Unlocking How To Diagnose Motivation With Rob Lion

Skot Waldron (00:00.066)
Get pixelated, you get pixelated, it's still high res on your side, high res on my side.

If there's, if it glitches out for some reason, you have no idea what I said, then, you know, I can edit that afterwards. so that's not a problem. And I think that's it. Like technically, you know, just topic wise, like, I mean, just, just for the point of the show, like, how can I best serve you? Like, what's your, what's your deal right now? What are you doing?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (00:20.045)
Okay. We're helping organizations, helping groups, helping teams, and, we're having fun doing it and how to best help us. Part of it is just the fun of actually being with someone and having a curious conversation with someone. So, you know, outside of that, you know, I just appreciate this opportunity and been meeting with a lot of different podcast groups and things like that. So we, we try to do things, you know, we take, we take the kind of the practice of leadership and management, the science behind it.

Skot Waldron (00:42.766)
Yeah. I bet.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (00:59.105)
We really break it down into a simple or simplified process. So it's super tangible. And a lot of it is to help people, know, lot of trainings occur where they tell you what to do, but they don't fill in the gaps between what to do and then the outcome. And so what we do is we focus on that in between space. So why is Scott responding this way today versus a different day? How do we connect with him? How do we better understand maybe some of the needs he's experiencing right now so that we can

Skot Waldron (01:05.166)
Mm-hmm.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (01:29.571)
position him for success or provide the support he needs or or anticipate what he needs in the future and so it's creating a more agile and I think it's kind of it's definitely an overused term in certain aspects but a more agile leader without really having deep leadership expertise so that's what we do that's what we focus on.

Skot Waldron (01:30.99)
Mm-hmm.

Cool. are you pushing like you're speaking or y'all have any books or any programs you're doing right now?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (01:56.793)
no, I have not pushing anything. just, it's almost like share the good word, right? Like there's options out there, solutions out there, and, there's books in the pipeline and IP in the pipeline, but that's not what we're doing today.

Skot Waldron (02:09.091)
Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Yeah, man. Well, let's just have a good conversation. Um, so, um, yeah, was skimming around your, your website a little bit too. And, you know, I would be interested to talk a little bit about motivation. No, if we talk on that, I know you have like a framework tool model. Intrinsic versus extrinsic. just, I don't know, just curious. I'm all, I'm all on the topic right now. I'm reading this book primed to perform. I don't know if.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (02:15.276)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (02:41.23)
heard of that, um, that deals a lot with that, that idea of, you know, engagement and motivating your teams and whatever. So, I don't know, we can, we can hit on that if it, if it comes, comes down to it.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (02:41.335)
Okay. Yeah.

I think that's awesome. It's such a popular concept, right? Motivation and how we approach it is based off the science and very different than how organizations are trying to pitch motivation. And so I'd love to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (03:05.718)
Really?

Okay. All right. We'll, go down that road. I want to hit it. cause I don't think I've hit that topic too hard yet. So, all right, cool. Well, I'm just gonna, you know, well, we're already recording. So, you know, we go about 30 ish minutes, you know, and then let you get out and do your outdoorsy, whatever you do in Idaho stuff, you know? So.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (03:18.296)
Okay.

Yes. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (03:37.806)
Okay, super cool. You ready?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (03:40.471)
Yep, ready.

Skot Waldron (03:44.738)
What's up, Rob? It's good to see you, man.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (03:47.053)
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be with you today.

Skot Waldron (03:49.334)
Yeah, we're going to just have, you know what a real, just like good conversation on leadership and communication. Cause that's what I do. That's what you do. And you know what? Let's just, I'd say let's just get on here and, gripe you want to do? I'm just kidding. We're not going to do that. Nobody wants to hear that Rob. I know, I know. Well, Hey,

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (04:06.029)
Yeah. That's low hanging fruit right now.

Skot Waldron (04:17.486)
Tell us why we should listen to you in the first place. So there, you know, there's a lot of leadership people out there, you know, um, why you.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (04:25.549)
Why me? You know, I'm not positioning myself better than anyone else, but maybe a little bit different. We approach leadership through the recognition that you, as an industry professional, let's just use Scott as just a general example, you're trained and educated in your craft, but that might have nothing to do with leading effectively. And so  what we do, is we look for people that are like, hey, I'm good at what I do, but I need some assistance with navigating these people, this organization. I'm getting these charges from above and these strategies from above, but I don't know how to get my people to work or do what I need them to do. So what we believe is that your role as a leader is to create the conditions for people to be successful. And how we do that is we develop tools and systems to assist people to do that in a very kind basic way. The models are pretty simple. So they're not, you don't have to have a certain education or certain perspective to integrate them. They're meant to inform you, but then you use them to troubleshoot the situation. So whether that's a situation of motivation, engagement, troubleshooting performance within the organization or within individuals,

We kind of do the heavy education background work to present the model so that all you do is you learn how to use it. You integrate it into your practice. You do it at home because that's how we know that you're going to do it better in the workplace is kind of piloting and practicing at home. And then you run.

Skot Waldron (06:12.152)
How'd you even get into this? I mean, we all have different journeys that we go on, right? But, you know, how, do you step into this space?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (06:15.351)
Yeah, so I've always been curious about systems and strategy. And it seemed like a lot of our day-to-day stuff was very transactional, and in some instances, just addressing symptoms. And so as I experienced that more and more, even through undergrad, like I came out of undergrad thinking I wanted to be a president of a university, because I could see the system where it was kind of not functioning well, it was not fluid.

People were not thriving. And then over time, that ambition's kind of, it's been put on the back burner, but the desire to learn more about systems and processes and human behaviors has gotten stronger and stronger. And it's just kind of positioned me in a place where I feel so fortunate that I teach in a program, both graduate and undergraduate level, in the areas of leadership, change management.

Psychology of work, science behind motivation, psychological safety. And then I get to do that with folks in industry. And the crossover between the two is so awesome because I can bring those industry experiences and stories and even job opportunities back to my students in the classroom. And then in some instances, we bring projects from industry into the classroom. it's one of those things that you think about it.

You know, what did I set out to do in high school? Right? I'm nowhere near that. Like, in fact, I didn't even know what was after high school, essentially, right? I was not the least likely to succeed, but I was also not the most likely to succeed. So right in the middle of that bell curve. And so I just kind of found my own and started a couple of businesses, shut down some businesses, worked in economic development space as part of the university, help people grow businesses and organizations. So really broad and diversified experiences that I could then go in and work with the leader. Lots of people are into coaching. I'm much more into advising, the business advising aspect, that a lot of leaders are busy. They don't necessarily have the time for coaching when they're needing solutions. And so we work together to, are you working through right now? How can I help you? I call it the bat phone, text me, hey Rob, I need to have a difficult conversation with an employee. I don't know how to handle it.

Walk them through the process hear what their thoughts are give them some feedback tee them up get it get a Post-mortem on it, right like a little feedback on how that went and so I'm just having fun like it's super cool to be Unfortunate to be where I'm at right now. So

Skot Waldron (09:02.284)
Yeah, that's really cool, man. I liked, I like to hear that. And you were talking earlier about this gap, right? That, that, you know, you're finding with, with leadership and where they are. I don't know, like, I feel like it's been there forever. Do you know? And I could feel like it's going to continue to be there, you know, and it's.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (09:21.113)
Mm-hmm.

Skot Waldron (09:27.598)
So it's like this unique space that we get to fill is like connecting people in that gap and helping them bridge that.

So in your space, is that one of the big problems you're seeing is that there's this gap, this void, and they don't really realize it until they become a leader. And they're like, what? I didn't know I was supposed to be doing this too, you know?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (09:51.214)
Yeah.

Absolutely. A couple thoughts on that gap. Okay. So that gap is you're absolutely correct. According to me, I agree with you. And that's part of the reason why we're really struggling to get our hands around post COVID return to office mandates, stuff like that, because we didn't do the work way back when we didn't create the system. So that system is ready. So that system is primed to be agile and responsive to what might come in front of us. The other thing I think we're seeing as a, as a result of this, is this data we're seeing that younger generations in the workplace are no longer interested in management. And that's really too bad because to be a leader, to be a manager, I think it's a really extraordinary experience where you bring a lot of value or you have the possibility to bring a lot of value to people's work lives. And so I do see that, that gap, part of the reason why that gap exists is that, like you said, it's always existed.

And people are trying to do the best they can. That's what I believe. Good intentions. But in many instances, there's so many competing priorities and how do they navigate space and how do they lead? They lead in a manner that they learned about leadership, right? Right or wrong, good or bad. And so unfortunately, because their knowledge base and curiosity might be so limited in that space, when they bring in a new leader, they don't really know how to serve them and set them up to be successful. And so they're just kind of reaching. And like I said, it's not because anyone's trying to do anything wrong. It's just, it's different. Like why is it that we go to school, whether it's welding, marketing, surgeon, right? To learn all these technical skills and knowledge. And we value that and we screen for that in organizations. And then, and we look for evidence of that.

But when it comes to promotion or bringing in a leader, we're kind of soft on that, that, you know, we look for evidence of increasing experience, but how do we measure that? How do we determine fit according to what they experience in this organization versus where we are as a culture for this organization? So I think there's a lot of room in this space that you and I are existing in to help people because there's a lot of need for help, not to mention the volatility of the markets and the things that we're seeing around the world right now is, is going to call for more flexible, agile organizations. And we can play a significant role in that. Unfortunately, when we know, and we're seeing this right away, I had a call yesterday, we need to cancel our call for a strategy session because we're concerned about what's happening in the U S government and how that's going to affect our funding. So right off the bat, you know, clients are pulling back, but what we often see during these downturns, training gets nixed and reduced, but we can't do that with strategy and agility and culture. And we at some point have to decouple the two and really be purposeful in what we're shopping for because that is our future. Our ability to be nimble is what's going to keep us relevant as a business or even for the nonprofit space. There's so much noise and so much competition for similar dollars that that organization that's the most nimble that has the biggest capability is it's going to be more successful than their competitors.

Skot Waldron (13:24.59)
Yeah. Yeah, I can, I can see that for sure. Um, speaking, speaking of tools, you mentioned that you have a lot of different ones. Um, and, it's really cool. was like skimming all these, uh, before the call and you actually, mean, I have a, I have a lot of tools that I'll use as well. Um, within the, the giant ecosystem, which I'm a giant consultant and we do a lot of work in that space too. Um, but you've come up with some really cool like ideas on your own about different frameworks and different ideas behind people and process and place and engagement. And you have this one about motivation, this four factor motivation framework. Motivation is something that I am getting so much. So many conversations are revolved around engagement and motivation. And I think.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (14:08.195)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (14:20.086)
And I don't know if it's a COVID thing. I don't know if it's a generational thing. I don't know if it's a remote work thing. I don't know if it's like what it is. it's probably a combination of a lot of things. but I don't know. The motivation thing is, hitting hard. I think right now. So what's the word on the street on your side?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (14:37.689)
So, yeah, I think there's a lot of noise in the marketplace as it relates to motivation. And I always start these conversations with, look, your definition of motivation is likely different than my definition. Well, let's multiply that by our team of 20 now. So how do we have effective, efficient conversations of what motivation is and isn't so that we can actually leverage that and support our people with those areas of motivation?

So teach a class in motivation sciences, a whole bunch of different approaches out there. But when you're in this academic space, you really notice the gap between what's happening in the academy versus what's happening in the industry. And so the model is trying to build a bridge between those two things to make it a little bit more refined, stronger, more purposeful. So you mentioned the four factor motivation model. There's actually two different versions of that on the website.

There's the pyramid version, but then there's also a dashboard that looks like a speedometer with three fuel levels beside it. And that's one of our most popular tools as we talk about motivation. Because one of the things we need to do is we need to understand what it truly is and isn't. And what I do is I really try to protect what we're talking about as motivation. Because we see things thrown up constantly. What motivates you? Is it money? Is it praise?

And there's all these different assessments that really peak to these motivation concepts. But in my opinion, motivation is much more of a needs-based concept. And you think about Maslow's hierarchy, he has that pyramid. It's a level actually below his starting point that we look at to understand how do we position and help people. Because I think of it as kind of, there's junk food motivation and then there's kind of... science-backed motivation and And so I don't want to put anything down but you know if you feel that you're motivated by praise you look at the literature and There's literature that pulls that all apart that That isn't truly what's going on here That's that's what you think's going on, right? So The concept of I don't get paid enough for this. That's what you think's going on but it's actually a deeper motivational issue in some instances. So let me set this up for you. So what we follow is self-determination theories framework as it relates to motivation. Self-determination theory is a massive mega theory of several sub theories. And so what we know is that there's three pieces that contribute to optimal levels of intrinsic motivation. Right, I think we set people up.

Not to be unsuccessful, but when we ask someone in an interview, how do you motivate other people or what motivates you? It's a really typical, I mean, it's really tough topic to address, right? So because our common understanding in the marketplace is motivation is either intrinsic or extrinsic, right? One or the other. So now if I'm like Scott, how do you motivate a team? Well, for the most part, unless you're the ultimate boss,

You don't have a whole lot of strings to pull as it relates to extrinsic motivation, right? Like you don't necessarily have the ability to give pay raises more time off, bonuses, other sorts of incentives, right? So that takes that right off the table immediately for a leader. And then the other side of it is, so what is intrinsic motivation and how do you, how do you intrinsically motivate your people? And that that's such a, it's kind of a nebulous concept in some extent.

And most people have a tough time landing on it. So what we try to do is we try to operationalize this to some extent. So there's three factors that go into intrinsic motivation. The first one is competency. Do you have the competency to do this job? So what is competence? The ability to do the job successfully, consistently, right? The second factor is autonomy.

And so do you have the independence or agency over your work? Right? This is right where micromanagement comes in and it really gets to us. Right? What's the problem with micromanagement? The true problem with micromanagement is that if I'm competent, or let's say you're competent, Scott, you should have autonomy to run with that, to do your work because you've demonstrated your competence. Where micromanagement comes in is I remove your autonomy and I overbear you on certain things. And then at that point, it just feels horrible. Like you're like, man, I don't feel like I trust it. I don't feel supported. I don't know if the red pen is gonna come out the next time I produce a document, like whatever. that's where, that's how kind of, this is the science behind why micro management is problematic. So the last item is relatedness or connection. And that means that's one of our three basic psychological needs is connection. Organisms need this for procreation for relationship building, for community, and we're very much community oriented species. And so even though we might claim we're not, or we might be more introverted or something, at the end of the day, or at the end of the week anyways, we need others, right? So we have these three things, competency, autonomy, and religiousness. Well, if you stack them up in that order, what does that spell? Car. So this is our car model. So the idea here is, look, someone reaches out to me and says,

I don't know what to do with Scott. He's not hitting his marks. His work's not consistent. I'm concerned. I don't know how handle this. I say, well, did you check his cart? And that's part of what we go through in this process and the education process of this is let's check his cart. Let's look at Scott's product. Is Scott competent? Yeah, Scott is competent. So he's demonstrated that. He's been here for years. He's led teams. He's taught people internally.

So he absolutely has competence. So the fact that his work performance is off the mark is not a reflection of a lack of competence. So let's be very clear and deliberate about this language. How about autonomy? What's going on in Scott's life as it relates to autonomy at work? Does Scott have a new supervisor? Right? You can see how this happens, right? You bring in a new supervisor and you've been there for 10 years doing awesome work and then all of a sudden they're removing your autonomy. No wonder your work's going to you're going to suffer because you're just like, this sucks. I did not sign up for this, right? And then so we go through that and we're like, nope, nothing's changed in Scott's environment, same leadership. So let's go into the relationship factor of this. What is his relatedness as it relates to his team? Is there drama among the team, something going on with the team, anything like that? And they often come back and say, no, nothing's going on. The team's stable but something's still going on with Scott. So what do I do about this, Rob? Well, the next step is let's check Scott's car at home. What's going on in his home, as it relates to competency, autonomy, and relatedness? And I've had supervisory, and I'll go to someone different now to give you an example here. Same thing was true with them. All their work stuff's checked out because they'd been there for a while, there's been no change, they've been successful. said, let's talk about Gloria's home life.

What's going on in Gloria's home life. And the CEO is like, I'm not talking about her home life. And I'm not, I don't do that. I don't do lunches. I don't do happy hours. I was like, we should probably talk about that at a different time. But just check in with her. Just check in with her. And they're like, Rob, I don't think, I said, you don't have to pry. All you need to do is open the door, right? Demonstrates that you care and you're listening. So just open the door and then call me back and let me know how it goes.

Person calls me back says Rob you would never believe what just happened all I said was you know is everything okay at home right because think about this back it up we've been having these conversations about why you're underperforming over the last couple weeks or months even and we're getting to a point where if I don't have any solutions as the leader or any answers I don't know how to support you anymore and it might just be time to leave the organization if there's something wrong.

So the CEO calls me next, I can't believe how this went. They said, hey, anything going on that I should know about outside of work? And as soon as that person opened the door, stepped in. And what Gloria shared was her high school daughter, live at home daughter's pregnant. So there's a little bit of a blow there, maybe to her competence, her sense of competence as a mother, I don't know. And her husband are just getting worse and worse and worse, fighting, fighting, fighting. So there's an argument there that the relatedness between her and her husband is diminishing or deteriorating. And then the last thing we heard, her mother-in-law's moving in. So there's a challenge to her autonomy, her independence, her agency in her own house, right? So, and that's exactly what we found out it was in the end. And then we built systems to accommodate, adjust, and then work with this and... troubleshoot it. So anyways, there's these three pieces. So this is a common part of our process with helping people. Let's protect the term motivation tied to competency, autonomy, or relatedness. It's not about recognition. It's not about the pay. Those are other factors. They're important to people, but at a very basic fundamental level, if your needs are not being met as a human, whether you're a young adult living in a city trying to pay your bills or something, it comes back to needs and how do we provide support for those needs? And so that is what we do with our organizations. say, let's check their car. And how this flows forward is that this flows into our dashboard and the car model, because what we've done is we expanded the intrinsic and extrinsic to the four factor model that you're referring to.

Because we really can't do much with intrinsic versus extrinsic. Like I mentioned, you can't dangle that carrot to incentivize your employees all the time if motivation is an issue. And in fact, we know that extrinsic motivation is really fleeting and that it's not sustainable over time, right? You get a dose of a pay bump and you're like, yeah, I'm doing this new job. I got this pay bump. And then eventually it's like, I don't get paid enough to deal with this again, right? So it's a constant issue.

How do we improve the quality of individuals' motivations? We understand what else is in this factor. And the other two pieces between extrinsic on one side and intrinsic on the other are imposition and alignment. And the idea here is that we want to get as close to intrinsic motivation and intrinsic factors as possible, so we need to understand how imposition squashes motivation and how alignment nurtures intrinsic motivation. So imposition, another way to think about it is advice giving. Most people don't appreciate advice if it's not solicited.

And so that's essentially what's happening. So our most externalized source of motivation is extrinsic. The next is imposition. And so I think about this as a parent, you know, it's really easy for me to tell my boys, you know, don't do that. Don't don't do what I did. Work harder, make better decisions, things like that. Well, you think that's going to land? Did that ever land on any teenager? Right? Don't do

Don't do as I did, just do as I say. No, of course not. So I have to slow this down. It's the same thing for the staff. In some instances, telling them what to do is not helping them understand the bigger picture of what's going on. So it will actually be tied to demotivation, resentment, things like that. So instead what we do is we shift to alignment. Because if we think about the speedometer, the stay away zone, the red zone is extrinsic.

The zone we want to be in is green, which is intrinsic. Alignment is yellow. It's closer to green than imposition and extrinsic motivation. So I know this is tough when there's not a model to look at here, but the idea with alignment is that, look, I'm trying to figure out how do I get Scott to do something that we need to do? And those days of just telling people what to do and just barking orders, we know that's not sustainable.

So instead, what I do is I explore Scott's interests and I explore your desires. And I take time to recognize that you might not understand why you're doing what you're doing, but let me have this conversation with you to explain how it fits into our goals, how it fits into our organization, how it fits into our purpose. And a lot of times you're fine with a directive, you're ready to run with it, but something's happened in your life recently and you're just kind of edgy.

So you're like, the last thing I'm going to do is anything that Rob tells me to do, right? So there's some caressing and charisma here that helps people kind of tap into their higher levels of internal motivation, intrinsic motivation. And so we bring people through this framework so that they don't need to guess. They can have these conversations. They can peer coach and support each other. So when someone in one of our organizations says, I don't know what to do about Emily.

They turn to each other and they say, you know, how have you been approaching the language? Have you checked her car? Are you imposing too much? Are you aligning? You know, these things work together. And then what actually happens is with several of our models, because we kind of build out a curriculum with this, these things factor in, they weave together because all this stuff weaves together in the science of behavior.

Skot Waldron (29:06.766)
So let me ask you this then let me play, let me play the, the boss's role here. And I've got somebody on my team who, you know, they're, they're, they're fairly competent. Um, I, and I give them the space, but I found that they keep dropping the ball. mean, fairly competent that, you know, they do some stuff. Well, other things they're just like missing details. There may be like not pulling through on some of the things.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (29:08.473)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Skot Waldron (29:36.622)
You know, maybe they're just checked out because their personal life is really tough right now, but I still need them to perform. still need them to do a job. so, you know, and, and whatever's going on, I mean, our, our workplace culture, maybe we're fine, right? We, we do parties, we do all this stuff. We have some connectedness. have some relatability that we do some other things with. like, what do I do when I feel like, okay, I need to put you on a performance improvement plan.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (29:42.209)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (30:04.59)
And which means I'm going to probably lessen your autonomy a bit because I feel like you're going to need, you need a little bit of more oversight. You need some more check-ins, you need some more discipline, you need some more training and some more of that stuff. And, and I need to be, you know, making sure that the things are happening that we're talking about, or else you're just going to have to go.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (30:04.761)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, do you remember the movie Office Face? And the guy got fired but no one told him, right? So, same type of concept. What we see consistently is that there's a lack of accountability conversations occurring. so, that person does in some instances might need some handholding. They might not be confident. They might not be sure. They might not be certain. In terms of development, in terms of confidence and competence, they may not be there.

Skot Waldron (30:31.425)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (30:57.961)
And so you might have to integrate a little bit more short of the performance plan, a little bit more frequent check-ins on specific projects, because you could probably analyze where this is occurring. And if it's occurring everywhere, then that's a little bit different conversation, similar structure, different conversation. But what we're trying to do is we're trying to intervene and figure out what's truly occurring here. And how can I help you as your supervisor? I can't handhold you forever, but I can.

Handholds you to the point that I know you have the skills or the framework of the capability and then I could slide back and Then I can give you that little bit of a challenge So there's an old theory called challenge support by Sanford from the 60s and it's a great example of this that I Need to give you just enough challenge, but just enough support to balance it out if I give you too much challenge You're gonna you're just gonna struggle.

If I give you too little support, like, I believe in you, Scott, you got this, which we see all the time, that doesn't help you either. So I think there really is a self-assessment here. And actually it's interesting to bring this up because this actually dovetails right into the peak performance model, which helps someone troubleshoot this. Is this a condition that's related to their knowledge, their capabilities, or their motivation? Once we've identified it, it's actually not tied to any of those things, then it's more of an organizational provision of support. So is this tied to information, feedback, tools, and accountability. And so we diagnose these things to figure out, look, this person, on one aspect of this project, they need a little bit more hand holding because they lack the confidence. That's where my little bit of praise comes in to start building them up. When I've seen them, hey look, you've done this presentation a couple times now, I know you're still nervous, but you nailed it, you did a great job. I want you to know that you have my support.

That might be all that person needs to find that. But who knows, maybe it's an issue of car at home that's kind of touching these other areas because they can't focus long enough because they're concerned about their child's being bullied or maybe their home's going to be for a call or something like that. what this really speaks to is providing a suite of tools and perspectives to leaders so that they become more nimble in trying to troubleshoot these things.

Skot Waldron (32:53.24)
Mm-hmm.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (33:19.609)
We're not trying to get to a point where we're babysitting and hand holding. That's not the purpose here. Most people will respond very well with these provisions of support and assistance, and then they're free to fly. They're good to go. But not everyone's the same, right? And everyone acclimates at a different time. Actually, I get this question a lot in a different, slightly different perspective where that person's not competent. And we hear this about, I get this all the time. What about new graduates?

From college, they think they know it all. And how do you handle that when they're not? And they think you're micromanaging them. And that's part of a front end conversation about how I lead. I have a hands on leadership approach. I'm here to support you. I know the first six months are tough. And it's a little bit of a rollercoaster, both emotionally and experience wise. I'm here to be a resource to you. But I also know that you don't necessarily know that which you don't know yet. So I'm going to check in.

I'm to take you through some processes and then role model some. I'm going to let you run with some, ask you if you have any feedback. And if they're like, no, no, no, I got this. You don't need to do this. Then you give them a little bit of a short leash, say, go ahead, run with this instead of it. It's due in one month. I'm going to check in with you next week to see where you are on that. So you're really adjust, like I said, nimble based on that person's kind of competence, interest, abilities, things like that. So

Definitely not a clear answer for you, right? But that's what leadership is. It's not a one size fits all approach.

Skot Waldron (34:53.846)
That's really good. mean, it's such an art, right? It is such an art. I know you said there's a bunch of science behind it. And yes, there is the science, but how do you apply the science is the game, right? It's like, how much are you listening versus being that rigid leader of like, nope, this is how I do things. Nope, this is how I do things. Nope, this is how I do things. And that person is going, okay, so.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (35:06.105)
Yeah. Yeah.

Skot Waldron (35:21.29)
Now what then? know, and there was this interesting, I don't know this interesting framework I'm reading in this, in this book, prime to perform that talks about motivation, right? They call it total motivation factor and they use a score and they score teams on this stuff all the time, but they say there's like direct and indirect motivators, to this thing. And there's a bunch of good science in there too, but really it talks about, the idea of play of creativity of, I'm open to explore and, and do different things. and impact is the thing I'm doing, creating an impact at the end result and purpose, like in my feeling, soul fulfilled in my thing. as, as direct motivators, you can have those things and those are things that increase somebody's motivation, things that kind of pull away from that motivation. He was saying, so economic motivators, so a raises commissions, bonuses, little.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (36:18.775)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Skot Waldron (36:20.546)
Carrot dangling that we talked about, you know, they'll put a bandaid on it for a minute and then it just kind of goes away. we saw that with COVID and people rehiring back and companies were throwing huge bonus hiring bonuses at people. Right. And then we were like, well, this sucks, you know? so you've got that number two is like this emotional, I guess the emotional weight or the emotional, impact of things, meaning

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (36:35.331)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (36:48.344)
Do I feel fear or pressure from outside store? Am I only doing this because my boss is going to come down on me if I don't or because my family's going to get mad at me or I have emotional pressure to meet somebody else's expectation? And then the last one is really just inertia. Like I show up here just because I did it yesterday and I have no idea why else I do this job. So if you have a lot of that in a company, you've got some real problems on your hands.

So, I'm gonna throw those at you and see where your brain goes.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (37:17.278)
Absolutely. Yeah.

So something you mentioned just at the front end of that is lots of information helpful. Like almost, and I'm just trying to paraphrase here, like, but like, how do you start with this? How do you make sense of this? What do you do with this? And one of the things we do is we have, try to redirect people's understanding of things themselves and others based on a couple of tenants that we believe in our organization. The first tenant is your perception is not the reality.

Even though it's such a cliche that perception is reality, your perception is your reality. Well, it might be your reality, but it's not reality. If you cease to exist, reality still goes on, right? And so we're trying to humble them to some extent. The next one is vulnerability does not equal weakness. Another rule that we've been told that, you know what, don't be weak, don't be vulnerable, they'll pounce on you. I get a lot of pushback on that, but once I once I thread it out and explain what that means and what that looks like in an organization, it creates self-leading teams and the outcomes beautiful, then people are about on board. The other one is motivation or even enthusiasm does not equal performance. We have people that are highly motivated that are really making a mess of the organization because their motivation is directed in the wrong area. They're prioritizing their own self-interest over maybe the community self-interest or the other factor kind of going back to what we just talked about with that difficult employee is that, you know what, I hire someone, they're super motivated, they're super enthusiastic day one, right? They're enthusiastic because they wanna do a good job for themselves, they wanna do a good job, as you mentioned, that family or friends to see that, but they also wanna do a good job for the person that hired them, they wanna prove them right that they were a good choice, right? So they're super enthusiastic. But there's no relationship between enthusiasm and competence on the job, right? So you start the job, you're not competent. You meet the minimum qualifications and you might be competent in certain aspects of the job, but you've never worked with this software maybe, or you've never worked with this team for sure. So that enthusiasm could only carry them so far and then they fizzle out and then reality sets it. I think back to, if you went to college and you lived on campus,

Remember, first three weeks of this freshman year, parties, ice creams, socials, comedians, all these things, not an exam yet. And you're just like, this is so awesome. And then week three, four exams start rolling out, universities out of fun money. And you're like, this sucks. Like, why am I here right now? Right? The same thing happens in a job, right? You've been in that first six to eight month period. You start out, you're super enthusiastic, you're excited for this new opportunity. Then things get that your enthusiasm wanes, you realize you're not as good as where you need to be. Here's a hint, your supervisor knows this, this is the same process they went through, but you're putting more stress on yourself over this, and you start asking yourself, why did I even change jobs? My job, last job was a lot easier than this and I was killing it, right? So there's a lot going on under the surface of every single one of our employees.

So what you're talking about about the priming and the motivation is exactly it, right? You're talking about externalized regulation, the diminishing return on those things, right? We know that pay is not a significant motivator as long as we figure that the pay is at an adequate rate, but life happens, right? Like when I took this job, let's just say this, when I took this job, I might've just been in a relationship. I didn't have any kids, but over the last next five years, I do really good work.

You know, my 2 % annual adjustment, my 4 % annual adjustment is next to nothing, barely keeping up with inflation. But now I buy a boat, now I have to buy gas for that boat. Now the money is no longer worth my time. now, and unfortunately we have too many people saying, hey, I deserve more. Well, no, you need to find that next opportunity to feed yourself, to fuel yourself. It's time for you to move on. And I think this is part of going almost full circle back to where we have some troubles with pre-COVID, post-COVID. And then we these people that are like, hey, I don't want to go back to work. I want to work from home. And it's like, but you work for the organization. You're in this agreement with this organization that's making these decisions. Like I realize you're productive at home. realize you're saving gas. I realize you have more discretionary time, but they're your leader and they're the person you have that contract with. If you don't want to be there.

It's time to look for something different that better meets your interests. And that's where I think we're just all in a whack right now with a lot of this stuff.

Skot Waldron (42:15.352)
There, is a weird, weird whack. And I was, I was thinking about this this morning, just with, generational dynamics, talked about that quite a bit, but also thinking about, just not, it's not even a generational thing anymore. The work from home, like I had some hybrid flexibility, work life balance. You want to call it whatever you want to call it. but I was thinking about it this morning and it was like,

I think, you know, and I was thinking about my, kids, know, they're seventh grade, ninth grade, and they've seen me work from home their entire lives. You know, like, I mean, I was bouncing about, I was doing a bouncy seat with my right foot while I'm working with my, hands at the desk, you know, and when they were babies and it's like, I wonder when they go into the workforce, if they're going to be like, wait, what you want me to go to work every day? Like in an

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (42:57.048)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (43:08.352)
office, like, hold on a second, my dad never put pants on, you know, exactly. It's like, so I said, I sit there and look at the generations, you know, the boomers that never worked from home generally, and then some of the Xers that didn't really work on that culture either. And they're going to be, you know, leading some of the younger generations going, yeah, we want you in the office and the younger generations are like, but my parents didn't. And now you want, I, you know,

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (43:09.613)
I gotta put pants on?

I know, right?

Skot Waldron (43:37.676)
I grew up in this COVID thing and every work from home, like what's the problem? So I don't know this. was just thinking about it. just think there's a, it is the perception thing, right? And, the idea of what is right for us. And yeah, you know what? If it's, if that employer is asking you to be in the office, then you probably need to be there. It's like an agreement, right? And if you don't want to either talk to them about it or go somewhere else and.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (43:52.985)
Mm.

Skot Waldron (44:07.426)
Find something that aligns with your values and what you want. you know, there's going to be pluses and minuses, everything, but yeah, that employer, think they have a right to ask people to come back, you know, if it's, if it's their thing and people can like it or not, people can leave or not. That's the consequence of making a demand.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (44:16.545)
Yeah. Yeah!

Well, you just gave me some homework for tonight. So tonight we're having a birthday dinner for one of my boys. They're a little bit older than your kids. And I never thought of it like that, right? But they see us traveling. I was out of country last week. I'll be in Alaska next week. I have this weird, because my university role is online. I teach online classes. So I have this ability to travel with my wife when she's working, things like that.

It makes me think that we need to have a conversation as my oldest is ramping up to graduate from high school about what's realistic expectations as it relates to that. Yeah. But the other side of that too is where you finished is, you know, the nature of work moving forward. This is what I truly believe. I truly believe that culture is the grease to all the gears and culture is going to happen by designer default. Right. And so what do we choose? And the other thing I'll say that is kind of cliche.

Skot Waldron (45:00.471)
What's reality? Yeah.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (45:20.953)
You're either going to pay now or you're to pay later, right? And it's going to cost you on the front end to build that culture, or it's going to cost you on the back end through attrition, poor performance, things like that. I truly believe that we could have a beautiful, hybrid, flexible work model if we have the culture right in that team or that organization. And that's where I think people are flailing because either their organizations are so big, it's hard to manage that or they just don't even know what to do and they're like, hey, we're all coming back to work this week or next week. And then now we have to deal with the non-productive time because of all the conversations going on as it relates to that.

Skot Waldron (46:02.946)
Yeah. Good job, man. Amen, brother. All right, Rob, how do people get in touch with you? They want to like, they go, my gosh, Rob, blue, blue my brain up. Like, how do I, how do I get more of that?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (46:09.453)
Yeah.

So there's a couple different ways LinkedIn Look up Rob and the last name is spelt like lion Li o n but it's actually Leon So Rob or Robert Leon on the LinkedIn platform, but you can also go to our website Black River so WWW black River the letter P for performance and the letter end up Black River PM calm and if you want to go directly to my profile slash Rob.

If you want to go directly to the models, slash models, there's contact forms in there. You know, we love having conversations with people. We love people being curious about things. So reach out and ask questions. We're happy to chat and provide some solutions at no charge for some direction to get you moving and hopefully kind of overcome some of those immediate challenges. But that's how you reach out.

Skot Waldron (47:04.686)
Sure. You got a podcast too?

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (47:08.193)
My wife does. I just like talking to other people.

Skot Waldron (47:11.758)
Yeah. There you go. There you go. It's a lot easier. Just I know, man. Like that's where I was like, I started putting on my own events years ago and I was like, why am I doing this? I'm just going to go speak at other people's events. worry about all the production.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (47:13.509)
That's one of the consequences of online classes. You don't get this live interaction.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And we love it. That's part of the reason why we're in Alaska next week. We have these scientists and lawyers and these national associations that are like, hey, we're experts at drugs, you know, the pharmacists, but we need you to come in and help us understand how to lead our organizations, our teams. And so we found this nice little suite of, you know, we travel, we go to these conferences, we do...

Leadership boot camps in one day or pre-conference things and it's it's a lot of fun because they get to sign up themselves They're not told they have to attend and they're like, hey, we love this. This is great. So value-add. Anyways, thanks, God

Skot Waldron (48:04.846)
That's awesome, man. Well, it's awesome meeting you. Good hanging out with you. Enjoy your travels. Have that, have that real, have that real talk with your kids. that's your homework. All right, man. Well have fun.

Rob | Blackriverpm.com (48:09.709)
Yeah, awesome.

I am. It's on the agenda tonight.

All right, take care.