#287: Julie Hansen, CEO, Babbel – Don’t fear change

22:24What kept us on our toes was two things. One, the US in general, because that market is simply more competitive and more challenging and different. So it forced us to question some of our product choices, think differently, be open to doing things in another way. So the U.S. influence, to be specific, you know, the push for Mexican Spanish, the idea that, you know, we don't learn Castilian Spanish in the U.S. We need that other language. So we had to, you know, open eyes to the needs of a different market. We pushed hard for podcasts over here and they've become a very important part of our language toolbox.

23:06We would have gotten there eventually in Germany, but we got there faster because of the US operation. But the single biggest thing for sure was the competition here. Our main competitors, we had a legacy competitor that was quite well known in the English language world, not known in Germany. So they caused us to be a little sharper in our marketing. And then of course, our new app competition challenged us here in the US first. And so that competition was actually really helpful to the company in questioning what we're doing, rethinking the way we address consumers, like all of it.

23:42David Novak:Hello, friends. I hope you are loving this conversation between David and Julie. As always, please stay tuned to the very end of the episode. David and I have a great discussion where we debrief some of the concepts that he is talking about with Julie on this interview. So stay tuned to the very end of the episode and I will see you at the debrief. You know, as you mentioned earlier, AI translation tools are improving so fast and AirPods promising real-time translation, competitors leaning heavily into AI along with yourself. When you see that, what goes on in your mind? I mean, you just said competition was a positive, which is a nice way to frame it.

24:20David Novak:But, you know, what's going on in your mind? On the one hand, we are, there's probably a little, a small chunk of our audience that was learning a language for really transactional purposes, you know, for a few months, for a trip or what have you. And probably those types of very uncommitted transactional learners are not going to bother with learning with Babbel or any other platform. And you know what? That's great. because it's hard work learning a language. And if you just need to speak a few words to it in a cafe, then by all means, use your translation tool. And so we kind of welcome that, frankly, because language learning, you know, it's like an exercise program.

25:05It's a lot. There's a lot of commitment. So the users who would be more easily frustrated, it's great that there's a better solution for them. where we think the potential of it is incredible for the personalization piece we talked about before, but also practice. What we're doing right now is not something that we would want to do through a translation tool. If every time you asked me a question, I sat there and listened for 20 seconds and then I responded and then there was an equivalent pause when it came back to you, That's not a satisfying way to have a conversation. And by the way, if your mother-in-law happens to speak French or Spanish, she doesn't want to talk to you through an earbud either.

25:54So there really are some, as long as human beings have a multitude of languages, we think there will be a need for language learning. And it might look a little different than it does now, but that need is not going away. We don't think electronics are going to replace it.

26:08David Novak:You know, you're in the business of helping people learn. There's no question about that. What do most people misunderstand about how learning actually works? Because you've got to become experts at it at Babel, for sure. You are experts. I think people underestimate the level of effort that it will take. I'm sure you remember the easy button ad campaign that we had here in the U.S. That campaign spoke to a primal urge of Americans, and there's no easy button in language learning. You cannot hypnotize yourself into learning. So that's one thing. The other thing is that I think people know that language, it's important to speak it out loud, but it is so intimidating, terrifying, scary, that they don't and they think they'll be okay.

26:55And that's again why we're so excited about AI tooling as a way to practice that with repetition, that there's no judgment in your AI robot conversation coach. There's only encouragement, endless patience. That's really powerful.

27:12David Novak:You mentioned earlier that you're really working on ways to motivate people to stick to it and to really get the job done. How are you doing that? How are you going to motivate someone like me to stay after it? Well, of course, we're going to have a streak feature, and that has been wildly popular. I'm stating the obvious there. When our streak feature broke, it was sort of the single biggest influx to customer service in many years. So that's one huge thing. Two, we're trying hard to meet people where they are. So shorter lessons, different styles of learning, even in our communications, our email communications, reminders, but also just bringing more of the learning to you wherever you are.

28:03A long time ago, we went to Switzerland for a ski vacation. I'm not a good skier. And so we had a, I was put in the beginner lesson. And one day we had a German teacher and he was very strict. And when I had trouble getting up, when I fell, he was mad at me and I was very sad and I was not motivated. And the next day we had an Italian teacher and he was so warm and nice and encouraging that I was so excited about my lesson that day and I did better. So, okay, now you know a little bit more about me personally, but I think that style of coaching and teaching might have some cultural relevance to it.

28:45And so we're just trying to make the product a little nicer, a little warmer, a little more encouraging. And most people respond to that.

28:54David Novak:So you go from employee number 13 in the United States to being the president of the U.S. business, And now you're both that, the president, and you're the chief revenue officer for the global organization. What does the chief revenue officer role actually look like for you day to day? It's where I spend most of my time, for sure. We are a worldwide marketer. One of the reasons why this role could make sense is that, as I said earlier, media evolution does tend to happen in the U.S. first. You know, TikTok launched here before it launched in Europe, as one example. So we're able to kind of use our U.S.

29:39marketing operations as somewhat of a crystal ball. If it works here, it's going to work in Europe in a year or two. Probably. Not always. You know, there are differences in creative. There are differences around privacy and attitudes toward privacy. Those all make a difference. But for example, we developed an email cadence in the US that drew more revenue. We send more emails, but we do it in a certain way. And for a long time, I was told like, no, no, no, we can't do that here. Yeah, we can. And it's working really well. So a lot of the times we're exporting what we develop first in the US just because of where the media evolution is here.

30:17And we apply it worldwide. But most of the time I'm working with our channel managers. Every channel is kind of managed vertically, working with the creatives. I've spent a lot of time on product and tech because we do run basically our own MarTech product is handled in the revenue org, not in some separate technology org in Berlin. So I'm kind of a nice mix of, I guess I'm back to being a general manager in that sense. And I guess I enjoy that actually. The other thing that seems like you enjoy, Julie, is you like taking on the basic traditional thinking and saying, hey, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

30:58David Novak:I mean, you like taking on maybe the stereotypical view. Am I correct in saying that? Yeah, I guess that is a feature or a bug, depending on your perspective. No, I think it's a good feature. But, you know, how do you how do you get the courage to take up people, take people on? Because you you're not going to change something unless you have the courage to have the thought of people saying, no, I disagree with you. You know, you've got to how do you how do you deal with productive conflict? Because you've got to be good at it. There are there is nuance to that. It helps if you know the person with whom you might have conflict, because we are all different and we all like to receive our information differently.

31:42Most people that I'm working with at a company of our size, and it starts with data. So if the numbers are not on your side, it doesn't really matter what you have to say about it. So we do try to start, I do try to start with a data grounded conversation. And, you know, I, though, know enough about my audience to know, you know, that one wants a song and dance. And that one wants a presentation with lots of data in it and some quiet time to read it before we talk. So I think knowing whom you're interacting with is super powerful. I've come to learn at Babbel the power of a good document. I once had a, before I was responsible for revenue worldwide, we were doing, we're taking a certain approach to revenue growth in the US and I wanted to get some tech support that we needed to enable more of it.

32:36And so I wrote a document like this is, you know, just a couple of pages on this thing we were doing. And that thing went around the company, like more people shared it and read it. And I realized, aha, this is a company where putting it on paper is actually incredibly important. People were coming up to me asking about it. I didn't write a document with that in mind. It was just assembling my thoughts. So learning sometimes what works, every company is different. Learning what works at a given company is pretty important.

33:02David Novak:So you got to start out with data. That's a given. How do you bring creativity to driving revenue? Well, I mean, that's the fun part. I guess part of it is just loving media and marketing and loving the fact that it is just never over it. We're always evolving. And that's the impact of digital. I mean, I was lucky enough to kind of grow up in a media world that was in the throes of that digital transformation. We're still in it. But as a person who ended up working in legacy media, but always, you know, was focused on the digital side of it, just always been on the front lines of this constant evolution.

33:45You know, it's funny when you think about it, we're having a podcast right now. That was an audio format for a long time. And now here we are on video and everyone watches their podcasts on YouTube. Why? It's still just audio. But, you know, media is constantly evolving. And so the way we use media to reach people and to convince them and to tell stories, constantly evolving. I love that.

34:12David Novak:What do you think is the most creative thing you're doing at Babel right now? Some of our, we're doing some new creative development that's a little bit edgier for us. We've finally got OTT working, so, you know, or CTV, whatever we want to call digital television. Took us a long time to understand the right creative formats for that because you can't just take your TV commercial and slap it on YouTube. that does not go. So that's been creative and fun. We've had a lot of fun creativity too, in coming up with new experiences to ensure that we still receive some SEO love. So as you know, with the advent of AI overviews, most websites are receiving a fraction of the traffic that they used to receive.

35:09Yes, it's more qualified, but it's still a fraction. But there are certain experiences that an AI cannot summarize. So for example, in about 10 days, we're going to launch a Cognate Finder tool. If you're not deeply immersed in the language world, you might not know that a Cognate is a word that sounds and means the same thing in two languages. so there are tons of these but there's also false friends you know things that sound the same mean different things like embarazado in spanish is not embarrassed it's pregnant um so many many words like that and this is a very commonly searched thing in in the language world so we're creating a fun tool that lets you search that lets you like play with cognates and false friends.

36:03Google can't summarize. No AI tool can summarize that. So clearly having a lot of fun. I think that's, I was very proud of the creative team that came up with that idea. Yeah, so it's like we, you know, as a marketer, we primarily use media to reach, whether it's paid or organic, doesn't matter. That's how we reach people. And the fact that media is so dynamic and changing all the time, especially now, this moment we're living in, I find that so exciting.

36:30David Novak:You know, revenue is the lifeblood of any company. So, you know, it's the chief revenue officer. You got to have a lot of pressure on, you know, I would imagine, you know, because when the revenue's not moving in the right direction, man, that puts pressure on everything, margins, you name it. You know, how do you deal with the pressure of having to get the sale? Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? When things are going great, all the meetings are so easy. And when things are not going great, the meetings are a little more challenging. I guess I like pressure at the end of the day. I mean, I'm a competitive person.

37:08I like goals. I like exceeding goals. You know, some people thrive on that. I think I'm one of

37:16David Novak:those people. How do you personally stay connected with your customers and what they're saying? We do do some like live customer interviews. Those are very helpful. We have quite a bit of research that we do. One of my absolute favorite ways is we have a Slack channel where we pipe in the reviews in real time from Apple. And we started, there's a bunch of them now, but we started with the US reviews. And actually we set it up, frankly, to help the folks in headquarters understand that the customer here was different and was saying different things than they were used to hearing. But every day, we see what people are talking about, asking about, complaining about.

37:57Really, really love that, actually.

37:59David Novak:What's something you've learned as CEO in the past year that really surprised the heck out of you? I guess how fast AI is changing our world and how different people embrace it, shrink from it, how people react to that. I mean, I've lived through the internet revolution, the mobile revolution, the social revolution, if we can call all of those technology waves as revolutions. AI is a revolution. And it's so obvious to me. And yet I find that some of my colleagues don't seem to feel the same sense of urgency. And then some of them just want to hide under a rock. And that's, that's has surprised me, actually.

38:46David Novak:As a leader, how do you think a leader should react to AI? I mean, what should you be doing? What are you doing? A few things. One, we're making sure that we have as much AI tooling at our disposal as we can afford. And we're making it available. We're giving training. Two, really trying to model that behavior. So we've had various sessions where we have someone from the team come forward and say, hey, this is what I did with AI this week. I have shown the team my own personal vibe coding project. trying to make sure that everyone understand it wasn't much David to be clear it was fun um so modeling the behavior encouraging the behavior training it's being explicit about our expectations around it setting goals that include AI achievements you know we're not we are sometimes um we have a different business culture again as I mentioned and the European laws around privacy sometimes make our adoption of AI internally slower than other companies, but making sure that I'm pushing on that.

39:55And we want to do it the right way, with the right guidelines and support for the team. Support, I guess, is an important word too. But just making sure that we understand it's coming, we are equipping them, and we are expecting them to

40:10David Novak:start using it. If everyone watching this decided to learn one new language, what would change about how we lead, how we work, and how we understand each other? Quite a bit, actually, because speaking another person's language gives you a whole new empathy, cultural empathy, but like personal empathy. When you can connect with someone on that different level, it really changes things. Many people say that they, in their second language or other language, they have a different personality. That's kind of a fun thought for a leader. And like, could your people unlock an aspect of themselves that they didn't know they had?

40:54Or could, you know, is that a facility that's open to people? That's super cool. Mostly the number one thing, though, is that notion of empathy, of understanding the world

41:05David Novak:in a richer way. You know, I know you're an athlete, Julie, and I read an article in Fast Company recently talking about how 94 % of women in C-suite positions have a sports background. What did sports teach you that prepared you to be in the leadership role that you're in? So, so many things. teamwork, the importance of teamwork, you know, all of those euphemisms that come with a team, they're all true. There's no I in team. You know, the importance of trust in a team setting, that's just huge. I'm an avid rower. I've come to that late in life. And I have really come to appreciate that you're only as strong as the weakest link in the boat.

41:53So if you want to succeed, you got to make sure that everyone's upskilling, everyone is going as fast as they can. And then also that if you have someone in the boat who's not trying, who's not pulling as hard as they can, it is so toxic. Everyone else in the boat will know it and resent it. Whereas if everyone gives their all, if you don't win, it's still amazing. So those lessons are huge. from golf. I've learned lessons around measurability. I mean, it's an incredibly measured sport, right? Engineers love golf. There's a thousand stats you can collect, but at the end of the day, you're measuring your performance.

42:37How are you doing? Last week, this week, it's everything. I've also learned the importance of first impressions. I've, you know, I've played some corporate golf in my life and most of the time it's with mostly guys. And, you know, so you're there at a corporate outing and maybe you're on a team, usually you're on a team, it's a scramble or whatever it is. And everyone's a million around and I have a lousy short game. I can't pot to save my life, but I'm 5 '11". I hit the ball pretty far. So I get up on the front and the driver is the best club in my bag. So I get up on the tee and I hit it pretty good.

43:15And all the guys, oh, look, we've got a winner here. Well, and like they're intimidating, you know, they got to hit it well now because the girl just hit it really far, you know, that kind of thing. And it's all about that first impression. Nobody remembers that I didn't make a putt all day because they just remember like, oh, that tee shot. So first impressions really do matter. And putting effort into that can be important in relationships. There's so much more, but those are a couple of my golf, my sports lessons.

43:48David Novak:Julie, this has been so much fun. And I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this? I'm ready. What three words best describe you? Resourceful, resilient, determined. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it be? I think I'd be Michaela Schifrin right now with my gold medal. I worked hard for that. What's your biggest pet peeve? I don't like repeating myself.

44:21David Novak:Who would play you in a movie? Well, I'm not going to give you anything realistic here. I'll give you my dream, my favorite actress, Meryl Streep. I see a little bit of resemblance there, too. All right. What's the number of languages you speak? I mean, let's go with, could at one point in time speak reasonably well? I'm going to go with two and a half. What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work? I'd really like to get better at cross-country skiing. Curious about how that works. What's the one thing you do just for you? Swim. Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized possession?

45:00David Novak:Wow, my golf clubs. If I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? It depends. It's either going to be NPR or Bloomberg. What's something about you that few people would know? I am tougher than you think. Hey, what's the difference between being tough and tough-minded? I suppose it's about resilience versus being open-minded. I think of tough-minded as not necessarily being open-minded. What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never miss? I always check my email. I wouldn't say I never miss exercise, but I try not to. You know, you're out of the lightning round. Great job.

45:41David Novak:It's really great to be interviewing Meryl Streep. I've been trying to get you on this show for a long time. You know, getting back to technology, we'll wrap this up. I just have a few more questions. You know, you stayed on top of technology, you know, scaling digital and now AI with language learning. What's the common thread to how you've led through the digital transformations that you've seen? Curiosity. I think it all starts with that. I am genuinely curious and interested in all of these new technologies. Not in a hobbyist way, but in a what does this mean for me, for the world way. And you're obviously a leader.

46:31David Novak:How do you lead at home? What do you take home with you when it comes to leadership? You learn so many things from your kids, don't you? I remember taking economics class for the first time. And we started out with economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. Like it is? I thought it was like the study of business and money and whatever. No, that is the definition of economics. And you see all the charts in the grass and you think, okay, supply, demand, got it. When you have kids, you understand that because everything for them is about scarce resources. Your attention, that piece of candy, the choice of the movie, everything is a scarce resource and they're always fighting for it.

47:18And so that insight, by the way, so helpful. It came from home, it definitely applies at work. Understanding how employees, even though we're all going for the same goal, sometimes we feel we're in competition with each other for resources. That's hugely powerful insight. At home, I am the organizer. I am the one that maintains schedules and regulations and routines.

47:44David Novak:Did you pick up that, they kept that working for the Germans, or is that something you've always had? That's just me. So no wonder they hired you. No, I'm a cowboy, remember. They actually thought you were a kindred soul. You're not a cowboy. It's all relative. What do you see as your unfinished business, both for Babbel and you personally? Well, for Babbel, we're not done. We have to, you know, this new chapter for us is absolutely incredibly important. And I'm really excited about making sure that we are winners in the AI age and, you know, not crushed by it. And, you know, candidly, we're a 19-year-old startup.

48:27We still have our VC investors. So there has to be some kind of something that happens in our future. And I'm very, that feels like unfinished business to me. In my personal life, yeah, we're building a house right now. And that feels very unfinished. It feels like it may never be finished, but I'm kind of looking forward to the point where it's mostly finished and the endless parade of decisions have been mostly taken. That would be really satisfying.

48:58David Novak:What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader? I think it would be to dream big. You know, that's for you as an individual contributor as well. but to be ambitious for your team. I think also there's that incredibly important distinction between leading and managing. I think most leaders need to first figure out how to be good managers. Not all of them, but most should go through that evolution because it helps you be a better leader. But understanding that being a leader is different from being a manager, that it is your job to set the strategy, set the vision, communicate that clearly, and that, yeah, you're responsible for execution as well as ideation.

49:44We've all seen leaders that were all strategy all the time and couldn't get it done. So you have to do both, but understanding the difference between managing the day-to-day, the people, and then leading a team, it's different. And I really respect and appreciate great managers. You know, the great manager who knows how to get the best out of every person. And when you become a leader, you then have to be able to think systems, structures, strategy, you know, frameworks. And those are different skills and embracing those skills and learning that they're different from the skills that made you a great manager.

50:25That would be, I think, especially for newer leaders, really important. And last question, you know, when you think about women in business, female leaders, you know, what advice can you give to them on how to maximize their potential? Women often don't ask for more responsibility. They don't, I'm not trying to victim blame here. I'm just saying like in I've seen, we've all seen that women often just kind of wait to be recognized and rewarded. And it doesn't always work that way. So I would counsel most women to be bolder, you know, raise your hand, ask for responsibility. As I said, I'm a pretty good listener.

51:03And I think that's important actually. But I am not afraid to interrupt or be bold or put my ideas out there when the time is right, respectfully. But I think a lot of the times women don't know how to do that, aren't encouraged to do that. And I don't know whether that's a personality, again bug or feature whether it's a learned behavior I am as I said I'm 5 '11 like I'm I see eye to eye with most men that does help but I think whatever it is that's taught me how to do that I would want to pass that on to other women yeah great and Julie I want to thank you

51:43David Novak:for passing on your insights to all the leaders that listen to this show and appreciate you for taking the time and I'm going to try to get motivated to really finish one of these languages. Well, yeah, you should. Very satisfying. David, thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun. I really appreciate your questions. All right. Thank you.

52:10David Novak:David, after hearing this episode, I am desperate for you to speak to me in Mandarin for the remainder of our conversation. Ni hao. Is that where it ends? Is that where your Mandarin ends? Shishi. There you go. There you go. I love it. Well, David, I so enjoyed this conversation between you and Julie. As you know, I've even talked about it on this show before. I am a language lover. I speak Spanish. I play around with speaking Greek because of my grandparents. And I just love what learning new languages allows you to experience. And so I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I'm excited, David, to get your take on some of the themes that you and Julie discussed throughout the episode so that our listeners can leave with some real tangible tools that they can apply to their leadership and to their life.

52:59David Novak:So the first one I really want to talk about is this idea of empathy. Julie mentions in the episode that when leaders learn a new language and learn how to communicate with folks who come from a different background. It gives them a whole new level of empathy for the people that they lead. And I just love that concept and what language allows people to experience. David, what are some other ways that leaders can develop empathy? Because learning a language takes a lot of time and it's pretty hard. Yeah, well, first of all, I think learning another language shows such respect to the people that know that language.

53:38David Novak:And, you know, one of the things that I did when I went to Japan is I had the first three paragraphs of my speech written out in Japanese so that I could, you know, share it with the Japanese franchisees. Now, I did an absolutely terrible job. I butchered the Japanese so bad. And they literally were laughing all the way through it, you know. But when I was done, they gave me like a standing ovation because I tried. And, you know, I think learning a new language is hard. You know, putting your neck out there, trying to, you know, offer it up in some way that is uniquely yourself is very hard. But people appreciate the effort.

54:27David Novak:And I think that's really the cool thing about languages. It takes a lot of effort to learn a second language. I think in the United States, we're spoiled because we're the universal language. Everybody learns our language and we expect everybody to know it, particularly in the educated world, because there's no way you're going to move up in a global company if you can't speak English. So everybody has to learn English, but you don't have to learn Spanish if you're an American. You don't have to learn, you know, Mandarin. You know, you can get by because everybody's expected to learn your language.

54:58So I wish I could speak more languages.

55:02David Novak:I have a hard enough time with this one. But the fact of the matter is, if I could, I think I could be more relevant and more empathetic with a lot of other nationalities. But, you know, how can you develop empathy? I think the biggest thing I'd remember is this, is that, you know what? In every business, you have to study your customers, right? You have to study your customers. You got to know how your customers are thinking. If you know how your customers are thinking, you can be relevant to them. You can frame up what you offer them in the positive way, in a way that they're going to embrace it.

55:39David Novak:Well, what I would say is people that you work with are customers too. Just think about it that way. Think about people as customers. And if your success depends on your ability to communicate with and understand customer needs, then why don't you look at your people the same way? And I think if you look at your people the same way you think about customers, I think you will be more empathetic because you'll get inside their heads and you'll understand how they're really thinking. So that would be my biggest piece of advice. It reminds me of that question that you always ask, what perceptions, habits, or beliefs do I need to build, change, or reinforce in order to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish?

56:20David Novak:And I used that same question when I was thinking about how do I lead people. And that's why I wrote the book, Taking People With You. And it's all geared towards being empathetic towards the people that you lead, understanding where they're coming from, and then you can overcome obstacles and inspire. Well, speaking of overcoming obstacles, great dovetail into the next topic that I want to get your insights on, David, it's change management. And in the episode, Julie talks about how important it is to over-communicate when you're going through a season of change. She says that when she is sick of hearing herself say something, that's about when it's finally sinking in for her team.

56:59David Novak:Now, aside from over-communicating, what else should leaders focus on during a season of change? Her point about over-communicating is a good one to really start on, you know, or at least reinforce, because in media, there's this thing called effective reach, that you're not going to get your message across in media unless people have seen your commercial or your advertisement at least four times. And that is why you look at effective reach, you know, in terms of your media plans, because you want to make sure that people see your message at least four times. And if they don't say it four times, it's not going to really sink in.

57:42David Novak:So yeah, that's the way our life is. You got to communicate, communicate, communicate. Because the more you say it, the more it will ultimately sink in. I think when it comes to change management and advice in that area, I think the most important thing you have to do to drive change is you got to create a burning platform. People got to realize that if they keep going down the same path, they're going to fail. And if you don't change, you're going to be in deep water. And then what you have to do is make sure that that reality is really understood. And then you got to create hope about what it's going to take to really drive the change that'll take you to the promised land.

58:24David Novak:So number one, you got to drive extreme pain and communicate that pain so clearly that everybody understands that, hey, they got to do something different. or we're going to keep getting the same results or worse results or basically go out of business or lose our job. You know, you got to create pain. Then you got to create hope by having a process and an approach that's going to help you find the answer that's going to get you moving in the right direction where you can succeed and your people can win. And if people are motivated by pain and then the hope and the desire for a better outcome, you know, I think you can drive it.

59:11David Novak:But I think that's really important. And I will tell you this, all change management comes down to, you know, why? Why is it necessary? What's in it for me? And you as a leader, are you going to do it too? That's very, very powerful. I love that third one because it invites that accountability too and transparency with the team. Hey, the pain's affecting me too. We all got to go here. And I'm going to lead the way. I'm going to do it too. Because if I don't do it, I'm going to be a deep one too. So with change often comes conflict. And the theme of productive conflict is another one that I want to break down with you, David.

59:54David Novak:In the episode, Julie talks about when she is engaging in conflict, she usually always leads with data because she loves numbers and she likes leaning on that when she's making her argument. But she also studies her audience first, and she knows how they like to receive information, whether they want a quiet room with a printout that they can read and reflect on, or if they want this big presentation with a lot of energy. When you think about productive conflict, what advice would you give people who want to get better at it? Well, number one, recognize that no one even likes conflict. It's the least favorite thing for almost everybody in the world.

1:00:34If I asked a people, if I asked a thousand people

1:00:37David Novak:in a room to raise their hand if they like conflict, nobody'd raise their hand. So I think the first thing you have to do to have productive conflict is to embrace it. And, you know, I think what you have to do is sniff out the conflict. Where is the conflict? And then when you know there's conflict, bring it up. And productive conflict is when you seek an outcome where the conflict no longer exists, or you have an outcome that takes you down a path to where you're going to minimize that conflict because you're going to come up with a much better solution. Productive conflict means getting rid of the conflict through a better option and a better solution.

1:01:22David Novak:But you can't do that if you don't at least raise the issue. So I always really believed in, I taught people in my leadership program to sniff out the slow no's. Okay. You can be, you got to have an eye for conflict. You got to be, just watch the body language. You know, a stereotypical example is, you know, let's say the finance guy always wants to raise prices, the marketing guy wants to keep the prices low. That's a stereotypical conflict. So when somebody talks about a price increase, make sure both those people get engaged in the discussion. Don't let one of them just sit there with their arms crossed saying, I think that's a dumb idea.

1:02:03David Novak:Okay. You know, I think that's important. The last thing I would say is that if you really want to have great productive conflict, you have to have team team together, team apart. Team together means you get everybody's input on a discussion. You know, get all the conflict out on the table, let everybody provide their input, and then you as a leader, you know, work with the team to come up with the best outcome, the best solution that you have at that point in time. Get everybody to agree on it, and then execute the heck out of it. But demand everybody that now that we've taken the time to go through the productive conflict, to go through all the, to come up with the solution, demand everybody to stay on the same page when they walk out the room.

1:02:46Now we just did team together.

1:02:49David Novak:Now we're going to be team apart. And when we're apart, we're going to be a team. We're going to stay true to what we just decided here. You don't want people walking out after you have a discussion to try to, where you deal with all the conflict that might be there. You don't want them walking out of the room and going off going, can you believe Tim wants to do this? Can you believe Kula wants to do this. I can't believe that. Hey, if they do that after you've gone through the effort to have productive conflict and get all the issues out on the table, man, when I would see that happen, I'd hunt those people down and they would get one bit of two by four action by me.

1:03:26Okay.

1:03:27David Novak:Cause it's unacceptable. That's, that's just not the way you are as a team. You're going to be a team. You work together to come up with the best solution. Then you make a decision, then we all execute the decision together. I'm so fired up by this, David, because I mean, candidly, I am someone who is naturally pretty conflict diverse. And one thing that you've been encouraging me recently to do is to look for opportunities to respectfully disagree. And so I wrote that down and it's on a sticky note on my laptop. It says, look for opportunities to respectfully disagree. And I think it's so true because when conflict goes unspoken, it just turns into resentment.

1:04:05David Novak:It turns into distrust and it turns into toxicity. So if you don't air it all out in the team together piece, you're, you deserve a two by four by you. Yeah, right. Well, you know, I, I use that only as an example. I know. To make my point. I never used the two by four, literally. Although I was very direct to my feedback when I have to be. And I think that's what, that's what you, you, you must be able to do. And I've never seen anyone become a great leader without being able to deal with conflict in a productive fashion. Well, David, I've learned so much from you and from Julie throughout this entire episode.

1:04:41David Novak:So thank you again for such a great conversation. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead. We will see you next Thursday.