that challenge. And there's a reason why we do everything that we do. So if you have behaviors towards people that you don't love, there's something that you get out of doing that, that protects you and keeps you safe. Now, it may not make logical sense to you, but at some point you learned that that was a good thing for you.

19:56So you operate that way. And if you're a tasker, you know, there's a reason why you operate that way. There's a reason why you avoid relationships, you avoid people, and you bury your head in your work. And for me, I'll be the first one to admit it. I like to keep myself busy at times because it takes me away from thinking about my problems and what's going on. And I think at a certain level, that's okay. But at another level, it can be absolutely destructive because we're never really dealing with the problem. We're just trying to punch our way out of a situation that if we had taken a step back and really thought about it and reflected on it, we might determine to go in a completely different direction as a result.

20:39So I think it's really important to notice when you avoid connecting, if that's your thing, or notice when you avoid tasking, if that's your thing. And there's nothing to fix, but it's really just noticing. What are the patterns? How does that show up? What happens when I avoid it? And then start to observe it. And what we want to do with change is we want to stop becoming our challenges, right? And so if I say, well, I'm not a good connector, right? Now I'm labeling myself a certain way that inevitably I will be because I've placed that label on myself versus saying I'm a person who does connect, but sometimes I will show up in the opposite way with people.

21:29And I have to be mindful of that. Now I've separated myself from the behaviors. I've put the behaviors outside of myself. I haven't internalized those in who I am. And I think that's so important when we get challenged with, whether it be tasking or connecting, is to really notice what we avoid in those things and really think about what is the root cause of how I'm showing up in this moment? What am I really avoiding here. Brandon, take us home. Of all the things we've talked about here today, we have dropped a lot of value bombs. What do you want Fire Nation to really get from this conversation today?

22:09And then give us a call to action. How do we connect with you? How do we find more about what you have going on? And then we'll say goodbye. Every moment is an opportunity for us and for you to do something different. There's something for you to do different. There's the growth that comes with that. And regardless of where you're at, your life is going to end up at some sort of destination. And the question is, is that destination where I want to be? Or is there a different place that I would like to go? And what changes do I want to make here? And the first thing that we have to do is really get clear on what is it that I want.

22:47So if you're in a leadership position, or if you're working on starting something or creating something, and you're working towards that success, get clear on what it is that you really want and why you want that thing. And that clarity will help you to see better where you're at now and what challenges are really getting in the way of that. So I think it's so important for people because the number one question, it's like the money question in coaching is a simple one, but it's a hard one to answer and it's what do you want most people do not know this answer and I've been stumped myself by this question in lots of areas of my life and hey what do you really want out of this area of your life and I'm like I don't know that I'm really clear on that so take some time and this is why I said slow down so you can really understand where you're at and what you really want.

23:44And when you do that, it makes it much easier to move forward and much more powerful because now you're holding on to something and you're looking towards something that really is meaningful to you, that really is inspiring to you. Where when we don't do that, what we end up doing is we work on things that don't really matter, that don't really inspire us. And then what we do is we condemn ourselves because we're not giving the full effort. We're procrastinating around something that quite frankly, we don't really want to do, or we're not really that excited about it. Maybe we just think we need to do that.

24:19Or maybe someone told us we should do that, but find out what it is that you really want in any area of your life that you're creating change and spend some time with that and really understand where you're at and then understand your relationship to that thing. And what I mean by that is, how do you see that thing? How's, what's your history been with that thing that you want? How do you view that in a good way? What are some ways that you view it that are not great? And what worries do you have around what would happen if I actually got it? So that's the thing to spend some time with so that you can move through the challenges that are gonna come from the journey and actually get the thing that you really want.

25:01And where can Fire Nation connect with you and learn more? Absolutely. Go to newworkrevolution.com. I'm always doing masterclasses. there's a lot of free tools and resources there and we can connect there. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with BA and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Brandon in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Brandon, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

25:35Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Brandon for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com, and I'll catch you there we're on the flip side.

26:10The often overlooked secret of businesses crushing sales is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for shoppers buying simple. And for millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Upgrade your business today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash on fire. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level. Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you.