Stop Blaming Gen Z (You're the Problem) - Selena Rezvani

26:29There's something to be said for someone who wants to come do a respectable job and leave work at work, you know, and I'm going to leave every day at five and that's the arrangement between us. And then of course, you're also managing people who are disengaged. And I really try to say in that case, it's not a question of that person has no spark, it's often that they have a lost spark. Something happened. Something made them feel completely disemboured or disengaged. They kind of got demoted on a certain project or were brushed aside and not given credit for something that they might have led on.

27:10Something happened. And so it kind of puts you in the, you know, as a manager needing to wear yet another hat to tailor your management style to the person in front of you and say, I've noticed X, Y, and Z, you engaging less in meetings, you know, you contribute a lot less than you used to. And I see this in your performance. I want to talk to you about it. When do you feel like you lost that engagement? Ask them, you know, they're, they're going to have a point of view on it. But I think don't look at that as that's a foregone conclusion, or why bother? Often, it's a question of reconnecting them with something that mattered.

27:57And I think you brought up a word I really love because we don't talk about this word enough, but ego. You know, you think about boomers, I'm Gen X, and I know I was raised with this, which is that you talk a little differently when you get in the room with the SVP at your company. You know, you speak with more reverence. It's not unusual to say things like, I know you're so busy or I know your time is tight. I only have one question, right? Like we often do this and put folks on a pedestal. And it's something we've learned. Oh, that's a form of respect based on that person's status. Gen Z does not believe in that.

28:39And to them, it's like the stiff old fashioned ritual that we other generations are like coming to work and performing. And so to them, it's like very silly. You ask me a question and you're the SVP or you're an associate. I'm going to most likely answer you the same way. And that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

29:04Ryan Hanley:To me, I feel like both sides have to come a little more to the middle, right? I often hear this conversation positioned, and I do not feel like this is how you're positioning it, but I hear it positioned as either Gen Z is wrong, and what's wrong with them? This is probably the emails that you're getting and some of the conversations I've had. Or you get these crazy, ego-driven boomers who just won't get out of the way and won't let us do our thing. And when you're positioned as one side or the other, when really it's, there needs to be more active leadership and almost, you know, I think, and this is a lot of your work and quick leadership addresses a lot of this is like your book, quick leadership.

29:45Ryan Hanley:And guys, I'll have links to all Selena's work in the show notes. So just scroll down, whether you're watching on YouTube, wherever you're listening, whatever, just scroll down, you can get the book. And this isn't your first bestseller. You've had previous, I'll have those linked up as well. but like we've kind of lost the art of leadership right it's just show up I've reached a position or I was a high performer at a task and now I'm managing people even though I don't have a clue what I'm doing or even want to do it right and then you also have Gen Z who's saying like I don't care if you're an SVP or an associate where my honest to goodness take is there should be a little respect given to that person who's put in the time who has the experience who does have who has gone through some of these things before, probably dozens of times and may have acquired some insight and have a little bit of experience knowledge that they can provide.

30:31Ryan Hanley:And they're not just these older morons who want to just make money and push young people down, right? Like - And don't know how to save a PDF, right? Which is the running joke. Yeah, and it's like, you know, and I think it's this, how do you get both groups moving to the middle? How do we start to have conversations where - I know we're broad stroking Gen Z, but we'll say Gen Z starts to understand that like, look, like being that we're human beings, there is a level of respect and appreciation for process and company culture that needs, you need to integrate in if you're going to be part of, right?

31:07Ryan Hanley:You don't get to just have a job and then go, this is the way I work, deal with it. That, that, I don't think that's the right answer. However, but there also needs to be, leadership needs to be a little understanding of the fact that if you want your company to grow and you want to hire people, this block isn't going anywhere. Like this is the next group of people that you have to hire. And if you don't change in some regard, you're not going to be able to get the best of the best out of that group. How do those two groups start to come together? Yeah, well, I just want to say one thing as we talk about that, which is one phenomenon I hear from so many people is talking about Gen Z as though they kind of landed here from another planet and parachuted in.

31:48And I can feel like that too. I can relate to feeling that way sometimes, but we have to remember, like, they are a product of us. You know, iPads that are in their hands that we might be criticizing them for being such digital natives, we put in their hands. So I think there needs to be a little bit of togetherness and I think responsibility that like this isn't a group that just landed on our planet. We've influenced them. You know, we've put new tools and technologies in their hands and we were willing to take that risk. We didn't know how it would turn out with children. Well, now we do. So, you know, so I think that's an important thing to step back and just remind ourselves.

32:34These are creatures. These are people of our own, you know, making and influencing. I think you're right. I think in terms of bridging the generations, I think we could use some of Gen Z's directness. I even welcome some of their casualness in the workplace in terms of it being less formal and performative and like, let me put my work mask on and be business self now. I appreciate that. And I think they can bring that. And there's something we can learn from some of their kind of healthy entitlement. We tend to hear that word entitlement and think all bad. That's a nasty, bad word. That's a bad trait to have in somebody.

33:22I think there's such a thing as healthy entitlement, where it's not over the top. It's not move over and let me get mine. It's not that. It's simply being aware of being a good self-advocate, knowing you're offering me something and I'm offering you something in this employer-employee relationship. And one side cannot monitor that. You both have to be monitoring, are we doing right by each other? Is there an issue here? Am I doing two people's jobs for the same pay I used to be getting? Right? So there's a constant need to be that self-advocate to bring some healthy entitlement. And I think that's a positive thing that Gen Z brings.

34:08At the same time, boomers have a ton of experience. They've also done and accomplished things Gen Z knows nothing about. They've lived through civil rights, for example, and brought about laws in the 60s and 70s around hiring fairly and not discriminating. they've seen things change drastically socially and at work and have been part of those changes and I think we do need to honor that like institutional knowledge we have honor that experience I just think it's going to look a little less like we're used to

34:52Ryan Hanley:yeah I completely agree over that person yeah yeah I completely agree with I'm I do like the the more casual, I'm going to say, I'm going to exchange, I would exchange the word casual for authentic, right? Just being a little more true to who you are as a person. I agree that the mask, I feel like today, regardless of what generation you are, but certainly I think the younger generations are more dialed to this. They smell inauthenticity miles away. Like it's like they have radar for inauthentic and maybe that's because of YouTube culture or TikTok or just in general, you know everyone's stuff is everywhere you know you can't really hide today and most people choose not to hide they purposely put all their stuff out there and when there's a disconnect between the work you and the real you that is not appreciated that is not an appreciated trait anymore and it I do think that's very positive I'm very interested health the idea of healthy entitlement, I think is, is interesting.

35:58Ryan Hanley:And I, and I agree. I think a lot of people are going to hear that. And even though the word healthy is in front, they're going to bristle. Yeah. I know when my peers or people reach out to me, man, that word entitlement, there needs to be like a four letter version of the word entitlement with the way that they use it. Right. Like, um, it's very difficult. And I think where, where I know where I have struggled at times. And I, I'd like to believe that I handle this well. And I feel like I've done okay with these, with these individuals. Most of my experience with it in a negative way has been either complaining or people asking me questions.

36:35Ryan Hanley:And so I know it's there, but it's, I think what all, all a good, let's take a good leader who is in say the, the, you know, the Gen X boomer, you know, early boomers who have maybe 10, 15 years, 20 years left of their career in a management, or leadership capacity with these individuals. You know, one of the things that I've been talking to them about is the loss of mentorship or apprenticeship culture. So do you feel like one of the solves to this could be bringing in more of a mentorship or apprenticeship culture into your business where maybe they're not in a decision-making capacity, but they're with their boss when they're going to that big meeting.

37:21Ryan Hanley:And maybe they're sitting in the back of the room or the side because I'll tell you where I cut my teeth in leadership was as a young executive in my early 30s, I was brought into every C-suite meeting. And no, I didn't have a talking role. I sat in the back and I listened. And then we would have a powwow after and, hey, what did you hear? And what did this person's reaction, right? But I was there. I got to see my boss, how he negotiated or how he responded to a tough question or a curveball that we didn't game plan for in a negotiation. And I got to listen both positive and negative to how he responded.

37:58Ryan Hanley:So do you see that as a potential solution? Absolutely. And there's so many employees, if you talk to them in all kinds of organizations who feel under-invested in, not invested in. And I agree with you that like on the job training, shadowing, apprenticing is so valuable and there's no substitute for it. It also can lead to people, you know, having more faith in you. And I'll never forget in my own career in management consulting, being very young, early 20s and having a mentor at my firm say to me, Selena, why don't you give the presentation to the client next week? and it was like, what? Like you think I'm capable of that?

38:49And it was like a thrill and terrifying at the same, you know, but that's what you get, right? When you're absorbing in those rooms and you're being given that gift of exposure. So I think it's wonderful. I think the issue is there are so many different kinds of cultures. One, a really great one would be say a coaching culture. And that's where it's normalized to give feedback. It's normalized to get out of a client presentation and say like, you know, Ryan, I thought one thing you did great was this. Next time, why don't you try this other thing to sharpen up, you know, the experience for the client.

39:29That's so normalized that it's not weird. It doesn't sting. At the same time, maybe the person giving the presentation is asking you. They're soliciting it themselves saying, hey, you saw me in there. What's one thing you thought I did well, one thing I should try differently next time. And there's this sense that it's like incumbent upon managers and more seasoned folks to give, to mentor, to train, to have the patience to like stop and explain something that maybe this junior or new person clearly doesn't know yet. That is, that's not the norm that I see. You know, because there are so many kinds of cultures.

40:13There's like a get it done yesterday culture, which when speed is like your huge main goal, guess what goes right out the window is mentoring and, you know, growth of employees. Cause like, oh, that's just like a little fringe benefit. That's nice, but that's not a necessity.

40:34Ryan Hanley:Yeah. It's, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah. forgetting that your business so one of the concepts that changed how I approached my both my career how I managed how I led etc was this idea of seasons of a business which when you hear it seemingly makes complete and utter sense I had just never heard it until I was about 35 and all of a sudden I was like oh my god like you can have a and again this comes down to communication and and having trust and respect with your team but like you can explain and I have found in different, you know, when I, so I, uh, my most recent engagement was I, or engagement, my most recent company, I founded a digital national commercial insurance agency.

41:15Ryan Hanley:We're fully remote. I only met four of my 27 employees in person ever. You know, we grew the business, we sold it, exited from it. It was, it was a great experience. But one of the things I found the team to be very receptive to, and this was only because I had acquired this knowledge, not because I didn't learn at the time was I would explain to him like, guys, for the next two months, we gotta go like we're gonna grind like I'm gonna be a little harder to get a hold of like it's about putting numbers on the board for the next two months like we have to bam this is what we're doing we're putting this project on hold this project on hold like we're dialing down our meetings we're selling we gotta go sell some stuff like get after it but then after two two months or whenever you hit that target you can downshift back into all right let's start communicating a little more let's make sure he's going to his training she's getting the guidance she needs over here, whatever this tool.

42:04Ryan Hanley:And like, I feel like your team will, will respond to you and will, will, will be flexible to you. If you share with them one, what's actually happening, which bewilders me that there are leaders that try to hide what's actually happening in a company, their employees, like they don't know, right. That to me is bananas. And two, like that they feel like they won't, they're like almost afraid they won't come along for the ride. So they don't tell them. And all of a sudden they just changed the way they're leading or what they're saying to them. And now the employees at the water cooler are going, what the hell's wrong with, you know, John, you know, he just, he's turned into a monster the last two weeks and they don't realize that he got a big goal put on his head or she, you know, she got a big goal, you know, whatever, who the leader is.

42:48Ryan Hanley:And that's why they're feeling stress and that stress is coming downhill. And it's like, it's just, it's like, we're, we, we, it's, it's so much like it's abundance versus scared. So We go back to these like base core mantras, like that abundance mentality of like, if I share with you that we're going to, we need to go get it. And you're like, nope, I'm not doing it. Well, then I have my answer. I know who you are. Right. I know what you're, what you're going to, but if you're like, okay, I can press the gas pedal for two months. I'm willing to come along. It's like, all right. And then you just have to be good about making sure they get the downshift when it's time for that.

43:20Ryan Hanley:But this like pedal to the floor, hustle culture, bullshit, like it's grind all the time. Like there's enough studies out to know that all the glamorizing of that is exceptions to the rule, not the rule. Or at least that's my opinion of this is that we have taken a few examples of people who work 20-hour days for three years and we hold them up. And it's like, no, that's the exception to the rule. And it's survivor bias, right? It's survivor bias that they were successful because they put 20 hours in, right? Now, there's plenty of companies that have been plenty successful that didn't work 20 hours a day, seven days a week for the first three years the company was created.

44:01Ryan Hanley:But we don't stop and think about these things. So if there's a leader or a manager listening to this who's struggling, what's the first step to start to rein in this team and become a more congruent unit, a more successful unit with the differing of generations and maybe differing of belief structures? Like, how do you start to pull this in if you're the leader and you truly want to be successful? You just don't know how to get there. Yeah, it's a great question. And I think personally, as the daughter of a workaholic, I lost my dad when he was young. I was 13 and he passed of a massive heart attack.

44:41Checked himself out of the hospital at one point to give a presentation against medical orders. Like, that's the person. who was my dad and was very successful and a really cool guy in a lot of ways. But like, man, it's not a winning formula. And it's part of what like galvanizes me and excites me about my work and wanting to help leaders do it differently, not just so it's sustainable for them, but so that it's sustainable for their people. And I really agree with what you said about like seasons to work. I think a sprint you're doing within your organization can be actually energizing and exciting to employees.

45:26You know, I think they can get that like contact high of like, oh, this is cool. We are going to sell and meet that revenue goal. Or like, we are going to deliver this incredible product for the first of its kind or whatever. I think you can grab that. I think the key is to recognize real human rhythms. Okay, you're going to ask me to do that for six weeks, or you're going to ask me to do that for this long? What happens after? Because they're watching, noticing. Remember, they've given their discretionary effort, their extra mile, how are you now going to replenish them or make them whole in some way?

46:12It may be saying, hey guys, we're going to do some pretty chill work over the next two weeks. You know, I'm asking you to, and I understand that you need to be selectively excellent. We can't all be excellent all the time. We don't have infinite resources, right, internally. And I think the best managers recognize that, like out loud. I know I just asked a lot of you all, as a result, here's what we're going to look like or perform like over the next two weeks, three weeks. Or I'm giving you the first two days of this week off, you know, where you are trying to put things in some kind of balance that will mean so much to your employees.

46:59And it's not just a sprint. It could be you've asked them to work over the weekend or, you know, you've asked them to give that something extra. What is even a small gesture you can do to say, I see you. I noticed what you did. I appreciate you. It means so much. And I don't think it happens enough, you know, especially praising, recognizing for progress, not just results.

47:27Ryan Hanley:Yeah. A lot of this feels like poor leadership positioning. And what I mean by that is I think a lot of organizations are really bad at hiring leaders. They're good at hiring people with nice resumes. They're good at hiring people who may have been very good individual contributors in a task that's underneath that leadership position, very bad at hiring leaders. Because to me, this is one of the things that I said to my team is as soon as we had a team that was big enough, like as soon as was possible, I pulled myself out of day-to-day operations. I said to the team, look, like I'm not selling anymore.

48:10Ryan Hanley:So it's an insurance agency, highly sales oriented. And at the time I was the number one salesperson as many, you know, leaders of companies are in the early days, right? They often take either business development or sales, one of those, or if they're in engineering, but I'm not nerdy like that. I'm more of a bullshitter. And my point to that is like, I did that because I had learned, learned, not, this is again, not an original thought, learned, learned, that like the CEO, the president, that leadership position, and then that position, but inside of a department or of a large organization as well, is not the individual contribution.

48:48Ryan Hanley:It's the leadership and performance of the team. And that is lost. Like, I don't know where that got lost in the communication or the training of leaders. But I mean, oftentimes when I'll talk to maybe, I have a lot of, I help a lot of startup founders get from what I call launch to escape velocity. And escape velocity being when you can finally pick your head up and you're paying your bills and you're not worried you're gonna crash into a mountain every day, okay? And oftentimes the stuck point for them to reaching escape velocity is they're still in everyday – they're still the number one salesperson and trying to be the CEO and then wonder why they're having so many downstream problems.

49:26Ryan Hanley:And the very first thing I'll say to them is you have to get out of – you either have to go full tilt top salesperson and hire a CEO or you need to hire a top salesperson and get out of that and become the CEO because that is a job. this to me and I shouldn't say I'm interested in your experience with this but it's just because this is I've never done the research and it's not what I think about every day but it's almost like we look at the CEO or the president role as a title but not a job like we forget that it is a very specific job with a very specific job description and we just try to like add that into to whatever we're doing over here as well.

50:10Ryan Hanley:And that just never goes well. Why do you think so many leaders refuse to move out? And I know in large organizations, this might be less of a problem or at least slightly less of a problem, but a lot of mid-tier, mid-size companies down to even small businesses, maybe not micro, like this is a huge problem for them. And how do they start to make that leap? And maybe what is a trigger for someone who's listening today going, I am struggling with this and I am also the top engineer or top salesperson or whatever. Like how do they start to make that transition even, even just from an emotional standpoint?

50:46Yeah. I think it's easy to keep your hands in what you know, right? Because we all get a little ego cookie when we experienced that great feeling of mastery. Like I know this, I have experience in this. I have a thousand war stories, right? A lot of people aren't going to be quick to leave that or just put it in other people's hands. So I completely understand finding yourself in it in this overdue way. But I think there's a few things at play. I think one is, I use this term, it's kind of cheeky in my book, but you need to be the shit umbrella. And I don't just mean that for your team, which I do, but also for you.

51:30There is so much faux urgency, fake deadlines, like urgency culture that is everywhere where like at some point we decided nobody should have to wait for anything and that it's okay to kind of live in an emergency type mode. And a lot of cultures are like that. And it's so normal. Like we don't even like clock it, let alone stand up to it. And so I think one of the things we as leaders need to do is, you know, there's a few things, but one is to be that shit umbrella to get really good at ruthlessly prioritizing. prioritizing. You know, I'm going to push back on some of those urgent requests of my team, which to be honest right now is just distraction.

52:19And it's not like a strategic priority for us right now. Maybe it would be nice if we could, but we can't. And that's a form of advocacy that you and your team need for their calendars, for their schedules. I sometimes liken it to like Batman. And I say to people, you know, when Batman was in the Batcave, right, he was doing important work. He wasn't just like chilling. He's reviewing crime rates. You know, he's studying maps. He's like innovating on the Batmobile. And then what happens? It's like the bat signal goes off and he drops everything, right? It goes and attends to that. It's kind of like that with your people when you're asking them to attend meetings all the time or go put out a fire, right?

53:11That may or may not be absolutely necessary. You're taking them away from that like mission critical focus time where they can do their best and contribute with the most impact. And I think sometimes we are reckless with that time as managers, both for ourselves and for other people. So I think that's just a different mindset to take. But if you're able to do that, to learn to say no, to audit your calendar more often and say, I have some ridiculous recurring meetings here that this shouldn't be. If you're willing to kind of prune, you know, your calendar with your team to say, we're going to meet less often for less minutes.

53:57We're going to involve the least amount of people. Be sparing with what you're asking of people. I think that's an important thing that's going to help you because the worst thing you can be called as a manager by your people is spineless. They want an advocate. So your role is to be the buffer. And there's one other thing I would add, which is I think the best leaders stop seeing their role in that ego driven. I need to be the smartest. I need to be the toughest way. and I think they see themselves more as a facilitator. My job is to facilitate you all doing well, kind of like the conductor in the symphony, right?

54:41My job is to communicate, make sure you're aligned so that you can do and produce your best to remove blockers out of your way. But it's not to be this all knowing, my hands are in every bucket kind of person.

54:56Ryan Hanley:So I agree with everything that you just said. I love the idea of a shit umbrella. I think that's a phenomenal visual for what we're actually dealing with on a day-to-day basis, right, as leaders. But I love that. But I think your comment on how reckless we are with our time might be the conversation of our era, right? There's so much distraction. I mean, I'm sitting here. I'm looking at you, right? I have a screen up over here of notes. I have a screen up here of your books, right? That I can reference my phones over here that could go off. I'm sure there's, you know, something, some appliance could go off upstairs or, you know what I mean?

55:40Ryan Hanley:Like there's so much distraction in our lives. And, and that is really like who can cut through that and, and be strong and committed to things, simple things like just time blocking out the most important tasks in your day. You know, understanding that four hours on the right thing is better than 20 hours on a whole mess of menagerie of things, right? And can you work on the same project for an hour straight, one project versus what so many people do is I'm going to pull up this important project, but then every three minutes, I'm going to check my text messages, check my email, call someone, look at my social media, you know, like you're, we're so, it's so rare today that we're just dialed on one task throughout the day that we can really become, you know, do exceptional work on.

56:27Ryan Hanley:And it just, I think, I think that's really dialed. You know, I talk about it like from a responsibility. So I, I believe in a responsibility hierarchy, but not a communication hierarchy to your point. I think we need to listen to everybody. Everyone should have a voice, But I think in order for things to actually get done from a responsibility standpoint and accountability standpoint, we need to have a hierarchy. However, the miss, and I think this is what you're describing, and this is where I would love your feedback, is that when it comes to support, we have to take that hierarchy, that triangle, and flip it upside down, right?

57:08Ryan Hanley:So the buck might stop with me as the CEO of my company or of a company in terms of responsibility. So I sit at the very top of the triangle or pyramid or whatever from a responsibility standpoint. However, when it comes to the support structure for the organization, we flip it up. The CEO should be the most supportive of the managers or C-suite that's above them, and then they need to be the most supportive of their VP layer, and then up to where the people that are doing the work, they're up at the top and they should have all these layers of support underneath them, making sure that their day is clear, their mind is clear, their, you know, whatever needs they have from a getting shit done perspective are taken care of so they can freaking fly.

57:53Ryan Hanley:And it drives me nuts when you talk to an organization and the leader's going, man, I wish they would just shut up and do their freaking jobs. And you're like, what have you done to put them in a position to win? besides giving them a paycheck and a computer and a phone? Like, what do you actually do on a day-to-day basis to make sure that person has this space and the bandwidth to actually get their job done? Like, do they even know what their outcomes are that they need? I mean, how many employees simply don't even know what their ultimate goal is, like the outcome they need to produce at the end of a month or a quarter?

58:32Like, they don't even know.

58:33Ryan Hanley:They just show up because it's never been communicated to them. or 15 different things are communicated to them on a daily basis. They have no clue what they should be working on. It's insane to me. I agree with you. And I've worked at one of those like 100 ,000 employee places where there was a total lack of clarity and frustration because things change so fast, like felt like flavor of the week kind of trends. And, oh, we don't care about that anymore. We're off to this. And what a quick way to burn employees out, right? Not to mention just confuse them on a day-to-day level. But I think you're right about that inverted pyramid.

59:12I think it's managers' jobs to absorb the criticism for a fail or a fumble that happens within your team. Doesn't mean you don't rectify it and talk openly about, let's look at how this happened and how to prevent it. But that is part of your role to absorb that criticism. And it's also part of your role to deflect the praise, you know, so when something goes great and it's directed at your team, really pulling them up and putting them in the spotlight. And I think there's so many ways we can what I call like power share instead of hoard power, little things, but that mean a lot to employees. There's one I talk about in my book, ask three before you answer.

1:00:03So again, there's that pressure. I know I grew up with this idea that leaders should know it all, should be so smart, have the solutions. But when somebody asks you a question, let's say in a team meeting, I'm having this problem with a client, what should I do? You could swoop in with the answer or you could ask them some questions. You could say something like, well, what have you tried so far? Or, you know, what is your gut saying is the right next step? Or, you know, a third question where you're getting them to flex their problem solving muscles. And what are you doing? You're demonstrating trust, too.

1:00:45I don't need to swoop in, you know, perfect me with all the answers and save you. You've got what it takes. And like, don't great managers do this? They inspire trust. They extend trust and confidence to you. And it's just a small thing, but it's, you know, also erring on the side of delegating with trust, you know, delegating more completely. Again, we can get so in the habit of giving the answer all the time that when someone says like, hey, Selena, I'm going to plan our wine and cheese event on Monday night, which of these five cheeses do you want? Like I could sit there and really give it thought and tell them specifically, or I could say, you know what?

1:01:34I trust your judgment. Yeah.

1:01:37Ryan Hanley:It's funny. I, uh, I had a moment that I didn't mean to be a moment, which became one. I was sitting in a meeting with my team. It was all hands meeting. You know, I'd say I, up until that point, we'd grown very rapidly. So we've been a very small team before, and I kind of did need to make most of the decisions because we were moving so fast and we were small and we're growing. But we had hit a point where we were in a more structured and organized growth environment and added team members, et cetera. I was having kind of a not awesome day, just a lot on my brain, not necessarily problems, but just, you know, I was a little overwhelmed.

1:02:12Ryan Hanley:And we're sitting in a Salt Hands meeting and someone asks a question. and I just like, it was like, I didn't have any more willpower left. And I just go, I literally said, you know what? I don't have a clue how to answer. I don't know. I don't have no idea. I've know what you're at. I don't know. Right. And it was funny. So everyone kind of giggles. Right. And there's like, is he serious? And then I go, no, I'm serious. Like, I think it's a good question. I just don't know what the answer is. Like you have to go do, I go, but why don't you go take a figure it, you know, go figure out what you think the best answer is.

1:02:43Ryan Hanley:And we'll try that first. You should have seen this woman's face. She lit up like a frigging Christmas tree, right? Because it was like, think about, again, and this is all just learned experience. None of this was done on purpose. But, you know, I'm watching her react and I'm like, you could tell, like what you said, trust, empowerment. Like she very clearly knew what she needed to do next, right? Like she was going to go out and figure this out and come back with a solution. And it ended up being a great solution.

1:03:15But I wouldn't have done that if the moment hadn't been what it was.

1:03:19Ryan Hanley:And I just kind of came off the cuff and I, from that moment on, I just started being okay going like, okay, this thing over here, I do know this is what I want on this particular issue. I want this, let's execute this. Okay. But on these two things over here, I either don't have an opinion, which is another place where we tend to inject ourselves. Like it's okay to say, I honestly don't have a preference on which way we go. Right. That's okay. It's also okay to say, I don't know. I couldn't agree more with you because sometimes there is like a culture of I'm the manager. So I'm going to put my stamp on everything.

1:03:56You're going to send me something for my final approval. Well, I'm going to change it 10 % because I always need to be in there somewhere on the final deliverable. And it's simply not necessary. When you're doing that, you are training people perfectly to over-depend on you. And what does that do as a professional? It makes you feel like my judgment is not needed here.

1:04:27This person in the role of like parent always has to sign off. You know, I don't have what it takes to necessarily do this successfully. that's the opposite of how you want your people to think. So I think it takes so much for those of us who grew up with some of these outdated images of a leader, that they should be bulletproof, that they should be all knowing that they, you know, that they should be, uh, have never made mistakes and like really challenge ourselves on a daily basis to say those things are actually holding us back because the best managers, like they talk about their mistakes.

1:05:09They don't act like they're bulletproof. They say things like, you know, let me tell you about a time I under communicated and what I learned from that, or I assume no news was good news or fill in the blank, right? It's going to mean so much to your people because so many of them look at you and think they must have never screwed up. They must have never struggled. You know, they must have like kind of been born a leader and on this golden path. And it's not true. Like they've probably had just as many doors slammed in their face, if not more. So the way that can humanize you as a leader is everything.

1:05:53Tell them about a time your thinking changed and evolved on something like they will welcome it.

1:05:59Ryan Hanley:Yeah. Leadership is so incredibly difficult. But at the same time, I feel like we make it way harder than it needs to be. Like, it's really not, it's really, I hate to say this this way, but like, out of all the things that need to be done in an organization, it's not even close to the top, in my opinion, in terms of difficulty. We make it difficult. Like, sales is hard. Creating product out of thin air as an engineer is hard. Like there are a lot dealing with customers who call in with problems that are upset. That's hard. Leading is not hard. We tend to make it hard. And, you know, that's why I love when, you know, I'm able to meet people and showcase their ideas like you seem you just, you know, what I loved about your work.

1:06:50Ryan Hanley:And as I was researching, you know, our conversation, you know, I just feel like you have a very pragmatic view. you seemingly pull from maybe both a slightly more liberal philosophy. And I don't mean politically liberal. I just mean like more open, but also very real world, right? If you take those two sides, like some of this is, I think we do need to be more open, more, I don't love the word inclusive, but free of spirit. And free of spirit is the wrong way to say that. I mean, like, you know, the diversity of thought is so incredibly necessary in our business. And, you know, one of the things I've never understood about the hiring issue and like the whether it's, you know, bigotry, misogynistic, racism and hiring.

1:07:39Ryan Hanley:I've never understood that because we operate in a capitalist environment. And if you're a capitalist, all you should really want is the best person. Like, right. Like, that's that's all you should want. Like, who gives a shit who they pray to, who they have sex with? what color they are. Like that is, those are the stupidest reasons to hire somebody if you're, if you're truly trying to make money. So I've never really understood that, but, but this idea of bringing in these different voices, allowing them to be heard, acknowledging them, even if it's to say, look, that's a wonderful idea, but we can't execute on it for three months.

1:08:14Ryan Hanley:So I hear you, it's going on the list and I appreciate the idea, but it's three months from that's a perfectly okay thing to say. Instead we say, be quiet, you haven't had enough experience or we give them, we placate them and say, oh, that's an amazing idea. We never execute on it and now they feel just is not heard, right? But these are all like us as leaders. It's not the people. Like we started with Gen Z, but I feel like what I love about this conversation is that here we are towards the end and what we've really come back to is it doesn't matter Gen Z, millennial, boomer, whatever. it's it's who are you as a leader and can you position yourself and grow as a person to move with what that specific individual needs and how they fit into your team does that seem like a good way of surmising where we've gotten to yeah I do and I agree like some of the terms feel flowery to say like they feel a little woo-woo to say, leaders, you need to create psychological safety, right?

1:09:14It's kind of like, well, what is that? What on earth is that? And they may sound that way. They may sound a little woo-woo and be authentic and all of that. But man, there is some truth to this. And like you said, being in a capitalist society, what do capitalists like? Numbers, hard numbers and metrics. Well, We have so much of that to show that a cognitively diverse group makes better decisions, right? Has better deliverables, not necessarily easier to work with, right? Because there's more of a rub, more tension, but that's what leads to the better outcome.

1:09:54Ryan Hanley:Easy shouldn't be the goal. That's the part that drives me nuts is like when you get that, like to your point, if you have a homogenous group, they are way easier to manage. because you know what to expect. However, you are also absolutely missing opportunity. So you're making a conscious decision if you, you know, if you're, whether it's political or geographic or whatever you're, you know, you only hire men or you only hire women, whatever it is, right? You only hire people under 40. It's okay to maybe over-index on certain personalities or types that seem to do better. But if you don't have that, if you aren't the type of leader who is willing to be flexible enough to bring in these different thoughts and these different viewpoints, both from generationally, culturally, et cetera, geographically, like you are missing opportunity.

1:10:46Ryan Hanley:Like you are making a choice, a conscious choice to limit your opportunity and to limit the upside that you can produce. And I've just never, I've never been able to rationalize that as a human being. And maybe it's because I've severe ADHD and all I care about forward progress. And I can't even be bothered with things that slow that down. But like, I've just never been able to wrap my head around that. Cause this seems like some basic human psychology and everything that you're talking about makes complete and utter sense. Like you've given them the playbook with just the basic amount of human psychology, but no one wants to go that deep.

1:11:22Ryan Hanley:It's I give you a paycheck, do your job and shut up. and it's just destroying companies. We need more. You know, you talked about us hiring not so well for leaders. I also think like we under equip them once they're there. Maybe they were a brilliant engineer and now they're the engineering manager. Let's equip them. Let's assume this is not inborn. People don't know this. They don't learn it in school often. Give them some tools. Give them a toolbox. Give your people like a shared language so they can help each other and identify, oh, you're doing that really well and support each other. Or, hey, you know, I noticed you're doing that thing we learned about, you know, you're kind of talking over people and it made it really hard to contribute last week.

1:12:10Right. We need that. It's hard to be like the lone, you know, hero trying to do this stuff by yourself in an organization. So, so equip your people, make it shared common knowledge and vocabulary. It becomes so much easier.

1:12:28Ryan Hanley:Yeah, I completely agree. And the last thing I'll throw on this is my final thought is simply, I think we need to stop assuming a negatively perceived behavior behavior is happening intentionally. Um, I, and this was the case for me, the talking over the thing, right? My brain is going really fast all the time. And I didn't even realize why up until I was actually diagnosed back in 2020, I didn't understand why I was the way that I was. And I used to get a lot of feedback about talking too fast, which I do talk too fast or talking over the top of people. And finally I had someone come to you're being so disrespectful.

1:13:06Ryan Hanley:And I was like, I was blown. I was like, when they said I was being disrespectful, it was like a gunshot. You know, I, I, I, that's like the last thing that I wanted to be. I was just so excited about what we were talking about and where we were going. Like I get all amped up and, you know, at that time, not understanding how to control myself, I was just like vibrating with how excited I was to figure out the solution. And, you know, I didn't understand that if I answered really quick, people would think I wasn't listening to them and these different things. And it's like, sometimes I think we just need to approach people in a way that like, if there is a perceived problem, we ought, we shouldn't go into that conversation with the assumption they're doing it intentionally, or they're doing it for nefarious or negative reasons.

1:13:51Ryan Hanley:Sometimes a lot, most people just, we're all freaking humans who have all this crazy stuff going on in our lives all the time. And a lot of times we just don't even realize what we're doing. And not that that's, you know, not that we shouldn't be self-aware, but I do think a lot of problems get caused by assuming intentionality that isn't necessarily there. I agree with you so much. It's actually one of my favorite tips from quick leadership is about LGI versus MGI, which is just the simple framework, least generous interpretation, most generous interpretation. And just asking yourself in a pissed off moment when you're feeling like spitting nails and you're making certain assumptions in your head.

1:14:33I wrote to that person twice today, like why, you know, they just don't think I'm important, right? You start filling in the blanks, not always generously, right? And it may be that actually they're in all day meetings and they are working to get you what you need, but you would never know that, right? Taking a minute to say, what kind of interpretation am I making here? And how might I change the one I have if I don't like it? You know, they've always helped me in the past. I'm They're working hard and they're busy and that they are going to get back to me. And if they don't buy tomorrow at nine, I'll call them again.

1:15:15But it's just a little thing we can use to label what's going on because we've all been there. That person in front of us who's driving so slow, like we all make up stories about how thoughtless and this, that to the other that is when we have no idea what's going on in there.

1:15:32Ryan Hanley:Well, I think a phenomenal way if you're a go-getter to start getting that leadership education is to connect with you, follow your work, particularly on LinkedIn. And not only your most recent book, Quick Leadership, but as well as a lot of the other books that you've written. Besides, say, LinkedIn, the books, et cetera, where's the best place for people to get deeper into your world so they can start following along with your methodology and what you teach and preach? Yeah, thank you. My books are available everywhere books are sold. And I make leadership video content five days a week. So I put that on Instagram and TikTok.

1:16:10And I'd love to hear from you all. Kind of jump in. Let me know what you want videos and role plays about that have to do with sticky workplace situations. So that would be a great place to find me.

1:16:23Ryan Hanley:Well, I appreciate you and your work and your methodology. and I know this is the second book in a series when the third one comes out. We'd love to have you back on the show. I wish you nothing but the best and thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for elevating leadership.

1:16:57It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday.

1:17:08If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.