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Episode Overview:
In this podcast episode, Andrew Freedman, a culture and retention expert with years of experience in the field, joins Skot Waldron to discuss unlocking retention through understanding people. They delve into the three key components of retention: behavior, mindset, and emotion. Andrew shares his insights on using data to identify patterns and improve retention, as well as how companies can tap into the goals and aspirations of their customers or employees to create a sense of purpose.
The conversation then explores the emotional component of retention, with Andrew emphasizing the importance of creating a positive emotional connection with customers or employees. Throughout the episode, Andrew shares examples of companies that have successfully implemented these strategies to improve retention, making this podcast episode a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand and improve their retention efforts.
Additional Resources:
Lead Without Blame. How do we create cultures, how do we be leaders that don't lead with blame and shame? As she says. Well, there's two main things they hit on in this book, motivators, and then also resiliency and how those things go into creating cultures that build people up and create this idea of intelligence and collaboration and other topics that we discuss in this interview. It's really, really good. She has a ton of experience in this space, and she has a lot of value to add. Pay attention, get your notepad out or just listen really closely because it's going to be awesome. Here we come, Tricia. Tricia, let's do this. You ready?
Tricia Broderick:
Yes.
Skot Waldron:
Okay. You got your workout in this morning. You look great.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I did, I did, I did.
SKOT WALDRON:
Ready to roll.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Benefits of being at home, I can quickly get online afterwards.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's right, that is right. Yeah. I was just like, oh my gosh, I got my kids on the bus and then I was like, "Oh man, I got to get on this interview." And my wife's trying to talk to me for sec. I was like, "Nope, got to go."
TRICIA BRODERICK:
"I could get two more minutes in. I can go."
SKOT WALDRON:
Uh-huh. Yep, that's what it is. Well, speaking of doing a million things at the same time, you are, at the time of this recording, about to launch your book. How you feeling?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
It's surreal. I even now physically have copies of it and I still feel like, is this really happening? It's crazy to me. Never did I have this as a goal, so I'm still like, wow, this happened. And I got to do it with Diana Larson. I'm just still in shock, I think.
SKOT WALDRON:
How did that happen?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I'm not sure when that will stop.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, tell me how that happened. How did it come up where all of a sudden... You do a lot of training, you do a lot of facilitation of workshops with leaders and teams and all these other... And then you're like, "Oh yeah, Diane Larson. Oh, let's write this book." How did that happen?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I feel very lucky. A publisher with Berrett-Koehler, Charlotte, had seen me speak at a conference. And she's like, "I want you to write something." And I'm like, "Look, I can speak for days, writing I'm not so sure you want me doing." And so it, blah, blah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And year after year, she came back, and she really just wouldn't give up on me.
And then I started having conversations with a few people like Mike Cone and Esther Derby with all my fears of why I don't know if I want to write a book. And they were so encouraging and helpful with negating some of my fears. But I still was like, "Nope, nope, nope," and, "I'll do it someday, I'll do it someday." And just continuing to kick that can right down the road.
And then Charlotte had reached out to me again and said, "How about now?" And this was just before COVID. And I said, "Well, I don't think I want to do it by myself." She goes, "I have somebody, maybe you know her, that also doesn't want to write by themselves." And I was like, "Well, who?" And she said, "Diana Larson." I'm like, "Well, okay then."
And Diana and I had known each other for years and whatnot, so we got together and went, "Do we have anything in... What would you be looking to share? And what would I be looking? Is there synergy there? Is there something there?" We did a couple tests runs of topics and thoughts and where we were. And it quickly was pretty apparent that there was something there that we both, not just individually had to share, but that there was something there with a synergy that seemed powerful, so we went for it.
That's actually how it came about. It was truly co-writing, it was truly emergent. It was everything we talk about, at least in the Agile space. I feel very lucky that I had multiple people not give up on doing this, and then the just stars lined for this to come down.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is so cool. And then to actually come together and feel that synergy right off the bat, that's a gift. And that's really, really awesome. And that she didn't give up on you. And you said years, she was hunting you down for years?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yeah. Yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's pretty cool. What was so impactful during your talk that she was like... What were you talking about? What was the topic? Do you remember?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I honestly don't even know a number of them. I've done so many different ones. I think she goes attends the Agile Alliance Conference the most, but I'm not even sure where. Honestly, I don't even know which sessions. I always speak on leadership. I always have this storytelling approach. I pick my sessions on what can I say that others might not want to admit or not able to say yet? They're always very slightly embarrassing to me. But they're raw and they're vulnerable and they're honest. And in terms of challenges that people face, teams face, organizations face, and hopefully a little inspiring and motivating.
But I think it was the storytelling aspect of myself that really... because we very much incorporated a lot of stories in this book, so I'm going to guess that. But honestly, I don't know if I've even asked her. I don't know if I even wanted to know what was going to burst that bubble for me.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's cool. You're setting me up because now you're telling me that you're an amazing storyteller. No pressure, but I'm going to want to feel, I'm going to want a story out of you before this interview's over. I'm just going to give you time to think, because I know I didn't prep you for that. You've got them in there. I just want you to think about, as we talk about this, I want you to weave something in. Okay?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Okay.
SKOT WALDRON:
Weave something in.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Okay.
SKOT WALDRON:
All right.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
No pressure.
SKOT WALDRON:
No pressure, no pressure.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
That's like when the first keynote I ever had to do... Generally, my talks tend to be more motivational on things, but the minute you were like, "Be motivational," I had nothing, I had nothing.
SKOT WALDRON:
I know. It's like, "I'm really good at that." "Okay, do it now." And it's like, "Wait. Whoa, wait, you want me to do what?"
TRICIA BRODERICK:
It's probably how comedians feel. "Tell a joke right now."
SKOT WALDRON:
I know. We used to do that with my friend growing up. He was super funny, he was a super funny kid. And then kids would come up to him and go, "Hey, be funny. Do that funny thing you do." And he's like, "What are you talk... I don't know." You freeze. Well, first of all, your book is called Lead Without Blame. We haven't mentioned that yet. Lead Without Blame. You and Diane-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I know, I'm sure a great marketer.
SKOT WALDRON:
I know. Well done. I did it for you, I did it for you. But-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I feel bad for Diane. I'm trying, Diane, I'm trying.
SKOT WALDRON:
I try. She's trying, Diane. And by the way, it's on Amazon. I'll just go ahead and get that out for you too. If you're listening to this after it launches, it's on Amazon, so you can go there and pre-order as well, right?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yeah. Sorry, I muted just a quick second. My dog was going ballistic for a second.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love dogs. Dogs and kids, they're awesome.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Of course. We rescued a second dog during COVID, which really wasn't a great idea because then they just feed off each other and bark even more. Wasn't a great idea. Rescuing good, yeah. Second dog.
SKOT WALDRON:
Second dog.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
But yes, it is on preorder, but it's officially available I think the 27th.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay, cool.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
It's like less than a week, man, less than a week.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, by the time this gets out, it'll already be out.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Correct. Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
There you go, there you go. All right, so you talk-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
And it's on Amazon, Berrett-Koehler, Target, a number of different... Barnes and Noble sites.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay, cool, cool. I'm going to come back to the book a little bit, but your topic is interesting to me because you talk about Agile, but then you talk about leadership too. Where's your background really stem from? And where do you focus? And how do you marry those two? What's your formula?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
It's interesting. I like to say I got lucky because I actually started using what is now called an Agile framework, extreme programming in 1999, pre the manifesto, pre Agile, or what the community of Agile is known at the time. And then I fast forward, still didn't know anything about Agile or anything. And then in 2005, I started using Scrum still not knowing anything about Agile, but we started using Scrum on a huge government project. I learned all the ways to fake Scrum in 2005. I was a pro at it. But I started getting very involved in the Agile community around 2007. And I stayed consistently involved in the community.
And for a lot of people, Agile was software, Agile was processed or methodology and these kinds of things. But it never was for me. For me, right almost instantly I ended up realizing how bad of a leader I was. Sure, I had good parts and things like that, and generally I made good relationships with people, but I think my relationships and my personality compensated for the horrible micromanager I was. And with good intent, not maliciously, but my need for control, my need to deliver, my reputation that I had built on those things didn't make me a very good leader for people who have to discover value in what we call knowledge workers.
And so instantly for me, the Agile community level up my leadership. And that's really what it has been for a very long time is continuing to think about how am I better leader? How do I facilitate? How do I coach? How do I train? How do I speak and be impactful? And how do I not be what I call the hub? The person that makes sure everything gets done and doesn't scale, doesn't really share ownership with the team, doesn't really create an environment where you get the best results in discovering value.
And so for me, Agile and leadership, it's not different. Agile space for me is about growth, it's about learning, it's about exploring to discover what works, what's valuable, what's going to make a difference. And so I don't honestly care what framework you use, what practices you do, if you do it and what parts of the thing, I care about that essence. And so a lot of times, I will call myself a... Well, I do call myself a leadership advisor. And I use a lot of the Agile concepts and practices and frameworks to support the type of leadership that I want to see more in this world because for me, it's not just software, it's not just a technique, it is truly an approach, and one that has completely leveled up my ability to help others, my ability to create spaces of where people can really collaborate and build together and discover together. And so for me, it's just together. It's all things that are part of that world for me.
SKOT WALDRON:
Do you talk about, and I'm going to throw this term out there, Agile leadership? Does that make sense? Do you use that term? Do other people use that term? Is it out there? And-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
People do. And I do. I co-teach with a colleague of mine, Jake Calabrese, and we teach a class called Leading Amazing Teams. But it has a certification under Agile leadership. But for us, a lot of times Agile leadership, it should just be leadership. Whether you're doing Agile or you're not doing Agile, it's the leadership that we need to be going towards. But for me, it very much incorporates a lot of the Agile principles and values and things along those lines. I have used the term. I don't as much anymore personally. It's why I don't call myself an Agile leadership advisor because I do think there's a little bit of a box people put you in with the Agile part versus using that to reinforce, ultimately what you're trying to do is create successful results.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. And I guess I was thinking of not necessarily putting you in... And this is where my brain goes, big picture kind of thinking. And it's not necessarily putting you as far as being a leader in the Agile space, but what would the concept of Agile leadership mean? Anybody could be an Agile leader, whether you're running a snow cone factory or whether you run a tech company. I would guess I was thinking around those realms.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I just don't have the need to put the Agile label on top of that. For me, that just should be leadership. I get that it's different than maybe what some people experience as leadership today, but sometimes I feel like putting a label on the front of it to get people to... I didn't need a label in front of it to realize my leadership was poor and I needed to evolve it, right?
SKOT WALDRON:
100%, yeah.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
And so I'm careful about putting that label on it to imply that it's something new. No, it should have been there all along, and we just weren't doing it very well. Or we weren't being taught, we were leading the way others led us. And so just taking away at that and chipping away at that and getting to a place where leaders going forward really are creating spaces and environments where people can be more than what they even are today.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. When you're writing this book, you talk about this blame and shame leadership style, blame and shame. Tell me about that. Why is that so central? Because that's a central concept to this book. And why'd you pick that? You and Diane are getting together, you're talking, you're sharing ideas about, "Hey, what do I bring? What do you bring?" And then you're like, "Let's talk about blame. That's it." And then you're like, "Blame and shame, blame and shame." What is that?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Here's the thing. I don't think I've ever sat in a senior leadership meeting where people went, "How do we make everybody miserable today?" That's never been a discussion I have ever been a part of. Maybe it exists, but I have never sat in a room where people are like, "Who and how can we make people miserable today?" And yet there are so many things in organizations that, even with some good intent, lead to blaming and shaming behaviors and impacts, whether it's a postmortem, the after death meeting... Literally, we're calling meetings after death and then wondering why people are gearing up with their fingers ready to point. Where we say phrases like, "Who's the single throat to choke?" And we say these kind of phrases in the workplace.
And if you peel it back and you go, "Okay, what's the good intent?" Well, the good intent is people are trying to hold others accountable, the good intent is they're trying to make sure we're making progress, the good intent is that we want to learn from our mistakes and not make them again. But there's a lot of myths associated to a lot of those stances that ultimately lead to blaming and shaming in an organization that causes the very opposite of what your ultimate goal is. If your ultimate goal is getting results and satisfying customers, blaming and shaming, and regardless if that's really you're setting out trying to do, the result of that, the impact of that is actually countering people's creativity and innovation and engagement. Period.
And so we wanted to tackle it from a place of not going why I'm going, "You are blaming people," we wanted to tackle it from a place of, "When you do this, this is what results. When you walk in and you focus more on how to make sure we never make a mistake again, you prevent experimentation, you limit people's willingness to be and try something new," because they're going to get hammered if they make a mistake that you... They're going to get penalized for, their performance review is going to be knocked. And so if you're sending these messages that perfection is what is expected, not learning, and yet you're in an environment where you have to discover value, where you need learning, then all you've done is created an environment where you will not succeed, where you will not get the outcomes you're looking for.
And so we really came at it from a place of, "Oh my gosh, I'm doing that. I didn't realize it." And how I felt when I started this journey a little bit. I need to go apologize to a few people today because I didn't understand.
And I'll give you an example, and one I've talked about before is I had a team that had to mark up a document and we had to deliver this document. If we deliver this document, it had so many defects, we'd get an actual financial penalty. As a leader, we often feel that extra stress and that accountability. I got to make sure this is good; there's a financial responsibility. I would take this document... When I say document, I'm talking, it's a thick, double sided document. I would take it home with me and I'd mark up every single mistake. And this is the days we were doing scrum, but we were so not doing scrum. We had a huge detailed specification design document. And so it was like, here's the mocked up screen view of it and then the use case below it. 2005. And if the screen said save on the button, but the wording below said submit, I would mark it up with my red pen and I would highlight it and do it.
And I would take all these [inaudible 00:20:27], I'd spend the whole weekend marking it up, take it back to the team, they would fix it, and then the next document came. And I took it home, and I'm realizing that there's even more mistakes, there's even more errors. And I am livid. I'm going back in, and I'm like, "What is this?" And I will never forget. I will own it. I expected... I wasn't intentionally shaming, but I was like, "Come on, your reaction to me being upset about this should be, "Oh, I'm so sorry. We will do better."" That was in my head at that time what I was expecting as a reaction. And instead, I'll never forget one of the subject matter experts turned and looked at me and goes, "We just got to get it close enough. We know you finding this kind of stuff." No, no, no, no. No more red pen Tricia. I am sorry, this is not happening anymore. I am not looking at the next one. And instantly, the minute I stopped, the quality of the document shot up because they had ownership of it.
And so I think that there's so many times that us as leaders, we're doing it with the right intent, but we don't realize our behavior, our engagement actually is stealing that ownership that's impacting whether or not we're getting those results. If you had asked me was I blaming or shaming them in those moments? No, I was trying to help. I didn't understand what that was really creating and what I should have been focusing on instead. And so that's an example of it. And so we wrote it with that perspective of, "Hey, leader, you're not a bad person, you're a good person. You want the right things, just nobody maybe has ever highlighted how to better go about it."
SKOT WALDRON:
No red pen Tricia anymore.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
No, no, nope. I even wrote an apology post of," I'm sorry for the red pen." And-
SKOT WALDRON:
Wow. "We get it this far because we know you like..." What was it? "We get it this far because we know you like to do that"?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Wow.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
That's how you're adding value. It wasn't malicious, it wasn't mean, it wasn't disrespectful, it was, "We're stressed. And we're like, you're doing it so all we know is we got to get it close enough." And I'm like, "No."
SKOT WALDRON:
Well yeah, here's the mentality. And it goes into they know you're going to do that anyway, so they're probably like, "Why do I even bother trying to make it perfect? Tricia's just going to mark it up."
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I've got these 20 other things to do. Right?
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
They were loaded with a ton of work as well, so it wasn't that. I think that's the hard part is people hear the words blame and shame and they think people are being maliciously evil or manipulative. And the reality is it doesn't take much to have that feeling and that sense in an organization, which is going to shut down creativity, collaboration, engagement.
Skot Waldron:
Yeah, for sure. There's two main sections of your book. Correct me if I'm wrong. You about motivators and you talk about resiliency.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yes.
Skot Waldron:
Is that correct?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yes. Well, it was interesting, we really started the focus of the book when Diane and I were writing it was on the second part, the resiliency factors and what it means. Because when we were coming at it initially... Like I said, this truly emerged. When we were coming at it, we were thinking how come so many teams that felt like they were performing the minute COVID hit just dramatically went right back to working as groups? Where they were doing handoffs. And they stopped building their co-intelligence, they stopped building and collaborating together. They were like, "You do this part, you do this part." And all of a sudden, the results started diminishing and just not good. And so we're like, "What things were leaders not focused on that didn't help the team deal with chaos and stay resilient in their learning and working collaboratively together?"
We really focused a lot on the part two. And I think for most Agileists who have been in that community for a long time, it's going to be part two that's going to be the, okay, this is where I got to go. But as we were doing part two, it didn't feel right because we're like, "It seems like it's a huge jump to get to these topics when we haven't talked about the essential motivators that you need to even get them to a place where they're willing to collaborate." And so we ended up going back and adding in part one where we really talk, about as a leader, it isn't walking around trying to fix everything with a red pen, it's what has to be true in the environment for that team to start coming together, to start wanting to collaborate? Once you got a team working as a team, now you can take them to that next level and thinking about the resilience with these other factors.
Part one is going to be a lot for maybe people who have no exposure to a lot of the Agile principles and concepts and have had more of a traditional leadership training and expectations. We've heard from a lot of people that... Because we went across the spectrum with people reviewing this, and they're always like, "I haven't even gotten to part two." And then a lot of Agileists are like, "It was part two that really, oh my gosh, I never thought to work on that." That's ended up being how we ended up creating two parts to the book with it is we realized it seemed too big of a jump for non-Agile people jumping into the resilience factors.
Skot Waldron:
In that first section of the motivators part, you talk about purpose, autonomy, and co-intelligence. Explain those, unpack those for us, those words. Those aren't normal, everyday words we throw around all the time, so what are you talking about when you talk about those?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
A lot of people are familiar with... And it's built off of existing work. And I want to make sure we acknowledge that because there's... Daniel Pink has drive out there that was purpose, mastering, autonomy for knowledge, cognitive-based skill workers. David Marque created, I think it's competence, control and clarity. All very similar, similar concepts.
And initially, we were going to just highlight those as these are the essential motivators that you need to have. But as Diana and I were writing and talking, we realized that mastery and competence from the initial works, there was something not quite right there when we were talking about teams. And so if we start focusing as leaders of just making sure everybody's building their mastery and their competence, it can actually lead to more individual, group-like behaviors. "Well, I'm an expert, I'm skilled, I'm growing." And yet we always say things like, "The best results are from the wisdom of the crowd. The best results are from collaboration." And so we really wanted to put more of an emphasis still on the learning, still on the capabilities, but we leveled it up for teams into co-intelligence.
And co-intelligence is where you bring a set of mastery and competence, I bring a set of mastery and competence, and together we have some integrated elements. We can cover more spectrum. But actually together, when we start collaborating, we unlock a whole new set of potential that our combination creates also. It's not just like, "Hey, you're knowledgeable in this area and I'm knowledgeable in this area, so now we're knowledgeable in two areas." No, we have a third possibility that is new and different and innovative potentially all in itself. In a lot of ways, it's exactly how the book formed; Diana's experiences, my experiences, and then together our co-intelligence unlocked so much more from our collaboration in terms of, "And then this idea." And, "Oh, I never thought about how that applied." And as a result, we found new insights and things that neither one of us independently could have ever done by ourselves. It was that co-intelligence coming together.
And so when we are thinking about it in terms of building teams, it didn't feel enough to just say, mastery or competence. We took it up and going, "You really want to emphasize the co-intelligence because that's when you're tapping into that wisdom of the crowd and really building that shared ownership in terms of what can you discover together, not just individually?"
Skot Waldron:
Wow. You took the principle and you lived it writing the book, the co-intelligence idea.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yes, 100%.
Skot Waldron:
I love that.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
We had a shared, meaningful purpose, we had autonomy and working together in terms of what her needs were, what my needs were in terms of safety and being able to share information and how we were going to do this together. And then we built co-intelligence as we were going forward. 100%.
Skot Waldron:
Before we jump onto the second part, how does that principle help us lead without blame?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
And I'll break it with each one of them specifically. When you have a shared, meaningful purpose, people understand more of the context of why they're doing it. They're more invested, they're more engaged. That feeling and that pressure a lot of times for leaders of you have the context of what's happening and why it's happening so it's easier for you to make decisions, well, when you open that up and you're giving that purpose and that shared, meaningful things, people are more engaged, they're more understanding of why they're doing it, and they're making now better decisions with it. That need to walk around and control or that need starts to diminish.
Autonomy. A lot of people think of autonomy and they do stupid things like this: "You're empowered, and then they just walk away. That just makes people feel like a bus got aimed at them. And so with autonomy, it's building two-way trust. It's helping people realize what decisions they can make, what decisions do you still want to put some guardrails in as a leader so that you don't come in and just do the veto that feels like shaming, that feels like you're blaming them for making the wrong choices? You're really building up some clear understanding of what they have control over in a two-way mechanism that avoids some of that blame and shame.
And then with co-intelligence, here's the interesting thing. Any time I've watched people truly start collaborating, building their co intelligence, I have watched and experienced myself as a leader and went, "Oh, there's so much better than me." Oh my gosh, there's so much [inaudible 00:31:34].
Skot Waldron:
I've never experienced that ever, Tricia. I'm pretty much the best at everything I do, so it's pretty hard. I'm just kidding.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I remember one of my teams came up with this whole initiative, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, that is so much better than I would've thought of myself." And when you get that reaction, your trust level increases to where you're focus now more is not on making sure everything's right, it's how do you keep lifting up? And so those needs, those behaviors start diminishing with that too.
Skot Waldron:
That's brilliant. I love it, love it. Okay, so let's move on to that second part. You talk about inclusive collaboration. Well, this is with resilience. Under the bucket of resilience, we talk about-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
You have them collaborating, but you're still the hub, or it's just not strong yet. And so these are the next level things that you need to be focusing on to help level that team up again.
Skot Waldron:
Cool. Inclusive collaboration, transparent power dynamics, collaborative learning, and embracing conflict is the topics you hit on in this section. Package those up for me. You don't have to go through each one necessarily, but those things, how did those help us build resilience and then be able to lead without blame?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yeah. And there are a lot of other... And I want to be clear. People are like, "Well, she doesn't talk about strategy or anything." Well, look, most people know that they need to do strategy. We ended up to really talking about what are the things that people avoid? Conflict. What are the things that people ignore? Inclusivity. What are the things that tend to be a little bit more hidden or not acknowledged as much that are really going to wreak havoc the minute chaos is ensuing? And so we centered around these four as that. Honestly, we could probably do a whole nother secondary book of other ones, but these were the top ones that we came back that we felt like when we watched teams disintegrate or the blaming and shaming start really ratcheting up again, it was some element of one of these four that was creating some of the problems.
When we talk about collaborative connection, people experienced this in COVID a lot. They didn't feel the relationships anymore. You weren't just saying, "Hey, how are you?" It was get on the Zoom, have the meeting, get off Zoom. And the problem is it gets really easy if you're not paying attention to the connection that's there. Well, then it gets really hard to keep collaborating, it gets really hard to...
I will own I have gotten an email request from somebody that I wasn't as... I had not talked to in a while, and I was mentally, visually drawing horns on that person's head because I was like, "How dare they ask me this. And how dare they..." And when you don't take time to tune the connection, the relationships within the team, it gets easy to start writing narratives. Oh, they're trying to make me look bad. They think they're out for themselves. And our brains are magical, creative, endless narratives that, when we don't have other experiences or interactions, those narratives will take over. And they're not always in a positive way, which can lead to that blaming, shaming, not just from leadership but from with each other as well, or yourself.
Then we went, okay, so if they're paying attention to building their relationships, are they really being inclusive about it? And I grew up with the expectation there were taboo topics in the workplace, and one of those was talking about diversity and equity, inclusion and certain topics. And I went right along with it. I was like, "No, we don't talk about that." What I didn't understand, even though I was experiencing it myself on certain intersectionality levels, was I can't be my full creative, innovative self if I don't feel a sense of belonging. And at the end of the day when we do not recognize a whole person, when we do not create not just space at the table but actually space to engage, to feel heard, to be seen, to participate and collaborate, I might have been really good at opening doors, but I had this like, oh, we're Agile, we all just collaborate. Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry to so many people that I probably left hanging because I didn't understand that we were not necessarily in creating that truly inclusive environment.
And so we really tackle it. We actually brought in Jamar Nova Mitchell as a DEI contributor and an editor in our book to, one, look at the entire book, but also to help us write this chapter and to help us engage with how do we stop making these topics taboo in the workplace and really lean into creating an inclusive environment?
Skot Waldron:
Wow. Another example, co-intelligence, collaboration, right?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Yep. 100%.
Skot Waldron:
So good. Well done. Really cool. I told you I was going to want a story out of you. You gave me one earlier, so you're off the hook.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Safe right now.
Skot Waldron:
Do you have another story? Do you have a story you're like just, I can't wait to tell the story when Skot asked me about telling a story?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I didn't think of a story. I don't even remember which stories I told already. No. Well, I'll highlight it off the last two with conflict and power. I think there are so many times that I personally, as a leader, tried to diminish like, "Oh, conflict, I like conflict, it's fine. I have no problems. I embrace conflict. And power, I'm just one of the team."
And the problem is when you dismiss or invalidate the very reality of something, you actually create more problems for it. And I have experienced that over and over again. And I was like, "No, nobody sees me as powerful." And then everybody's creating this narrative of, "She's doing it for this. And she screwed me over. And I'm not getting this position." And then I'm hurt as a leader. But then I'm not supposed to be allowed to be hurt because I'm servant leader, I'm focused on everybody else, but I'm a person, I'm a human being.
And so I want to highlight a lot with these resilience factors is they're not just for the team, but I found while I worked on these resilience factors, they helped me as a leader find peace, they helped me as a leader to understand better why mixed messages were happening or why I was getting this judgment or why these assumptions were happening. And in doing that, I was able to let go of some of it to focus still more on what the ultimate goal always was, helping, helping yourself, but helping the team, helping the customers.
And so in a lot of ways, that's been the interesting experience for me in doing this book with Diana is it helped me to even understand a lot too of, oh, that's why. And it ended up building some of my own resilience, which I don't necessarily think that was the goal in any form or fashion, and yet I think sometimes, as leaders, we get so focused on helping everybody else, we forget to focus on helping ourselves too.
Skot Waldron:
Love it. Love it. And here at the end. I'm-
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Is the time already?
Skot Waldron:
Oh my gosh. I know. It's fun talking to me. I get it, Tricia, I get it. I'm just kidding. But I think that what you have here, is a very... You have some background experience that not a lot of people in this space have. I'm in this space with you, and I definitely don't have that experience that you have. Of course, I bring other experiences that I have. But your experience fits with that certain client that needs you right now. And so I think that if people want to hire you to come train them, come speak to them at an event, whatever you're doing, how do they get in touch with you? Obviously, the book is out there. We talked about that: Target, Barnes and Noble, wherever we get books, Amazon. It's going to be there, Lead Without Blame. But where do people get in touch with you?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
They can get in touch directly with me on my site, which is igniteii.com. Or we also, Diane and I have leadwithoutblame.com that has a contact form on there as well to reach out for myself and/or Diana too with it.
Skot Waldron:
Okay, brilliant. Okay, no pressure. Gosh, I keep putting you in pressure.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
[inaudible 00:40:36].
Skot Waldron:
I keep doing this. I'm sorry. It's because I know that you're capable. That's what it is. I have so much faith in you. Give me like a tweetable moment. I need something. I need a drop here at the end. It's like, be funny. I'm just kidding, Tricia. But it's like, do that thing you know that you do. What is something you want to leave everybody with? What's the idea that we're going to leave everybody with here?
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Okay. Well, see, you're adding the extra thing. You're not just saying, "Give me that final thought," you're make it tweetable. Now I'm in my head with that. Leadership is hard. The only way you fail is by not continuing to learn.
Skot Waldron:
There it is. I knew it. See? I knew you could do that. I knew it.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
I have no idea. And now meanwhile, my logical brain is trying to count how many words that... in characters that-
Skot Waldron:
Yeah, I know, I know. Here's the thing, we say tweetable moment, I don't care what platform you put it in. It doesn't matter. Thank you so much, Tricia. You've been awesome. I appreciate it. I know that I've gotten some stuff out of this. I'll sum it up for people in here in a bit. But thank you for adding your wisdom, for co-intelligencing with us and being awesome. Good job.
TRICIA BRODERICK:
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Skot Waldron:
Okay, those two main buckets that we talked about, motivators, we talk about resiliency. Under the motivators part, it's purpose autonomy, understanding why we do what we do. Are we all on the same page? Are we all believe that we're here for a reason and a purpose? And then co-intelligence we... I understand what I bring to the table, what you bring to the table, and how we bring those things together to create better teams that are healthier and that are moving everybody forward.
And then we talk about resiliency, inclusive collaboration, transparent power dynamics, collaborative learning, and embracing conflict. And those components are really, really essential to us understanding how do we build trust in one another? Because a lot of this, and she said it in here too in so many words, but this whole blaming culture comes because we don't trust each other ultimately. We don't trust each other. And that is a huge component that comes down to a foundational element of communication. If we learn to communicate better, communicate thoroughly, and understand ourselves, be more self-aware, we will build better trusting relationships that are going to also decrease that level of blame and shame inside of our cultures.
I really liked that idea that nobody sits in a meeting discussing how we're going to make everybody miserable today. But ultimately, we do that because we're accidental in our leadership and in the way we communicate, we're accidental. And that's what happens, and that's what destroys teams and destroys cultures inside of teams. Tricia, thank you. Good luck on the book launch and everything you're doing.
If y'all want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. I've got all my vlogs listed there, all these shows as well as some other insights for you. And if you'd like me to come speak at your event, you can find out more there as well. Find me on LinkedIn, connect with me there. Like, subscribe, comment on my YouTube channel, all the stuff, just do all the stuff, please. I would love it. I'd love to collaborate with you. Okay, thanks everybody, and I'll see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
