Julie Henry is back! The President of Finish Line Leadership and author of Wisdom from the Wild returns to share more insights from wild places to help leaders drive and survive change.
We pick up where we left off in Episode 64. Julie shares more of the Unbreakable Laws of Leadership including:
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Resilience in action
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The importance of ramping down
Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be chaos.
Listen back to our first conversation. Listen in now and be intentional about your change leadership.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Julie Henry: You cannot lead others if you don’t lead yourself first. And the way you lead yourself first is doing what is instinctually designed in you to do.
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to The Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer, and they call me the vibrant coach and I am here for part two people, part two, with Julie Henry. She is amazing. I had so much fun with her last time, I’ve invited her back. And she uses insights from wildlife and wild places to help leaders drive and survive change. She is the President of Finish Line Leadership and author of Wisdom from the Wild, The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the Animal Kingdom.
And we covered several of these in our first episode and I was like we got to finish what we started. So I brought Julie back. Now she’s a former zoo and aquarium senior leader and Julie has worked with over 55 organizations across corporate, nonprofit, government and association sectors. And she has yet to see a wolf in the wild or snorkel with the whale sharks but hopes to soon. I am so glad to have Julie Henry from Sarasota, Florida back on the podcast. How are you?
Julie: Hey, Nicole. It’s good to see you. And I have to acknowledge how awesome and on brand you look. I love, I love your scarf. You’re very festive and representing the animals well.
Nicole: I wore this just for you today. Yes, I’m all excited. Yeah. And so I don’t know, when when I was a little girl growing up, Julie, I loved animals and watching all the I mean, I’m a lot older than you but like we had like this Wild Kingdom show on TV that I watched all the time. And we were just, we were just raised on understanding how the animal kingdom works. So I’m curious about you. How did you get drawn into this work with animals? You know, most of us just dream of a career where we get to hang out with the lions, tigers and bears, but you’ve done it. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve pulled that off?
Julie: Yeah, you know, and your experience was my experience. And I was a little girl growing up in Chicago and and I was always dreaming of the sea. But it didn’t matter that I didn’t live on the ocean. I was just always outside. You know, if you couldn’t find me it was just look outdoors, you know, follow the bike trail or follow the the trampled down leaves, because I just wanted to explore. You know, I remember really vividly my cat had was would roll in a skunk every night and come back in the morning smelling like skunk. And eventually after about three days, my dad found this giant skunk carcass in the bushes and my sister and brother were like, oh, and I was like, awesome. I need to bring that into school for show and tell. My dad was like, no! And I’m like, well, why not.
And so that was always my experience. When I went to college. I just studied animals. I studied zoology, because that’s what I loved. But I didn’t want to be a doctor. And I did some internships and realized that as much as I loved science, I wasn’t a really good scientist. I did didn’t, I just didn’t love it the way that I needed to. And my dad was a leadership development trainer. And my mom was a teacher. Right? So I always had these notions of okay, here’s my love of science and nature. I’ve literally sat at the feet of my father in training rooms since I was 17 years old, like watching him train people at airplane manufacturing parts firms and all kinds of things. And then I’ve watched my mom work with people as well. And I always knew I’d stitch all of those things together.
But I didn’t know how until I realized that at zoos and aquariums, I could do all of it. I could teach everybody from little tiny kids to people who had never ever seen an elephant before. They’re standing from elephants or tasted saltwater. But my passion was always, you know, every every place I worked, I would always say, hey, all of these corporations that are around us, they all do leadership retreats, and we are different. And I bet if we reach out to them even more than we do right now, they’ll bring a team here. And then I want to help them learn about leadership through the eyes of the animals. And that’s what I just did every place I went until I decided to do it on my own, but it was always my my driving force and my passion.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. And so everybody don’t miss this this that Julie is like living in her calling. And I think that’s a big huge part of leadership and building a culture is that you have people that are really drawn drawn toward the purpose really drawn towards the mission that that work is going to do. And so I mean, just imagine a world where everybody, you know, had leadership development and everybody was operating at a very high level. I mean, we’d make more monies in these corporations, people be more fulfilled. It’s amazing. So it’s very, very cool to talk to somebody who’s so passionate about what they do. So I’m so glad to be talking with you. So, you know you you went to school, you went to college and you decided to major. Tell me all about that a little bit. Where did you go?
Julie: Yeah, I went to school in southern Ohio, at Miami University of Ohio and I was majoring in zoology and then when I was there, I decided to also get a degree in education because I realized I needed to learn how to teach people. And I was a super shy kid, it was not natural for me to talk at all. I’d prefer to kind of hang back. But I had a major professor in zoology and a major professor in education, who got it. And the two of them together said, we recognize that you have this really different path. And my major professor in education actually had worked at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
And so she said, I, I understand how you want to stitch this all together. And she actually wrote an endorsement for the book. I mean, that’s how full circle this is. Because it was in her class that my senior year project was, let me think about how I could teach kids about coral reefs. Well, I need to relate that to business because I can cast the net wider. And that was in 1996. And 25 years later, her college senior year thesis that she graded is behind me on my bookcase. And it’s that, you know, that was the breeding ground, the foundation for this book. So it was always about stitching it all together, and then just getting internships. Digging in and learning from the ground up.
Nicole: Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Well, we started going through the laws last time that are in your book. So again, tell us the title of your book, and then maybe pick us up where we left off and share a little bit more.
Julie: Yeah, so the book is Wisdom From the Wild, The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership From the Animal Kingdom. And I think, you know, what I do want to say this time, too, is that we didn’t talk about why unbreakable laws, because when I got down to thinking about what can I really teach leaders about their work from wildlife and wild places? Well, when I am in leadership roles and positions and and starting to worry, or starting to think, where’s my vision, you know, going to take me etc. And things seem squishy, you know, you’ve done all this work, you’ve learned, you’ve gone to college, you’ve gone to training sessions, you’ve read books, you’ve had mentors, I mean, we do it all, that’s awesome. But at the end of the day, you’re thinking, well, I’m just not really sure you know how to make this decision, whichever. But if you remember that some things are always true, right?
Like, if you leave a plant by the window, eventually, it’s going to bend towards the light, right? Cheetahs cannot run forever, they will eventually slow down. Like there are things that were just always true, they’re biologically true. And that was the basis for me thinking about these are unbreakable laws. And as a leader, that gives me great comfort, especially right now, when things are I mean, who has led through the time of COVID, zero people. So when leadership seems messy, and there’s no pathway forward, you double down on not only there on the unbreakable things, but then you you are instinctually designed to make that good decision or not. Maybe that decision is not the not the best, and you make the next decision. But that’s why it’s it’s a it’s an idea around unbreakable laws.
Nicole: Yeah. Because what people need I’m hearing you say, is some some principles to kind of prop up what they’re doing. Right? Like, okay, so I know this is a correct principle, right? So I can’t, I can also leave the plant by the window, it will lean towards the window, because everybody needs some light. Nobody wants to be in the dark. Oh, there’s a whole thing there. But you got to water that plant? Yeah, you got to repot the plant every year or so. Right? You know, you got to make sure the roots are healthy. Because if the root isn’t healthy than the flower won’t come out on top. I mean, we could talk about plant analogies and business for hours. Maybe that’s your next book.
The next one, right, you got the animals, now you got to do the plants. But the truth of the matter is, is you need to kind of get your head in the game. You know, Julie, one exercises I do when I work with leaders, I bet you do something similar, is I talk to them about having a leadership philosophy. Because, you know, I have leaders who like kind of talk to me, and they’ll be like, I don’t understand what people are thinking, you know, why don’t they think the way I think? And I’m like, well, I’ll tell you why. Because you’re not exactly clear on how you think, and having enough philosophy that you can say, here’s my philosophy, this is how I roll. I believe this. I know this is true. I know if we do this, this will happen. You know, here’s my school of thinking. And so your laws give people a school of thinking that you really can’t disagree with.
Julie: Hmm, I love that. I mean, you’re so right, because that’s something whether I’m working with leaders or whether I’m talking to my own children, the importance of language and how we’re communicating is key. Because people are coming from all angles. And the other reason I wanted to use wildlife and wild places is because I feel that that levels, the playing field. Like you said, you loved animals as a kid. You don’t necessarily work in wildlife career right now. But you still love animals. Probably you probably have a story about somehow in your life. You could tell me and it doesn’t matter. If I come in and I have a Harvard MBA and you barely graduated high school.
Suddenly, if we’re talking animals, we’re on the same playing field. It doesn’t matter if I’ve worked for the company for six months and you’ve worked for 35 years. It levels the playing field. So animals take leadership to a level that is accessible, that is approachable. And that is non threatening. You know, once we start to get, there’s a time and a place for all of these layers of leadership, leadership academia, if you will. And there’s a time and a place for like, hey, let’s dial it down. Like when we talk about resilience, and I talk about watching the pelicans, not that, we could watch the penguins too. But let’s talk about pelicans here. And, you know, my law with them is resilience is instinct in action.
Resilience is instinct in action. That’s my lead law with resilience. Because when you watch the pelicans, watch what they do, right? As they’re flying, as they’re diving, as they’re sitting as they’re getting ready for the next time. They know they are doing their resilience behaviors differently than penguins. Let’s pick up penguins, right? Penguins and pelicans live totally different lives, both of them are leaning into their instinct. And as leaders, we’re overthinking it, or we get stuck on well, you know, resilience is my 30 minutes of meditation. Like, okay, that’s a part of it. But resilience is about understanding your energy management. You know, we spent all this time ramping up for things, projects, meetings, presentations, etc. We don’t often build in the time to ramp down as well, but the Pelican does.
The Pelican sits on that water, and it gets ready for that next time. Ws leaders, we’re like, next meeting, oh, I have to talk to everybody after that. Yep, I can totally jump on my phone and get on that phone call. And so the activity that I lead them through is a time study. And in scientific terms, we call it an ethogram. But it’s a very objective time study to really understand where you’re spending your time with an eye towards where are your instinctual resilience actions, and how can you build them in more. Because not only is it important for you, but as a leader, people are watching you. And if you are not doing it, you are not modeling it for the team and the people in your lives.
Nicole: Right. Well, did I hear you right? I think what you said is you’ve got to have downtime, so you have better on time.
Julie: Yeah, you got it.
Nicole: Okay. All right. Well, I’ll just share with everybody real quick. She’s exactly right. So don’t doubt it for one second. If you’re thinking oh, is she right? I do do that all day, I jump from one meeting to the other, well, eventually, you’re going to have this thing called overwhelm, or burnout or whatever, and it will come and I’m not being doomsday here. I’m just saying that, again, we’re just biological animals, like the pelican and we’re eventually gonna get sick or enter into a maybe depression or something like that. I mean, these are very important things to take care of your physical body.
And, and I’ve often talked about on the podcast, the idea that you need to have like three different kinds of days, on your calendar. One is like an on day where you’re on and you’re doing lots of energy, that’s one level, and then not trying to integrate that with days where you’re, you know, trying to have your head down working on strategic planning or something like that. So, you know, working on your energy levels is absolutely essential, so that you can pull yourself back up to go do more work and to push the project or the business forward. So I absolutely love what you’re saying there. So talk to me a little bit more about the pelicans. So you say that they are absolutely resilient? Can you share a little bit more of the story of how they do that?
Julie: Yeah, so you know, pelicans is a it’s an animal that I did research on in college. So when I came down here to the beach, and I brought my big spotting scope, it looks like a giant telescope. And literally, we were looking at three behaviors, watching how the pelican takes off, and then fly, fly, fly, watching how it’s diving and looking for food and then whether or not it’s actually successful in getting food. So swallowing the food or not, and then sitting on the water, regaining energy or maybe, you know, deciding or mapping out its route for the next time you go again. But the thing that I love about pelicans too, is you look at a pelican and it just is such a big, heavy bodied bird. It just doesn’t even look like it should be able to fly. I mean, it just doesn’t they’re they’re not like.
Nicole: It’s a little prehistoric looking actually, right.
Julie: They’re not like the poster child of like, look at the eagles soaring to the sky right in the pelican’s like, is it gonna make it off the water? Like, okay, it will, because they have hollow bones inside, right? That’s why the pelican is actually so much lighter than it looks like. So right there, to me, it’s oh, that point of leadership or you are suddenly leading a team that you don’t really look like you’re fit to do or you’re in a new role that people are saying, why are you why is that person in that role?
Well, you are uniquely designed for that role, and your instinct can lead you in the instinctual actions you need in order to put your resilience in place. So it’s this pelican taking off. It’s the fact that when it’s cloudy, it’s actually sometimes easier for these animals to find the prey that they’re looking for because the sun is not blinding. etc. So it’s not overthinking it, but it’s being very definitive. So back to my research of this pelican, that formed the basis of the activity I do with leaders today. It’s literally, what is it doing, for how long, and then the category? So what does that mean? Is that rest? Is that action? Is that strategic? What is that?
Nicole: That’s fantastic. So what happens to the leaders when they do do the exercise? When they figure out how they’re spending their time? What what happens to them then? Some of them probably want to, like, explain or make excuses for what’s going on. But but at the end, what are you trying to what what do you advise them to do once they figure out all the things? Because I think you’re absolutely right. And you know, the other thing that’s happening right now, Julie, is people are working 24/7.
Like, they’re telling me, oh, my boss texts me at 10 o’clock at night. I’m like, first of all, if you’re the boss doing that, you need to be sitting on the water. You know, you can be thinking about how you’re going to map things out for tomorrow, but you should certainly let everybody rest on the team. I mean, why are we pestering people at 10 o’clock at night. So, when people looked at how they’re using their time, what are the ah-ha’s they have are some great things people do moving forward, like maybe strategies they put in place?
Julie: Yeah, you know, it’s such a great question. So my, my first response in my head as you’re talking as my favorite comment that a leader has made is, oh, my gosh, I wish I would have done this last week. I really needed it last week, because we’re what going into our busy season in our budgeting season or something, something. So that was one of my favorite comments. But I get a lot of people saying what I talked about before, oh, I see that I don’t put it on the back end of things, right. And then from there, they’re more apt to say, I really do need to set this boundary because we teach people how to treat us. And so is it I shut my door for 30 minutes, you can have an open door policy, but you can shut your door for 30 minutes and take whatever time you need to reflect. They’ve also use this as a benchmark tool.
Okay, here we are, you know, it’s December, we’ve just done this, let’s reconvene in three months. And let me see where I’m at. And when I have people do it, I have it like you were saying, I love your description of different days. But I, what I try to do with leaders is okay, look at a workday quote unquote, and, a not workday, quote unquote, specifically because work is bleeding into all of these lives. And some, you know, and some people who have super regimented schedules will start to realize I do the same thing every day. But I’m recognizing that I can still have more influence over my schedule than I thought. So it gives them ownership, right, it gives them empowerment, and I don’t like the word permission, I don’t think that that’s what people need.
I think instead, they need a kick in the butt. That’s what I’m gonna say. Like, yeah, like, they need to say, like look. Because like, like y’all like go forward, because you cannot lead others if you don’t lead yourself first. And the way you lead yourself first is doing what is instinctually designed in you to do. I mean, I am an introvert at heart. So I know after this podcast, I have a meeting. But I’ve purposely scheduled a meeting 45 minutes later, because I’m going to have to walk around my house and be quiet, because I need to recharge. And some people are not like that. Some people are like, I’m good. I need, I recharged by talking with people right away. Whatever it is for you, you’ve got to put that in place.
So this resilience activity is a very objective way to do that. And I will say the the last thing I’ll say here, I could talk about this for a long time is it’s really hard for people to categorize. But that’s the scientific part. It’s not just a time study. It is all of the, like social media, email, communication, something. That’s the important that’s the magical part of this activity. You can do time studies all day long. But if you don’t categorize it and look at your trends, that’s where you can start to see the effect on your work, on your behavior, on your health, on your impact and, and how you can proactively make changes rather than I’m just gonna put a half an hour into meditate, like, it’s not a sustainable change, and it’s not the big picture for where you need to go.
Nicole: Yeah. And so I’m also kind of hearing you talk about kind of a concept. I’ll throw this in here. Everybody write this down. It’s the Covey Time Matrix. Do you, have you studied this thing?
Julie: Love it.
Nicole: Okay, so it’s not only you know how your days go, but then what are the activities you’re working on? And then how do you figure out which ones to keep which ones to get rid of, you know, get yourself organized, but in Covey’s Time Matrix, he talks about quadrant two activities. That that’s where you want to spend your time if you’re the leader, and that’s where you’re doing things that are very important, but they they’re they don’t seem that urgent, but they’re absolutely imperative for making the better future unfold. And then of course, quadrant one is where it’s urgent, and it’s important. So those are the firefighting activities that you’re doing in answering the phone and jumping from one call to the other or whatever.
You know, figuring out how to use use that time, more efficiently. See, if somebody else could fight fires, you can systemize things, which I heard the pelican systemizes things and sits about mapping out the plan, right? And then of course, there’s quadrant two where it’s not important, but it’s urgent. Somebody knocking on your door, you don’t know why they’re at your door. And then quadrant three. Yeah. One, two, yeah, quadrant four, which is, you know, it’s not important. It is completely not urgent, but you’re doing anyways, like playing solitaire on your phone. So that’s an interesting thing, too, it’s like humans. Talking about difference between humans and animals. Humans can waste time. Do animals waste time, Julie?
Julie: Right? Yeah. Yeah, like a pelican is resting before it’s flying again, because it’s instinctual. But also, oh, my goodness, if they don’t have enough energy to fly again, well, then they will not eat. And if they do not eat, they will starve. I mean, it’s a biological certainty. And so do they waste time? Probably. Probably some animals waste time, but certainly not at the level that people do. And I don’t think they’re as susceptible to this dopamine reflex like we are with technology. And there are certain animals that are super social, right? There’s, they’re social creatures, there’s lone creatures. You watch the Sandhill cranes, there’s just two of them walking around all the time. It is so lovely.
But I would say, animals, whether they’re thinking about it or not, are aware of the fact that energy conservation is the name of the game to not only survival, but also living your best life. And I don’t know why we think as humans, I don’t think we think it I think we’re just conditioned. I think we’ve watched people in our lives or right, that’s our mentors, or, gosh, we want to climb the ladder. I mean, we’ve all been there. I would think I have at least, I can speak from my own occasion. So you’re watching people like, this is just what I supposed to do. And I don’t really know what energy conservation is like. Well, you know what it is? It’s a resiliency strategy that needs to be in place for you to lead instinctually and make the impact you need to have.
Nicole: Right? And so I just had an aha and I think I’m a little late, but bear with me, people. When I talk about a vibrant culture, but we translate it back to the animal kingdom, it’s like, you gotta have a great habitat. Right? And so, you know, you said, I don’t know that, you know, they’re, they’re not getting the dopamine reaction that we get from technology and everything, but but our, our current habitat, we can let the habitat affect us or we can create a habitat or build a vibrant culture around ourselves, right. So that it’s more intentional about things. Alright, so I love that. So habitat and culture, equal sign. Alright, so. Alright, so last time we were talking, we were talking about the platypus. So tell us a little, I want to talk about the platypus for a little bit here. So tell me about the platypus. We all know that this is a crazy animal. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in a zoo. Or I mean, help me. Platypus?
Julie: Yeah, well, I’m gonna show so so for all of your listeners, I’m holding up a picture here right now of this like crazy looking animal, which is only about you know, like, 12 inches long. But you know, we’ve got a duck bill and a beaver tail and web feet. And this, this is a mammal that happens to lay eggs. I mean, how crazy is that? There are just not that many egg laying mammals. And I, this animal lives in Australia. And when I was in Australia years and years ago, I really wanted to see a platypus. And so we went on one of those, you know, like crazy wildlife trek adventures. Like we’ll go find a platypus. Great, you know, we’re hiking across people’s farms, which is so crazy.
But we ended up with these binoculars, like looking down into this waterway. And our, our guide was like, there it is. There’s a platypus. And you know, you know, when you’re like, yep, I’m sure that’s what it is. Because we’re so far away. And this animal is relatively small, but it’s like, I’m just gonna say that I saw it because I wanted to see it so much. But it’s so super funky and designed, but to me, when I think about where leaders are right now, in the end of 2021, everything that we’ve been going through. Everything that you’ve been leading, the leader that you are today is nowhere near the leader you were last year and of course not the leader, you were at the end of 2019.
So I think sometimes when leaders look in the mirror, at least I do as well and some of the leaders I’ve talked with, you feel like, you suddenly you have webbed feet because you’ve had to learn how to paddle differently. Suddenly you feel like well, here’s this duckbill and I don’t really this is not at all what I intended to be like, but yet this is how I’ve evolved to be. But that awareness around the idea that okay, but this is how I’ve evolved to at this point and I can intentionally decide what I take forward into 2022? Do I need to retain this beavertail? Like, what’s my coping strategy that they put into place to direct my team and direct my energies?
You know, what is the you know, quite literally the reproduction strategy of this platypus is to lay an egg. Well, do you feel like you’ve like done something totally different to birth new ideas and have innovation? Yeah, probably over the last year? Well, do you want to purposely take that in to the new year because it served you well, up until this point, and the world looks different. And so the idea that the platypus is uniquely designed for what, where it lives and what it does. And when you say, egg laying mammal, there are only usually it’s the echidna and the platypus that come to mind, right. Two animals that are coming to mind in the whole world.
So what I want to encourage leaders to do is think about, not only are you different today than you were last year, but what is unique to you that when I say heart centered leader, I know your listeners are thinking about people that come to mind. When I say the leader that takes in all of the information before they make a decision. That’s something unique, right. And so there’s a leadership strategy that you’ve put in place. That could be different. Maybe it’s just grown over the last couple of years. But I want you to double down on that. Because I want you to be able to, like close your eyes. And when I say characteristic, you know who pops to mind? And you know what you are known for as well as a leader.
Nicole: Yeah. So what I’m kind of hearing you say is that you want to be a platypus essentially, like you want people to go, oh, Nicole’s leadership is different. She’s got a duckbill a beaver tail. She like she’s a mammal that lays eggs. Right? So there’s some unique ability or unique, amazing quality that makes you a superior leader. And, you know, I’ll tell you, Julie, I don’t think it takes something so crazy, like being a egg laying mammal to separate your leadership, because really, there’s there’s some essential things that leaders need to do. And if they were just like, consistent, and intentional.
And you know, dare I say this, like, I mean, the creator of all these animals was very intentional and making them unique and have different things like the hollow bones of the penguin, or excuse me, I did it too. Penguins, platypuses and pelicans today. Yeah, but you have, you know, you have some unique features. But I think that you’re given those skills, if you’ll just like really be super intentional about them. So I’m curious, talking about intentionality. How does the platypus use his his unique pieces to survive in the in the wild? And then let’s talk a little bit about how leaders could use their uniqueness to survive the wild world of business that’s out there right now in the marketplace.
Julie: Yeah, yeah, that’s, I love how you’re categorizing it. Because you know that the platypus as an example, is is venomous. The male is venomous. I mean, you’d never think looking at this animal, right? But sometimes, animals we wouldn’t expect to have defense strategies for that, or ways in which they can make changes to their environment. And so yeah, do you, as a leader suddenly feel like you’ve had to step it up and like, literally, like, what has been your venom. And that doesn’t have to be negative, right? That has to be like, I need to just make some change or affect this or walk into this meeting differently than I would have. Because you know, we’re all on Zoom, and I need to just shake it up.
You know, that is that is okay to do. Because what I’ve found in my experience is when I work with leaders, the higher that they get on the organizational food chain, if you will, that when we get even up into the C suite. When I’ve asked them what is unique about you, as a leader? It’s been harder and harder to answer for them, because I think they’ve been pouring into others. And they’ve been trying to make sure that every they’ve been leading and innovating, but they’ve been pouring into others as well. And I love having the time with them to be able to stop and say, hang on, hang on. What is that venomous moment? What is that egg laying bit? What is that webbed feet moment?
Because the more you lean into that, because you’re exactly right, we have it. But when we lean into it, and we’re intentional about it, and we can voice it, we double down on the changes that we can make. We double down on people recognizing like, hey, I gotta call Nicole because her take on this is just gonna be awesome, because she always tells me the truth. And sometimes it’s really hard to hear, but I really need it right now on this project. That’s what we need to do. And that’s how we can find that venomous part of it, or, or be that little unique mammal in that niche.
Nicole: Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I think about unique leaders that are out there and the ones that we know and the ones that we follow or think about like I just think about, you know, Steve Jobs or somebody like that. Okay, so he’s unfortunately, not with us anymore, but they did a whole movie about like his style. And you’re saying venomous. I mean, like, if you watch the Steve Jobs movie, you’re kind of like, well, little bit like, he wasn’t the nicest guy. And it’s like, well, no, but like, what, look what he accomplished, you know, he was just, you know, you know, like, no excuses. This is what we’re doing, I’m gonna put 5000 songs in everybody’s pocket. And he did, you know, and we’re gonna do this new thing.
And he did it through a little bit of that, you know, I’m gonna make it happen. He forced things. Now, you might think that’s terrible. But think of all the people that are employed by Apple today, and all the people who are served by all our little products today. I mean, it’s amazing when you think of that leader. And then you’re talking about like, odd. Excuse me, Bill Gates, if you’re listening to my podcast. But like, if you look at a picture of Bill Gates, he doesn’t look, you know, he looks like a little nerd that worked in his garage or whatever, right? You know, yeah. And the truth of the matter is, is that he does not look like the greatest guy on the planet in terms of you know, he’s super suave, or whatever.
But the guy is a little genius. And I think we all have like our little geniuses. And as leaders, you really need to know like, kind of what your your superpowers are, what it is that you have going for you. So although webbed feet might look funny, they certainly help you paddle up river, right or up the stream. And so all of those things are really important. So I would say this listeners, as you’re listening to this, it’s like, maybe here at the end of the year is to sit down and think about what are what’s my unique ability? What do I really do well? And if you don’t know, I have a little exercise that I got from my coach, who is Dan Sullivan.
Everybody write that down, go check him out. And it’s called the unique ability exercise. And really what you do is you reach out to people and you say, what do you what do I do well? And a lot of people are like, well, I don’t why would I ask people that? That seems a little navel gazing, narcissistic. No, no, no, you need to know what it is you do well, so you can see it. Sometimes we’re so close to what we do well, we don’t realize we have webbed feet.
Julie: Yeah, yeah, no, I think I love that activity. And when I did that, about five years ago, I really, it was eye opening. I still have the papers that I wrote everything down, I reached out to 75 people. And it was 75 people across. It was friends from high school and clients and colleagues and people on Facebook. And it’s like, like three words tell me in three words like what? What do you think of with me? And it totally helped my personal branding. Maybe that’s where Dan goes with it as well. But I helped my personal branding, as well as exactly right, the leadership side of it. And it’s not to be afraid of that I think people get afraid of, you know, so for example, there’s a leader who’s a dear friend now, but and I affectionately described him as, I describe him, as a bull in a china shop. He is a bull in a china shop leader.
Nicole: We all know what that is.
Julie: Yeah, right. And the reason he is is because he does not see boundaries. His innovation side is off the charts. He is he I don’t think he’s ever heard the word no, we don’t sell out of programs, our budget, we’ll figure it out. I mean, very, very financially responsible. Don’t get me wrong, but he’s never ever seen a limit. And so I was great working alongside him because he was sky’s the limit. And I was going okay, yep. But we got these all these people, we got 100 people that work for us, let’s figure out how we’re gonna make it happen. But he pushed me and I pushed him and we would not have been as good without each other.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s fantastic. Okay, well, let’s, let’s do this. Let’s take everybody back through you have like three parts within your framework, right, which is change, teamwork and resilience. Do I have that right?
Julie: You got it.
Nicole: Okay. All right. And we’ve been talking about resilience. But I think a lot of people towards 2021, if you could kind of, let’s let’s spend the last few minutes of our time together today, going back and thinking about change one more time, because, you know, in 2022, I think that leaders need to be intentional about making some serious changes. And and thinking about what could they do to make better? How do we come out of COVID in a really beautiful way? So what would you share with everybody about change?
Julie: I think the most important thing is to recognize, I’ll go back to the beginning, is recognizing that it’s always gonna come. But it doesn’t have to be chaos. And you as the leader have the responsibility and the ability to set boundaries over change. It does not have to be continuous. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to keep happening. But you are able to set frameworks, set boundaries, using that three step system that we went through last time with the mangrove method. But what that does for you is it allows you to celebrate small wins. It allows you to help your people, your team, your colleagues, whoever it is, know how to participate in the change, and it helps you at the end of the day, shut it off.
Because something, a law is going to change the next day. Your HR team is going to say oh my gosh, now we have to do things differently. So we fight change, and we’re afraid of it. That’s why I wrote about spiders and change because it’s, it’s fearful. But there’s opportunity in it. And if you can be brave enough to just like spend a second in that super uncomfortable part of change in that fear. Literally imagine it’s got eight legs, if that helps you and go, okay, you know, spiders have evolved. The Creator, as you mentioned, put spiders in our world for a reason. Yep. Well change is here for a reason too. My favorite quote is by Deming, Dr. W. Edwards Deming. And he said, you don’t have to change. Survival is not mandatory.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, I love it. Say it again. People missed it. Say it again. What did you just say?
Julie: Sorry. Doctor.
Nicole: Who did a ton on on systems thinking right? And making sure that you had the proper systems in place and processes in place. Okay, so go on. And if you haven’t read Deming, you need to be so nerdy and go study up on some Demings, everybody. Okay, go ahead.
Julie: Study up on Deming. Yeah, my dad was taught by him and talk about a bull in a china shop. Yeah, like, yeah.
Nicole: OMG. That is amazing in his life. And so and then you got it honestly, right. He shared it with you.
Julie: I know. And yeah, that’s why I loved, and Deming was a bull in a china shop kind of person. He was a take no prisoners, especially hold management accountable. And I love that about him. And so I’m going to read you the quote, exactly. I’m looking at it. It is not necessary to change, survival is not mandatory. So he was always talking about right. If you’re not innovating, someone’s coming up behind you. As a leader, you know, I think we talked about this last time, but leadership is about leading change. If you’re not leading change, what are you doing? Leading the status quo? That doesn’t do anything.
Nicole: Yeah, yes, Deming, you got to check it out. For sure. Yeah, I work with a team. And you know, one of the things is, is that, you know, they get stuck in this, you know, this is the way we’ve always done it. And a comment they’ll make to me is, we’re just not there yet. I’m like, okay, well, when are we going to take one next right step towards getting there? I mean, like, you know, and what’s the old, help me with the old adage, every journey begins with the first step or something like that. I mean, right. Like, you got to start walking people. And so you know, the pelicans get to rest, but he is going to go back up and he is gonna dive, he’s gonna have to survive. He’s gonna have to get the fish, right. So yeah, okay, so don’t miss this everybody. In your book, tell us the name of the book again, if you would, please.
Julie: So it’s called Wisdom From the Wild, The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership From the Animal Kingdom.
Nicole: Okay, and so we have ideas about change in there. And then the next one is teamwork. We’re just just so in case you haven’t listened to the other episode, talk a little bit about teamwork for just a few moments, because then we will have hit all three. Change, teamwork and resilience. Are you writing this down out there, people? You need to write this down. Okay, go.
Julie: Teamwork from the animal kingdom. And when you look outside in nature, and I think it’s pretty obvious that animals and nature work together in teams. But what I focus on in this book is how you are leading teams. There’s a lot of resources out there about how teams work together, and it’s very important, but as a leader, you need to be super aware. So the activity I start them off with is a good old fashioned SWOT analysis, but assessing your leadership team, specifically team leadership skills. Where are you in that SWOT analysis? What are your strengths, your weaknesses, your opportunities and your threats? Because the next team you lead will be different and they should be.
And some of the teams you’re leading don’t look like efficient teams from the outside. That’s why I use naked mole rats. Because you look at naked mole rats like, well, they don’t even look like they should be an animal. People didn’t think they were an animal the first time we discovered them, but not only are they an animal, they’re like one of the most efficient teamwork animals out there. They’re like the mammal version of, they are, the mammal version of bees. And then we talk about termites and giraffes and the fact that termites and giraffes actually need each other and who are the people on your team or that you’re leading are your other team leaders who like ah, you’re totally not like me, but I know I need you in order to have this team be more successful.
Nicole: Okay, well, I just want to go back to the SWOT for a moment. And so you know, one of the things is Julie that you know, we’re, we do this stuff every day. And but I often forget that like, some people may have never heard of the SWOT analysis before. And but if you’ve studied it, you know, you’re like, oh, that’s, that’s old school or whatever. But I want to stop and just say for a minute that what she’s telling you here is really, really important. And so literally, you take a square piece of paper, and you put S, W, O and T on four different squares on your piece of paper, and just Google it people but this is a very good thing to do going into 2022. And I love what you said, before you start analyzing the team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Turn the mirror inward and look at yourself. How do you do leading the team? Right? So just just for a few moments, let’s, let’s think about that. So when you think about a leader who’s strong, and maybe you might have an analogy for this or a metaphor from the wild, what are some strengths of managing others that you think are essential, you know, that you might be able to put in that box? Or you might say, oh, I don’t have that one. Don’t miss this. If you have it, you put it under strengths. If you don’t have it, you put it under weaknesses. And now all of a sudden, it became an opportunity for you to work on it. So the SWOT analysis is genius. So what do you think about strengths of leaders who lead teams well? And I did hear what you say about their different teams. So there might be different strengths, but in general.
Julie: Yeah, no, I and I appreciate you you backing me up. Because a lot of times we think about strategic planning inside and X, Y Zed. But you know, personally, when I think about team team leaders, you know, the some of the strengths could be totally comfortable with people on the team who think differently than me, right?
Nicole: I love that one.
Julie: Right. Some of the strengths quite literally is start and end the meetings on time. Meetings are well designed. People know how to participate. Some of the strengths is I reach out to the other team leaders in my organization, or in my community, or in my company to find out how our teams can collaborate. Because as the team leader, I’ve got to be that mouthpiece. And the last thing I’ll say with strengths is also recognizing that just because I am the team leader, does not always make me the best messenger for the team’s outcomes.
So when the team is accomplishing things, there might be a meeting where, alright, we’ve got to dial into let’s say, marketing, if I’m over here and operations. Got to talk to marketing, but you know what, I’m an operations person who on my team is from the marketing side. Okay, that person is the messenger and I gotta take put my ego in the backseat, in order to let you know, Sally be the messenger there because she has a better rapport and credibility, because as a team leader, you’ve got to think about the outcomes, not just hanging your hat on the, you know, hat peg yourself.
Nicole: Yeah. Okay, so let’s just work with weaknesses, opportunities and threats, just for a quick second. So weaknesses. So you know, as I look across the board with different folks that I work with, you know, the one thing I love most, and I’m gonna go back to strengths for a skinny second is that they care enough to, to get help and get coaching. So being coachable is a huge strength too, right. So, so knowing that you might need some help learning to develop those relational skills needed, you know, to work with folks. Now, in terms of weaknesses, I will say that communication pops up there a lot, you know, and maybe holding people accountable is a big one, I’ve run into a lot. And not setting proper expectations. What are some of the weaknesses that you find yourself consistently working on, that might inform you all about something you might need to work on?
Julie: Yeah, I love those, Nicole. And I think also not dealing with conflict as quickly as you need to, because if you let that fester, right, you’re gonna just eat away at it. And the way you deal with conflict is very, very important. And having respect. You never want to diminish the quality of the people, you know, you I, you know, you want to come from a place of assuming that people are coming from good intentions, which, which they should be, and, and so to deal with that, well, you’ve got to deal with it early. And you got to deal with it directly. And talk from the team’s point of view, especially if you’re not directly managing that person, if you’re dealing with a team that’s across divisions in your company, that can get super tricky.
I would say another another weakness is being unclear as to the different roles that participants have, and the ways in which they can participate. You know, we get to this point, as a leader, we just well, here’s a team, and we just assume that everybody knows how to participate. And that is not the case. And you can be self efficient about that, right? Like, let’s just just start from the ground up, let’s just here’s how I need you to participate. Because if you have somebody sitting on your team, and they’re not vocally participating, sometimes it’s because they need more time to think. Right? But sometimes.
Nicole: Might be that introvert, just like you.
Julie: Yep. Are those process thinkers like you can see the process thinkers in the team meeting. And if it’s an ongoing team, then hopefully you’ve created the environment in which they will eventually participate, but if not, you’re missing out on their input, but also just wasting somebody’s time.
Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. I love that. So I have this little thing called group norms. You learn this, I forget what the name of this class was I took but it was a team dynamics or something like that. And this was a crazy class. But it was it was so helpful. And one of the things that they told me is that like when you start with a team, you can say these will be the normal ways we behave. And you can just tell people, this is what we’re gonna do. And people were like, okay. But for some reason we think it might be condescending or talking down to people or if we don’t establish those rules. So I love what you’re talking about. Fantastic.
Julie: Can I throw just one more thing in there, which, which surprised me. But, you know, in working with clients, sometimes I’ve found that team leaders are not always willing to address the use of phones in meetings. You know, and I’ve seen that eat away at the team culture very, very quickly. And there’s a total difference between oh, I got an urgent text. So I got to step outside and use a phone call, get a phone call. Like, that totally makes sense, depending on the industry you’re in. But then there’s, you know, team dynamics. Like that weakness of that leader, like, if you’ve got somebody texting for 30 minutes in your meeting, people are watching and they’re watching how you lead and they’re gonna start. That’s a reflection on you, as a leader. As that team leader, not just the person in the back of the room.
Nicole: Yeah. 100%. Yeah. So. So when we talk about weaknesses, and so I’m going to flip this over to opportunities, but like the opportunity, like at the beginning of the year, one of the opportunities might be sitting right there is to like what you said, like reestablish reground, everybody and say, okay, here’s what I’d like to do moving forward. You know, some, maybe some habits and things that, you know, have slipped in over the last few years and crazy COVID, I’d like to reestablish how we’re going to be with each other.
I tell you a quick story. I was working with a gentleman who was a very high Senior VP. And he was telling me that he got hired, and he went into the meeting. And he like, he pulled out his laptop, and he opened it up, and he got his phone and had all his electronics. And the CEO is like, can you put all that away, please? And he was like, yeah, I can put it away. He’s like, good, here. I’m gonna give you a pencil and a legal pad. If you need to take notes. Here you go. But basically, what I’m here for, is to talk to you all and have dialogue. So yeah, huge opportunity. Like we’re so delusional, we think we can multitask. Do you think it’s a myth? Julie, does the animal kingdom tell us it’s a myth? Multitasking?
Julie: Right? Yeah, no, I think animals are pretty targeted. And it’s goes back back conservation of energy, and they know what they’re designed to do. And they do that. And they rope other animals in to do the different things. But I love your example, Nicole’s because I got hired by a company specifically for that. The CEO brought me in because he’s like, okay, clearly, I’m not communicating effectively with my senior leaders. Because when they go into our owner’s meeting in our board meetings, they come in, and they just, they’re not the team that I want them to be. And that’s huge. When you’re talking board, you’re talking owners, etc. Yeah, you have, again, that’s like, sometimes we’d get up higher in the food chain, or we’ve just been there longer. And we forget that wait a minute, wait a minute, it really is just about relationships and good ideas.
Nicole: Yes, yes. And one thing too, and I’ve shared this before on the podcast, but I think it bears repeating is, you know, the leaders, one of the major jobs of leaders, and I like what you said, the other animals rope people in to do the other parts of the job. The leader, their job is to understand that when you have more than one human in the room, or maybe one animal, one beaver building, the dam or whatever, one platypus doing whatever, it’s the it’s the culmination of that energy together, that creates things that never existed before.
I mean, I could come up with some creative ideas. But if I call up my friend, Julie Henry, and then I call up my friend over here, my friend over there, and we get all the genius in the room, then it’s gonna be a better idea than if I just keep it to myself. So then you’ve got to glean the genius, the working efficiencies out of the people. And so I’m hearing a big emphasis on meetings in everything you’re sharing. This must be a big opportunity too, is to have better meetings. Am I hearing that clearly from you?
Julie: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting that you’re pulling that out. And I think I’m using that example so readily, because I feel like that’s something that people have been dealing with so crazily in the last year, right as meetings have gone online.
Nicole: We’re doing Zoom and all these different ways, right?
Julie: Right. And we’ve totally had to vent how we interact with people. But I think without good team, just like to me leadership is about leading change. The point of a company and the point of an organization is working together as a team. A company in an organization is not a just group of people. Group of groups of people don’t accomplish things, teams accomplish things. And so that’s why it’s so important to think about, you know, how you’re establishing the team. Who’s on the team, how you’re reaching out, etc. And the opportunities that you have across the landscape and looking at the market research or whatever that is. That proactive side of leadership.
That’s where the opportunities on that SWOT comes in is how to drive things forward how to take chances. I mean, I’ve when I’ve led led teams for you know, and I’ve taken team members on retreats and I’ve had a situation where I’m I put them all in a room like let’s close like literally turn off the lights and like let’s, let’s think about things in new ways in the dark because I got to change it up, we got to change up the norm. And that’s an opportunity.
Nicole: Yeah. Well, so we have covered Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities. And so I think if you don’t do the SWOT you don’t sit down, do some strategic planning. And I do have some tools. Julie, feel free to offer what you can but I do I have a 2022 strategic planning document. If you want to email me, Nicole@vibrantculture.com. I’ll be glad to send it to you. I think really the threat would be not to do your homework before the end of the year. That’s the biggest threat I see is like to just say, let’s see what unfolds.
Julie: Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Because no, because teams don’t function on their own. They function with leadership. Families don’t function without parents. I mean, there’s ecosystems, we watch it, watch how the animals interacting. I mean, there’s so many examples in nature, where animals are learning from the people who are the animals that have gone before. And so I love it. I love the threat, is you’ve got to do your homework, otherwise, you’re not taking responsibility as a leader, but also you’re not, you’re not charging ahead like you can.
Nicole: That’s exactly right. Okay. Well, I have spent another hour of your time talking to you about the wonderful way that the wild teaches us how to do business, and it is wild out there right now. So I would definitely suggest you get Julie’s book. Julie, will you share the name of your book one more time, and how people can get up with you. We would love to be able to reach out to you.
Julie: Yeah, thanks. It’s called Wisdom From the Wild, The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership From the Animal Kingdom. And it’s actually out on Amazon right now. And also from your favorite local bookstore. It’s on Kindle. You’ll be able to see in airports after the new year and it’s out there and it’s a resource for you and I look forward to seeing where people find themselves in the stories and what’s resonates for them.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much Julie Henry, for being on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. It’s been a delight.
Julie: Awesome. Thank you.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
