Unlocking A Speak Up Culture With Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky

Skot Waldron (00:00.11)
And you have no idea what I talked about. Then I'll edit it. I'll edit it before and after I do an, I'll do an intro before and after. So you don't need to worry about that either. we're just going to come in cold Turkey and start rocking the thing. all right. Anything else I can do to serve you how any goals or things you have out of this.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (00:02.33)
I will ask you. Yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (00:12.658)
Great. Sweet.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (00:22.482)
Thank you. mean, the opportunity to chat about the book and promote the book is great. We're working on our end to launch a podcast of our own. So that's a few months away, but we're in the process there. And yeah, most of my business right now is showing up live and doing talks and fireside chats and workshops and things like that.

That's most of what I'm doing right now. But yeah, we're looking to move into passive income land as well in time. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (00:56.172)
Hmm. Are you with the podcast?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (01:01.646)
potentially, but like with asynchronous learning more so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (01:06.851)
okay, gotcha, cool. All right, well, good luck on that journey.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (01:12.626)
Yeah, my goals are the same as every other speaker. Speak the same amount or less, increase fees, and get passive income. It's like, yeah, that's everyone's goal.

Skot Waldron (01:19.83)
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's it. That's it. Let me know when you figure it out. yeah. all right. Cool. You ready?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (01:26.768)
Yeah, thank you. deal.

Yeah, that's it.

Skot Waldron (01:34.52)
Shed, it's awesome having you man, I've been following you for a while and now I get to talk to you for real, for real.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (01:41.528)
Nice. Well, we're not in person. is, you know, there's like one more level of, of for realness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Toronto, Toronto, Atlanta. It's not, it's not that far. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (01:46.31)
One more level. I'm going to get there. I'm going to get there one day, Shad. One day we're going to meet in person and I'm not coming to Canada. Well, it's not that far. And actually I've been to Toronto one time. You have this cool little art district down there and I stayed in this cool little hotel that had like different room themes and all this stuff. You know I'm talking about?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (02:05.404)
I don't, but I know the art district. just, I don't, I don't typically stay in hotels in my own town.

Skot Waldron (02:07.202)
Okay. You don't stay in hotels in your own town? well. If you do, you should probably stay in that hotel. Pretty funky. I stayed in like some Galactic Cowboy room. It was like, I don't know. It was kind of crazy, but yeah, man. It's it's really good talking to you. And I hope that other people are as inspired as I am when I hear you. So, you know, no pressure.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (02:13.296)
Not as often as I'd like.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (02:20.807)
Cool.

Nice.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (02:32.924)
Thank you very much.

Skot Waldron (02:34.19)
Tell me about what's going on in your world right now. What is the thing that you're hitting on the most that you're talking about the most to your client?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (02:42.776)
interesting. I think a couple of big themes. One is a culture of nice is not a culture of kind. There's sort of this, when I talk about speak up culture and psychological safety, one of the automatic places that folks go to is, everyone agrees and gets along all the time. And that's not the case. In fact, when you have a true speak up culture and psychological safety,

The true test is how well are your debates and disagreements and how well do you hold tension and navigate through it so long as you're still displaying tact, decency, respect, all those good things. And then the other that I'm enjoying talking about quite a bit, which I think is really apropos is how do we both disagree with folks and respect them at the same time? I think that's really key. And I make up a story that that's the best way for us to make progress.

individually teams even as a society.

Skot Waldron (03:41.208)
So to disagree, but yet I still respect you kind of thing. is that more on the sender or the receiver?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (03:49.788)
Yes.

Skot Waldron (03:52.458)
Okay, all right.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (03:53.266)
I mean, I think it'll often show up from someone will share something and you're like, I don't agree with that or they're wrong or they're an idiot or they're an awful person. And that's like the instinctual place that we go to. And I'm inviting that we actually go to a little bit more curiosity and that if we ask some questions, things like, tell me more or what got you to believe that or what's behind that for you.

we can actually learn a little bit more and potentially connect with someone. Yeah, I think there's a lot that we can do there to dig deeper, to try to do the work to figure out how is someone justified to hold the view that they hold.

Skot Waldron (04:39.086)
Let me ask you this, because I often think about that too and the curiosity thing. I preach those words as well from critique to curiosity. How can we be more curious? How can you ask more questions? When does it create a culture of defensiveness? I know that that's probably more on the receiver side to understand how are they interpreting the words that are coming at them? Do they have a tendency to get defensive, et cetera, et cetera, but...

When I come to you, maybe I don't disagree with what you, maybe I disagree with what you said. And, I still want to respect you, but I'm like, okay, so tell me why do you believe that thing? Or what about this particular idea? Are you, why are you going with that? And I'm causing you to defend your case to me, right? And in a way, and how do we not make sure that we're not creating this? Like I'm always defending myself. Why do I always have to defend myself against you?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (05:26.0)
Yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (05:35.154)
Interesting. So I think a couple of things. One is, so as you might know, I worked with Simon Sinek and continue to still do work with his team for many years. And the irony in, we say start with why, but one of the greatest ways to help get to why is not by asking why-based questions, because why-based questions are inherently judgmental, right? I could say, why do you feel that way?

And even if my tone of voice isn't judgmental, it's really hard not to be judgmental when you ask a question that starts with why. But if I ask a question that starts with what, like what led you to believe that or what got you to that conclusion? Help me see what you see. So we can ask curious questions, but how can we do a little bit more work to ask them in ways to say, hey, I'm not yet joining you where you're joining you, where you are.

I really want to, how can you help me get there? Like take me through the assumptions, the research, the points of view that you have, the experience, the case studies, help me join you where you are. And if someone gets, you know, you can only control what you're putting out, tone of voice, words, intent, all of that. If it's received in a defensive or a shutdown way,

You know, you can't own that 100%. You know, you can take ownership over the impact you may have had to a degree. But if I'm working really hard, Scott, to be like, huh, I don't yet see what you see, and I really want to help me get there. And if the response is you're a jerk, I'm like, OK, that's not going to work. Yeah. Which is another thing that I've been having fun with is

Skot Waldron (07:20.518)
Yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (07:29.284)
Speak up culture is not licensed to be an a-hole. So we say, bring your whole authentic self to work. It's like, yeah, I like that sentiment. But if your whole authentic self is jerk, you still got to own it, right? It's it's not an excuse to use a speak up culture as a weapon. I'm just being honest. You still got to own your impact on others, even if it's unintended.

Skot Waldron (07:55.522)
Yeah, I talk a lot about people having permission to be who they were designed to be. Like I think that we all have, there's an injustice in the world where we feel like these expectations or we feel like I have to fit in this box of what you think I need to be in or this role, whatever this role calls for me to be. I need to do that thing when it's not ultimate freedom of being that thing I deserve. I I'm designed to be, but again, you know, the, accidental behavior of just going through and just, you know,

guns a blazing shooting off whatever I want to can cause a lot of damage at the same time. own it, you know, you got to own it and be respectful of the audience here you're speaking to. So, speak up culture. Here it is. I got my copy. and, and I blazed through this thing, man, because, it, it was chalk. So with so much good stuff in it.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (08:33.744)
Yeah, totally.

Yes.

Skot Waldron (08:48.85)
I want to though, spoil it for everybody. Okay. We're going to spoil it and we're going to go straight to the, it's personal chapter. Cause I want to set the stage for why you feel such a personal responsibility and a personal drive to talk about a speak up culture.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (08:53.795)
Let's do it

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (09:13.362)
Well, so I'm a big believer that everyone's leadership journey ought to be personal. There has to be something that you've experienced in your life, which could be a triumph in something high and wonderful, or it could be a tragedy or something hard, but we've all been through things that give our lives greater meaning. And for me, there are sort of a couple significant experiences in my life that caused me to write this book.

One, I grew up with a stutter. I still do have a stutter. I've learned how to work with it. I'm married to speech therapist, good choice. But I know intimately, like I was terrified of public speaking. And by public speaking, I mean in front of any other person other than just me. I was typically terrified to speak up in class and small groups of friends. that fear...

was like really present into my early 20s. And then I sort of flung myself into leadership roles where I had no other choice, but I had to speak in front of people. And then I took a course in business school with an amazing professor, a guy by the name of Dennis Shackle. he, we had, was a double class. It was like three hours.

of class on presentation skills, on advanced presentation skills. And I was getting decent at it. And he prompted the class with an exercise. After our first three hours of class, the end of it, he showed MLK, Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech. And he said, now that is passion. Show up next class speaking with as much passion as Dr. King, which is like no small request, right?

And I'm Canadian and I went to a Canadian school. So there were people who spoke of their love of their favorite hockey team or curling. There was one person who spoke about mint chocolate chip ice cream. I sat in that class and I knew the only thing that I could speak about, like it hit me during the, during the headlights, was talking about overcoming my fear of public speaking. And I, I, this next class next week, I shared a five minute talk on.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (11:33.508)
not being able to say the word tra in French class in grade six, which was like the bottom of the bottom for me in terms of speaking up. And I went to a stutter camp from a great organization called the Speech and Stuttering Institute and I worked on it and I got tools and giving that talk was liberating. So there's that experience. And then there's the other experience of in my near 20 year career, I've seen all sorts of teams. I've seen teams that legitimately have a speak of culture.

And it's fabulous. I've seen teams that don't have a speak up culture, but don't pretend that they have one. That's better than this middle one that I've also seen and experienced, where we say there's a speak up culture until you test it just right. And as it turns out, it's very selective on what is actually what's safe and worth it to talk about and what isn't.

Skot Waldron (12:25.73)
How do you test it?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (12:28.114)
a few ways. mean, one is reputation. So you can ask around how to think, go like how to, how do you challenge authority here? And if the answer is D, none of the above. Right. Probably not a great sign. and these are things that you can do even as you're interviewing, can interview the folks who work there. You know, how often are folks sharing new ideas? How often do you share feedback with one another, one another to help each other grow?

Do you talk about concerns before they become problems? How do you disagree? How do you debate? Do people admit mistakes? These are all ways to sort of test it. And then taking modest, reasonable tests, saying the thing and seeing how it goes. And you don't have to start necessarily with the biggest thing, but you can start with something and build relationship and build empathy and then keep testing and expanding those waters.

Skot Waldron (13:28.78)
like this one, one of them, I love visual tools. use a lot of visual tools in my work with, with teams and, leaders. And there's, there's this one, if people can see it in the video, but they probably can't see it on audio, but it's this. Yes, we can. There's this quadrant, right? Is it safe and is it worth it? Can you walk through this thing for me, for all the audio people that can't see it, help them visualize this tool?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (13:43.974)
We can share a link, yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (13:48.914)
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (13:58.446)
Yes, so Kim Scott, who endorsed the book, has an unwritten rule that every business book has to have a two by two matrix. So every single one, yes, yes. So I literally took a, yeah, you got me. No, not quite, but we kind of sort of do with the culture gears, but in terms of culture changes across mindset, actions, and systems, I digress.

Skot Waldron (14:08.512)
Every single one. Yes, every single one. Or a Venn diagram. You don't have a Venn diagram in here, but yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (14:27.538)
So yes, so I took a two hour drive north of the city here in Toronto and came up with my two by two. And we've actually made an edit to it, Scott, because it goes, so is it safe and is it worth it? Right? This is the matrix. And these are the two questions that we either consciously or subconsciously ask ourselves before we speak up. Inside of a healthy speak up culture, folks feel that it's both safe and worth it. I will emphasize feeling though, because you and I could report into the same leader.

You could say that the best leader you've ever worked for in your entire life. And I could say, do we work for the same leader? I think they're awful. And we're both right, because it's our perception. But if the vast majority of folks, especially on a diverse team, feel that it's safe and worth it to speak up, chances are you're doing a lot of things right. The other quadrant, so yes, psychological safety. Yes, a strong perception of impact. Is it safe? Is it worth it to speak up?

In the lower left, though, you have an unhappy marriage of apathy and futility and danger. In the book, we put fear. But as I began to think about it more more, it's not fear because it can both feel psychologically safe and worth it. And fear is still present. That's why I harp against the term fearless leader. That is not our goal. It should be the leader who feels the fear, uses it as data to figure out how best to pursue. Like fear is data. Fear is biological. And so, yeah.

In speak up cultures, it both feels safe and worth it to speak up. The opposite is it feels both psychologically dangerous and apathetic or futile. There's no point in speaking up. It's not going to change anything. And I'm going to get in trouble, right? But the other two quadrants are interesting, which is it might feel psychologically safe, but it isn't worth it. This is where you speak up. It feels safe, but nothing changes after repeated attempts. And it's like, all right, I'm going to give up.

I'm going to have someone make their bed and sleep in it too, because my insistent and consistent efforts to speak up are futile. The other one is it doesn't feel safe, but it feels worth it. This is where Ed Pearson found himself at Boeing, where he didn't feel safe to speak up, but his courage and integrity kicked in because he saw that the practices weren't safe and weren't effective in building a commercial aircraft.

Skot Waldron (16:47.608)
Which is a problem because people fly in it all the time.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (16:51.578)
Yeah, yeah, they do. And they should work well and not have secrets within them. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (16:57.164)
Yeah. Please. Yes. No secret in my airplane. but I think that kind of leads into, we're going to talk about this a little bit and thanks for spinning it right into what I was going to talk about next. was this idea of people, purpose and profit. and you put it in that order, people, purpose, profit, and you, you have a little section here. I'm going to read this section. Make no mistake.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (17:20.434)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Skot Waldron (17:27.062)
I believe in capitalism. simply believe in a better version of it. When we put people first, we must live our purpose from the inside out of our organization and profit prioritize third rather than first or second means that it exists as lifeblood to support the people and advance the business's purpose. so I might just stole your thunder, but tell me a little bit about this people purpose profit thing and why we should organize it that way.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (17:54.586)
Yeah, I mean, I could enter into an interesting debate of what comes first, purpose or people. I think they're inherently intertwined. I've seen, though, that sometimes we can have organizations that are mission or cause driven, but they treat their people inappropriately, which means they aren't really living their purpose. So I'm often asked, you know, what's something I learned from being on Simon's Inix team? And one of the biggest things is that you have to live what you preach from

from the inside out. If you preach it and don't live it, are you really doing it? That's where I would argue it's likely unethical. And so I put people first, then purpose, and then profit as an extra reminder that we have to live what we stand for from a purpose belief value based from the inside out. The other thing that I'm a real big believer of is we say people first, but like, who are our people? Because sometimes you can have employees who actually are team members who behave

outside the value set. You have to have an intervention there and say, hey, this isn't how we behave. Let's have coaching. Let's have feedback. You can also have clients or customers who behave outside of the value set. Are they your people? And are you willing to say either you behave in these ways that are documented and are values, or you don't have to be here? You can go somewhere else, both customers as well as team members.

Skot Waldron (19:22.44)
I know some people though that will argue and they'll say, well, if I don't have any profit, then the people aren't going to have a job and we're not going to matter. Purpose of the company is not going to matter, right? If we don't have any profit. So, that's why we put a such a, such a big emphasis on that. And, reading Simon's book, the infinite game, I always talk about that, that point. It's like, well, what game are you playing right now then? Like.

Are you playing this finite game? Are you playing the infinite game? And what is the consequence of that game that you're playing? so talk to me about what you would say in correspondence to that person. That's like, we've, live and die by the quarter or financial numbers or what they are. We've got to make quota. We got to those KPIs profit, profit, profit. The people will, you know what? You don't like it. See ya, you know, kind of thing.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (20:11.832)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, so you're speaking really well and inviting in some of the concepts from Simon's book and game theory and game theory concepts. So one, that mindset is a short-term mindset. You might do well in the short term, but it's at the cost and the sacrifice of existing long-term.

And one of the points that Simon really eloquently makes in the infinite game is that there are two currencies in the infinite game, right? These games that may have mile markers, but no endpoint. There's no winner of business. There's no winner of life. There's no winner of relationships. And the currencies of those infinite games are resources. Yes, you need to have enough resources to get by and the will of the people. And when you make decisions where you not only

do well, but you do the right thing, you can actually increase the will of the people. And having folks feel connected to purpose or a cause and feel that that purpose or cause they can both contribute to, and they feel as though they are a part of it, it's done for them too, as well as be part of high-trusting, high-performing teams, the will of the people goes up. And what's interesting is that when you have will, you can actually

outperform better resource counterparts. And we've seen this time and time again, both in business as well in politics, know, geopolitics. I mean, you look at what's happening in the Ukraine right now, Russia has been hugely over-resourced, but Ukraine is fighting for their right to exist, right? And so there's been amazing will, even though they are arguably under-resourced.

Skot Waldron (22:01.31)
You go on to talk about leadership and this idea of what leadership is and, something you said you made a early, early on a mistake early on in your career. And this actually got me thinking a lot because I haven't really ever asked this question. And, I just go on assuming that I know what leadership is or that. Everybody just knows what leadership is. So I don't really ask them what they think leadership is. And then I don't know how to coach them or how to.

inspire them or how to help them and what they're trying to do. We're a little bit misaligned probably because we don't totally understand or aren't clear on that definition. Tell me, how that question has, I'm curious what people have said in response to that question. What, do people define as leadership?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (22:48.465)
In turn.

Well, so, I mean, look no further to the number of terms we use for leadership, right? There is servant leadership and courageous leadership and bold leadership and human leadership. I wasn't aware we were leading anything other than human beings. And there's visionary leadership. Like there's all these different approaches. I kind of want to see, can we, though I think it behooves certain communities or organizations

Skot Waldron (23:06.092)
Yeah, it's true.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (23:20.71)
to define what leadership looks like in their context really shouldn't be all that different. And so when I look at what is leadership, I think there's like a stew of human attributes, right? So all leaders care. They care for people. They care for their values. They care for their purpose. All leaders exude and do the work to exude empathy and compassion. Leaders are authentic.

which means you know who they are based on their behavior and they consistently are who they are. One of the myths with leadership is that leaders are charismatic and warm and extroverted. BS. BS. My best leader ever was consistently cold and grumpy. She had a good sense of humor, but like she was salty. She was hard, but that was authentically who she was. If she tried to be warm and charismatic all the time, she would burn out. She'd be exhausted.

but that was who she was authentically mixed with care. She had my back. She showed up to help me grow. I never had that doubt ever, but she wasn't authentically warm or charismatic. She was authentically cold and grumpy. I think all leaders serve. So the fact that we have this term servant leadership to me means that our modern definition and practice of leadership is broken because like hard stop, if you aren't serving,

people and a cause bigger than yourself, you aren't leading. You're likely to have selfish self-interest rather than a service orientation. Leaders are decisive. Leaders take accountability. When things go wrong, they take disproportionate responsibility. When things go right, they give disproportionate credit. All leaders, I think, have humility, a real honest look at where are they strong and where could they get better. Leaders display courage. Leaders display vulnerability.

To me, leadership is a set of behaviors not done in a uniform way, done in a dynamic and an authentic way to oneself. But like to me, that's the stew. It's like the attribute stew of how a leader shows up and behaves.

Skot Waldron (25:32.494)
How often do you meet those people?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (25:36.118)
not as often as I'd like. not as often as I'd like, which gives us good job security, Scott. yeah, I mean,

Skot Waldron (25:44.78)
Yeah, that's about to say. I told my wife, she's a dental hygienist and she gets mad when people don't floss their teeth. She's like, I can't believe I was like, if they floss their teeth all the time, you wouldn't have a job.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (25:55.314)
Yeah. Well, maybe not. You know, she would have less of a job perhaps, but you know, stuff still happens. But yeah, I mean, I, I, I mean, a couple of things. One leader, those who are in positions of authority who don't prescribe to the way that I'm defining leadership, they tend to be allergic to me anyway. So maybe they'll challenge me a little bit. Maybe I'll engage with them a bit, but they tend to.

Skot Waldron (26:00.79)
Last of the job, last of the job. The year.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (26:23.974)
leave the room or shut down. I am fortunate that a lot of the leaders, I sort of hang out with, I would say two camps of leaders. One is a set of leaders who get it and they're students of leadership and they're humble and they're wonderful and they don't think they're amazing leaders, which makes them amazing leaders. And then there's another camp of folks who think they're better than they are. And

care about this stuff, but lack a little bit of self-awareness and a little bit, lack a little bit of humility and vulnerability to actually go check out how they're doing with the people that matter most, who are the people that they're leading. And so I'm always weary of, of folks, whether they're informal roles of leadership or just are fans of leadership. I'm always weary when they, when they say, I love this stuff.

It's really important to me, you know, I'm a great leader. Anytime someone says I'm a great leader, I'm a great parent, I'm such a good listener, I'm such a great friend, like feel free to take a couple steps back. Because we don't get to decide these things, right? It's far more meaningful if someone else describes us that way. There are few things in life that are far more meaningless if we claim them and far more meaningful if others bestow them upon us.

Skot Waldron (27:49.516)
Well said. Can you give me an example of, so these types of leaders create cultures, these speak up cultures that we're talking about. Can you give me an example? I want to hear like the opposite. Can you give me an example of leaders that aren't this way that don't create culture, speak up cultures and what the impact has been versus speak up cultures, healthy speak up cultures that create a positive impact.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (27:58.919)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (28:18.746)
Yeah. So first and foremost, mean, definitions are in order. What is a speak of culture? So I, and we've talked a bit about it with, with the two by two, is it safe? it worth it? The way I define a speak of culture is it's an environment in which folks feel that it's both safe and worth it to speak up and share ideas, even if they're half baked feedback to help one another grow, share concerns, smoke before it becomes fire, disagree, admit mistake. I think one of my favorite examples of the contrast between,

a team and an organization that didn't have a speak of culture to one that did is the transformation of Ford Motor Company under Alan Mullally. And it's a well-documented story and not the only one who's shared this story, but from the lens of culture and a speak of culture, it's so powerful. So the previous leader before Mullally was part of the Ford family and had a bit of a tyrannic reputation. The company was performing really poorly, the quality of their products, sales, like

They were teetering toward bankruptcy. And that leader cultivated the type of culture that if you spoke up with bad news, all of a sudden you were the problem and you just weren't at the next team meeting. And this is at like the highest level of the organization. Kind of like being at a boardroom table with Dr. Evil. Like if you said the wrong thing, a red button would be pushed. You'd be dropped into the depths of Mordor. I'm now thinking of Will Ferrell in this characterization.

of the character Mustafa in Austin Powers. But that's kind of what it was like. So you condition the highest level of leaders on this executive team, just zip it. It's better for all of us and you to practice a culture of silence as opposed to a true speak of culture. Malali comes in. He actually came from Boeing commercial back when it was a little bit healthier.

He comes in and his opening press conference, he's asked what type of car he drives, and he says, Alexis, because it's the best car on the road, as if to create a rally and cry internally to his team, make me a car that I'm proud to actually drive, because the Ford Taurus or Fusion or whatever they were making at the time wasn't doing it for him. And he did what any of us would do. He would have executive team meetings. They would do green, yellow, red project status. And though the balance sheet

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (30:46.052)
was awful and unhealthy. Everyone was just reporting everything's hunky dory. Everything's good boss, no issues here. And after a few weeks of this charade, he said, either your people are lying to you, you're lying to yourselves, or you're lying to me. We need to quote, embrace more truth telling in this organization. If we're going to actually write this ship, what's going on? And someone, this guy Mark fields who ended up becoming Malali's successor.

raises his hand and says, I got an issue. And Malali literally stood up, gave him a standing ovation. Thank you, Mark. Who can help Mark? Someone else raised their hand. I can help you with that. And a new precedent was set, right? This is how we behave. They weren't punished. And in fact, instead of Mark being dismissed, he was promoted informally. His chair was moved to sit next to Malali at the next team meeting. So that's how you go from discouraging and

punishing folks from speaking up to encouraging and rewarding folks for speaking up, especially with bad news or hard things to hear.

Skot Waldron (31:56.05)
So that's an important part that you just mentioned. That was the reward of the behavior. Because we, as human beings, we continue to do things that we feel rewarded by doing, right? So whether it's a monetary reward or an emotional reward or a relational reward or whatever, we recognize that, that was a good thing I just did because good things happen as a result. Bad things happen as a result of that. I'm not going to do that anymore.

so reinforcing the behavior through reward or encouragement. Talk about that for a second. Cause you hit that on that in the book. said encouraging and rewarding people for speaking up are the key. how, what, how do we do that in different environments? Is it, I give you, you know, an Amazon gift card every time you bring an idea to the table, or is it.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (32:24.69)
Totally.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (32:37.681)
Yes.

Skot Waldron (32:50.015)
I bring your chair closer to mine at the board, the next board meeting. Like, I don't know. What is it?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (32:54.844)
So there's a brilliant book on the effective uses of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and motivation called Prime to Perform by Lindsey MacGregor and Neil Doshi. So extrinsic rewards like money works with simple tasks, right? Put more shoes in box. If you put more shoes in box and maintain quality, I'll give you more money. That works. But when it comes to this stuff,

Intrinsic rewards play purpose, acknowledgement. These tend to be more powerful. So the encourage and reward cycle as it relates to a speak up culture, encourage means people are led to believe that them speaking up is worth it. It's safe enough and worth it. But when they do speak up and share an idea, feedback, concern, disagreement, and a mistake, are they actually rewarded?

I more so mean. So extrinsic rewards like pay raise, bonus promotion, those will happen in time, but the immediate reward is more intrinsic. Thank you, Scott. That must have taken courage. I don't yet completely see what you're pointing out. Can you share how you got to that conclusion? I just challenged you and rewarded you at the same time, giving you more air time. We didn't implement these ideas from the team. Great ideas, though. Keep them coming.

Here's why we didn't implement these ideas. By the way, who has ideas of how we can overcome these obstacles? That's still rewarding people and sharing that you're submitting ideas, you're speaking up, it's still being heard and being considered. So it's those two things, encourage and reward. My favorite example of encourage comes from Ben Berman, who's a retired pilot and an aviation expert. He worked, I think, almost 24 years as a pilot with United.

By the end of his career, he had four stripes on his arm. He was the most senior pilot. And he would say to his flight crew every single time, I've never flown a perfect flight and today is no exception. I need to know what you see. That's the encourage piece. But if someone then chimes in and speaks up and says, we haven't de-iced and I see ice on the wing. If the captain goes, shut up, that's not gonna work. You've done encouraged, but not the reward, right? The reward piece is thank you.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (35:21.06)
You're right. Let's do it. Sheesh. Like what would I do without you? Appreciate it.

Skot Waldron (35:26.414)
Yeah, I've heard, a lot of the, door is always open type leaders, it passive leadership, accidental type leader, reactive leadership. but then when people actually do walk in the door, they say, I'm too busy right now, or no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that right now or whatever. And then you're again, teaching that. You know, I don't value.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (35:31.346)
Passive, yeah.

Skot Waldron (35:53.218)
that really, said I did, but my actions are saying that, right? It's the whole walk the talk thing that we, that we talk about often. but I just want us to be aware as leaders, like what are, message are we portraying? What brand are we portraying or what do we w what are we building? Right? What's the reputation we're building out into the world of brand reputation of I am the type of leader who does this. I'm the type of leader who says that.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (36:09.212)
Yeah.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (36:16.444)
Yeah. Well, so my door is always open. mean, A, it shouldn't be because sometimes your door should be closed for certain meetings or to get work done. As well for folks who don't work in a traditional office or for folks who work in a remote or a hybrid setting, where did all the office doors go anyway? Right. So my door is always open is passive and it's actually inappropriate because there should be boundaries of time when your door isn't open. I think it's better

to close the door, to open the door when you do invite informal conversation, and then to actively go out of your office and roam the halls, whether virtually or physically, and check in on people. I just heard a great story yesterday from, I was speaking at a hospital association conference, and someone said, every week, our CEO, I think it's every Friday or something, but there's a consistent time, even multiple times a week, to accommodate for folks who are on different shifts.

where the hospital CEO just roams the halls, checks in on people, how are you doing, anything you need. And there's someone who builds a list because they know what's coming and they actually have valuable conversation with the hospital CEO as they roam the halls. And it's appropriate in that setting. was a smaller rural hospital. Like it made sense, but it was great and it was predictable and it was consistent and it actually went some.

Skot Waldron (37:41.774)
I love that, man. Thank you for challenging the, the status quo of leadership. You know, I think that when we need people like you and phrases like this to help us think, because I think we get passive in our own things of what we expect leaders to be and you and people like Simon and other leaders that I've talked to or thought leaders in the space of thought leader. just called you a thought leader. like that?

Are all about this idea of like, let's challenge that. Let's challenge the thinking on what leadership is and how do we define that and what a speak up culture is. mean, the idea of psychological safety is not a new one. and your book is all about psychological safety, but I think your approach is what causes us to think, which is, super smart, which I'm great.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (38:24.786)
No.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (38:35.804)
Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a fan of the term thought leadership. Like I'm leading with my thought right now. You know, if we lead with thought, but successfully don't do anything to adopt those thoughts or put them into our actions, that's called hallucination. Like bravo, you're thinking differently, but you're not behaving differently. So we on our team, we like to call it action leadership, which is how can we equip people with thoughts and concepts and ideas?

but also practical applicable things they can try on and do to make an immediate measurable difference in the effectiveness of their leadership every single day that don't need to be these huge overhauls, like little things like track the conversations you have that are finished versus complete, right? We all have finished conversations or we got to rush to the next meeting or pick up the kids or whatever it might be. And we haven't completed a conversation.

I just had one before we hopped on for this podcast. That's why I was little flustered because I came off of a finished conversation, but I had another commitment, didn't want to be late, right? And so I said, this is finished. Let's complete on this later today. We have more time. And it sort of suspends it, you know, not the perfect, but it's better than, well, our meeting's done. No, like there's unfinished business. Let's complete on it. So yeah, that's a.

action leadership over thought leadership.

Skot Waldron (40:01.454)
I'll often ask when, when an event planner is hiring me to speak at an event, I'll always say, do you want application or do you want inspiration? Like where, where are you on that thing right now? And if you want a hundred percent inspiration, I'm not your guy. Now, you know, like I am not going to stand up and cause everybody to cry and, know, hold their hand over their chest and stand and like, that's not me. Okay. cause I believe that through application comes the transformation piece.

And that's generally what we all seek in life. Anyway, whether we're leaders or anybody else, think there's an aspect of that we need to pay attention to. Chad, thanks for being here, man. Thank you for, knew that I knew this was going to be good. I knew that you were going to bring it. if people want to find out, more about you, how to get ahold of you, speaking at events, come and do workshops, copies of your book, whatever. is it?

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (40:35.014)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (40:48.86)
Thank you.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (41:00.53)
All roads lead to shedinspires.com, S-H-E-D, inspires.com. You can get all the things there. I'm most active on LinkedIn at the moment, and I'm the only, I think, in the entire eight plus billion human race species, I think I'm the only Steven Shedletsky. So all you handfuls of Shedletskys out there, please be mindful of how you name your children. But if you Google me, you will find me and go to all the right places.

Skot Waldron (41:28.136)
If you can figure out how to spell Shedletsky, then they will definitely.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (41:31.218)
Even if you misspell it, Google will probably, did you mean, yeah, yeah.

Skot Waldron (41:34.796)
It'll probably cover it. Yeah. Because there's only one. Did you mean this one? It's like, yeah, I meant that one. So, all right, man. Well, thanks for being on. I really appreciate you.

Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky (41:39.846)
Yeah, yeah.

Thanks, Scott, joy, I hope this is valuable for your listeners, a treat to join you.