Episode 116
Uniting Generations: A New Leadership Approach
How can active listening and empathy bridge generational gaps and transform team dynamics in the workplace?
In this episode delve into the intricate dynamics of multigenerational teams in today's workforce. We discuss the pitfalls and triumphs of integrating diverse generational perspectives and how empathy and active listening can change the game.
We share real-life examples from their professional experiences, highlighting the shift from autocratic leadership to a more collaborative and inclusive approach. We discuss tools and techniques to enhance team performance and the importance of setting clear expectations.
Highlights:
- Active Listening: Discover the importance of active listening in fostering team collaboration and empathy, crucial for bridging generational gaps.
- Respect Across Generations: Learn how different generations perceive respect and how adapting to these views can enhance team dynamics.
- Leadership Styles: Explore the transition from autocratic leadership to more collaborative approaches, emphasizing facilitation over dictation.
- Setting Clear Expectations: Understand the role of clear expectations and permission-forgiveness boundaries in guiding teams towards achieving common goals.
- Empathy in the Workplace: Gain insights into the importance of empathy, not just in understanding emotional states but in driving tactical business decisions.
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Transcript
Welcome to Blue Collar B's, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people highlighting how the different generations of today, the boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z, are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.
Brad Herda [:Welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar B's with your co host Bradley and Steve. And Steve, we are having some fun pre show activities going on here. Messing around, getting engaged, trying to come up with a topic. And you know, because we do a lot of pre show work for this, for this program, you can tell by our broadcasting excellence that's going on with our tens of listeners.
Steven Doyle [:Tens of listeners.
Brad Herda [:What, am I wrong?
Steven Doyle [:No, we have more than tens of listeners.
Brad Herda [:Okay. We have multiple. Well, tens would be multiples.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah. Well, sure.
Brad Herda [:We get to hunt. Can we say hundreds? I don't know. Can we say hundreds?
Steven Doyle [:Say hundreds. Because we've got the data that shows that.
Brad Herda [:Okay, our hundreds of listeners. Okay, I'll go with hundreds.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:So we're talking today about show topics as to what's happening and what might be the hot buttons of current state teams came up into situations and ironically, teams is a. From a Microsoft perspective, today's the day that the world has gone haywire because of Microsoft do some things.
Steven Doyle [:Oh, yes, it has.
Brad Herda [:Going around the way. So even though this is released later on, this has nothing to do with Microsoft Teams. But we're going to talk about teams and the dynamic and how. How this collaboration need for the millennial generation and younger generations has created turmoil, awkward dynamics, some cases very poor performance in organizations, some cases turning leaders into dictators from the older generation because they don't want to deal with any of the bullshit of can't make a decision, et cetera.
Steven Doyle [:True.
Brad Herda [:So what from a team's perspective, Mister Doyle, what makes a good team from a multi generational perspective, from your viewpoint?
Steven Doyle [:Ooh, you know, number one.
Brad Herda [:Number one.
Steven Doyle [:Number one. Yep, that is me. My opinion is actually active listening in my. Yeah, you heard me.
Brad Herda [:Sorry, what was that? Yeah, it was active. Active listen.
Steven Doyle [:Active. Yeah, yeah. Active listening.
Brad Herda [:How do you people say that word? How do you, how do you improve that skill? What are some of the things you can do to make active listening a skill that you can improve on?
Steven Doyle [:You know, we have one mouth and two ears for a reason. We should be, you know, shutting up and, you know, kind of listening and making sure we actually understood everything that was said versus, you know, listening to respond. Right. So, you know, it's real simple. Hey, hey.
Brad Herda [:What are you talking?
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, exactly. It's real simple to talk these concepts, but it's really hard because we're, some of us like myself, we're wired to solve problems. And as soon as we, we know, we know that the, we know how to solve the problem, we know how to pull the nail out. But, you know, sometimes our audience needs to be heard and we're not really willing and able at times to allow them to be heard.
Brad Herda [:So I was just at a, a networking meeting this morning with a gentleman. I've known him about five, six years. He's had a bunch of various different things. He's got a leader right now. That is, he leaves him alone, doesn't communicate. As long as you're delivering the results, it's no big deal. But yet when they're in a team environment, it is very power driven from a title and position perspective, autocratic, nice versus it being collaborative and listening. And one of the things he talked about, you know, great leaders, when you go to a meeting, you have a discussion.
Brad Herda [:The leader hardly says anything at all facilitates a conversation to get everybody on board, problem solved, get out. Summarize, here's the action items. Move on, right? And I told him, yeah, it's exhausting to do that. It really is exhausting to be a leader of a team, to collaborate and listen and bring everybody in effectively and still achieve the results where everybody's heard. Maybe not action taken upon those words, but they felt heard.
Steven Doyle [:Right. What's important about that, though, is when the leader isn't talking in, the rest of the team is, and they're coming up with ideas, they start to own it and take responsibility more. They're not forced to go, okay, well, you know, my boss said, I'm going to do this, so guess what? I guess I'm just going to go do this and I'm going to do it. You know, typically, people are doing it half assed versus if they start taking ownership because they felt heard when they were listening, they're doing it with more pride. They're doing it with more, more precision because, you know, they can, they have accountability to their ideas, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, we live in right now. We tend to be more autocratic than anything else in the leadership styles that, that are out in the workforce kind.
Brad Herda [:Of client right now, where they. When I first started working with them, they had and had conversations with every team member. At the end of last year, beginning of this year, I forget when it was. One of the gentlemen said, you know, I don't want to be doing what I'm doing my entire career here doing this. I'd like to be doing that. So we started putting a plan together with the leadership team and ownership about what does that look like, what's the job roles look like? Because one of the owners wants to get rid of some of their responsibility. How do we transfer this over? So we kind of put the documents together as to what that might look like. They had a conversation with that employee.
Brad Herda [:They said, yeah, that sounds great. Two weeks from today or so, we're going to sit down with all of us and gave them the paperwork ahead of time, said, hey, these are the things we talked about. Now let's get clarity on what you think this role should look like. What are we missing? What do we need to have? What should be the results? What's the metrics? Can you do this 20% of the time? Can you do this 100% of them? What does that look like? And get their buy in to build upon that and then support him in building out the team responsibilities below him instead of telling him from a leadership perspective, nope. This is what the foreman is going to do. This is what you are going to do. No, no, no. We'll get everybody to build it out together and it will be, it'll be spectacular once it's done.
Brad Herda [:I'm looking so forward to it.
Steven Doyle [:Right. So other than active listening, what would you say is another, another thing for, for teams to be successful?
Brad Herda [:I was talking about this with another, another gentleman last week call about the difference between generations and what respect is. And the older generations, the boomers and Xers take, they, you have to earn the respect and you earn respect through doing and through time.
Steven Doyle [:Correct.
Brad Herda [:So time and see, I'm going to go talk to an engineer who's only been doing the job for two years. I'm gonna be doubtful of their abilities or skills to be able to give me the right answer potentially. That was how I initially started my journey when I was working at the mining company.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:I had to change all of that over the course of time to say, oh, okay, let me hear what you know, and then fill in with my own knowledge to support them to get better as well.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:So I had the change from the, I have to allow that they have to earn my respect to, I needed to change to, they have my respect at the start until they lose it. And the younger generation starts with the, I'll give you all the respect you need, but you're going to lose it. You're going to lose it. Right. You can lose the respect instead of earn it, and it's vice versa. And that's where I see a lot of team conflict happening. When you get in that, around that table with multiple generations at Ithoodae come up with the idea and it just becomes a battle royale and it's no bueno.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, I consistently see that with the definite, with the young generation and Gen X, for sure. Boomers are kind of at the tail end, and they're just kind of like, yeah, I'm kind of coasting right now. I'll just, you know, just, just know. I'm just coasting. I'm just going to tell you that right now. I'm coasting till the end. I'm not making waves, not making ripples. You want help, you show up.
Steven Doyle [:You don't want help, don't show up. I don't care. I'm here for the next three months and then I'm out.
Brad Herda [:I'm here for the check. I'm here till I turn 67. I'm here till I get to whatever. From an insurance perspective, I'm here to make that, which is great. However, you still need to be participative. If you've got a young person that's coming up to you or even any, anybody coming up to you to ask you about information, you should share it willingly.
Steven Doyle [:Right? Yeah.
Brad Herda [:And again, the hard part is if you continue to tell somebody the same thing over and over again, they don't get it. That becomes frustrating, and then you just shut off. But if they want to continue to support, you know, some of our guests earlier today, Patrick, you know, go up and talk to the person, learn from and find the opportunities.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:Because that is how we, how we take all of that internal knowledge and figure out how to pass it along and. Or get it documented.
Steven Doyle [:Yep.
Brad Herda [:And you do that through that through teams, not through individual contributors, right?
Steven Doyle [:Yeah. One of the other things that, that I'm seeing is really more need for the younger generation than most Gen X and boomers will give is the need for empathy. Not necessarily compassion, empathy.
Brad Herda [:Let me see. That is, let me see where empathy was on my latest strength finders.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, I'll tell you where it was. Not there.
Brad Herda [:It was. Let me see if I can find it for you real quick. We just did that with our chamber. Oh, that's funny. So define tack. Define tactical empathy for me.
Steven Doyle [:Could you define tactical empathy it for me? It's. I'm doing. I'm obviously doing it on purpose to try to find out what's going on the need. But is there compassion behind it? No. Most people, when they think empathy, it includes compassion, it may include sympathy along with it. Tactical empathy, there's no, there's almost no compassion. It is truly for the need to understand the situation so that we can strip emotion out, make a decision, and let's move on.
Brad Herda [:Uh, empathy is number 25 out of 34. The Clifton strength finders or Gallup strength finders.
Steven Doyle [:Yep.
Brad Herda [:It's, uh, this latest list was number. It may have actually gone up. It may.
Steven Doyle [:How could your empathy go up?
Brad Herda [:Change of roles, change of things. Right. Just a different, different scenario. You know, my top ten didn't change much, but, yeah, empathy is number 25. Woo is way down there. Whoo.
Steven Doyle [:You don't have the whoo.
Brad Herda [:Whoo is way down at 33.
Steven Doyle [:Are you sure?
Brad Herda [:Yeah, I'm positive of that. Woohoo. Yeah. I'm not getting on the stage. Nope. Not, I'll get on the stage, but I'm not going to be the guy leading, leading the charge like one. Stephen Doyle.
Steven Doyle [:Wow. You know, it's a show.
Brad Herda [:It's a show.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah. Yep. So, so speaking of strengths finders, we're going to, we're, we're just, since you pulled it up and we're going to talk about it, what are your top five?
Brad Herda [:Top five? Latest edition. Strategic individualization, maximizer, arranger and analytical.
Steven Doyle [:Mmm. Nice, nice.
Brad Herda [:So I've taken it three times now, and when I go to my top ten, out of those six. Out of the ten, six out of the 30 are the same.
Steven Doyle [:Well, that's good. Yeah. The last time I took it was eleven years ago. Mine was restorative achiever, context, responsibility and individualization. Know has changed.
Brad Herda [:It has changed, eh? Well, no, I'm very confident you have changed that with the role that you're in and with what's happening and, and being able to have, be part of teams in a different fashion.
Steven Doyle [:Right, right.
Brad Herda [:Current role as a team member of those organizations is very different than current. Than team member of your previous role when you were working for an organization and for a company.
Steven Doyle [:Absolutely.
Brad Herda [:The results were. The results as to why those teams were doing things, you were using them very differently.
Steven Doyle [:Absolutely agree. So, for our audience, why is that important to understand strengths, why would that come up in understanding and helping with team dynamics.
Brad Herda [:So that you can relate and adapt? First of all, you gotta know yourself for self awareness. Right. You know, you have done trusted edge. I have, you know, the Wiley five. Dysfunction of a team.
Steven Doyle [:Yep.
Brad Herda [:We have lots of different tools and things in that and building up that team trust is dramatically important because it's when teams function. High performing teams will provide greater return on investment for the business owner, hands down, more than anything else you will ever do. And we all were. And I lived it. I lived it when I was back at Busiris. And we had the team of about 35 individuals going through some training at the time, and we all got together, we all understood. And there's one gentleman, he was a grenade thrower. He and I personally, he and I personally got along when we weren't talking business, but when it was business, it was like we were throwing grenades at each other all the time and like, okay, great.
Brad Herda [:But as soon as I decided to make the adaptation and start saying, okay, great, you want to throw that over? Cool, well, tell me, tell me the answer to this question. And there was no facts and data behind it, and it was just fluff.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:The shutdown would begin and the anger would show up and he had to learn how to come prepared to the meetings to fight in a different way, so to speak. Right? And fight might be the wrong word, but. Yep, you know, it's a manufacturing environment. It's the war room.
Steven Doyle [:It's exactly.
Brad Herda [:Everybody's fighting for their own turf. But when we got to the facts and data, we were able to take that room that used to have 75 people at night. 75 is over exaggeration. 30 people in this room every day.
Steven Doyle [:Like an hour and a half. Yeah.
Brad Herda [:Down to six.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:For an hour. Because everybody was willing to go do the right things as an entity to make it all happen correctly.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:So just that just that alone took all of those hours and resources and spread them back to actually making product the customers wanted, instead of internal fighting about who's not going to get blamed for some stupid shit that nobody really cares about at the end of the day. Except somebody does care in some leadership role, maybe to make ourselves look better. If all of a sudden you're starting to hit schedules and products going out the door and things are on time and customers are ordering more parts, weird. When you show, when you ship shit on time, people want more of it.
Steven Doyle [:Weird Internet. Exactly.
Brad Herda [:Why do you think Amazon is kicking everybody's ass? Because it shows up on time.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:If it showed up three weeks later after you said it was a day, nobody ordered service, right.
Steven Doyle [:Nobody be ordering it. That's why people are shifting to that. So one of the things you actually mentioned, you know, it really kind of goes around how to I. Communication styles, treating people the way they want to be communicated with which. So where does that fall with, you know, having good team dynamics in your opinion?
Brad Herda [:It's high on the list to be able to adapt. Usually the leader will need to be the one that has to do most of it and then have to disseminate down because most organizations aren't willing to invest in each of their team members.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:To learn whatever language you're going to use, whether it's disc or Myers Briggs or enneagrams or the thousands of different, you know, parrot, lion, lamb, whatever. It's, whatever system you're going to use.
Steven Doyle [:Right.
Brad Herda [:They're not going to invest the time and energy to go have the language taught to create that awareness. Yeah.
Steven Doyle [:Which is honestly a shame.
Brad Herda [:Yes. A. Yeah. The investment to do that and put a team together and, and then have the information to be able to make it better and set expectations, that's where I've seen it fails. You'll do it with the team, but then the expectations on the leader, they expect everybody else to adapt to them and they don't take the adaptation, the other direct, it just sets it up for failure.
Steven Doyle [:Well, and that's where the autocratic society still fits in. Like I'm going to be the one telling them what's going on versus, you know, actually spending the time having communications with them, developing the empathy, actively listening so that the team actually then starts taking more responsibility and ownership for the ideas that are generated. Right. We, we preach this day in, day out and with the businesses that we're working with, there are changes.
Brad Herda [:Correct. Some of them don't like it. I got one don't like it. I got one where it's a mom, mom, dad, sons and it's like, huh, okay. Oh, you want that? Mom doesn't like it. Well, mom, you're not in the operations of the business. So. Sorry.
Brad Herda [:I mean you're, you're, yes, you have equity, but you're, yeah, it's okay. Just, you just go, need to go move on, do what you need. Okay. Right. And that's okay. And that's family businesses and that's tough sometimes to get family businesses. So talk about team environments and now add a family dynamic to it.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah.
Brad Herda [:Separation of that becomes even more difficult.
Steven Doyle [:That's like the worst.
Brad Herda [:Oh, that's my favorite. It's my favorite.
Steven Doyle [:I mean, it is interesting watching everybody dance around the topic when they don't, when they have to take it home to the dinner table.
Brad Herda [:It's my favorite because we make sure that we try not to take it home. The dinner table. That's one of the things I work with them on to say, hey, family's one thing, business is another. Please don't try to have these things interact with each other when you're at family gatherings because it's the wrong place. It's the wrong place, wrong environment, wrong time to have those conversations.
Steven Doyle [:Absolutely. So what would be one more thing that you'd be looking for to help improve team dynamics?
Brad Herda [:Miscommunication, expectation setting.
Steven Doyle [:Ooh, that's a good one.
Brad Herda [:What? So if we're a team collaborating this, we want to fix our supply chain issues or our on time delivery issues or whatever, clearly defining what the outcome needs to be so that the team can go out and bring the ideas and strategies forward and setting the rules of what they need permission for, what they need forgiveness for. Where's the line of permission and forgiveness? So that way it doesn't, you know, piss off your most important customer because you did something new the first time and they didn't know about or whatever, being able to set that clarity and expectation for a team. So that way they're all marching to the same beat is, I think, even probably more critical than the communication.
Steven Doyle [:That's a great point. Great point. It's a great topic today. Brad, thanks for bringing it up.
Brad Herda [:What's your thought on the expectations over communication?
Steven Doyle [:Well, while it is important, if we don't understand how we can effectively communicate with each other, you can have an, it usually defaults to autocratic manipulation. Meaning here's, here's what I want. Here's how it's going to be done. Are there any questions? Now if we're open and honest with ourselves, they're hand in hand. Because if we can have those conversations with, with each other and we can effectively communicate with each other, then we can actually effectively communicate our expectations. But usually because we don't understand each other well enough, we will mandate expectations, or think worse, going around and getting the expectations agreed upon by everybody, when really it comes out as a mandate because we don't understand each other really. And most of the time we're not actively listening. We're just responding to the scenario like, okay, what are our expectations? I want this done by noon tomorrow.
Steven Doyle [:This, this has to go out by noon tomorrow. There's no if, ands or buts.
Brad Herda [:But there's a thousand ways to get it done by noon tomorrow.
Steven Doyle [:Correct? There are, but we're not open to having those conversations because the mandate's been thrown down. Now the expectation is you're going to go execute right now because enough said, we need to get on and get doing this. You've been there and you know how this goes.
Brad Herda [:Yeah, but I also know that I wasn't the one to just go and say, okay, noon tomorrow and I so be it. And that becomes the best path forward because the noon tomorrow may have not all of the facts and details with it at the same time.
Steven Doyle [:Which is correct.
Brad Herda [:Which creates the conversation, which creates the go back, which creates the, okay, noon tomorrow. Here's the facts and data that go along with that. What do you not want done along? Correct. You know as well, right, you have 17 different priorities. At some point you have to get that priority taken out and being, having the courage to go back and have the conversation over. Which priority do you not want done instead? If you've made a, the number one priority, b by default moves to the second one instead of b being first. How do you want this arranged? And not just make the assumption of, well, they said it was the most important thing, so therefore it must be.
Steven Doyle [:Uh huh.
Brad Herda [:Is it? Um, but by the same token, I always ask for forgiveness, so. Right.
Steven Doyle [:These are, these are real. Even though we're pseudo talking high level. These are real things that have come up in our past and even with current clients that we're, that we're working with.
Brad Herda [:So the other part is the, uh, from a communication perspective. And I love this, I love doing this in one of my training classes. Um, we're talking about generational differences and communication and all the ways to communicate. When I ask people, I said, so if a thumbs up emoji shows up on your phone, what does that mean?
Steven Doyle [:Oh, it depends.
Brad Herda [:Well, well, most of the, most people, when I ask that question because they're not prepared for what I'm about to do, they're like, oh, it means it's okay, cool, go do it. Yep. I'm like, are you sure it doesn't mean f you because they're tired, because they're tired of just listening to all your bullshit.
Steven Doyle [:Exactly.
Brad Herda [:Are you sure it's not just a fuck you, and just go get this done? Yeah, I don't want to listen to anymore. Like, huh, I never thought about it that way.
Steven Doyle [:Uh huh. It depends.
Brad Herda [:So yes, same thing with body language and everything else. We could go on for hours, but yes, we could. Yes, maybe we'll save body language for another, for another show at some point.
Steven Doyle [:Oh yeah, it's all about the body. That's the name of the show, just so you know.
Brad Herda [:Wow.
Steven Doyle [:Okay, throw that down.
Brad Herda [:At least you stopped playing with your tip today. That's.
Steven Doyle [:I did. It's a clean tip for you.
Brad Herda [:Perfect. Have a wonderful rest of your afternoon.
Steven Doyle [:Yeah, you have a great one, too, Brad.
Brad Herda [:All right, see ya.
Steven Doyle [:Yep.
Brad Herda [:Bye. Thank you for listening to Blue collar B's, brought to you by Vision Ford Business solutions and professional business Coaching, Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, Brad Herbert. Please, like, share, rate, and review this show as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep blue collar businesses strong for generations to come.
