How can integrity transform your personal and professional life?
I’m thrilled to share with you the latest episode of the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast where I had the pleasure of hosting Jefferey Klubeck, a renowned author, speaker, and coach. We had an enlightening conversation about leadership, integrity, and the extraordinary results they can produce in our personal and professional lives.
Here are some key takeaways from our conversation:
Leadership is for Everyone: Leadership isn’t confined to those in formal positions. Anyone, in any role, can demonstrate leadership by having a clear vision and goals.
The Integrity Game: Jefferey introduced his book, “The Integrity Game,” a fascinating exploration of how integrating our words, behaviors, and values can cultivate integrity.
Purpose and Gifts: Jefferey shared the first two points of his ten-point model for achieving integrity – Purpose and Gifts. He emphasized the importance of understanding our unique purpose and recognizing our gifts, which can be a competitive advantage in various areas of life.
Owning Your Gifts: Jefferey stressed the importance of owning and developing our gifts. He believes that if everyone owned their gifts, many of the world’s problems would be solved.
Setting Smart Goals: Jefferey highlighted the importance of setting smart goals and the strategies needed to achieve them. He also emphasized the power of language and the significance of following through on our word.
Motivation + Accountability = Results: Jefferey explained that true leadership involves understanding the desires of those being led and finding a balance between their needs and the goals of the organization.
I’m sure you’ll find Jefferey’s insights as enlightening as I did. If you want to get in touch with him, you can find him on Facebook and LinkedIn or email him directly. He’s always happy to connect!
Finally, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please leave a review and let me know what you think.
Summary:
As the host of the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast, I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jefferey Klubeck, a renowned author, speaker, and coach. Our conversation revolved around his book The Integrity Game, his unique coaching approach, and the importance of integrity in the workplace. This blog post is a comprehensive recap of our enlightening discussion.
Leadership: Not Just for the Designated Leaders
Jefferey Klubeck kicked off our conversation by discussing the concept of leadership. He emphasized that leadership isn’t confined to those in formal leadership positions. Instead, anyone, regardless of their role, can demonstrate leadership by having a clear vision and setting goals.
The Integrity Game: A New Perspective on Integrity
Jefferey introduced his book, The Integrity Game, which delves into the integration of word and behavior as well as behavior and values to cultivate integrity. We both agreed on the common understanding of integrity as being true to one’s word and doing the right thing. However, Jefferey highlighted the importance of integrating these concepts and assessing integrity based on evidence of behavior. His aim is to neutralize judgment and make it easier for individuals to reflect on their own integrity.
The Ten-Point Model for Achieving Integrity: Purpose and Gifts
Jefferey shared the first two points of his ten-point model for achieving integrity. He started with the importance of purpose which serves as the foundation for living a life of integrity. Purpose, according to Jefferey, is not just about finding the meaning of life, but also about understanding the meaning of our own lives and the various aspects of life, such as business, relationships, and personal goals.
The second point in his model is gifts. Jefferey explained that gifts are anything that sets us apart from others, whether it’s a skill, talent, or unique perspective. He emphasized the mindset around giving and receiving gifts, suggesting that understanding our gifts can be a competitive advantage in various areas of life.
Owning and Developing One’s Gifts
Jefferey stressed the importance of owning and developing one’s gifts. He believes that everyone should own their gifts and play the integrity game. He mentioned that not owning one’s gifts leads to pain, and when the pain becomes unbearable, people start to own their gifts. We both agreed that if everyone owned their gifts, many problems in the world would be solved.
Setting Smart Goals and Achieving Them
Jefferey highlighted the importance of setting smart goals and the strategies and commitment needed to achieve them. He emphasized the power of language and the significance of following through on our word. He also mentioned his excitement about conducting interviews with subject matter experts to further explore each point of his model.
Connecting with Jefferey Klubeck
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Jefferey where listeners can find him if they want to get in touch. He mentioned that he is easy to find by searching his name and the titles of his book or program on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. He also provided his email addresses and encouraged people to connect with him on social media.
Motivation Plus Accountability Equals Results
One phrase that caught my attention during our conversation was “motivation plus accountability equals results.” Jefferey explained that true leadership involves understanding the desires of those being led and finding a balance between their needs and the goals of the organization. He emphasized that motivation and accountability are key to achieving results.
Wrapping Up
Our conversation ended with Jefferey expressing his appreciation and looking forward to future interactions. I thanked him for his insights and wished him luck with his upcoming conference in Washington, DC.
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Jefferey Klubeck: But real leadership is finding that intersection, the integration, the integer right between what are followers, what our direct reports, what our communities want, and then what the institutions want. The real leaders can actually make that work and bring that into balance and bring that into harmony. The needs of the institution with the needs of the individuals that run the institution. So motivation plus accountability equals results. That’s the hot knife through warm butter. If we work, our leadership butts off.
Voice Over: This is the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They’re here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here’s your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
Nicole: Welcome, everybody, to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer. And they call me the Vibrant Coach. And today I have an incredible author, speaker, and fellow coach on the podcast. His name is Jefferey Klubeck. He is all about coaching people to produce extraordinary results in their personal lives and their professional careers. He works in private settings, group settings, and he helps his clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance a balanced quality of life. He is a college professor of communications. As a professor of communication, he has taught communication skills, public speaking, and done training with adult learners at the college level every semester and most summers since the fall of 1997. He just won’t quit, and he had literally thousands of students who have improved their confidence and competence to communicate interpersonally and in groups and publicly. And today, he’s here to talk about his brand new book. And all of you folks who are baseball fans are in for a treat because he is mixing business and baseball in his brand new book called The Integrity Game. Welcome to the podcast, Jefferey. I’m glad you’re here.
Jefferey: Oh, I’m so glad to be here, Nicole. This is going to be a lot of fun.
Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, as everybody knows, when they tune into the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast, I am exploring definitions of leadership. What’s your thoughts?
Jefferey: To be succinct, which I’m not known for, leadership is the collective. All the things that get us from A to B.
Nicole: Yeah, I mean like, where are we going? That’s the first thing, right? Like there’s got to be a vision, a destination, something.
Jefferey: Well it’s a starting point and you got it. Yeah. So as from the coaching perspective, we know that it could be a fun conversation. It could be a valuable conversation. It could be worth paying a lot of money for. But don’t call it coaching unless there’s a goal. For me, it’s performance coaching. There’s other forms of coaching. Like for me, what’s the goal? What’s the goal? What’s the goal? There’s other things than goals that The Integrity Game talks about. Any soft skill training in any form of goals , goals, goals. So, where are you headed? You know. I want to give a shout out to a woman I met earlier this year at the education 2.0 conference. Her name is Dorothy Henriquez and she says lead from whatever seat you’re in. By the way, just FYI, she’d be a great interview for you and I can introduce you guys, but from whatever seat you’re in. So the misunderstanding about leadership is that you have to be the leader. Or are you a born leader or made leader? There’s all these different debates. And the idea is that just showing up to a meeting and participating according to or above, what’s expected of your role is a form of leadership. So lead from the front, lead from the rear, lead by example, lead by etc. So is there an A? Is there a B? People talk about leadership without talking about where they are, where they’re going. And that’s that’s a problem. So I don’t like building a mansion on quicksand. Where are we and where are we going? Then we can start to identify leadership because either it gets there or it doesn’t.
Nicole: 100%. 100%. Okay. So he is talking about, like, leadership has to have a context which I absolutely love. Right. Okay. So we’re going to add that to our definitions of leadership. But you know really I’m so thrilled because you’ve got a brand new book hot off the presses. Correct?
Jefferey: Well, I don’t know about hot, maybe lukewarm, but you know, for me it’s all brand new. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we released it in April of ‘22. So it’s less than two years old hot off the presses. It’s not just a book. Actually, we’re building the whole brand around it. I’m almost embarrassed to say not really, but, you know, it’s tongue in cheek. I’m a jovial fellow, and I see myself as a character and my original brand all the years that I’ve been coaching is Get a Clue. Just building off of my last name. Clue. Get a clue. How cute is that? But I felt I learned along the way that you know what got me here won’t get me there as Marshall Goldsmith tells us. And it was a cute brand for solo and micro business owners, you know, solopreneurs, life service professionals. But if I want to go corporate, enterprise, etc. Nonprofits, corporate, enterprise, education, government, etc., The Integrity Game is a better brand. So all the same services, coaching, consulting, training, speaking, I’m packaging it now as The Integrity Games. So it still feels brand new in that perspective. But not hot. Like we didn’t release the book in 23. It was a 22 book, but I’m really proud of it. We’re working on it and I’m excited to talk about it.
Nicole: All right. That’s fantastic. And you may not know this, but I have my own coaching methodology and it’s called S.H.I.N.E. because I believe people should, you know, get lit and bring their best selves to work. And they should while they’re at work. And so the “I” in my methodology is about integrity. So when I saw your book, I’m like, I got to read this because I am all about helping people develop that, you know, inner character, because we all know that, you know, we could have all sorts of people that work with us, but the best ones to work with are the ones we can count on, the ones who are full of quality character and have integrity all day long. So that’s who I want to work with. So I love the book and I love your brand.
Jefferey: Thank you. Yeah, I tell you, you know that quality of character, it’s you know, I try to peel a couple of layers of the onion. What happens, Nicole, is like when I was asking people in my seminars or training, or the retreats, the events, entrepreneurs and business owners, how many of you believe you have integrity, right? Everybody’s hand will go up right away because we judge ourselves. We judge ourselves by our intentions. Now the rest of the world is just judging our actions. So I’d say, hang on a second. Keep your hands up and repeat after me. I solemnly swear not to shoot the messenger in forty-five minutes when I’m done with my little talk here. And so it’s challenging to talk about integrity without challenging people to look within, right? And what’s interesting is I agree with everything that you’re saying. It’s easier to work with people when they have that quality of character. But even if we’re complimenting them on the quality of their character, it’s still a judgment. And so what I’m trying to do here a little bit is intervene in the judgment piece, because when I’m joking around and I say, how many of you believe you have integrity? Everybody raises their hand, hang on, don’t shoot the messenger. But wait, before I offend you and suggest you don’t have as much integrity as you thought, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing. So back to your love of definitions now I asked, well, what is it? Who can define it? And here’s what I’ve found. And I’ve done this a lot with a lot of people. Whenever I ask what is integrity? I always get two answers. I never fail to get these two answers, and I rarely get anything but these two answers.
Nicole: We’re dying to know, Jefferey!
Jefferey: Okay. Thought you’d never asked. Thank you. Number one is be your word. Do what you say you’re going to do, right? Number two is more along what you’re talking about is do the right thing regardless of who’s watching. Do the same thing when nobody’s watching. If somebody wins, right, however we put it. So now here’s what I love about these two, Nicole. When we “be our word,” we’re integrating a word with a behavior, our word with the behaviors. Bring those together when we do it. And over here when we do the right thing, regardless of who’s watching, we’re integrating a behavior with a moral of value, quality of character. So here’s what I like. In both cases, there’s an integration, a coming together of two things: words with behavior and behavior with values or morals or ethics or character. And so integration I or they start with the same six letters, but not it doesn’t matter how many times I ask what is integrity? Not one person says integration. Integrity is the status of integrated or two or more things that have come together. It’s right in front of our face. But what people say, you really didn’t do what you said you’re going to do and you didn’t do the right thing. So we’re in judgment. Even when we’re judging people to have good, it’s still a judgment, right? So what I want to do is neutralize that, make it value neutral. But the other thing that I like about these two answers is that our behavior is the evidence in both equations. Behavior is there. So behavior is the evidence. It’s not our intention. Not what I was going to do, not what I meant to do, I didn’t mean to, I was just, I was only trying to, all that stuff that we say to excuse ourselves. Right? And so I want to make it easy and fun to look within to play this integrity game thing. I want to make accountability non-threatening. Right? And so to expand our understanding of integrity and to neutralize it, if I said I was going to sleep on the couch for twenty out of twenty-four hours and then I did, I would have done what I said I was going to do. But could I claim integrity? And so everybody would say, well, no. And they know why not? Because if I said I was going to get in the car and go hit the first pedestrian and I did it, could I claim integrity? Some smart aleck is going to be like, well, it’s a yeah, it depends on what my purpose is and what my A and B source and destination. Where am I going if I don’t have answers to that? I’m going to point my finger at everybody else all day long. Make sense? So I believe we need more than two things. The other thing too is morals/ethics, right? It’s like sometimes time is money, sometimes patience is a virtue. You know, there’s 30% of our country can’t agree on who the president is or what the truth is. So how do we agree on right or wrong? You know, we know that we should never lie unless it’s on a shelf, then it’s okay. So who’s going to tell me what the right or the wrong thing is. Isn’t it a moving target? Doesn’t it depend? Doesn’t it require context? And isn’t it isn’t it something I should only be answering for myself anyway? So The Integrity Game is a ten point model of ten question-sets. And if we have answers to these ten questions and our answers go together, we’re going to have what I consider to be, like, structural integrity for an individual, a team, or a culture, even a whole organization. Buildings, bridges, or tunnels will collapse under pressure tests without structural integrity. Well, so too will individuals, teams, and cultures. So how do we retrofit ourselves? And I’m here to say, well, let’s answer these ten questions and let’s see where we’re at.
Nicole: I want to hear the ten questions. Can we do that?
Jefferey: We can do it really quick or we can accordion it. Yeah, absolutely.
Nicole: No, let’s not go quick. Let’s go slow, not slow. Let’s go at the right pace.
Jefferey: So I’ll match your pace. I’ll match your pace. You ready?
Nicole: Okay.
Jefferey: All right. It starts like you. What’s cool about the model is you can start anywhere you want. Especially when you come to, like, coaching. If somebody’s getting into coaching with me, I’m going to start with goals. Goals is one of the points on the model. But when I’m doing, keynote I introduce it forth. Does that make sense? So it’s kind of like ten doors you can knock on to get into the game, right? But starting from the top, what I think is super foundational and transformational is purpose, right? So all of this Simon Sinek start with why. And, you know, even public speaking that’s been taught for over 150, 60, 70,000 years is your purpose to entertain, inform, or persuade, right? Knowing your purpose isn’t just good, it’s good right everywhere and for any any aspect of life. So, foundation, I don’t like to build a mansion on top of quicksand. So there’s all this content there about what is purpose and what’s the meaning of life? What’s the meaning of my life? What leads to an understanding of meaning, of life? And what happens if we have no meaning for life? How can we optimize or appreciate life? Or what prevents people from declaring, or owning, or telling the truth about their purpose? And on and on and on and on and on. So that’s like a hard question to answer, but it’s an easy question to understand. Purpose. So that’s the first rung, if you will.
Nicole: Well, I would say that I completely agree. You are more whole. And I’ll just go back to your defining integrity. A lot of times when I talk about it to groups, I say, you know, the words integrity and integer are very close, right? It’s yeah, it’s the same thing. And if anybody has, you may be having a flashback to algebra class that’s pleasant or one that’s unpleasant, much like the one I’m thinking of. But when you think of the word integer, it means whole and complete. And I love what you were saying. Those two things come together and it makes it one whole thing, right? So, I love that. So I didn’t want everybody to miss that. And then this thing about purpose, you know, in 2004 or something like that, I read this book and it changed my life because it challenged me to create a purpose statement, a mission statement for my life. And like the minute that I sat there and did this work and then it became work over to this day, like to revisit it, relook at it. Is this right? Figuring out your purpose is a huge step in the right direction in life. So, I love that. So one of the ten key points, right, or question to ask yourself…
Jefferey: It’s in one word, it’s purpose. But you know you double click on that bad boy and a whole bunch of stuff opens up, right? Like, what’s the meaning of life? First of all, right. Do you have an answer at all to what’s the meaning of life? Do you have any thought leadership in your life anywhere? Do you value life in any way and through what lenses, what anything, any answers to that? And now what’s the meaning of your life? But guess what? What’s the meaning of the business? What’s the meaning of this podcast? What’s the meaning of the meeting? What’s the meaning of, I’ll say it, what’s the meaning of my marriage? Now that our oldest is off to college? And, do you know what I’m saying? Like, we have to constantly reevaluate this game. And so what I want you to understand is, first of all, we can put any noun into this hot seat. What’s the purpose of “insert noun here,” right? Because every other decision that you make about that noun, ideally, is going to be rooted in the foundation of purpose, right? What I always say here is, I don’t care if your purpose tomorrow is different from your purpose last week. What I do care about is every day you live with that one, because that might be a day out of integrity. That might be a day of the pressure test.
Nicole: Yeah. Don’t don’t let life unfold.
Jefferey: It doesn’t, it’s not happening to you. It’s happening for you on and on. Yeah. So, so, so heavy questions that people think they need to find their purpose. No. It’s right in front of you. Just decide, you know. And so you get into all of the mindset and the fear and all of the all of the things that go around. What are the barriers to declaring purpose? What are the barriers to owning purpose or trying on purpose and seeing how that works for a little while and having the courage to shift if that doesn’t fit? It’s all about accountability at the end of the day. I don’t want to tell you what your purpose is. I’d like you to tell me. So that way you know I know what to hold you accountable to. Not not what I want, but what you want.
Nicole: Yeah. And I would say maybe not find, and I do agree that it’s in you and it could be right there in front of you, but I think exploring it is huge, right? Yeah.
Jefferey: The try on. Big word.
Nicole: Hold on, don’t trip up. Yeah. Don’t jump in too quickly. Definitely take some time and do this thing called discernment, right?
Jefferey: How does it feel? Try it on.
Nicole: Right. 100%.
Jefferey: Walk around in that a little bit. See what’s going on.
Nicole: Yeah. All right. So the first question is, what is your purpose? Do I have that right?
Jefferey: Yeah. Purpose. There’s a lot of questions about that. You know what I’m saying?. What’s the meaning of life? What’s the meaning of your life? How do we arrive at purpose? What’s the big deal about purpose? What prevents people from purpose? Are there any methods or strategies to arriving at or trying on purpose? Right? If we’re discerning a purpose, we’re trying on what are the criteria of discernment? All of the questions, you know, double click opens up a bunch of questions there on purpose..
Nicole: Okay. All right. Perfect. All right. So that’s one out of ten. Let’s do number two. What’s the second thing in one word?
Jefferey: In one word, gifts, okay. So, like, if we have an unofficial definition, right? A gift is like, I kind of want to neutralize it, too, right? Anything not average. Anything above or below average is a gift. So, the mindset piece, are we, you know, you’ve worked with people that don’t let themselves receive because it’s a reminder of the scarcity that they grew up in and the shame that they had that they didn’t have enough money so they can’t let people do anything for them because it’s a blow to their pride. So they won’t let people receive it. And there’s other people that are hoarding everything – they won’t give. So what’s going on with giving and receiving gifts, right. Giving and receiving, believing that we have something to give or receive. So there’s all the mindset around that. But if you keep on peeling layers of the onion for a practical application, it comes down to competitive advantage. So, differentiation, anything other than average. So why do people hire you, Nicole, for coaching instead of me? Because you’re vibrant and I’m bald or I don’t know, right? I don’t know, maybe, who knows? Right? So what do we do better?
Nicole: I’ll tell you, Jefferey, just real quickly. They there’s enough people that need coaching that we don’t have to be in competition.
Jefferey: That’s the whole point. That’s what I’m getting at. If we know what our gifts are and if we get honest about our gifts and we take the time to answer this question, like, what do we do better than everybody else that also does the same thing? And what do we do that everybody that does what we do doesn’t do? So what do I do better? What do I do differently? What’s my differentiation? Why would people choose me instead of somebody else? Because the ones that like me are going to pick me. Ones like you’re going to pick you and there’s enough for everybody. But if I never develop and own my gifts, I’m going to be too busy doing other stuff, judging other people for being out of integrity with their marketing because I’m not proud of my own.
Voice Over: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference, or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com
Nicole: Yeah, so what are Jefferey Klubeck’s gifts?
Jefferey: Whooo! You know, I’ve got several answers to that. But one of them being humility I would turn that question back on you. Just in our experience so far. What would you say from what you’ve experienced so far? I mean, I’ll answer the question, but I want, you know, what’s your impression? What do you think?
Nicole: I think you’ve been given the gift of enthusiasm.
Jefferey: Oh, well, you’re helping out a lot with that. It could be just the vibe that I get from you. But, thank you. Yeah, I’m passionate about that. A boundless energy sometimes. I’ve been drinking coffee before and people say, what are you doing that for? What are you drinking coffee for? But here’s the thing. I’m gifted, right? I’m gifted. I’ve got a purpose. I’m playing the integrity game. I’ve got structural integrity. So I’m a communication guy. I’m a wordsmith. People have talked about the way that I communicate sometimes is musical or rhythmic, the nonverbal in sync. I’m gifted with my health and gifted by my wife and kids. And when you talk about, like God given, man made, and self generated, I’ve integrated, right? Because I have natural communication skills. There was a boss of mine early on in school that lent me money to stay in college. And I was going to have to drop out because of circumstances and the guy said, no, don’t drop out. It’d be hard to get back in. Plus, we don’t want to lose you. If we lent you money, would you stay in school? And I’m like, okay, yeah, that was heavy. I was a 19 year old or whatever, but that was a man made gift. You know, some human beings say, here. And then I went and got a master’s degree in communication. So I integrated my God given, my man made and myself generated. And now it’s easy to be enthusiastic about what I’m doing because everybody wants meaningful work that makes an impact. It allows us to call our own shots. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And I find oftentimes, I bet you do too, when I coach people, they’ve never made a list. They’ve never owned it. And you mentioned the word humility a minute ago. And there’s humility where you’re grateful for the gifts that you’ve been given. You’re sitting in a place of gratitude. And then there’s like this weird false humility where you’re like, oh, I don’t you know, I couldn’t claim that I have gifts. And it’s like, oh, you have to claim or you’ll be out of integrity because you have to receive the gifts.
Jefferey: Yeah. Well, what happens is, if you’re not ready to own your gifts, guess what the gift is? The pain of not owning your gifts. And when that pain becomes unbearable, you start to own your gifts, so you can’t escape it. There’s always an answer to this question. And, I like the distinction and I kind of played it down the middle. Did you catch it? I’m like, hey, I got answers to that. Will you give me a little answer or two first? So I could just balance this out? Because I do believe in humility, and I don’t want to just talk about myself the entire time, but I am in command of what makes a difference, why people want me instead of other people, or whatever. But it’s just easier when other people talk about it first. I am a little jovial and I do come from humble beginnings, but yeah, it’s the time now to own ourselves completely.
Nicole: Yeah, yeah. And in this world, you know, I think a lot of things would be fixed and solved and discovered and invented if everybody was truly in the proper humility and were owning their gifts. So, I love that. Okay. So we have purpose. We have gifts. Lay another one on me. We got seven to go. I would love to know, how do I play the integrity game?
Jefferey: Well, we’re playing, you know, because there’s all kinds of ways to play. It’s like leadership. You play from whatever seat you’re in, even when you’re a, you know, podcast host and you’re leading right now. So the next piece, right, and by the way, if I don’t know answers to purpose, then let me start answering gifts. And if I get a couple of answers there, let me revisit the purpose. Maybe I’ll come up with something. Right, right? So you know. Right. But if I understand purpose and if I understand gifts, now, what’s easy to declare is potential. So the third rung in my jam is potential. And we’re starting to get this, now we’re starting to straddle, we’re getting towards the jurisdiction/the boundary of transformational and transactional. You understand, right? So we’re still transformational with potential, certainly with purpose, and certainly with gifts. But potential, the way I break it down is just if I’m doing work with a C-suite, an executive team, a leadership team, right, even a project management team or an e-commerce team or a sales team or a marketing team…
Nicole: All the teams.
Jefferey: All the team’s vision, mission, objectives. So it’s like a chronological organizational pattern, right? So for vision, let’s look out as far into the future as we can possibly see. And let’s just describe what we see. Its vision is a description of as far out in the future as you can see. Now the mission, on the other hand, is still quite a ways away. But mission is not some flowery collection of words that we put on the wall to feel good about ourselves. It’s a B from the A, it’s a destination. It’s an accomplishment. It’s an arrival. It’s like putting the American flag on the moon, right? We are on a mission to land a human being on the moon and return them safely to earth. We’re on a mission that’s a long ways away, but it’s still not as far as we could possibly see. If what we see is like the global leader in space exploration, then we’re on a mission to put somebody on a moon. Vision-mission. And then still closer than that is objectives, which I, I kind of frame in an annual list of objectives. What are our annual objectives? Where do we need to be? This year what do we kind of need to do? And then we can get to step four on the model. The fourth point and the model is to break it down with Smart goals. So the fourth point is smart goals. And now we’re really trying to get rubber to the road and hit the tarmac, right? This is where we get into the specific and the measurable. And I have fun with smart goals because I added an A and changed the R in the smart model.
Nicole: I want to know about that.
Jefferey: Yeah, well, here’s why. I thought smart was pretty smart the first time I learned it, until I thought it was stupid when it was repetitive. And here’s what I mean by that. Just to be fun and silly. So we know that “specific measurable” is SM. You don’t want to mess with that. Achievable, we don’t want to mess with that. But here’s what we break it down. How do we know if a goal is achievable? Two ways. Either you know if a human being could do it, I can do it, you can do it if it’s humanly possible. But it’s more important than that. Henry Ford tells us, if we believe we can or believe we cannot, we’re right. So when I’m screening for smart, when I’m making sure my goals are smart, one of my screening questions is do I believe I can? That becomes my reality. Achieving something becomes my reality. So achievable actually is my R because when we get to R in the models it is realistic. And at first I was like, yeah, let’s make sure this is realistic. And as I started to get further along, oh, wait, wait, wait whoa, whoa guys, were you screened for…? It already is realistic if I believe it. So we’re wasting a letter first of all. Like now out of five letters -SMART-if two of them are redundant, the best we can score on this test is 80%. And, I’m a player and you are too. So what I did is I added an A, changed the R, because not only was R redundant, but guess what? What I learned in coaching and I started using this criteria, it didn’t take me long, like not even a month or two to realize, wait a second, smart goal setting is cool. But if they’re going to hire me, they need a coach. That means they need to change behavior. So if somebody says, well, my goal is to brush my teeth twice a day for thirty days straight. Specific? Okay. Measurable? Okay. Achievable? Yeah. Realistic? Yeah, let’s hope so. Time bound 30 days? Okay. What do you need me for? Hopefully you’re already doing that. That’s not a goal at all. You’re already doing that. You don’t have to change any of your current behavior in order to achieve that. You need me if you need to change behavior. So I added an A called ambitious which is to screen for behavioral change. So we know our goal is ambitious if we have to either decrease, increase, start, or stop a status quo behavior. What do you need to do less of? What do you need to do more of or get better at? What do you need to start doing that you’re not doing at all? What do you need to stop? Just cut that out. Decrease ain’t good enough. You need to stop that, whatever that is. So if you need to either “diss” in your current behavior now your goal is ambitious, first of all. And now you might need a coach because left to our own devices, we’re not going to change our behavior. So then what’d you do with the R? Well, back to purpose, reason or reward? I call it reason. Reason. What’s the why? Why do you want it? Why else do you want it? Because I know that if I’ve got one reason for wanting something, Nicole, if I had one reason for being on this podcast, I might not even show up. But if I got six reasons for wanting to be on this podcast, I’m early. I’m energized. I’m bright. I’m ready to play ball.
Nicole: That’s right, that’s right. Okay. So go through the SMAART again.
Jefferey: SMAART. So specific. A goal is a what by a when, right? What do you want to achieve and when do you want to achieve it? So when we’re screening for that “what” we want it to be specific. If we mean wrench don’t say tool we should say wrench. We should say monkey wrench, socket wrench, crescent wrench, power of visualization, law of attraction, the secret, all that stuff, reticular activation, whatever literature you’re citing, if you can get a clear, vivid picture in your head of what you want, when you open your eyes, your brain start looking for it and playing matchmaking. Just like recognizing all the Volkswagen bugs on this on the road after I got mine. Well, they were all there the day before. I just got mine now and I see all the others. Same thing with goals. Once you get specific about what you want, you start to see more ways to go get it. Measurable. What gets measured gets done. This is the hard part in goal setting. This is what trips people up because the ego doesn’t want to fail. Ego doesn’t want to fall short. The ego doesn’t want to be held accountable. Challenge, right? So the ego will make it vague and wishy-washy and poo-poo it and make a five goal run-on paragraph, like, so what’s the real goal? It’s buried there somewhere. You can’t find it, right? So the ego is plenty, right? So it’s a misunderstanding of failure. If I set a goal of a million bucks, I made $880,000, I didn’t fail at all. I just successfully achieved 88% of my goal. So? So that’s a mindset play. Specific and measurable. But that’s what trips people up. And that’s why sometimes you need to handhold people in their goal setting. You need to soundboard/brainstorm and create that space. Then A is achievable. We already talked about that. The next A is ambitious. That’s that you’re screening for behavioral change. What behavior do you need to change? Can you achieve that goal with all of the current behaviors? You know, what’s the definition of insanity? You know, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. So we’re the “insanity police” here with this model. Anyway, R is reason/reward. And then T is time. That’s the by when. By when? So when I asked people what’s the greatest thing you can achieve by the end of the year that would have you feel like you’re overcoming health, relationships, and finances or sales, marketing, and customer service right now? Then they start to answer, they’re going to answer it safely. They’re going to answer. It’s vague. They’re going to answer. It’s convenient. They’re going to answer low hanging fruit. And we need to hold them accountable to the specifics, the measurability, the believability. Right? The behavioral change, the motivation, and the by when of it all. We want to make accountability non-threatening.
Nicole: Fantastic. All right. So we’re on number four SMAART goals. And you got to present a brand new approach to SMAART goals, everybody.
Jefferey: And there’s more where that came from. We’ve got some freebies or whatever if any of your-we could talk about how to make more information available. Maybe we could do another, I don’t know. We can do something. We do workshops, SMAART goal setting workshops and take people through it. Because there’s five reasons that people fail to set goals. One of them is the “how to” and we just went over that. So moving on, once you’ve got the goal, you know, Tony Robbins says success leaves clues, right? And never mind that he spells it wrong when he says it. But there’s strategies for everything and there’s multiple paths to the same destination. So with all these choices, all these strategies out there, you know, it’s basically the fifth step is strategies, tactics, and resources, okay. Like one way to motivate somebody to do something is to give them the map, the directions, and a canteen of water and see if they start walking. Right? However, one of the strategies includes mindset. If they’ve got the best boat, they’re the best sailor that’s ever sailed the seas. They’ve got the best crew. They got the best map. They got a blank check from the Queen to go and trade with. None of that matters if they believe the world is flat. So when we talk about strategies, tactics, and resources, that includes a check-up from the neck up and getting in there and retrofitting the belief foundations so that strategies can actually land and get implemented. But among all the choices we have for strategy, the sixth piece on the model is word and commitment. Word and commitment. First of all, what is the power of words? What’s the difference between saying, I could do that versus I should do that? What’s the difference between saying, I want that versus needing that, or I have to do that, or I want to do that. You get, you know, vibrations and the water project and on and on. Right? And anyway, the importance of language in words, but then word in commitment is what do we do with our word when we give our word? Do we follow it up, right? When do we give our word? How do we manage the expectations we set for self and others? What does our word mean? What’s our relationship with our word? How careful are we with our word? You know, has anybody had that mirror held up? Has anybody learned that lesson that a word is your bond? This is what you were talking about in the beginning, right? When, you know, somebody got that golden character, when you know what you can expect from somebody, you want that person on your team, right? So when they when they say they’re going to do something, you know, that they’re going to do it and they’re going to do the hell out of it, or you know that as soon as they become aware that they can’t do it, you’re going to know about it, get an updated word and have a new expectations set without ever having to worry. And other people in our lives, we know that as soon as they say they’re going to do something, we don’t say anything because it’s not worth it at the moment. We’re not getting paid enough to say anything at the moment, but we’re like, we know they’re not going to do it. Which one of those do we want to be? Who do we want to hang out with? Who are we attracting? How do we recognize the difference? How are we practicing this? So it starts with among all the choices I have on strategy, what do I choose? What’s my commitment? What am I committed to doing? If I say I’m going to drink five gallons of water per week? What’s my relationship to that commitment? Who am I willing to share my word with? On and on, all of that. And then, from there, it’s about taking action. That’s the next piece on the model and then the next piece on the model after that is proactive learning is, you know, learning the hard way is still good. The only mistake to be afraid of is when you don’t learn from. So there’s no such thing as a mistake at all, really, except the mistake of not taking action, not having a relationship with your work or not choosing strategies, not setting goals, not declaring potential, not realizing gifts, or not realizing…those are the only mistakes in the world as far as I’m concerned. You see how fun that is. So after proactive learning, then it’s an accumulation of accomplishments from getting out of bed to the day, to climbing the mountain, to self publishing four books, to being on your podcast, being able to recognize looking back, not too far or however far you want, look at everything I’ve accomplished. And if we don’t say that, if we don’t tell ourselves, we don’t stack it up, We are robbing the world because there’s a zillion people in the world that want exactly what we want. Regardless, we’re always looking at what we don’t have, what we don’t have. We don’t spend enough time realizing how much we’ve done and what we have to give to others. And that’s the last point on the model. The tenth point on the model is service and giving in service. Who do we serve? Who wins when we win? If my cup fills up and spills over, who collects the overflow? What aligns? What’s the thread that runs through? What’s the adhesive? And does this reintegrate with purpose? You know, are my answers to service the tenth point on the model integrated with my answers to purpose? And now we’ve got ten doors to knock on to retrofit ourselves. And it’s hard to do it alone. But that’s why I’ve written a book and developed a group coaching program, available for one on ones, and on and keynotes. And you’re going to deliver a lot of this content to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association in Washington, DC in a week and a half and just really excited about the flexibility and the comprehension of the model. But also, like, I’m pleased that I was able to come up with these ten points. But I’m also looking for subject matter experts that can help me go deeper and deeper and deeper on each of the ten. So I’m doing a series of interviews myself with what I call all stars integrity game, all stars that know more about purpose than I do, that know more about relationships with words than I do, that have better experiences serving or philanthropy or charity than I do. Right? So I can go diving and I can go deeper on all ten points on my own model.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So everybody, we have been speaking with Jefferey Klubeck. He’s been giving us the ten points inside his model, inside his book, The Integrity Game. It’s been so great to hear all of these. You’ve got a new SMAART goal model. You’ve been encouraged to figure out your purpose, your gifts, your potential, then come up with strategies, tactics, and resources to get it done. Keep your word. Make a commitment. Take action. Look at what you’re accomplishing and serve. So this is just done. Great listening to all the things that you have to offer. I know you’re dying to tell people, where could we find Jefferey Klubeck if we wanted to get a hold of him?
Jefferey: I’m so easy to find. If you just type in Jefferey Klubeck and The Integrity Game or Jefferey Klubeck and Get a Klu. So many things will come up. But you know, Facebook and LinkedIn are probably the best thing, right? LinkedIn is wonderful, but I am doing a lot of stuff on Facebook too. I’ve always built everything on Facebook, but I am growing up and getting more mature. Anybody can send me an email to jeff@getaklu.net or jeff@theintegritygame.com, or connect with me on social media. I respond to my own stuff. Still, I hope one day, I get somebody that’s going to screen all of my instant messages on social media. But right now I’m very easy to get a hold of, like, super easy.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. All right everybody, it’s been such a great episode of Build a Vibrant Culture. I know that Jefferey and myself, we would be so grateful. Would you just press the little like button real quick? It’ll only take a hot second. And then if you have more than a hot second, maybe fifty hot seconds, if you could go down and leave a little review, let us know what you thought of this episode. We would appreciate your comments. Jefferey, you know, I know my people are thinking, wait, there’s one more thing I want to hear. Jefferey, do you have one more nugget? What’s this thing in the upper corner of his little zoom screen that says motivation plus accountability equals results? Maybe explain that and leave us with one more word of wisdom.
Jefferey: Oh, wow. Well, engage back to leadership. Your first question, right. Motivation plus accountability equals results after we have done everything we can to get to know who we’re leading and to get to know what they want. Any leader out there can tell their followers what they want, what the shareholders want. Real leadership is finding that intersection, the integration, the integer right between what our followers, what our direct reports, what our communities want, and then what the institutions want. The real leaders can actually make that work and bring that into balance and bring that into harmony. The needs of the institution with the needs of the individuals that run the institution. So motivation plus accountability equals results. That’s the hot knife through warm butter. If we work, our leadership butts off to secure engagement, to get people enrolled and to get permission to lead, then the rest of it is easy.
Nicole: Fantastic. Final words again. We’ve had Jefferey Klubeck on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. It’s been such a pleasure, Jefferey, good luck to you with your upcoming conference in Washington, DC.
Jefferey: Oh, thank you, Nicole. I’ll look forward to more interactions with you for sure. Thank you for having me.
Nicole: You’re welcome.
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