1573 – Lead with Curiosity with Center For Respect’s Mike Domitrz

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0:58with us right now it's mike domish mike you are a professional speaker you're the present author of uh you're an author as well and you're the president of the center for respect you're found on the web at center for respect.com mike thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me on, Josh. Looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. So what does the Center for Respect do? Yeah, we work with everything from middle schools, high schools, universities, U.S. military, all over the world, and corporations and businesses on creating a culture of respect. And that can mean different things with each of those different groups, like middle schools, high schools, universities.

1:38We're talking about sexual respect. Corporations, we're talking about a foundation of respect, how we treat each other and our day-to-day interactions. Yeah. And I was just saying before we hit record, it feels like right now, man, there are a lot of voices out there that are sowing a lot of discontent. And they make a lot of money in sowing that discontent. That's just my observation. and so I think that it's hard to expose yourself to a lot of us versus them language and then come to work or be a part of an organization or be involved in a community where there is a diversity of thought and ideas and background and so forth and it's it we're so Mike I share that and I think you're you got your work cut out for you I think there are a lot of people And again, I don't know that I'm properly kind of identifying some issues, but what's your observation in terms of like where we are culturally in the United States in particular?

2:48Yeah. So here's the problem that occurs, especially in the us versus them. It's I'm right and you're wrong. And as long as we're doing that, you're probably not treating me with respect. You're treating me with judgment. And there's a huge difference in those two concepts. So one of the biggest mistakes that we teach people to do in this world, and I don't mean we as an us. I mean, the culture as a whole does this, unfortunately. We believe in the opposite of what I'm about to say. But you can fill in the blank here, Josh. Hey, respect is not given. Respect is earned. Lawable message. Yeah. Because the moment you say to somebody, you have to earn my respect.

3:23This is a power game. This is all a power game. I have to do something to be of value to you. And people get defensive about them. Well, they do have to do something. Why? They're a human being. And by the way, your organization hired them because they saw them as value. So you should be treating them as a valued human being. And when you ask people, what does it mean to be disrespected? They see to not be seen, to not be heard, to not matter, to be invisible. Those are horrific words to feel as a human being. And in the workplace, you really don't want to be feeling those feelings. So what does it feel like to be respected?

3:59to be valued and seen for exactly who I am, not just my potential. Now, why I love that is most people go, well, see the best in everybody. And it implies only their best is worthy of treating them with respect. No, just see them for who they are and treat them with respect. They have different beliefs in you. Respect the fact you have differences. It doesn't mean you agree with their differences. It doesn't mean you admire their differences, but respect the fact there are differences and they have the right to that. We believe in freedom, right? So they have the right to those differences as you do.

4:34And so this leads to the second part of this. It's critical. Lead with curiosity. And we talk about this all the time, Josh. People go, how could they think that way? How about if you had asked it this way? Huh, I wonder how they could think that way. That gets me thinking curiously where they're coming from versus how dare they? How dare they never guess us anywhere? So it lead with that curiosity can make a huge, huge difference. And Mike, how did you get into this role? And you started this, I don't know if what you were doing back then is the same as what you're doing now or today, but it's almost like, I mean, what I would say is your message today couldn't be more valuable in a world where I think there, unfortunately, is my observation, is it social media?

5:26You know, I, well, let me just forget that question. How is social media impacting your work today? That is the, that's the thousand pound gorilla I need to ask you about. Well, there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of answers to that question. First of all, social media puts us in bubbles, right? And if anybody has seen the social media documentary, social dilemma, I think is the name of it, Netflix, it shows precisely how algorithms are built to make sure we keep seeing things that entice us. So we see the things we already want to see. What that means is that puts us in a bubble. And it means it just solidifies our beliefs and never exposes us to other beliefs.

6:04The danger of that is it goes back to us versus them. And it actually feeds off that. And so it can be incredibly dangerous is what it can be because it's bubble thought versus, hey, curiosity of how other people think. And that's number one problem. Number two, as we all know, people say things on social media, they would never say face to face. Never. Which is usually when they're doing it, complete lack of understanding that this person on the other side of this is a human being who I need to treat with any respect. And I'm getting people going, well, what if they don't treat me with any respect?

6:40So you still do because that's who you are. I don't stop treating Josh with respect because he says something that disrespected me. Because if I start treating Josh with disrespect, that means I am somebody who disregards people and that's not who I am so disrespect me all you want I'm treating you with respect and by the way if you are somebody who's like well get back at someone you want to get back at someone treat them with kindness when they want you to be mad at them yeah if you want to yeah if you want to take that view I don't believe in approaching it that way but still it's it's going to be true they're going to be more aggravated if you're kind and I'm respectful, ironically.

7:18Your anger doesn't have any power here, boy. Yes, exactly. But let's go back to your original question because you started to ask, hey, Mike, how did you get into this? And sort of where has it gotten to today? Yes. And how well then it is today. Look, nobody grows up in the 1970s and 80s thinking I'm going to be a speaker on respect. That wasn't even a concept that could come to my brain. And at 19, I received a phone call that the youngest of my older sisters was raped. And that rocked my world, not for days, not for weeks. It rocked it for months. And then I finally realized after I heard a speaker, I was in college at the time, wait, I can do something about this.

8:01I can use my voice. And so at 2021, I started speaking out. So that's when I started doing this work. That's 33 years ago when I started speaking out. And yes, did it look different than it does today? Yeah, but here's the wild part, Josh. People would say to me, well, students will listen to you now because you look like that. But nobody's going to listen to you when you're 30. And then when I got to 30, they'd say, well, they're still listening to you because you're not too old. But when you get to 40, no one's going to be listening to you. Now, the wild part about that, Josh, is along this journey is exactly what you just said.

8:34Wow, now more than ever is what people have been telling me every decade. So it's fascinating that this topic keeps rearing itself, showing itself. And the reason why is because nobody's actually addressing the foundational issues. They're just putting Band-Aids on it when it pops up. Me Too is a great example of this. The whole country paid attention for two years at most, at most, and then acted like that wasn't a real history that had occurred once it got out of the news. It's still happening in companies, but how many are addressing it? They're doing the bare minimum. They're doing the legalese, check the box.

9:10We addressed harassment in the workplace and then wondering why they don't have an amazing culture in their organization. Mike, today you work with schools, including colleges, universities. You've done work with the military, which I'd love to ask you about. And then, of course, you do work in the workplaces. Can you tell me a little bit more about like, I'm really curious, obviously, because my military background. What have you done with, you know, with folks wearing the uniform? Yeah. So that's some of my greatest work that I love doing is with the U.S. military. And I literally have been on four continents on this planet because of the U.S.

9:48military. They send me where if we have a large enough installation there, there's a good chance I've been there in the world, speaking for the military. And here's why. What they recognized in the mid-2000s, around 2005, 2006, a couple of the services started to recognize, hey, our approach to this is not proactive enough. And they looked at universities and said, who are the universities using that are really proactive and skills based? And they came to me and said, can you make this work for the military? And I said, yeah, let's look at the culture. And so I just dove in learning the culture.

10:21And the difference I added was, as you know, people get married in the military way younger than they do if they're not in the military. Oh, yeah. I got married. Let's see. I had just exited, but I was 23. My wife was 20. Right, right. And so if I'm speaking at a college, almost no one's married. No, right. The same age group, 18 to 22 in the US military, half the room might be married, right? A third of the room might be married or already divorced between 18 and 22. So what I did is I said, hey, what if I bring marriage into this and discuss both the single life and the married life? And they're like, hey, nobody's really doing that in this realm.

11:02And so that helped us really differentiate ourselves because we're bringing everyone into the conversation, not just the 18 year old, we're bringing the 55 year old who'd been married 30 years, sitting there like, oh, he's discussing things about my life. And that's what allowed us to do a lot of work with the military on building wonderful relationships, not just telling them what not to do. A lot of the military, as you know, they're constantly being told around this topic, don't do this, don't do that. And you're just sitting there going, is this what I got to hear again for the 20th time in a row.

11:30And then they let us come in and go, well, what would it look like if you were achieving what you wanted in a relationship? What does positive healthy sexuality look like? And they're like, whoa, this isn't death by PowerPoint. And that's what allowed us to really change the conversation. You know, I was even shocked. You know, I served 1990 to 95. And many, many years later, this is back in 2016. I got to interview Boo Corrigan, who at the time was the athletic director at West Point. And I asked him about leadership and kind of the traits that West Point looks to instill in their leaders. And he said that one of the three, so he said leadership, character, and the third one, and this blew my mind, empathy.

12:17And it's like, all of a sudden, the rest of my interview was like, well, I just threw that in the garbage. I'm like, what did you just say? Okay, you're the athletic director at West Point, and you're talking about empathy, empathy in the military. That was a foreign concept. You know, it was just, you know, very, I'd say in my time is, you know, still very kind of binary black and white, kind of like you do the job and there's no discussion about it. Whereas, you know, I think his point was like, no, no, no. If you actually sit down and understand someone, understand why they're having a problem with something or understand with their challenges, you can help them overcome that, but you're not going to know that if you're just barking at them.

12:58Yeah, absolutely, Josh. So I've worked with all the academies, including West Point. And the reason I found your story striking in alignment is I was once speaking to the PAAC fleet for the Navy Pacific fleet. And in this room was very high level leaders. Admiral gets up and says, what's the key to great leadership? And people started yelling trust and command and confidence. And he said, empathy. And this was from a high-ranking admiral. He said, I've got to be able to look at every sailor's eyes when I walk by them and say, sailor, how are you doing today? And genuinely care. Not just act like I'm playing the part of the admiral.

13:35I need to genuinely care and listen and be there for them. That's what great leaders do. And what I love about that is people will look at my logo, and it has three motions inside of it. And they say to me, Mike, what is your logo about? What does that mean? Well, it actually has very intentional meaning. The first motion is empathy. So it's empathy, mutuality, and consistency. Empathy, I'm going to care about you. Mutuality, we're not going to do anything both of us don't want to do together. I'm not going to pressure you. You're not going to pressure me. And we're going to treat each other this way consistently.

14:08That's what's going to propel us forward. And so I'm a huge fan of the word empathy. I love you brought that up. Yeah. Mike, some of us listen to our conversation. They're in leadership with their company or they're a founder. and like, yeah, I don't know, what kind of change or transformation can you help to create? Like, how might the leader recognize that there are some opportunities to improve their culture? Yeah, great question. So here's what we do. We look at the minuscule, subtle things all of us do, Josh, every day in the workplace that lead to forms of disrespect that we don't even recognize in the moment.

14:47because what most people do in companies is they think we don't have a sexual harassment problem yet we don't have a this issue yet but what they're not recognizing is there's little seeds being planted all over the place they're about to grow and show these problems because you were never dealing with the ground with the fertilization of the ground the foundation of the organization so here's an example does everybody in your place feel safe saying no to their superiors most people you talk to in the workplace say i'm not comfortable saying no to my boss well how respectful of an environment do you have if you're afraid to say no to your boss most people have never thought of that question when they think of respect they think no one's being done harm to right that's an extreme and what about the do i feel safe to say yes or no how about in the boardroom does everybody feel that they're safe expressing their views or do they fear judgment?

15:41Well, that's not a place of respect if I fear how you're gonna look down on me if I say something you don't agree with. So do you interrupt conversations while they're happening in the workplace? Do you do something else while you're talking to somebody in the workplace so they don't matter enough to pause? We all do these things. And when you can have that conversation, you help everybody learn the little things they can do differently to dramatically, seismically shift the culture by everybody looking in the mirror going, I'm gonna do better today. Because now it's not about the evil person who does the wrong in the workplace, which is what most people think of.

16:20And that's going back to me too. People are like, oh, we don't have that evil monster in our company, so we're good. But all of us make mistakes. So what if we could help us stop making mistakes that lead to disrespect every day? What would that do to the company culture? What would that do to retention? Can you imagine nobody wanted to leave because they felt valued every day they walk into work? Your company would have people lining at the doors to join because you'd have a culture no one would ever want to leave. Mike, when companies want to bring you in, what does that look like? What are the ways that they can engage with you so you can help enact that change?

16:58Yeah, there's two most common ways people bring me in. One, they bring me in for a big conference, for a big annual summit for the company or the association. And they have me keynote. right that that's very very common the second way is they bring me in for training either leadership training but it could be three to four hour training where we dive into i call it the nine daily displays of disrespect and we dive into those nine and then show you the nine daily choices for respect so in each of those moments instead of doing this what if i just chose that and it gives them all actionable items they could do but it's very interactive so during three hours they're writing down, oh, how do I do this?

17:35Oh, how do we see this show up in our organization? Now, what are actions I can take? So they're walking out with a game plan. And that's a more intensive workshop experience versus a keynote. Yeah. And you've, I would love for you to share maybe just a quick little list of folks that you've worked with that you can share, like including universities. And would you mind just so, I mean, I've seen a few logos here and there on your website, but what are some of the ones that you're most proud of or ones that you think might be interesting to someone listening to our conversation? Well, I mean, let's go to universities, right?

18:12But what schools? Yeah, Princeton. Yes. You know, so Stanford. Yes. You know, so we work at some of the schools that are considered some of those prestigious in the country. Look, for me, I'm going to be the commencement speaker at my alma mater. For me, that's as exciting as Princeton or Stanford, right? So it just depends on how you view it. When it comes to the military, every single service all over the world, including working at the Pentagon level and sitting down in the Pentagon with leaders and having these conversations. And then when it comes to companies, it really varies. I just worked with one of the largest mining companies there is, Kennecott.

18:48So if there's copper anywhere and a battery or anywhere, there's a good chance it came from their minds. And they brought us in. Now, people go, what? That's a very blue collar industry, Mike. Yeah, because they care enough about their culture. It doesn't matter whether you're blue collar or white collar, is that you care enough about wanting to shift your culture to be stronger than it is today. And so it can be massive, mega international companies like that or small manufacturing companies outside Chicago an hour away from me that we sat down and did a three-hour training, United Conveyor, that we did a three-hour training with their senior leadership team.

19:26yeah mike your website is center for respect.com when somebody goes there what should they click on what do they do particularly what they're gonna yeah what they're gonna see when they get there is they're gonna get to choose where they want to go because we have actual different sections for k-12 for military for business pick your lane go into it see what's there let us know if you want us to help you we'd be thrilled to we have a contact us page scroll down to the bottom you'll see all our social media. Josh, right now we're posting almost a video a day on social media. So if somebody wants to see what we do, click the social media, look at our YouTube page, look at the shorts.

20:04You'll see corporate stuff on there. You'll see school stuff on there. You'll get a vibe for how I work with audiences because in the end, that's what matters to most people. Hey, is this person going to be able to engage our group? And the gift that I get is I've worked with every imaginable kind of audience there is in this world. So it's pretty hard to come up with a group that I haven't dealt with before and engaged with before. Yeah. All right. Mike Domish, again, Hall of Fame speaker, author, expert, and again, the president of the Center for Respect. Your website, Mike, is centerforrespect.com.

20:41Mike Domish, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, Josh, thank you so much for having me on and for all you do getting these voices out to the world.

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